Lieutenant Steven Thomas joined the Anne Arundel County Police Department in Maryland as a patrol officer in 1996. His passion for community policing and experience connecting people to resources led to his current position as the department’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) coordinator.

Over your nearly 30 years of law enforcement experience, what is the biggest change you’ve seen regarding law enforcement’s interaction with individuals on the street who have mental and substance use disorders?

In the late ’90s, when I was a patrol officer in our Northern District, the police department rolled out mobile crisis teams as an innovative alternative for people in crisis. Now, using mobile crisis teams to address core issues prompting behaviors is the norm. The entire culture of the police department has changed in that behavioral health responses are completely accepted and expected. We recognize the challenges people are facing and their need for support.

In 2014, we started our CIT program, which integrated a sergeant and two officers into the crisis response system. Since then, we’ve increased our number of mobile crisis teams and care coordinators. We’ve also established a jail diversion program for linking people being held for bail review who screen positive for mental health conditions or substance use disorders to appropriate treatment.

Proactive police leadership fueled this growth, but it’s also true that necessity is the mother of invention. In March 2017, our county experienced more than 20 overdoses and multiple deaths in a single weekend. The following Monday, we established our Safe Stations program in partnership with the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative. Residents of Anne Arundel County can go to any police or fire station in the county or call the Community Warmline for help with their recovery. An officer and a clinician respond, helping eliminate barriers to treatment. The program was effective in its mission of keeping people alive and, unexpectedly, cut our crime rate in half.

More recently, Anne Arundel County established a mental health court, which further advances our goal of a person-centered, rather than a system-centered, approach.

How do you define community policing, and what does that work mean to you?

Community policing is more than working with a community; it’s being part of a community. The community’s challenges, issues, and crises are your challenges, issues, and crises.

I live in the neighborhood I grew up in, and my whole family still lives in the area, but neither is a prerequisite for being part of a community. If you are a newcomer to the area you patrol, you may need to work a little harder to be accepted. Be open-minded and accept people for who and where they are. It all comes down to being someone the community can relate to. Around here, I’m known as “Steve,” not “Lieutenant Thomas.”

I consider myself a peace officer. Being helpful, not hurtful, is always at the forefront. How can I help people when they need it the most? It may be as simple as listening to someone who needs to talk through a tragedy. Or it may be recognizing deviant behavior as a response to trauma and figuring out what support can prevent that behavior from reoccurring.

The criminal justice system affects many different groups in our communities. How do you address this within the work you do in Anne Arundel County?

Anne Arundel County comprises urban, rural, and military sectors. Each has its unique challenges. We have communities that want help but have difficulty accessing it due to limited transportation or inexperience navigating the healthcare system. Other communities are challenged by the stigma surrounding seeking recovery help. Regardless of circumstance, everyone deserves to know that it’s okay not to be okay and there is a path forward.

We individualize our responses to the needs of each person. For example, we work with public defenders and state attorneys to expedite cases or recall warrants so individuals can enter treatment more quickly. For individuals who are not ready to accept help, we present and explore their options, as well as risks associated with being unwell. The key is treating people as individuals with specific needs.

People with lived experience are key partners in our efforts to serve individuals with mental and substance use disorders. How has your partnership with people with lived experience evolved into what it is today?

I’ve seen peer support benefit so many people: police officers processing traumatic incidents, individuals with substance use disorder embarking on recovery, newly diagnosed patients seeking strategies for coping with mental health conditions. Its power lies in the insight that only lived experience can generate. As importantly, peer support conveys a sense of hope, of expectancy that things can and will get better.

We’ve normalized the involvement of people with lived experience in our work to the extent that I refer to them as “professionals with lived experience.” They have the professional expertise, which—layered with their personal experience—can be a powerful combination for serving the community.

You have been a past recipient of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation’s Pioneering Spirit Award and were named a top 100 Mental Health First Aid Instructor. Of all your accomplishments, in what do you take greatest pride?

I’m very proud of the many accolades our CIT work has received, from Corporal Allen Marcus’s 2018 CIT International Officer of the Year award, to our unit’s 2020 International CIT of the Year award, to our recent receipt of CIT International’s Platinum Level Certification. Ours is the only regional program in the world to be awarded this highest certification level.

What I hold closest to my heart, however, is Melissa Owens’s inspiring journey. I first met Melissa in 2017, when our CIT unit helped her through an acute manic episode. She expresses her gratitude for this life-saving support by sharing her story with her public-school students, police officers, and the larger community. She founded the Patient Not Prisoner program, for which she received the 2023 Fred Frese CIT People with Lived Experience of the Year award.

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