Bill > S2320

This bill establishes a Center of Excellence in Community Policing and Behavioral Health to serve as a central resource for training municipal police officers in cost-effective, evidence-based mental health and substance use crisis response, aiming to reduce unnecessary arrests and incarcerations of individuals with behavioral health conditions. This center will be a partnership between several state executive offices, including the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS) and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), along with the Departments of Mental Health (DMH) and Public Health (DPH), and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI Mass). The center's responsibilities will include acting as a clearinghouse for best practices, developing crisis intervention training curricula for all officers, providing technical assistance to local governments to foster collaborations between law enforcement and human services providers for treatment referrals, and establishing metrics to evaluate program success. It will also recruit and support trainers, conduct research on training effectiveness, ensure trainings are tailored to local needs, assist police departments in implementing improved responses, and provide reimbursement for trainers and backfill costs for officers attending training. The center will also extend its training and technical assistance to other workforces, such as state police, transit police, campus police, hospital police, the judiciary, probation, parole, and corrections. Finally, the center will publish an annual report detailing service demand, delivery, costs, identified gaps, program effectiveness, and research findings, which will be submitted to various state officials and legislative committees.