Cambridge Seeks to Send Social Workers to Respond to Some Emergency Calls Instead of Police

Cambridge, Mass., is currently working to implement a system which would send a team of unarmed social workers to respond to some emergency 911 calls instead of police.

The new program seeks to deploy members of the city’s Community Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) team to certain calls involving non-violent crimes and mental health crises.

According to the Boston Globe, Cambridge’s new program will be the only one of its kind in the state, because, unlike similar programs in which social workers respond alongside police, the CARE team will not be accompanied by police when they are deployed.

The plan is, the Globe reports, to have the social workers responding to ten different emergency codes, although negotiations with the city have not yet concluded, and the details have yet to be fully solidified.

The CARE team does handle the removal of used syringes found in public city spaces, a task which was previously assigned to the fire department.

Under the proposal, the team would respond to loitering complaints, according to the Globe, but it is unclear how the team of unarmed social workers would handle the situation if a homeless loiterer became belligerent, and it is unclear if they would have any means of removing the loiterer other than asking nicely.

The team will also be responsible for informing loved ones of family deaths, unless the deaths were the result of homicides.

According to a press release from mid-May, the CARE team was planning to start responding to 911 calls in “late spring.”

The Globe’s Monday article claimed that the CARE team has not yet started responding to emergency calls.

The Maine Wire reached out to the Cambridge police department to determine whether the team had begun responding to 911 calls, and was told that they began responding to calls months ago.

The CARE team’s recent press release, however, suggests that either the officer who spoke to The Maine Wire was incorrect, or that she was referring only to the needle pickup program rather than the team responding to emergency calls.

Some achievements of the CARE team highlighted by the Globe include giving a homeless woman water and snacks, helping a homeless man acquire an ID, and praying with a crying woman.

The new program has reportedly received support from Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine Elow, and the city is engaged in negotiations with police unions.

According to the city’s website, the CARE team is currently looking to hire three new employees.

A report from the Harvard Crimson, which claims that three members of the CARE team were fired in January, although no reason for the firing was provided, suggested that the three open spaces are meant to replace the fired social workers.

The CARE team comes, in part, as a response to calls for a similar program following the death of George Floyd in 2020, a death which sparked months of violent rioting across the country spurred on by Black Lives Matter, and which led to widespread anti-police sentiments from many who believe that police brutality is a common, racially motivated issue.

Those calls were amplified in Cambridge after the fatal 2023 shooting of Arif Faisal, a 20-year-old who jumped out of an apartment window holding a large knife.

Faisal then approached police with the knife, while refusing to comply to demands from officers that he drop the weapon.

After non-lethal attempts to subdue Faisal failed, police were forced to shoot and kill him.

Despite a judge ruling that the shooting was “objectively reasonable,” it nevertheless sparked outrage, and increased the demand for unarmed social workers to respond to emergency calls, rather than police.

It is unclear how the unarmed social workers would have fared in Faisal’s case, when faced with a man approaching with a knife and lacking any means of defending themselves.