Several hundred Arkansas law enforcement officers have now been trained in crisis intervention, learning how to interact with people they suspect suffer from mental illness.
More will be trained.
What's more, the state has opened two of four planned crisis stabilization units, giving some officers an alternative to jailing people who need treatment, not incarceration.
At least one of the other two units will open next year in what is described as a pilot program that could lead to the creation of more units around the state.
All of that is good news in a state that has been struggling for years with the issue.
Too often, people who suffer from mental illness end up in jail because they act out, committing offenses that bring law enforcement into the picture.
Maybe the offenders present a threat to themselves. Maybe the threat is to others. Eventually, the police are called.
What crisis intervention training does is prepare officers to approach such situations calmly, teaching them how to resolve the encounter, preferably without escalation. In the best of cases, the result leads to treatment, not jail, for the offender.
Officers in training hear from mental health professionals as well as from people who have mental health disorders. They also learn from the family members who deal with these situations day in and day out and who sometimes must summon police for help in threatening situations.
To be sure, law enforcement officers have been learning these lessons on the job, too. That reality is among the reasons the state Legislature passed a 2017 law that promoted continued education and training for officers in mental health crisis intervention.
The provisions are part of Act 423 on 2017, a sweeping criminal justice efficiency and safety law that also provided for the creation of the crisis stabilization units.
Units are open in Sebastian and Pulaski counties. Another will open next year in Washington County. And a fourth is due in Craighead County.
The four units will have 26 of the state's 75 counties within their collective jurisdictions.
The crisis stabilization units are, or will be, 16-bed facilities located in the state's more populous regions. Each will provide an alternative place for police to take individuals who might otherwise have gone to jail. Instead, they can get treatment, at least for the short-term.
The state has never had enough beds available in its facilities for the short-term or long-term care of those needing treatment for mental illness.
The addition of the crisis stabilization centers will help provide urgent care for those who need it. If these first four units work well, state officials hope to add four more units, increasing the number of counties that would be served.
It is no coincidence that one of the first units to be up and running is in Sebastian County.
Among the strongest advocates for the program has been Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck.
He has long suggested the need to divert people with mental-health and substance-abuse issues from the criminal justice system.
"It's just smart justice and being conservatively smart with tax dollars in diverting people who don't need to be in jail," Hollenbeck said back in 2015 as the push for diversion was building in this state.
Not only would diversion help people with mental illness, such programs could alleviate problems with overcrowding in jails and prisons, he argued.
"I need room in our jail for bad guys, for violent offenders," Hollenbeck said then.
Recently, he said diversion is simply "the right thing to do."
It keeps people with mental health problems out of jail and lessens the chance they'll commit additional offenses.
More importantly, he said, if the state can get these people the help they need, they can become productive members of society rather than a burden to it.
Many in law enforcement share that view and similarly want to see their agencies invest in crisis intervention training for their officers.
Certainly, the sooner those suffering mental health illness get treatment, the better for them, their families and for criminal justice.
Law enforcement can, and should, facilitate the diversion.
It really is the right thing to do.
Commentary on 12/19/2018