We’ve all seen it: Officers respond to someone in the midst of a mental health crisis or an overdose. As a former officer and police chief in Irving, Texas, I saw those painful moments again and again. We answered those calls because someone had to, but too often, we were being asked to respond to people in crisis with tools never meant for that job.
What people needed in those moments was not a badge or a jail cell, but immediate access to psychiatric evaluation, stabilization, and treatment. That is why lawmakers must stop any further cuts to healthcare and protect the crisis care systems our communities rely on.
When healthcare and mental health funding are cut, the underlying problems do not simply go away. Instead, they migrate and reappear on our street corners, overcrowded emergency rooms, and all too often, in the back of a police car.
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Across the country, law enforcement agencies are under growing pressure because gaps in mental health and crisis care leave officers responding to behavioral health emergencies with almost no viable options to get people stabilized. We find ourselves dispatched to scenes of self-harm, family disturbances, and overdoses not because policing is the ideal solution, but because in too many communities, there is simply nowhere else for people in crisis to go.
When mental health services are scaled back, families and first responders are left with fewer places to turn when someone needs help right away. Consequently, patients often end up waiting in already strained emergency rooms for hours, sometimes longer, delaying critical intervention and thus heightening the risk of suicide, self-harm, or further escalation.
There is a misguided idea that the criminal justice system should “handle” these individuals. But that system was not built for treatment and clinical stabilization. In many jurisdictions, a person in a mental health crisis is more likely to be behind bars than in a hospital bed, a statistic that highlights just how much we have offloaded clinical responsibilities on to the justice system.
Funneling the vulnerable into jails does not solve the underlying problem; in fact, it often exacerbates it. Families remain without lasting support, and communities are forced to endure the same cycle of crisis again and again. Our goal must be genuine public safety and sustainable care, not a temporary fix that just relocates the problem.
As diversion options shrink, police officers spend more time handling health-related emergencies and less time focused on the many other responsibilities communities count on them to do, filling gaps they were never trained to fill.
While officers will always answer the call when someone is in danger, we must not confuse willingness with suitability. I know firsthand that officers care deeply about their communities, but when we repeatedly ask them to act as ad-hoc doctors and psychiatrists, we are admitting that our broader social systems have failed.
In recent years, many departments have built co-response models that pair officers with mental health professionals and paramedics. In Irving, for example, the police department’s Crisis Response Unit includes one sergeant, six officers, and three civilian mental health clinicians who respond to people in crisis, support patrol, and conduct follow-up outreach after encounters with emergency services or local hospitals. These teams mark a vital evolution in policing by bringing the right expertise to the scene and helping reduce unnecessary arrests. But while it’s a move in the right direction, it cannot replace a fully functioning, well-funded mental health system.
We see this same pattern of “crisis-management-as-treatment” in the overdose epidemic. First responders are essentially treading water, managing immediate medical crises because long-term treatment beds are too hard to come by. While co-response models can help here, too, the ultimate solution remains a robust, well-resourced treatment infrastructure.
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Ultimately, public safety depends on public health capacity. If we are serious about protecting our neighbors, we must reverse the damaging cuts to healthcare and mental health funding. We must expand stabilization capacity and invest in diversion pathways that work.
Law enforcement will continue to answer these calls because that is a requirement. But every dollar cut from mental health services will land on the shoulders of a police officer, an ER nurse, or a family in crisis. It is time to stop weakening the very systems that could prevent these tragedies before they are ever placed into the hands of the law.
Jeff Spivey spent 35 years in policing, retiring as the Chief of Police in Irving, Texas, in 2022. Since his retirement, he has been involved in supporting the health and well-being of police professionals and how they respond to individuals in crisis.