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April 2021

Responding to Critical Needs

GUEST EDITORS: Karen Maline and Jacqueline Hazzan

Around the globe, police leaders and agencies are striving to serve their communities by resolving critical needs such as homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health crises. This requires a complex balancing act of both protect the community’s quality of life and safety and ensuring access to resources and services for those experiencing such critical needs.  

Articles

  • Effective Police-Civilian Collaborations

    By Wendy Baimbridge, Assistant Chief of Police, Houston Police Department, Texas
    Like many police agencies, the Houston, Texas, Police Department (HPD) has seen an increase in public demands over the past several years in responding to those individuals exhibiting a mental illnes...

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  • Building a Multijurisdictional Deflection Program

    By Matthew C. Moynihan, Captain, HOPE Initiative Director, Rhode Island State Police; Pamela M. Kelley, Professor, Stonehill College, Kelley Research Associates; and Sean P. Varano, Professor, Roger Williams University, Kelley Research Associates
    Kevin had been “involved” with the criminal justice system for his entire adult life. By the time he was 32, he had been incarcerated nine times for offenses ranging from shoplifting to larceny....

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  • Suicide by Cop

    By Nancy Ryba Panza, PhD, California State University, Fullerton; Alejandra Jordan, MS, California State University, Fullerton; and Charles Dempsey, Detective III, Los Angeles Police Department, California
    In 1999, I was a young patrol sergeant working in a new division. Late one evening, I responded to a supervisor request on a domestic violence call in which the suspect attempted to stab his wife with...

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  • Proactively Serving High-Risk Populations

    By Ronald Sellon, Chief, Mansfield Police Department, Massachusetts
    Autism. Williams syndrome. Alzheimer’s. Schizophrenia. These terms are often scary to any neurotypical police officer or layperson who has never personally encountered a person with one or more of t...

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  • Ending the Cycle of Response, Report, Repeat

    By Aliese Alter, Senior Program Manager, Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA); Christopher Yeager, ODMAP Analyst, Washington/Baltimore HIDTA; and Timothy Kehoe, Lieutenant, Chesterfield County Police Department, Virginia
    Overdoses are ravaging the United States. Over the last two decades, more than 750,000 people have died as a result of a drug overdose, and in this same time, overdose deaths involving opioids have in...

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