Mental Health and Victim Advocacy
The impact of crime on an
individual victim, their loved ones,
and their community depends on
a variety of factors, but often crime
victimization has significant emotional,
psychological, physical, financial, and
social consequences. Victim Service
Counselors are available to respond
on scene to assist officers with victims
of domestic violence and other
traumatic crime.
The Victim Services Unit (VS)
provides services and resources to
victims and family members of victims.
Services include crisis intervention,
counseling, referral and assistance with
the victim’s compensation. The unit
has a Youth and Family Specialist (YFS)
who provides targeted support for
juveniles with behavioral health issues
and juvenile victims of crime. The unit
served 9,823 unduplicated victims in
2019.
Project RAISE focuses on the
intervention of the top five
repeat domestic violence
locations within each
geographic district per month.
The safety risk of each location
is evaluated by monitoring the
number of calls to a location,
the history of violence at that
location, and the severity
of violence at the location.
An in-depth assessment is
followed by a home visit from
a Co-Responder Team, which
consists of a VS Counselor and
a specially trained patrol officer.
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| 2019 Annual Report
Safety planning and crisis intervention
is provided to the victim in order to
provide a violence-free household.
This team made 217 visits in 2019.
Mental health issues present a
challenge for law enforcement officers
as they respond to incidents in the
field. The department has a dedicated
team to support operations and
ensure officers have the resources
necessary to assist community
members in need. Police agencies
are often the front-line responders
to those struggling with a mental
health crisis. In addition to staff time
and resources, these are dynamic
environments that have potential for
harm to both staff and those involved.
Our partnership with the
MHMR Law Liaison project provides
APD an opportunity to interject a
mental health professional into these
encounters, and work in conjunction
with officers to achieve stabilization,
develop positive rapport with law
enforcement and provide connectivity
to services. Mental Health Peace
Officers (MHPO) on patrol are
partnered with MHMR Law Liaisons
to form a Co-Responder Team. They
conduct follow-up services and help
individuals struggling with mental
health issues connect to resources.
For 2019, officers responded to 5,400
calls for service that had an identified
mental health component.
The Co-Responder Unit provided
follow-up services to 2,661 individuals
and officers completed 1,609
emergency detentions.
Victim Services Unit
VS Department’s Existence = 33 years
12 Employees with a total of
52 years of experience
Annual average services provided
to victims = 60,012