Law Enforcement and Public Health Collaborations

Law enforcement and public health agencies are building new partnerships and rethinking existing ones to address some of society’s most challenging and deep-rooted problems. People who use drugs, individuals with mental illness, and homeless populations often make up a large proportion of those who have repeat contact with law enforcement and other first responders.

The RTI Center for Policing Research and Investigative Science is implementing and evaluating—with the emergency response and criminal justice systems—a range of strategies, including those focused on improving information sharing, cross-system co-responses, and reduction of the number of individual high utilizers with disproportionately high-repeat contacts. We have experience in evaluating innovative approaches to law enforcement and public health partnerships and strive to promote the collaboration to promote favorable outcomes for persons in need and the agencies that serve them.