Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
From NPR
A New York City pilot program that dispatches mental health specialists and paramedics instead of police for certain nonviolent emergency calls has resulted in more people accepting assistance and fewer people sent to the hospital, early data shows.
It's one of a number of programs underway around the country trying to address police violence and systemic racism following George Floyd's murder by providing alternatives to sending law enforcement to respond to emergency calls involving issues such as mental health or drug and alcohol crises.
In June, New York City started its Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, or B-HEARD, to provide more targeted care for those struggling with mental health issues and emergencies such as suicide attempts, substance misuse and serious mental illness.
During the first month of the pilot program, B-HEARD teams — consisting of fire department paramedics and social workers — responded to calls in northern Manhattan, which includes parts of Harlem and receives the city's highest number of mental health emergency calls.
From June 6 to July 7, B-HEARD received roughly 16 mental health calls each day in this zone.
Obviously, this is very early data. The unit is not sent into situations where there is a threat of violence.
Comments
200 deaths per year, 40 mental illness related?
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 08/01/2021 - 8:37pm
The point of the shift to involve mental health officials is to provide the proper team to the appropriate circumstance. The shift has no magical powers to do anything else. The shift may prevent regular police units from harming people in a mental crisis
In homicides, police show up after the fact. In D.C. a 6-year old was shot and killed when adults were involved in the shooting. After the shooting, police arrived within 34 seconds. Police alone are not going to prevent homicides.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/us/washington-dc-shooting-6-year-old-girl.html
If local neighborhoods could prevent crimes by themselves, it would have been done. The question becomes if there are better approaches do decreasing homicide rates rather than relying on police alone.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 12:25am
Yeah, fine, 16 calls a day. We'll see what happens when a more difficult case calls, or volumes go up - whether they successful push it to the police side, or if it puts a mental health care worker in danger. Meanwhile, a lot of shootings to focus on.
Last year NYC 911 calls peaked at 6500 calls a day before returning to a more normal 4000/day. Presumably actual responses are at least 1k-2k/day, so 16 mental health calls are a drop in the bucket.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 3:54am
The teams are for mental health issues. When weapons are involved, police are dispatched.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 8:42am
I got it, but creating a separate specialized team for a small subset that might distract from the more frequent responses, trying to figrure out *when* guns aren't involved (and what to do if you're wrong), etc.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 9:07am
Do you have evidence that the special unit distracts police from other calls? It is possible that the special unit allows police to focus on calls that require actual police skills. As noted, the data represents the first month.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 10:00am
Anything is possible in theory. There's only 16 health teams sent out a day currently for a small test, so prolly doesn't interfere with anything until it gets big enough to compete for resources and attention. But almost certainly there will soon be cases where they send out a mental health team and should have sent a regular police unit. If you got 1 type of packaging, that mistake won't happen, but in theory there may be cases where the mental health unit works better - we'll see what that means in practice.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 12:09pm
SUCH BULLSHIT. AND NONSENSE trying to solve teeny tiny problem that has not been there in our city just to please black activists in other cities with governmental malfunction problems or a large number of citizens with ginned up fear of police via irresponsible media hyping of false narrative created by a few rare outlier media reports
I wish as a NYC taxpayer we were sending the (probably hefty) bill for this teeny tiny experiment, that will never prove anything of import, to silly out of towners like rmrd who have irrational fear of police.and let our NYPD & social services respond as they always have:
NYPD have long been trained in these problems;so have 911 and 311 operators.
We could help them by not burdening them with this silly experimental unit (that I am sure they all ridicule) which replicates current services and was created just for local lefty politicians to get a few shoutouts from lefty outsiders. TAKE YOUR FUCKING SILLY PRETEND EXPERIMENT ELSEWHERE NYPD and mental health services already have more than enough tools and training elsewhere. THE ONLY RELATED PROBLEM THEY HAVE,WHICH IS MASSIVE, IS LETTING HOMELESS MENTALLY ILL AND OTHER SINGLETONS WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS OUT FREE ON THE STREETS WITHOUT SUPERVISION.
The others in family settings already know and trust calling 911 if they cannot control a mentally ill person under their care. NYC is no place to be carrying out experiments that belong in other cities that don't have any mental health services for families living with problematic individuals.
by artappraiser on Tue, 08/03/2021 - 7:34am
and rmrd types should know better and quit butting into family business, as they are the best ones to know whether there is need to call 911 if there is the possibility of violence. If there if no possibility of violence and it can wait til business hours THEY WOULDN'T BE CALLING 911. PEOPLE CALL 911 IN NYC EXACTLY BECAUSE THEY NEED TRAINED ARMED POLICE RESPONSE!!! Stop talking at them like they are all stupid; they are the best to know whether they need police or social workers. If they need police they call 911. The 911 operator and the police themselves are the ones that do the triage. (Furthermore guess what, if the precinct is not busy they may even come and help homebound handicapped who are all alone and have fallen and can't get up to help a busy EMS out. Or if someone found your wallet on top a gas station filling station, they might also stop by and drop it off to you if they have the time instead of putting it into the bureaucratic system...)
by artappraiser on Tue, 08/03/2021 - 7:26am
More comments on NYDaily News article on big fail stupid bullshit little program
("Thrive" is the mayor's wife's mental health program which most citizens considered both joke and massive doonboggle and rip off)
WOKE CRAZEE MAKES NO SENSE is another good description for program)
by artappraiser on Tue, 08/03/2021 - 9:19am
Wait, 311 already exists? So what does this new program do that's different?
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 08/03/2021 - 10:42am