There’s controversy in Knoxville, Tennessee, after its lawmakers approved of opioid settlement money being used to pay for a program that sends social workers out with cops.
On February 4, Knoxville City Council voted in favor of the police department applying to the Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council for a $1.75 million grant to expand its “co-responder” program.
This came after a some contentious public meetings, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported, with the mayor at one point ordering two people to be removed by police for being “out of order.”
According to Knoxville Police Department, its co-responder program is a partnership with the McNabb Center, a local provider of mental health and social services. It “pairs a Crisis Intervention trained KPD officer with a Masters level clinician to respond to behavioral health crisis.” Six such teams currently operate in the city, responding to adults and children. The department claimed, according to a 2022 report, that it had never used force in over 1,700 calls in the first year of operation. If expanded under the proposed grant, the program would grow to nine teams.
If awarded, the grant would also pay for increased naloxone distribution, hire a diversion advocate and transport people to substance use disorder treatment. But it would additionally support not just social work, but policing: Police would collect increased intelligence about drug sales for criminal investigations, and be trained as “drug recognition experts.”
Events in Knoxville are situated within a longstanding national debate.
This refers to methods used by police to determine if someone is under the influence of drugs without a blood test or breathalyzer, as the International Association of Chiefs of Police describes. The controversy around this practice was reflected, for example, by a 2023 New Jersey state court ruling —a split decision that determined such evidence can be admissible at trial, but also acknowledged it can be inaccurate and limited its use.
Events in Knoxville are situated within a longstanding national debate. The 2020 protests following the police murder of George Floyd sparked many calls to “defund the police” and introduce alternatives. Countless incidents of police force, including lethal force, have occurred against people in crises related to mental health, drugs and housing.
In recent years, more cities and states have been exploring programs to divert certain emergency calls to unarmed teams of social workers or other professionals, without involving police. The idea is to deescalate situations, and help stabilize people in crisis without the threat of force.
The idea long predates 2020. Most notably, the city of Eugene, Oregon, has had such teams in place for decades under its CAHOOTS program. It’s been recognized as a success, diverting from 3-8 percent of 911 calls and saving the city over $2 million each year (as of 2022).
Similar programs have since launched in cities like Rochester, New York City and Denver, while state governments including New York and New Jersey have proposed funding more of these teams. Though some early successes have been shown, common problems with some of these programs include poor funding and understaffing, and lack of public awareness or a dedicated phone number to easily divert calls away from police.
“Police responding to people experiencing a mental health crisis can create harm.”
But Knoxville’s program is different, because social workers aren’t working independently—they’re embedded with the police. It’s the type of collaboration that many social workers object to as unethical.
The source of the grant money, the state’s opioid abatement council, also represents something that harm reduction advocates oppose. According to the council’s website, its role is to fund “programs, strategies, expenditures, and other actions designed to prevent and address the misuse and abuse of opioid products and treat or mitigate opioid use or related disorders or other effects of the opioid epidemic.” That money, which could be directly funding increased harm reduction or treatment services, would instead increase the police budget in Knoxville.
Knoxville Heart, a local advocacy group which opposes the the council’s decision, instead supports creating a completely separate “alternative response team.”
“Police responding to people experiencing a mental health crisis can create harm,” the group states. “One way to improve outcomes for people in crisis is to reduce the use of police in response to non-violent 911 calls. This reduces the risk of escalation, police brutality, and arrest, which are all things that negatively impact the physical and mental health of an individual. An alternative response team can respond more more effectively and safely with trauma-informed care.”
The group continues that such a plan would also save the city money by avoiding costs of police overtime and lawsuits. In 2019, it points out, “less than 2% of the calls KPD responded to were for violent crimes against persons,” illustrating the room for alternative responses.
Knoxville has seen other recent controversies related to police department funding. Earlier in January, city lawmakers approved funding to hire two new co-responders, and a $27.5 million contract to continue and update surveillance software being used by the KPD.
Photograph via Knoxville Police Department Facebook page