Santa Barbara Police Chief Says 5150 Holds Should Start January
Police Officers Could Begin Issuing Involuntary Mental Health Holds Beginning Next Year
Santa Barbara Police Chief Kelly Gordon informed the city’s Fire & Police Commission that her officers could be issuing involuntary mental health holds on people deemed a potential threat to themselves or others as soon as this coming January. Gordon explained that she’d never worked for a department before whose officers were not authorized to make such holds.
Santa Barbara County has been unique in the entire State of California this way due to its chronic shortage of acute-care psychiatric beds. Gordon explained that the change will bring help to people in need sooner because city officers will no longer have to wait for county mobile crisis workers to show up to make the 5150 determination, as has been the policy for more than 20 years. That can sometimes take a few hours. During this time, Gordon noted, city officers need to stay on hand to ensure the safety of the individual detained, preventing the officers from responding to other calls. And, she added, making people experiencing mental health crises wait is fraught with its own complications and challenges.
Earlier this February, the county Sheriff’s Office launched a pilot program of its own allowing its officers — under certain highly specific circumstances — to issue 5150 holds. To date, only one such hold has been issued. This number has been cited to rebut widespread fears among emergency-room doctors and mental-health-care administrators that their facilities would be swarmed if law enforcement officers began issuing 5150 holds.
