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New York policymakers and the public are being encouraged to believe that we have to choose between policies that either improve public safety or that protect the rights of people with mental illnesses. In fact, we can do both.

We all want to help stop the suffering of people in severe states of crisis. We all want to support them as they get off the streets and into safer homes and healthier lives. But we can do this without extending policies that deploy police to make what are termed “mental hygiene arrests” and initiate involuntary treatment.

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Too often, these interventions send innocent people who lack adequate food, shelter and clothing on traumatizing trips to hospitals that don’t provide any of these, and that all too often send them out in........

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