Empathy For Mental Health Crises Is Paying Off For West Orange Police

WEST ORANGE, NJ — It isn’t always “crime” that brings a police officer to your doorstep. And when they’re called on to help someone having a mental health crisis, officers in West Orange can do so knowing that a trained social worker will have their backs.

More than three years ago, the West Orange Police Department rolled out a new program, partnering with the Mental Health Association of Essex and Morris to send trained clinicians along with officers when they are responding to “mental health crisis calls” for non-criminal cases.

Having someone who is trained in mental health care can make a huge difference in a high-pressure situation, West Orange police say.

Since launching the program, the “success rate” for these encounters has been skyrocketing, an achievement that the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office recognized with an “Outstanding Community Partnership Award” in 2021.

“This community-related response facilitates treatment for those who need it, while reducing involvement in the criminal justice system,” the attorney general’s office said, praising the WOPD’s efforts to strengthen ties with the people they serve.

The program has continued to turn heads in the direction of West Orange, which has the only police department in Essex County with accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies.

After a Police/Clergy Alliance meeting earlier this month, Rhudy Snelling, the director of Community Engagement and Clergy Affairs, emailed West Orange Mayor Susan McCartney with kind words about the work that’s been taking place in the WOPD.

“As a mental health advocate and educator, I can tell you firsthand that the practices that the West Orange Police Department employs and promotes are exemplary for other municipalities and counties to follow,” wrote Snelling, who works as the crisis intervention team coordinator at the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

Meanwhile, policing in West Orange continues to make positive gains on the crime-fighting front, authorities say.

West Orange has been seeing record lows in crime in the past few years, federal statistics show. Officials have credited part of that drop to “community policing” efforts that emphasize de-escalation of potentially dangerous situations.

• See Related: West Orange Crime Rate Hits 41-Year Low, Police Say
• See Related: Crime In West Orange: FBI Data Gives Peek At Long-Term Trends
• See Related: Here's How West Orange Police Handle ‘Use Of Force,’ Chief Says

West Orange isn’t the only municipality in Essex County that has been taking a fresh look at the role that social workers and health clinicians can play in police encounters.

In Newark, where about 25 percent of the calls that police get are for “social intervention,” the department has begun graduating social workers side-by-side with police officers. Public safety officials say the goal is to take a "clinical" approach during emergencies involving police – not a punitive one.

• See Related: Newark Cops Team Up With Mental Health Workers Under New Program

People who have a mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator, many experts have noted. This bias extends to the criminal justice system, where persons with mental illness may be treated as criminals, arrested, charged and jailed for a longer time compared to the general population.

While perpetrating violence is “relatively uncommon” among people with serious mental illness, when it does occur, in many cases it is intertwined with other issues such as co-occurring substance use, adverse childhood experiences and environmental factors, says Eric Elbogen, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Duke University School of Medicine.

“If a person has a severe mental illness, [they] may have other risk factors for violent behavior,” Elbogen said in a 2022 article posted by the American Psychological Association Office of Continuing Education in Psychology.

“So, it may not be mental illness that is driving the violence at all, but rather factors like having been abused as a child, being unemployed, or living in a high-crime neighborhood,” Elbogen added.

• See Related: Mental Health Care, Not Prison: NJ Bill Would Create Diversion Program

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