Who Responds to Mental Health Crises? Geographic Overlap in Crisis Response Systems

Amanda Mauri - PhD, University of Maryland Therese Todd, PhD, The Policing Project at New York University Law School presenting at the 2026 Alternative Mobile Services Virtual Conference Growing attention has focused on developing mental health crisis response services that are effective, safe, and sustainable without relying on police as responders. These efforts are often discussed as a single model of “alternative crisis response,” yet in practice two distinct strategies have emerged: the expansion of mobile crisis teams (MCTs) operated by behavioral health organizations and the development of community safety response (CSR) programs housed within local government agencies. Despite rapid growth in both models, little is known about whether MCTs and CSRs serve overlapping populations, how their service areas intersect, or how responsibilities are divided when both operate in the same communities. In this presentation, we describe an active research agenda designed to address these gaps. We first present early findings from a national project overlaying the geographic service areas of MCTs and CSRs to identify communities served by neither model, one model, or both. We then introduce plans to gather complementary qualitative findings from interviews with responders and leadership in jurisdictions where MCTs and CSRs co-exist, focusing on how roles, coordination, and divisions of labor are negotiated in practice. Together, this work offers new insights into how alternative mental health crisis response models overlap, interact, and shape access to non-police crisis care—highlighting implications for system design, coordination, and equity. Amanda I. Mauri is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, School of Public Health. She received her PhDs in political science and health policy from the University of Michigan and completed postdoctoral training at the New York University School of Public Health. Her research focuses on Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, alternatives to police-led crisis response, and their intersection. She has published on these topics in journals such as Milbank Quarterly, JAMA Health Forum, and Psychiatric Services and in reports for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Therese L. Todd is a Provostial Faculty Fellow/Assistant Professor at the New York University School of Law and Policing Project. She holds a PhD in clinical and forensic psychology from the City University of New York Graduate Center through the APA-accredited program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She earned an M.Phil. in Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center and an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College. Dr. Todd’s research focuses on mental health disparities in the criminal legal system. Specifically, she studies how police and communities respond to mental and behavioral health crises, including the more recent proliferation of non-police, Community Safety Response programs in the United States.