RECOMMENDATION 1
Prioritize alternatives to arrest
Recommendation
Law enforcement should prioritize alternatives to arrest, and connections to services, for women who do not pose a serious threat to public safety.
Rationale
Police officers are responsible for addressing public safety threats in the community, but they are also frequently called upon to respond to a wide range of non-criminal situations that can extend beyond the scope of their role. These calls may require them to de-escalate interpersonal conflicts, assist people experiencing mental health or substance use disorder episodes, or respond to unmet social needs. In many jurisdictions, law enforcement officers are often the only responders available around the clock. Community-based services may be limited or inaccessible, resulting in few viable alternatives to effectively address any needs driving behaviors that prompt calls for help.
On calls involving a weapon, or when de-escalation tactics cannot effectively diffuse a dangerous situation, arrest may be law enforcement’s best chance at protecting public safety. In many other cases, however, arrest may not be necessary.
Enhancing the suite of options available to law enforcement during crises involving behavioral health or social needs could improve outcomes for women and families while protecting public safety. Several models show promise:
- Co-Responder Models pair law enforcement officers with trained clinicians (either embedded in police departments or from a separate community-based organization) to jointly respond to 911 calls involving mental health or substance use concerns. Although evidence about the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of co-responder teams is limited, some studies have found that these models can help de-escalate crises, reduce arrests and use of force, and facilitate connections to behavioral health services.²⁰
- Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) provides officers the option to refer people to intensive case management and supportive services in lieu of arrest for low-level offenses related to behavioral health or social service needs. The model was first implemented in Seattle, where it has been associated with statistically significant reductions in arrest and felony charges among participants, as well as improved housing and employment outcomes.²¹ Evaluations of similar diversion programs in Chicago show other benefits, such as reductions in recidivism and the collateral consequences of court involvement.²²
- Citations—commonly known as “cite and release”—may also be used in lieu of arrests for nonviolent or lower-level offenses. This allows people to remain in the community while awaiting their court date, reducing the often harmful and disruptive effects of jail, particularly for women.²³ Some law enforcement agencies also report that citations are a more cost-effective and efficient alternative to custodial arrest, reducing the time spent on each incident by over an hour.²⁴
- Alternative First Response Models, such as community responders or mobile crisis units, dispatch behavioral health or social service professionals to address social service needs, quality of life concerns, or other non-criminal behavior.²⁵ Research on the longest-running mobile crisis program in the U.S. shows positive outcomes, such as a 13% reduction in arrests and a 12% increase in outpatient behavioral health visits, compared to a standard law enforcement response.²⁶ The program, based in Eugene, OR, reports saving the city roughly $8.5 million in public safety spending per year and has an annual cost of about $2.1 million.²⁷ A study of a similar model in Denver found that the direct costs of a traditional police response to people in crisis are four times greater than those of trained civilian first responders.²⁸
Community Responses to Women in Crisis
The Council on Criminal Justice released a publication in October 2025 titled Supporting women in crisis: A review of community responses and research gaps. This publication reviews independent, community-based response models as well as law enforcement co-response models and outlines future research opportunities.
In general, research indicates that arrest diversion and deflection tend to reduce recidivism and produce cost savings for criminal justice agencies,²⁹ particularly for nonviolent misdemeanor offenses.³⁰ More research is needed to determine the outcomes of these alternatives for women specifically, but their use is growing and shows promise.³¹
Rethinking where and how law enforcement efforts are prioritized opens up opportunities to explore alternative public safety service models. This is especially important for women, whose justice involvement often stems from needs related to mental health, substance use, and victimization. Many jurisdictions are testing different approaches to respond to behavioral health crises, homelessness, and domestic violence, shifting the emphasis from law enforcement to community members and specialized human service professionals.³²
Reducing the use of custodial arrest can also minimize the well-documented negative effects of women’s incarceration on children. Children experience profound trauma from parental arrest and incarceration, and women are often primary caregivers. When an arrest is necessary, law enforcement can follow formalized procedures to minimize the impacts on children, including avoiding handcuffing, questioning, or displaying a weapon in front of the child; refraining from forcefully separating a child from a parent; and allowing a parent to comfort the child. Officers can also work with the parent to determine arrangements for the care of the child.³³
Enhancing the suite of options available to law enforcement during crises involving behavioral health or social needs could improve outcomes for women and families while protecting public safety.
Some police calls, such as those involving nonviolent or lower-level crimes, pose minimal threats to public safety. In these cases, which frequently involve women, officers should use their discretion to utilize alternatives to arrest and connect women to appropriate community-based services.³⁴
Mandatory Arrest Policies
The federal Violence Against Women Act, enacted as part of the 1994 Crime Bill, incentivized mandatory arrest policies, which require law enforcement officers to make an arrest when responding to domestic violence calls. The policies are intended to ensure that law enforcement responds to the severity of domestic violence incidents, while removing from victims the burden—and potential risk—of deciding whether to pursue an arrest.
Research suggests that mandatory arrest can lead to unintended consequences, including an increase in unnecessary arrests of victims and survivors of domestic violence, who are disproportionately female.³⁵ Research also suggests that primary aggressor provisions, which require law enforcement to determine and arrest the most significant instigator in a conflict, may not reduce instances in which both the primary aggressor and the victim are arrested,³⁶ and that mandatory arrest laws likely do not deter future incidents.³⁷
Some jurisdictions are now taking steps to improve the effectiveness of domestic violence policing.³⁸ While increasing law enforcement’s use of alternative strategies for handling domestic violence incidents may improve outcomes for justice-involved women, more research is needed to assess which approaches are effective and maintain public safety.
Implementation Steps
1
Jurisdictions should establish alternatives to traditional law enforcement first response for calls-for-service that involve behavioral or other social service needs when safe to do so, which may include:
- Co-responder models that pair law enforcement officers with clinicians and/or social service providers to resolve incidents involving behavioral health conditions or other social service needs, or to facilitate connections to services for victims following incidents of domestic violence; and
- Community responder models that dispatch teams of trained civilians, typically healthcare and/or social service professionals, in response to low-risk calls-for-service that can be safely addressed without police presence.
2
Law enforcement agencies should expand the availability and use of pre-arrest diversion when consistent with public safety by:
- Formally partnering with social service providers to establish community-based services that will accept referrals; and
- Realigning incentives for officers (e.g., performance evaluation metrics, overtime pay policies, funding priorities, quotas) to encourage diversion and community-based off-ramps in lieu of arrest when the risk to public safety is considered low.
3
Law enforcement and other first responders should receive training and education to:
- Increase understanding of domestic violence and apply trauma-informed responses to such incidents;
- Build awareness of available alternatives to arrest, including the use of citations and summons; and
- Assess individuals’ suitability for diversion, including evaluating risks to public safety and identifying those for whom the risks associated with arrest are high (e.g., pregnant women, primary caregivers, people with disabilities, etc.).
4
Law enforcement agencies should adopt protocols and trainings to safeguard the well-being of children during the arrest of a parent. For example, agencies should implement protocols in accordance with federal guidance for prioritizing arrest without the use of restraints when a child is present and determining the appropriate caregiver placement for a child.³⁹
5
Officials at all levels of government should support funding for alternative first response and law enforcement diversion programs.
- The federal government should encourage the establishment, expansion, and evaluation of such programs through grants from the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services.
- State legislatures and city councils should appropriate sufficient funding to scale and sustain these programs.
- State Medicaid programs should include coverage of behavioral health and crisis response services.
6
Researchers should rigorously evaluate alternative first response and law enforcement diversion programs, with a focus on assessing the impact on women.
Data Gaps and Opportunities
Data on the following indicators, disaggregated by sex and race, are critical to understanding the use and effectiveness of alternatives to arrest for women who do not pose a serious threat to public safety:
- Nature of the incident to which law enforcement is responding, such as substance use, mental health crisis, or domestic violence episode
- Outcomes of co-responder, crisis response, and diversion models, including rates of arrest, use-of-force, social service referral and utilization, and cost-effectiveness
- Characteristics of clients served by co-responder, crisis response, or diversion models, compared to those who received a standard law enforcement response
- Law enforcement contacts with primary caregivers, pregnant women, and parents whose children are physically present, including the outcomes of such contacts (i.e., citation, arrest, etc.)
