By Cierren Edmondson, Policy Associate
Every person deserves access to compassionate and culturally responsive mental healthcare. Yet for far too many people in the United States, a mental health crisis becomes a point of contact with law enforcement instead of an opportunity to receive treatment and care.
This Minority Mental Health Month, the Center for Policing Equity examines how inequities in mental healthcare and community safety intersect. Mental health outcomes are shaped not only by individual circumstances, but also by the systems people rely on when they need help. Healthcare systems, housing, transportation, community-based services, crisis response infrastructure, and other available social supports all play a role in whether someone receives care or experiences harm. For many communities, those systems are failing to deliver holistic and responsive support.
When Care Is Out of Reach, Police Become the Default Response
People living with mental illness are no more likely than anyone else to engage in violent behavior. Yet, they are disproportionately represented in fatal police encounters. Just this month, NPR reported on a story in which Jonah Neal, a young man suffering a mental health crisis, was killed by members of the Memphis Safe Task Force who were responding to his mother’s 911 call. Since 2015, approximately 21% of people killed by police in the United States had a known mental illness. These outcomes underscore a broader challenge: when communities lack accessible mental and behavioral health services and alternative response options, law enforcement often becomes the default response to situations that require care, not enforcement.
These gaps do not affect everyone equally. Black and Brown communities, LGBTQ+ people, people living in poverty, and other historically underserved populations continue to face significant barriers to accessing quality mental and behavioral healthcare. Workforce shortages, affordability, stigma, and generations of inequitable treatment have created disparities in who receives care and who does not. At the same time, these communities often experience higher rates of police contact, increasing the likelihood that a mental health crisis will be met with law enforcement rather than the appropriate clinical or community-based support. The result is a public safety system that too often responds after a crisis has escalated instead of preventing it in the first place.
Building a Community Safety Ecosystem that Responds with Care
Building safer communities requires expanding our understanding of what keeps people safe. Community safety is not achieved through law enforcement response alone. It is strengthened through equitable access to care, community-based services, and investments that help people meet their needs long before a crisis occurs.
That means investing in equitable access to healthcare, strengthening the behavioral health and community responder workforce, expanding affordable treatment options, and supporting community-based organizations that provide culturally responsive care. It also means ensuring communities have access to crisis response systems designed specifically for behavioral health emergencies.
Mobile crisis response teams dispatch mental health professionals, social workers, peers, or other community-based or local government workers to many mental health emergencies, helping people access care while reducing unnecessary contact with police. Across the country, communities are demonstrating the impact of community-based crisis response. Cities like Denver, Atlanta, and Durham, are diverting mental health calls away from police, increasing access to care, and creating better public safety outcomes. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline provides another critical entry point by connecting people experiencing mental health, substance use, or emotional crises with trained counselors who can de-escalate situations and connect callers to local resources.
These programs are not simply alternatives to policing — they are investments in healthier, more effective systems of care that recognize mental health crises as public health challenges.
Investing Upstream Creates Healthier Communities
Crisis response alone is not enough. Lasting change requires upstream investments that address the conditions contributing to poor mental health in the first place. Stable housing, accessible healthcare, economic opportunity, community connection, and culturally responsive services all play an essential role in reducing crises before they happen. When communities invest in these supports, they can improve health outcomes and their public safety systems.
This month, and every month, we should challenge ourselves to think beyond police response and ask a broader question: What does it take for every person to receive the right care, at the right time, from the right responder?
The answer lies in building community safety ecosystems that prioritize prevention, equitable access to care, and community-based crisis response. By investing in people instead of punishment, we can create communities where mental health crises are met with compassion, dignity, and the support every person deserves.
Learn more about mobile crisis response, 988, and how to advocate for alternative response programs in our Mental Health White Paper and Mental Health Alternative First Response Community Roadmap.