As the thirteenth largest county in the United States, King County, Washington serves over 2.2 million residents.
The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) embarked on CIT training over 7 years ago. Since then, they have seen a decrease in use of force, calls for service, and SWAT callouts. KCSO seeks to increase the skills and abilities of law enforcement and community partners as it relates to crisis intervention teams. Cohort 2022.
Program Goals
With funding from the grant, KCSO intends to hire a full-time employee to:
- Develop a co-response departmentwide program that would incorporate a comprehensive community-based best practice review of existing CIT programs
- Support KCSO deputies with mental health practitioner (MHP) services
- Develop an adaptive phased program deployment plan that would incorporate additional MHPs who would be assigned to geographic regions based on data and community identified need