Law & Disorder

Mental health and law enforcement

A grassroots movement has pushed to the surface that law enforcement should not be the first or primary response to mental health crisis — and the movement is winning the public debate. But states and municipalities are responding with legislation and shifts in pattern and practice — is more harm than good being done? On today’s show, we explore the California governor’s CARE Court proposal, the new 988 hotline and APTP’s Mental Health First program. Our guests are James Burch, Deputy Director of the anti police-terror project, Keris Myrick, co-director of S2i and Asantewaa Boykin, a co-founder of APTP and co-creator of Mental Health First – Oakland and Sacramento’s only non-911 response to mental health and other community crisis. Then our conversation moves to the city level, where we talk with Elliott Jones, the Program Coordinator of Oakland’s MACRO program.