SACO, Maine — Several Maine police departments have been hiring mental health professionals to help alleviate the load on officers and direct people in crisis to the help they need faster and more efficiently.
Saco is the latest department to contract with Spurwink to add a community engagement specialist. The role is designed to help people who need resources like housing, food, or mental health support. Shannon Bentley started with the department at the beginning of March.
"Most people with mental illness are not dangerous," Bentley said. "A lot of it is co-responding with police to mental health calls or substance use calls or really anything. There is so much more needed in the mental health world."
Bentley also helps follow up with people that officers interact with overnight. She has worked in crisis response in Kennebec, Somerset and Cumberland counties.
Saco police Chief Jack Clements said Bentley's work is already making a difference.
"She's been busy every day. Every day," Clements said. "I don't know of a profession out there that's been asked to add more things to the playbook than law enforcement has in the last 30 years. We're asking a lot, and I think obviously what police officers across the country will tell you is it's so much that we need help. We need help."
In 2021, Saco police responded to 233 calls related to mental health. Those numbers do not include cases in which someone with mental health struggles committed a crime, such as assault or theft, the chief said.
"We're probably up toward 400 when you factor everything in. Well, that's a clue. We need to do something," Clements said.
Clements and Bentley said many of the people these community engagement specialists interact with need help, not jail.
"The reality is, the criminal justice system is not where these folks belong," Clements said.
"I don't think any family member wants their loved one, son or daughter or whoever, to be charged with a crime because of mental illness," Bentley said. "I think every town should have one."
Biddeford has two community engagement specialists. Clements said cities and towns like Scarborough, Old Orchard, and York also hired them.
The Portland Police Department has its own Behavioral Health Unit, and it had an open application for a new alternative response liaison as of March 24.