Gordon-Booth Improves Mental Health Response Bill

4/26/2022; UPDATED: 5/12/2022

Back in February, State-Rep for Peoria Jehan Gordon-Booth held a press conference with Peoria Police Department Chief Eric Echevarria announcing a new police program called the ‘Police Plus Mental Health Emergency Response Pilot.’ This legislation mainly focused on creating a special team of police officers and social workers that work with survivors of crimes who may have mental/behavioral/developmental disabilities.

However, the way the bill was written initially, it could have allowed for a co-response model (first responders comprised of both police and social workers) for incidents where no crime occurs. This would have conflicted with the Community Emergency Services & Support Act (CESSA), signed into law last year, which mandates a non-police response for noncriminal mental/behavioral/developmental crisis. CESSA will create alternative first responders or crisis teams for communities across the state. These teams will ensure that such crisis are interpreted as issues of public health and not instances of criminality/threats to public safety.

Several organizers in Peoria and Central Illinois reached out to Gordon-Booth regarding these concerns. In response, Gordon-Booth amended the language of the bill to remove any potential conflicts with CESSA. “The goal of the co-responder model is to be complementary to CESSA,” Gordon-Booth said. “We’re clearly looking to serve the same population, to be able to provide better service to our constituencies. But all situations don’t work for all people.” State-Representative Gordon-Booth listened to her constituents and improved this piece of legislation.

It’s important to be clear on what exactly this bill does. First, this is NOT a first responder policy; this is a follow-up response policy. This unit will only perform follow-up visits to victims of crimes with mental/behavioral/development disabilities. Second, even the name of the bill as a “co-responder” model is misleading. The legislation states that only social workers will follow-up with victims of crimes, not social workers & police together. Finally, all nonvoilent/noncriminal mental/behavioral/developmental calls for emergency service must be responded to by crisis teams WITHOUT police presence per CESSA.

The amended bill, HB 4736, will create pilot programs in four cities: Peoria, Springfield, East St. Louis, and Waukegan

HB4736 passed both chambers on April 8, the final day of session. The state budget, which also passed April 8, allocates $10 million dollars for the implementation of the Co-Responders Pilot Program. Police departments in the four test cities will have six months to establish the programs upon Pritzker’s signing, the date of which has yet to be announced.

GETTING PLAYED IN PEORIA