This article reports on the results of an experiment to study the addition of outreach specialists to an existing police team that has been tasked with helping people in vulnerable conditions access shelter or treatment; it explores co-response partnerships in the “gray zone” of interventions that involve police officers but rarely relate to major crimes or the need for criminal apprehension.
The authors test the benefit of adding an outreach specialist to a dedicated police team tasked with helping the vulnerable community in the transit system move to treatment or shelter. For a year, officer shifts were randomized to determine when they were accompanied by an outreach specialist. One hundred and fifty-eight in-depth treatment conversations regarding treatment or shelter with 165 vulnerable people were assessed for whether they were subsequently transported to a suitable facility. Likelihood of an individual in a treatment conversation with a specialist and a police officer being transported to a facility was 29 percent greater than the likelihood for an individual talking with only a police officer; however, this finding was not statistically significant. With the outcome of getting vulnerable people (mainly people experiencing homelessness) to accept transportation to a shelter or treatment facility, the co-responder model did not significantly outperform the effect of specially trained police officers working independently of the outreach specialist. (Published Abstract Provided)