Starting July 16, New York residents dialing 988 will be connected with mental health, suicide prevention, and substance use disorder counselors. This important change to crisis response is part of a wider effort to move away from relying on law enforcement for intervention and shift the focus on attempting to de-escalate callers before forwarding calls to a non-police response system.

At least 18 people experiencing mental health crises have died at the hands of police since 2015, according to a 2021 report by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

Read more at The City.