ST. PETERSBURG — It was the first call of the morning. A man is threatening to jump off a bridge.
The decision was made quickly and Tiana Audette and Angela Catton were to respond. Neither are police officers.
The two were 16 minutes apart. Catton spoke to a 21-year-old man on the phone.
“My name is Angela,” she said. “I’m a social worker. I know you’re having a hard time. We’re on our way.”
Just two years ago, officers at the St. Petersburg Police Department had limited possessions. mental health training He would have reacted. But in 2021, after the killing of George Floyd sparked calls for police reform, authorities sent social workers to respond to suicide threats, overdoses and other emergencies related to mental health, substance abuse and poverty. I started doing it.
Initially, they were accompanied by police officers, a common way for many law enforcement agencies to adapt to demands for change, including some in the Tampa Bay area.
But after a few months, social workers in St. Petersburg began responding to calls without police, making the city one of the few in the country to do so. The rationale, department leaders say, is that while social workers may provide a more soothing response to people in crisis, the presence of armed officers could escalate the situation. It was something.
The program had an immediate impact. In his first nine months, social workers responded to more than half of the city’s police calls where no crimes had occurred, according to a University of South Florida study.
There were nearly 9,000 encounters with civilians without police present, but no injuries were reported.
as The program is in its third year, and the police department is preparing to ask the city on Thursday for an additional $400,000 a year to expand.
Success is difficult to quantify. For example, St. Petersburg police are involuntarily detaining people for mental health issues under Florida’s Baker Act in fewer cases than in the past. That was two years ago, but the trend started several years ago and is happening everywhere. The number of people involuntarily detained by local police for substance abuse issues under the Marchman Act decreased from 2020 to 2021. But the number rose again last year.
But social workers and police officers alike insist the program works. So did many of the people who protested and called for reform after Floyd’s killing.
“Other cities and other places are taking notice of what we’re doing here in St. Pete,” said local community organizer Jabar Edmond. “We are now leading the way in law enforcement for this small city.”
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Evaluation of success
Social workers in the unit, called the Community Support and Liaison Program, respond to a wide range of incidents, including truancy, neighborhood disputes, overdoses and panhandling.
unit is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to midnight and also has a 24/7 phone line for past customers.
“We received a significant volume of calls and were able to successfully route them as planned,” said Megan, deputy police chief for the police department, who partnered with Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services to help launch the program. McGee said.
Police officers and civilian staff from the same station can also be dispatched. The program has received more than 2,100 referrals, most from law enforcement.
911 dispatchers will ask whether anyone involved in the incident is armed and check for a history of violent incidents in the caller’s location before transferring the call to a social worker. If the dispatcher suspects the possibility of violence, the social worker will not be dispatched.
On average, the unit is It takes about 7 minutes to arrive, which is comparable to the average response time of the St. Petersburg Police Department.
In late February, community leaders met at the St. Petersburg Health Foundation to discuss the program. The foundation funded the study by the Center for Justice Research and Policy at the University of South Florida. Edelin Verona, co-director of the center, announced the results.
She said the program seems to be working well. Still, Verona highlighted some concerns.
The evaluation found that St. Petersburg police were nearly twice as likely as police to respond to calls involving juveniles.
Mr Verona said some of the cases may have been reported as domestic violence and social workers would not respond. Or they could have come from within the school, where a resource officer would have responded.
Verona’s troops said: is working to improve communication with schools and make school authorities less dependent on police. Ode, the program director, said the force also hired youth specialists.
Another concern: The USF study found: Follow-up contacts were more common in communities with more white residents. A follow-up is when a unit reconnects with someone it met previously. It can be as simple as making a phone call or referring someone to a mental health professional.
The City of Verona said this could be because communities of color may face more problems with housing stability and unemployment, meaning their residents’ contact information may be less accurate. He said that there is a sex.
Verona said communities of color may also lose faith in the program. Because we are affiliated with the police, you may not want us to follow up with you.
Data from other cities, though murky, suggests the program may be helping.
Marchman law enforcement, which involves involuntary evaluation and treatment of substance abuse problems, was reduced from 38 to 30 cases from 2020 to 2021. However, that number nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, with police carrying out 57 involuntary detentions.
On the other hand, detention under St. Petersburg police’s Baker Act offenses, which people commit involuntarily because they may pose a threat to themselves or others, decreased by about 7% from 2020 to 2021, and in the following year. It fell again by about 6%.
This unit can place people into involuntary detention under the Baker Act or the Marchman Act. Although the program does not count Baker Act detention and Marchman Act detention separately, social workers in the program rarely use the latter.
In 2021, the department placed customers on mandatory hold 55 times. That number dropped to 40 in 2022, but rose to 41 in the first six months of this year. However, involuntary retention accounts for less than 3% each year.
Program leaders say the numbers show social workers are stabilizing a high-needs population.
decrease The numbers mirror those of other cities that have launched mental health departments, but the decline in involuntary involvement has been a national trend since 2018, several years before the program began.
Social workers are better suited to handle these situations, says Jeffrey Coutts, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who directs a program in New York City focused on public health solutions to crime. said.
“When mental health physicians arrive on the scene, they literally end up sending fewer people to the hospital because they can better triage what is needed,” Kutu said.
Community reaction
Community leaders called for Reformers during the 2020 protests said they were cautiously optimistic about the program.
“I was a little surprised by the announcement at the time, but I was happy about it,” said the St. Petersburg City Council member. “But it was one of those moments in the history of the movement where you felt like, ‘Okay, we’re pushing something forward.’ It wasn’t too much,” he said. Brother John Muhammad was among those who called for change.
Muhammad and others, including community organizer Edmund, met with the administration to monitor the program. Both said they were generally satisfied with the results.
“I really want to commend those who were willing to risk their own safety and security to march in the streets, demand change, and truly champion this program,” Muhammad said. “I don’t think they get enough credit for the work they do to get the ball rolling.”
Will Kilgore, local organizer for St. Pete Cop Watch, said his unit responded to an “astonishing” volume of calls. He hopes that one day the program will be able to function independently of the police department and provide two separate sources of funding.
“If we see something working, we should increase the funding,” he said.
McGee said the program would likely return to a “joint response” model in which social workers arrive with police, although some want to expand the force to include calls involving violence. Ta.
“When you talk about expanding to different types of calls, you can see why so many other municipalities are modeling that,” she said. “But what made our approach different is that we really wanted to identify non-criminal, non-violent calls.”
Looking to the future
Police officials are seeking a three-year renewal of the program at a cost of about $1.7 million annually.of The division employs 21 people and currently has annual operating costs of approximately $1.3 million. it’s about 1% $133 million of the Police Department’s 2023 budget.
Program leaders hope to hire two more social workers and a supervisor and expand the program’s hours to 2 a.m., McGee said, adding that the police department is also considering securing a new office. He said that
Catton and Ode responded to a man who threatened to jump off a bridge, and they arrived in a minivan the team had leased, nicknamed the “soccer mom van.”
They are I spent some time with the man. His girlfriend thought he was cheating on her. He had a hard time giving her space and she remained at her distance.
The three of them talked for about 10 minutes. Audette and Catton asked him how he had handled situations like this before. How was he going to spend the rest of his day? Was there anyone who could join him?
Near the end of the conversation, he told them there was something he really wanted to talk about.
Before they left, Catton said he would check again. In about 15 minutes. He had to answer, she told him.
Back in the van, the two discussed ways to further help the man, including counseling options.
Ode parked his car in the team parking lot. Catton was in his office when he called the man again.
“You have my phone number so if you ever feel sick, you can call me or call the helpline,” Catton said.
Catton tells Audette after the call that his voice is much better.