After conducting a monthslong analysis, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership has released its Evanston Community Responder Report. The report recommends ways the city can better manage its response to low-risk 911 calls, Evanston Police Department announced in a Friday news release.

The city initially contracted with LEAP, a nonprofit that works with municipalities on criminal justice reform policies, in October 2022 to “research and recommend new alternatives to respond to low-priority 911 calls.” Since then, LEAP has worked alongside the city’s Reimagining Public Safety Committee to explore community response alternatives by analyzing city 911 call data, meeting with EPD and residents, looking into community responder programs in other cities and more.

The final report recommends the city establish a community responder program housed within the Parks and Recreation Department to respond to 911 calls that do not require medical or police attention.

The report calls for the city to hire six teams of two community responders each, prioritizing diversity, community ties and de-escalation skills in applicants. The proposed program would be staffed by a program director and support staff. This structure would allow the city to “provide in-person responses 24/7 to most eligible situations,” the report reads.

“Based on our data analysis, we have determined that community responders have the potential to handle over 9,800 calls each year, or approximately 36% of all calls for service currently handled by Evanston police,” the report reads. “Police currently spend about 5,000 hours per year handling these calls.”

LEAP has already helped establish community responder programs in several other cities across the country. National interest in alternatives to policing has increased “in response to widespread public outrage over the deaths of Americans during encounters with law enforcement, particularly the death of George Floyd,” the city’s press release said.

Evanston also has begun implementing other mental health response programs, like the Trilogy FACT mobile crisis team, which responds in-person to mental and behavioral health crises. 

Evanston residents also voted for a Mental Health First Aid Training program as the first-place winner of the city’s recent participatory budgeting election.

The full LEAP report is available on the city’s website.

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Twitter: @lilylcarey

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