Decoupling Crisis Response from Policing — A Step Toward Equitable Psychiatric Emergency Services

Abstract

As young psychiatrists of color, we bear witness to the failings of the U.S. mental health emergency response system. We reluctantly counsel our patients to trust this system, though we’re fully aware that it may harm them rather than ensure their safety. Our fears intensify when we undertake emergency planning with Black patients, whose ensnarement in systems of social control has been reinforced by centuries of racism in policing in particular and White supremacy more broadly. Obtaining care in a mental health crisis should be as routine and assistive as calling an ambulance for other health crises. Yet for too long, calling 911 for psychiatric aid has been fraught with the possibility of lethal consequences.