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An agreement between Williamsport's city government and Redka Behavior Services is a promising sign of what diligence, compromise and understanding nuance can accomplish.
The deal, approved by city council at a September meeting, will place licensed mental health professionals with police officers on calls that are more likely to involve mental illnesses. The agreement also will provide police officers with additional training.
When it's the most reasonable course, people with mental ailments will be connected to social services to help them manage their conditions, sparing them the burden of the criminal justice system -- and sparing taxpayers the expense of prosecution and either probation or incarceration.
Police Chief Justin Snyder also noted that the use of behavioral professionals will free up officers so they can respond to calls more quickly and efficiently.
The expenses will be covered by a grant through the state's Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
We are grateful that our city's Bureau of Police have embraced this opportunity.
We always were confident that the overheated and divisive rhetoric that troubled our country the last few years -- such as calls to "defund the police" -- would have little traction in our region.
With this agreement, and the support the department's leadership has expressed for it, we can say Williamsport is trying a better way out.
Instead of "defunding the police," Williamsport is providing new tools, training and specialized professionals to assist on calls where the assistance will appear most warranted.
Williamsport, instead, will augment the police, improve the police and, yes, even support the police.