The Cambridge police co-response program created to avert arrest of people in a mental health crisis achieved that goal in 63 of 210 emergency calls over nine months since last summer, while only five calls answered by the team of a police officer and social worker resulted in arrest.
The figures come from reports to the state Department of Mental Health, which supported the pilot project with a grant, and from city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick. What happened with the other 142 calls? In the patchwork of information provided in response to a series of queries, it is unknown.
The police department reported in April that co-response had prevented mentally distressed people from ending up in the emergency room in 63 of 98 cases where it would have happened, or 65 percent. That’s higher than the 30 percent of total calls diverted from arrest, but it’s impossible to compare the two figures accurately because reports to the state didn’t say how many of the total 210 calls would have resulted in arrest if the team had not intervened. Many calls aren’t likely to end in arrest, such as well-being checks, medical assistance and “check person calls,” though calls answered by the co-response team have “some element of safety,” Warnick said.
The five arrests in nine months is strikingly low, and Warnick said that officers outside of the co-response unit actually made two of those arrests. (The city law office and state mental health department rejected a public records request for the number of arrests reported to the state; Warnick provided the number). After Cambridge Day obtained some figures reported to the state in a public records request, the police department was asked why it publicized the numbers on emergency room diversions but not the figures on arrests and arrest prevention.
James Barrett, the police department psychologist who heads the Clinical Support Unit and is directing the co-response program, said in a statement that police have seen “a very low number of arrests that stem from mental health encounters alone” over the past 10 years. Yet there have been “a significant number of transports to the ER for mental health interactions,” Barrett said.
Therefore the department “chose to first focus on assessing the impact on mental health transports to the ER, but they are also looking at ways that we can best analyze and report the data on the impact co-response can have on arrests involving a mental health interaction.” Barrett said.
According to figures included in the police department’s grant application, police got 6,309 mental health calls in the eight years from 2015 to 2022, including 3,795 that resulted in voluntary hospitalization and 1,599 ending in forced hospitalization. The application didn’t include information on the number of arrests of mentally distressed people over that period.
Change to policing philosophy
The police department has been working for the past 10 years “to change its community policing philosophy to focus more on prevention, intervention and diversion,” the grant application for the 2025 fiscal year said. ”The CPD developed a community-engaged model of law enforcement, dedicated to improving the outcomes of those struggling with homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse.”
The department has applied to continue the grant in fiscal year 2026.
Police established the Family and Social Justice Section focused on prevention and services instead of arrests for young people, the mentally ill and homeless people in 2018. Barrett’s Clinical Support Unit includes social workers, but clinicians provide follow-up; they don’t ride along with officers in a cruiser, the application said.
“The proposed project would add that co-response component into the robust ecosystem of the FSJS to hopefully reduce the need for involuntary hospitalizations, ER overutilization and criminal charges that can potentially arise from mental health calls,” the co-response grant application said.
Tension with city councillors
The initiative has been controversial, not because of its goal of keeping mentally ill people out of the criminal justice system and emergency room, but because the City Council established another program to provide an alternative to police for mentally distressed people: the Community Safety Department and its Community Assistance Response and Engagement team, or Care. Care members are not armed.
Police department representatives were involved in planning for the new department but didn’t disclose to councillors they were working to establish co-response, which they had previously dismissed as an option.
After the Harvard Crimson reported April 25 on tensions over the issue, councillors learned that the Care team was sent to only 45 percent of calls it was eligible to answer, while the police unit could go to any call it chose. Three councillors refused to ratify the police department budget later, in protest about not being informed of the co-response plan.
State grant application
The police department’s application for the state grant did describe the planning for the Community Safety Department. “Members of the Cambridge Police Leadership Team participated in community listening sessions as well as planning sessions to develop a plan and vision for the Community Safety Department,” the application said. “While this department will be outside of the police department, it was clear that the community, city council and city manager were all in support of the Cambridge Police Department enhancing its response to mental health calls.”
The $120,000 state grant has paid for a social worker from North Suffolk Community Services, a regional mental health agency in Chelsea. The police department policy governing the collaboration gives broad responsibilities to the social worker, including providing mental health assessment at the scene of an incident, helping to plan aftercare, providing onsite emergency clinical services and conducting suicide evaluations.
The policy says the police patrol officer and patrol supervisor “will be responsible for supervision of all clinicians” at the scene of an incident. “At all times, on a call for service when a clinician is present, the officer on scene shall be in charge and provide for the safety of the clinician. Clinicians should be vigilant regarding spatial positioning and situational awareness,” according to the policy.
It says the officer will evaluate the scene for safety before a clinician steps out of a cruiser and that the social worker will be equipped with a “protective vest.”
Sue Reinert covers Cambridge news on a broad range of topics, including about affordable housing; civil liberties; the Cambridge Health Alliance and public health; and the environment.
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