By Alexander Gray
The Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice hosted a panel discussion on policing and crisis intervention techniques with the Office of Equity and Inclusive Excellence on Jan. 26, 2023, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
Professors David Harris, SpearIt, and Gabby Yearwood shared their perspectives on these techniques, as shown in the HBO documentary “Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops.”
The panel was moderated by Joint Degree Candidate and Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice Student Advisory Board Member Jordan Fields.
The film follows police officers Ernie and Joe on their beats in San Antonio. Both officers are part of the San Antonio Police Department’s Mental Health Unit.
Launched in 2008, the unit uses crisis intervention techniques to assist people experiencing severe mental health issues. The film shows how these techniques are applied in an American urban environment and the officers’ struggles with mental health, trauma, and crisis.
“That’s quite different, isn’t it?” David Harris noted after the screening of clips from the documentary.
“Crisis intervention techniques (CIT) are not new. The method goes back to the 1980s and was first known as ‘The Memphis Method.’ But looking at Pittsburgh in the present, you won’t find many officers with CIT training.”
New response teams
Harris offered the “co-responder” model as an alternative to dispatching police to people in crisis.
“With the co-responder model, you put together teams of social workers, psychiatrists, and medics. Police officers may back these units up, but they remain in the background. Ultimately, it’s better that those responding to people in crisis be mental health professionals. Here on our own campus, there is a program that uses these techniques called HEART.”
HEART –Higher Education Assessment and Response Team – employs similar crisis intervention techniques as those used by the officers in the film. A collaboration between the University Counseling Center and the University of Pittsburgh Police Department, HEART de-escalates “crises to ensure that the least restrictive and most clinically appropriate intervention is applied” to students in crisis.
“Why have this kind of response team on campus?” Harris asked. “Because, if you’re in crisis, you don’t want to be getting into a police car. It’s traumatic.”
Professor Yearwood brought up the need for mental health resources in the United States.
“For many people, an arrest may be the first time someone gets a diagnosis and medication to treat a mental health issue,” said Yearwood.
Saving our shared humanity
“I see a story of hope and humanity (in the film),” said Professor SpearIt, who emphasized the importance of diversion from incarceration.
“Diverting people from incarceration spares the person of the trauma of the jail cell. At the same time, this expression of humanity spares the administrators and institution of a similar trauma, too. Treating people in crisis as humans pushes them along the road to recovery.”
SpearIt reflected on the vulnerability of one of the officers in the film regarding his mental health challenges, which made him more able to empathize with those in crisis.
“I see Ernie and Joe's work as an expression of faith. Not necessarily in a religious sense, but as faith in our shared humanity,” said SpearIt.
A vision for a less punitive legal future
“Does the law have a vision for a world without punishment for the way people behave?” one attendee asked.
Professor Harris provided a sober response that acknowledged the fractured and hyper-localized nature of policing in the United States and certain current political roadblocks.
“Policing is hyperlocal. Across the United States of America, there are 18,000 separate police departments. So, these crisis intervention units are popping up because individual cities want to do them not a nationwide, concerted effort.
“To see real sweeping change, we need the political will and the will to put resources towards empowering mental health professionals and other non-police responders.
“In the end, the law is always reactive. Policy is where those top-level changes need to take place. Our law could do better, it’s true. But waiting for the law to change… it might leave you waiting a very long time,” Harris concluded.
Professor Yearwood ended the panel and Q&A session by asking that we reimagine what the roles of a public safety officer might look like in the future.
“We need a different vision of what it means to be a police officer,” Yearwood said. “But we also simply don’t need police in spaces where their presence escalates that crisis at hand.”