Fulton County, Georgia announced on Saturday that it is forming joint teams of county deputies and mental‑health clinicians to respond to individuals experiencing a mental‑health crisis. The purpose of the teams is to keep people in crisis out of jail and connect them with appropriate mental‑health care.
The new approach pairs law‑enforcement officers with clinicians to provide alternatives to arrest when responding to mental‑health emergencies. This effort aligns with a growing trend in other jurisdictions of creating dedicated crisis response teams to address the frequent involvement of police in mental‑health incidents.