New Jersey expanding program pairing cops with mental health counselors – New Jersey Monitor

A program that pairs plainclothes state troopers with psychological well being specialists to higher reply to psychological well being crises will broaden to Elizabeth and Linden in Union County, appearing Legal professional Basic Matt Platkin introduced Monday.

This system is meant to deescalate probably risky encounters between police and other people in disaster from emotional misery or a psychological well being problem, whereas additionally making certain that individual will get remedy as a substitute of incarceration, Platkin stated.

“This actually displays a actuality that over the previous a number of many years, we’ve requested legislation enforcement, frankly, to do an excessive amount of,” Platkin stated. “They’re not simply legislation enforcement officers anymore. We’ve requested them to be psychological well being professionals and behavioral well being counselors and habit specialists. And it’s not reasonable to ask one individual to be all of these issues.”

This system launched final yr in Cumberland County and proved so profitable — with no makes use of of power — that officers ultimately intention to broaden it statewide, he stated. Platkin introduced the growth at a police academy in Scotch Plains.

Officers most frequently resort to power when responding to calls that contain somebody in emotional misery, underneath the affect, or in disaster from a psychological sickness, Platkin stated. Greater than half of deadly police encounters contain such people.

The Legal professional Basic’s Workplace started publicly reporting police use-of-force incidents in 2020 and tightened restrictions final yr in an effort to cut back them. Officers used power virtually 16,000 occasions final yr, and greater than 5,000 occasions this yr by way of April 30, in line with the workplace’s public database.

This system that shall be expanded is known as Arrive Collectively, which is brief for “Various Responses to Scale back Cases of Violence and Escalation.” In addition to lowering makes use of of power, this system additionally helps construct neighborhood belief and protects troopers from probably bodily or violent encounters, Platkin added.

In Cumberland County, departments deployed it throughout two eight-hour shifts every week, utilizing knowledge from dispatchers to find out when such calls had been likeliest to come back in, Platkin stated.

“The aim is to have this full-time all over the place within the state,” he stated.