Texas Association of Counties created the Model Law Enforcement Model Policy Program in 2014 to aide law enforcement officers in interacting with community members facing mental and physical health challenges.
Hockley County Sheriff Ray Scifres explained that StarCare Lubbock, a specialty health system, secured a grant to fund a co-respondent model program. The program teaches officers deescalation tactics and crisis intervention training.
“They had specifically trained mental health officers who have done the basic training and then extra for mental health conditions and de-escalation tactics and extra crisis intervention training for those who really showed that it is something they wanted to be a part of,” Scifres said. “You can’t just put someone in a position like that. They have to want to do this because of what the nature of that job is.”
StarCare Lubbock reached out to Hockley County after receiving the grant to offer the program to the Hockley County Sheriff’s Office and the Levelland Police Department to create a Crisis Intervention Team.
“Of course, Chief Garcia was totally on board with it and as we went through that program we went with the assumption that there would be one Crisis Intervention Team Officer for the city and one Crisis Intervention Team Deputy for the county and then a co-responder with both,” Scifres said, “Then there was additional staff that was going to do follow up care, a community care specialist, there’d be a supervisor out here. So, in total it was up to six or seven people would be a part of this program from StarCare.”
Scifres explained there were issues initially with staffing the program, but he was able to see immediate benefits even with minimum staff. The 2022 End-of-Year Statistic Report shows 138 calls to the Crisis Intervention Team with 36 of the calls resulting in de-escalation.
“Since the implementation of the program, even with the number of staff that we have, we’ve been able to see between us and the city, we’ve been able to see a number of diversions away from the jail,” Scifres said. “They can intervene before it becomes a criminal problem.”
Scifres explained that a member of the Crisis Intervention Team accompanied by a deputy will be dispatched to the scene of a mental health crisis to conduct assessments and determine the next steps.
“We contact folks with mental health crisis or with mental health issues all the time. It’s a daily thing where there may be a disturbance that comes out because someone may or may not be taking medication or they may be self-medicating in some way that might exacerbate the problem and sometimes it leads to a crisis where we need that co-responder and we’re able to go out,” Scifres said. “The deputy will go out and help secure that scene and then let the co-responder come in and do whatever assessments are necessary.”
The Crisis Intervention Team conducted 15 emergency detentions which allows a person having a mental health crisis to be detained to have a preliminary examination or crisis stabilization. Scifres said this could be someone that has threatened to harm themselves or has threatened to harm others.
“We have the ability, once we establish probable cause, we can actually have them taken in for assessment for a period of time. A lot of times though, we’re able to divert them without having to do an emergency detainment,” Scifres said. “We still do those sometimes but we’re able to divert them. Sometimes it’s medical in nature and the issue is maybe something medical going on and not necessarily psychological.”
Scifres explained that another goal of the Crisis Intervention Team is to divert those having mental health crises from being placed in jail.
“We know once it gets to that point and they do end up in jail, these inmates, typically speaking, they stay longer,” Scifres said. “The mental health challenges that come up in the courts takes time to play out. There could be questions of competency which then that requires assessments and more hearings. Depending on the determination, someone can be in my custody for several years waiting for that competency restoration. So, if we can divert them out before we get there, that was the goal of the program. Number one was diversion, connect folks with assistance that they need and not having to come to jail to get it.”
Scifres said the Crisis Intervention Team wanted to take proactive steps to stay in contact with people that have been placed in emergency detention or diverted from medical to ensure they are aware of the programs available to them. Scifres also explained the program is used to help keep repeat offenders out of the jail.
“There’s been a number of folks who have come in repeatedly who we don’t see that much anymore,” Scifres said. “There are a few of individuals that we just haven’t seen that often anymore because of the contact that Brandon and Abby are making, because of the follow up care and because of those connections. Keeping them with the services that they needed. We don’t see them the way we used to and in a lot of cases, I think when they go do that after care work, they’re preventing crisis, being able to make sure they’re staying connected to the resource.”
Scifres believes that when people facing mental health crises lose connections to resources, they are highly likely to continue having additional or more critical crisis.
“When they lose that connection, I think is when you start running the risk of additional crisis calls,” Scifres said. “The success even at the staffing level that it has been, not even fully implemented and if we had had everybody staff with everybody here in the building all the time, I think you would see more of that, but even with the staff that we have and the dedication to of the staff members to this, I think that you’ve seen that it works.”
Scifres said the Crisis Intervention Team has found a need in the community and are successful at responding to mental health crises.
“Sometimes it is a question of whether something is really a problem and is it something that’s really necessary and I think that this shows that it has been an issue and that that the success of the program, the viability of it has been more than documented,” Scifres said.