Mobile Crisis Assessment Team

The City of San José Police Department is applying for the Byrne Discretionary Community Grant to enhance the Mobile Crisis Assessment Team (MCAT) Project.  The purpose of the program is to increase public safety, increase police response, reduce recidivism among high-risk people with mental illnesses, and prioritize mental health calls for members of our local community. The project is requesting funding in the amount of $1,000,000 for the period of 10/01/2022 to 9/30/2025.

The goal of the MCAT is to decrease the possibility of victimization of the mentally ill, and increase overall public safety through timely intervention, while fostering a positive, cooperative relationship between law enforcement and the mental health field. The objective of the MCAT is to establish a full-time unit with dedicated officers within the department that will collaborate with the County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services and will allow for the two entities to assist field officers with mentally ill persons or persons in crisis. This approach improves how police respond to individuals in mental health crises by combining the expertise of Behavioral Health Services with a dedicated MCAT comprised of officers who will provide referrals, intervention, and/or placement in mental health facilities for those who require acute mental health intervention, rapid response to individuals in crisis, or mitigation of mental health symptoms in an effort to reduce incarceration of the mentally ill. 

MCAT will also collaborate with the County of Santa Clara Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) by embedding a PERT clinician into the team.  This will allow for the San José Police Department to collaboratively increase public safety and reduce recidivism among high-risk individuals with mental illnesses and co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse issues.  The primary goal of this collaboration is to increase public safety by providing rapid intervention to individuals in mental health crises.    

The proposed grant will provide funds for overtime for specialized field operations, the salary of the clinician, crisis intervention training, equipment, and supplies to support the MCAT program, which will increase public safety and reduce recidivism among high-risk people with mental illnesses and co-occurring mental illness.

As the 10th largest city in the nation, the San José Police Department Mobile Crisis Assessment Team is leading the way in working with community members that are suffering from mental illness in a noninvasive way that has improved the approach in which police responds to calls and has changed some of the perception held by the community when an officer responds to these types of calls. This grant would allow for the San Jose Police Department to continue to give back to the community it currently serves in a manner that is both positive for the overall community and the person facing the mental health situation.