New Yorkers have once again been galvanized to protest, this time by disturbing video of an NYPD officer using what appears to be a chokehold on a man reportedly in a mental health crisis in Queens last Sunday. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea has promised a transparent investigation.
But a truly transparent investigation must go beyond this one incident and address the citywide policy failures forcing police to serve as de facto mental health professionals. Because unless the city comes to grips with how and why it is failing the most seriously mentally ill, especially people with mental illness of color, these incidents will continue.
The man in the video had been arrested more than 35 times as a consequence of his mental illness. In fact, the now-suspended officer can be heard on the bodycam saying, “that’s why he’s going to the hospital, because we know he’s ill.”
It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of NYC’s mental health system.
Every time police are forced to respond to a mental health crisis, the risk of tragedy increases. Research from my organization, Treatment Advocacy Center, found that people with serious mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in an encounter with law enforcement than someone without a diagnosed mental health condition.
Unfortunately, NYC has a long history of making mental health a police matter.
Last year, Public Advocate Jumanne Williams faulted the city for failing “to develop a comprehensive strategy for responding to people experiencing mental health crises” even though calls for “emotionally distressed persons” have nearly doubled to 179,569 annually in 2018.
If New York truly wants to make real reforms, it must take serious mental illness seriously. That means more than just cutting police budgets and hoping mental health picks up the slack. The city must institute wholesale changes in its mental health response.
First, the city must stop insisting on crisis as the predicate for care. We don’t require a heart attack to access cardiac care; mental illness should be no different.
Second, the city must build and support inpatient treatment options so those in need have secure facilities to recover instead of Rikers Island. The city has a desperate shortage of inpatient treatment beds, but did little to stop the closure of 30 psychiatric beds at Allen Hospital in Inwood in 2019. City leaders have also failed to take advantage of new funding from the federal government to incentivize the building of public treatment beds.
Third, community mental health investments must prioritize the most seriously ill, especially those with a history of poor outcomes. The community is rife with families whose loved ones were turned away for not being “dangerous enough” for care. Instead, the city should invest in community crisis centers that have a no denial policy and which can provide a full continuum of care options. The city should also invest in successful home-grown models like Fountain House, which has been shown to greatly benefit those most in need of care by creating a community around them.
Finally, the city should embrace models for non-law enforcement responses to mental health, many of which have already been identified. Cities like Tucson and Nashville offer models that could be incorporated without having to fashion a new system out of whole cloth. Those models succeed by relying heavily on oversight and data measurement, such as ensuring mental health intake times are quicker than police booking times. By providing an alternative to arrest, these communities reduce their jail population and limit dangerous interactions between law enforcement and those with mental illness.
The models and the money to make these necessary changes are there. The only question that remains is whether city leaders have the will to make them.
Snook is the executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national mental illness policy nonprofit.
