Portland had a similar program. It worked GREAT. (I am out of the city and have not kept up. Some form of it may still be a thing.)
Now, in that program they could hold you for 72 hours tops. No criminal record, no arrest, just a record private to that program for maintaining patient history. No attorneys, no bail, nothing. Outreach staff were deputies well trained in deescalation and conflict resolution as well as EMT and other related first responder skills. They do not perform law enforcement and need their status to execute the program tasks only.
We used to do that with law enforcement. We don't today. Some say we should. Some say we can't. No judgement from me. That is just the current lay of the land we all live with today.
These programs offer a strong, effective, humane option and they save a lot of money.
It saw a lot of use dealing with the following:
Drugs and alcohol inebriation, violence and general inability to do self care.
Homeless
Mentally Ill
Temporary mental distress.
Say one ends up there flat out hammered. Ok, you stay, until you aren't. Same for most drug scenarios.
The primary criteria for release? Not being hammered and or not being an asshole. This was the right thing to do almost every time too.
Worked great as a more serious crime prevention, and self harm reduction.
They could escalate to the court system, or a hospital, and or begin treatment at the integrated detox facility. All anyone need do was ask.
For homelessness, it typically required something be going on, like people going to die, or who were otherwise at some grave risk.
Those people could also just reach out. A ride in the van later, they can clean up, sober up, and then tap social services, or get into a shelter, temp housing, depending, or detox.
Police could DEescalate to this program as well and did so frequently.
People served by this program did not get criminal records, nor did they get a mental health record.
What they did get was help, and where it made sense, some tough love, and hard, lucid talk.
A significant percentage of the staff were former street people who had entered the program, got themselves good and then stuck around to help others. These people really matter. They have been there and are highly effective.
At the time, it was nationally recognized as a strong alternative to the typical judicial system grinder chewing lives up rather than lifting them out.
Here is something one of those people told me, and before I write it, I have in depth knowledge of the program via my spouse who worked front line outreach for many years:
Help buys time. Real help is sans judgement too. Time is what people in trouble need. When they get it, they have an opportunity to make different choices, and when they do, they are no longer people in trouble.
They become people getting out of trouble, improving. This is what they, and everyone else really need.
Nobody knows what reaches people. We only know when we continue to try some of them are reached and when we try harder, with genuine concern and zeal, more are reached.
Just reaching someone often is not enough. They fall back, need more time.
This is as good as it all gets.
Being human can really suck. Us lucky ones, who do not currently experience that suckage can count ourselves lucky and also for the help we may one day, ourselves need.
That, at the core, is what these programs and others like them are, or need to be about. When they are, they work.
Simple as that.