Denver's mental health approach to low-level 911 calls helped reduce minor crimes, researchers find
Denver's mental health response to low-level calls, the STAR program, helped reduce minor crimes, a new study shows.
DENVER — Dispatching mental health specialists instead of police officers to substance abuse and nonviolent emergencies sharply lowered low-level crime in Denver, according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances.
The Support Team Assistance Response, or STAR, program, which uses a mental health crisis interventionist and a paramedic to respond to nonviolent 911 calls, showed a 34 percent reduction in crime for offenses such as trespassing and public disorder, according to the study conducted by a Stanford University professor and researcher.
As U.S. cities rethink the role of law enforcement in nonviolent 911 emergencies, the research uncovered the strongest evidence yet that dispatching mental health professionals instead of police officers in some instances can have significant benefits, the report said.
The STAR program sends social workers and paramedics in specially equipped vans to low-level emergency calls.NBC NewsResearchers estimated that the STAR program prevented nearly 1,400 low-level criminal offenses, such as public intoxication, and increased the likelihood that potential repeat offenders were getting more assistance.
“We found something quite striking in those targeted precincts. It forgoes police involvement altogether,” said a co-author of the report, Thomas Dee, the Barnett Family Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. “It’s kind of a radical innovation in how we structure first responses for people in mental health or substance abuse crises.”
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