PWC Police Partner With GMU To Improve Mental Health Response

Press release from Prince William County Government:

Thursday, 17 Mar 2022

Prince William County, VA… The Prince William County Police Department is pleased to announce a partnership with the Center of Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) at George Mason University (GMU) to enhance and expand the County’s existing Co-Responder Program with Community Services. Through federal funding, this initiative will strengthen the County’s ability to help our residents who are experiencing a mental health crisis. The County’s Co-Responder Unit utilizes a team approach by pairing a Crisis Intervention Trained (CIT) officer with a mental health clinician to respond to calls involving persons in crisis. The goal of the unit is to offer resources to the individual, as well as proactively identify and provide outreach to high consumers of public safety and mental health services. Through their combined expertise, the team connects individuals with appropriate services or other effective or efficient responses in an expeditious manner.

“The CEBCP is proud to partner with the Prince William County Police Department on improving our understanding and delivery of effective public safety services for people in mental health crisis,” said Cynthia Lum, Director of the CEBCP and professor of criminology at George Mason University. “This partnership will provide critical research and learning opportunities for both the police and the research team here at George Mason University and strengthen our mutual interest in improving the lives of Virginians.”

This initiative with GMU will broaden the County’s commitment to providing additional mental health and public safety services in the community by accelerating training to significantly increase the number of CIT officers, provide compensation to attend training as needed, provide further training to existing CIT officers, provide assistance in accelerated training instruction and support, and provide a research-based assessment and evaluation using subject matter experts to help gauge the program’s effectiveness and guide our agency in strategic decision making.

“The [Prince William County Police Department] has had a long history with evidence-based policing initiatives involving George Mason University and others,” said Peter Newsham, Chief of the Prince William County Police Department. “Extensive investment has already been made on implementing Prince William County’s co-responder program. This proposal will further strengthen and support this important initiative.”

Through this collaboration, the Police Department will utilize approximately $1,003,960 in federal funding with the goal of reducing time spent on mental health-related incidents and reducing the occurrence of use-of-force incidents on mental health consumers. In 2021, the Police Department responded to approximately 3,351 mental health-related calls and handled over 600 transports totaling over 27,000 hours, the equivalent of 13 full-time officers.

“We are grateful for the support of Senator Tim Kaine in supporting this endeavor and we are excited about this opportunity to provide expanded training to our police officers to foster supportive relationships with residents and help them connect with the highest quality of services available,” said Ann Wheeler, Chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. “Additionally, working with George Mason University in this endeavor affords us the opportunity to incorporate research, expertise, and program evaluation to ensure the effective delivery of police services are provided.”

This press release was produced by Prince William County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.