re: Albuquerque to send unarmed social workers, not police officers, to some 911 calls

For mental health cases, this is a decent enough strategy, though they need a team that is larger than just a solitary social worker. I've seen first-hand how poorly equipped most police are to deal with mental health episodes.

Who is taking that job?

You probably need a college degree and will make like $30k a year to take police calls with no protection.

EFF that

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But paired with a police officer they could maybe help deescalate a situation.

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But now you're introducing an unarmed civilian city/parish/county worker into a potentially dangerous situation.

When the first social worker is harmed, held hostage or killed, good luck to the city handling THAT first lawsuit.

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For mental health cases, this is a decent enough strategy, though they need a team that is larger than just a solitary social worker. I've seen first-hand how poorly equipped most police are to deal with mental health episodes.

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The problem is that there are a whole lot of calls that come through only as Domestic Disturbances or Fights. The call for a Mental Eval or Mental Patient almost always comes after an officer has arrived on scene and assessed the situation. I'd bet that more often than not, a violent episode precipitates most Mental Eval calls. Those are high stress situations where everyone involved is in a heightened emotional state. In most areas, there is already a system in place for dealing with these situations that already includes social Workers and/or mental health experts.

Implementing a new system would just be redundancy that creates confusion and wastes resources.