Road Runners: The Role and Impact of Law Enforcement in Transporting Individuals with Severe Mental illness

Faced with limited community treatment options and a dire shortage of psychiatric inpatient beds, those in need of mental health treatment may not receive it until a crisis occurs and law enforcement intervenes. Approximately one-third of individuals with severe mental illness have their first contact with mental health treatment through a law enforcement encounter. Law enforcement officers are thus now often on the front lines of psychiatric care, charged with responding to, handling and even preventing mental illness crisis situations.

Although members of law enforcement do not serve as treatment providers for any other illness, they have become “road runners,” responding to mental health emergencies and traveling long distances to shuttle people with mental illness from one facility to another. Road Runners is the first-ever national survey of sheriffs’ offices and police departments on these issues, and it provides a unique glimpse into the burdens they must shoulder as well as the fiscal and societal implications of the current situation. The survey responses represent 355 sheriffs’ offices and police departments in the United States.

Key Findings:

• An average of 10% of law enforcement agencies’ total budgets was spent responding to and transporting persons with mental illness in 2017.
• The average distance to transport an individual in mental illness crisis to a medical facility was 5 times farther than the distance to
  transport them to jail. 
• Nationwide, an estimated $918 million was spent by law enforcement on transporting people with severe mental illness in 2017.
• The amount of time spent transporting people with mental illness by law enforcement agency survey respondents in 2017 sums to 165,295 hours, or more than 18 years.
• 21% of total law enforcement staff time was used to respond to and transport individuals with mental illness in 2017.
• Law enforcement officers waited significantly longer — almost 2.5 hours longer — when dropping a person off at a medical facility than if transporting to a jail.
• Some officers reported having to wait with the individual for 72 hours or more until a bed becomes available.
• Survey respondents drove a total of 5,424,212 miles transporting individuals with serious mental illness in 2017 — the equivalent of driving around the Earth’s equator more than 217 times.
• The report was released in partnership with the National Sheriffs’ Association and the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and funded by the Achelis and Bodman Foundation.