New Jersey is a national leader in advancing and embracing innovative policing policies. The Alternative Responses to Reduce Instances of Violence and Escalation (ARRIVE) Together program is a prime example of the transformational work being done in New Jersey as communities of all sizes connect residents with the mental health support they need and limit their contacts with the criminal justice system.
Expanding ARRIVE Together. At the start of 2023, ARRIVE was operational in three counties-Atlantic, Cumberland, and Union. By the end of the year, all 21 counties included ARRIVE programming. To get there, law enforcement, mental health partners, and community stakeholders worked together to develop new response models to serve the behavioral and mental health needs of New Jerseyans across the state. In February, municipalities in seven additional counties announced their intention to launch ARRIVE pilots throughout the spring and summer. Following input from community stakeholders, the first ARRIVE follow-up models were also put into place. This model joined the existing ARRIVE co-response and telehealth models. Newark, the state’s largest city, joined ARRIVE in August and established partnership with Newark’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery (OVPTR) that will allow residents be referred to OVPTR for ongoing follow-up mental health and social supports. Union County also became the first county to expand the ARRIVE Together program to all of its municipalities in partnership with all 25 of its law enforcement agencies, including the first implementation of ARRIVE Together on a college campus at Kean University.
Highlighting ARRIVE on a national stage. In May 2023, Attorney General Platkin joined the Brookings Institution to discuss a Brookings study on the ARRIVE Together program, which concluded that the program led to fewer uses of force, arrests, and racial disparities in policing outcomes and more people receiving mental health treatment. The report found ARRIVE Together is “a highly effective program” that reduces arrests and uses of force, reduces disparate race-based outcomes to police encounters, links people experiencing a mental health crisis or in need of mental health resources with the services they need and reduces the workload on law enforcement.”
Celebrating two years of ARRIVE Together. In early December 2023, Attorney General Platkin welcomed Governor Murphy, law enforcement officials, mental health leaders, and community stakeholders from all 21 counties to the Trenton War Memorial to mark the two-year anniversary of the ARRIVE Together program and the expansion of ARRIVE to all 21 New Jersey counties. The anniversary event included stories from ARRIVE team members about ARRIVE responses and how they had impacted their communities and the professional experiences of the ARRIVE partners. Governor Murphy and the Legislature supported ARRIVE from its inception and included $10 million for the program’s expansion in the fiscal year 2024 state budget.
