Data shows reduction of crime-related calls

Over the last two decades, LSU Health Shreveport faculty have seen a threefold increase in psychiatric care, despite a declining population. To better understand the growing demand for crisis services and its connection to emergency response systems, the LSUHS Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine entered into a Data Use Agreement with the Caddo Parish 911 Center to analyze call data. This work began in 2020, when the Shreveport Police Department partnered with LSU Health Shreveport to enhance officer training in crisis intervention.

Through a secure data-sharing agreement with the city of Shreveport, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office and Caddo Parish 911, LSU Health Shreveport receives raw 911 call data directly from the call center on a quarterly basis. The data is analyzed independently by LSUHS researchers to identify trends. Using advanced visualization tools on large-scale datasets, the team categorizes calls as criminal or non-criminal and validates these classifications with SPD to ensure accuracy.

“Our job is not to judge this data, but to interpret it,” said Laura Baxter, LPC-S, LMFT, NCC, research and development project coordinator for the LSUHS Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. “We’re here to analyze these results, show trends and inform our leaders so that they can decide what needs to change.”

The latest analysis of Q1, Q2 and Q3 2025 shows that approximately 75% of all 911 calls in Caddo Parish are non-criminal in nature. This finding exemplifies the expanding role of law enforcement as first responders to mental health crises, welfare checks and other noncriminal concerns. Further analysis reveals that roughly 65% of law enforcement time and resources are devoted to non-criminal calls, highlighting the significant impact this call behavior has on police workload and our community’s safety infrastructure.

The data show that Caddo Parish has experienced a significant reduction in a specific type of call: shootings. Shooting-related 911 calls decreased 58% over the last five years. In addition, there is an overall 18% decrease in all types of crime-related calls.

While the data revealed encouraging trends, it also identifies areas of concern. Crisis intervention calls have increased significantly, a change attributed in part to improved reporting by local law enforcement.

These new practices, adapted after 2020, more accurately report mental health-related emergencies. Until recently, these mental health crisis calls frequently resulted in hospitalizations or even incarceration, with no other rapid treatment option. This limited crisis response system not only created unsustainable demands on our overburdened law enforcement and health care systems but also forced individuals in crisis to be involuntarily separated from support systems and livelihoods to obtain care.

As a result of a multi-year community partnership led by LSU Health Shreveport, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Shreveport Police Department, Caddo Parish 911 and the Louisiana Office of Behavioral Health, a new crisis response option is now being provided by the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (CADA). Mobile crisis response teams can now respond to a person in crisis, bringing evidence-based treatment and support directly to the person immediately after the call. This critical expansion of the crisis response system represents a major public health improvement for the Shreveport community.