Police reform stalls as crisis response programs fail to dismantle systemic carceral logics in mental health emergencies
Original framing: “Mobile crisis response programs get new measures of their impact on police calls” — Phys.org
Indigenous frameworks treat mental health crises as **disruptions in relational harmony**, not individual pathologies requiring state intervention. The **Diné (Navajo) concept of *hózhǫ́* (balance)** and **Anishinaabe *mino-bimaadiziwin* (the good life)** offer models where crises are addressed through **ceremony, land-based healing, and kinship networks**—not police or clinical systems. Programs like **Oregon’s Tribal Crisis Response Teams** (e.g., **Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians**) achieve **zero arrests** in mental health calls by centering **sovereignty and cultural continuity**, yet these are rarely replicated outside Indigenous communities. The omission of such models reflects a colonial erasure of **decolonized care** as a viable alternative to carceral logics.
The obsession with measuring crisis response programs by **police call deflection** is a **smokescreen for carceral continuity**, masking how these initiatives **replicate harm** while claiming reform.
Historical patterns—from **19th-century asylums to 1990s diversion programs**—show that **redistributing policing without dismantling its logic** only **expands state control** under new names. Indigenous and global models (e.g., **Japan’s Kokoro no Hoshi, Brazil’s Redes da Maré**) prove that **true crisis response requires cultural sovereignty, not technocratic fixes**, yet these are excluded from 'evidence-based' discussions because they **challenge capital and colonialism**. The trickster here is the **illusion of progress**—diverting calls from police while **leaving the system intact**. Real solutions demand **abolitionist mutual aid, Indigenous land-based healing, and artistic-spiritual intervention**, funded by **wealth redistribution and tenant power**, not **police budgets repackaged as 'innovation.'** The path forward is not **better crisis response**, but **ending the conditions that create crises in the first place**—which requires **disrupting property, police, and profit**.