A usable path to help
Build a Montana-specific process for severe alcohol and drug crises, with clear criteria for danger or incapacity, clinical assessment and practical guidance for families and first responders.
Community Safety
Safe homes.Strong families.A safer Billings.
Every family deserves to feel safe. In our neighborhoods. In our homes. And when we reach out for help.
Real progress.
More work ahead.
Billings’ reported property-offense count fell from 8,288 in 2021 to 5,071 in 2025. That is a 38.8% decline in this police trend series.
That improvement deserves recognition. But progress is uneven: from 2024 to 2025, property offenses fell 20.6%, while offenses against persons fell 3.3% in the same series.
These are recorded offenses, not a count of every person harmed. Better numbers should be a foundation to build on, not a reason to stop listening.
Source: BPD 2025 Annual Report, Case Offense Trends, PDF p. 15. Changes calculated from the published counts.
Annual counts · BPD’s 2021–2025 trend series
20.6%fewer property offenses
from 2024 to 2025
from 2024 to 2025
Source: BPD 2025 Annual Report, PDF p. 15. Both categories use the same zero-based scale. Counts are not population-adjusted rates.
Read the data and its limits
| Year | Property | Persons |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 8,288 | 2,865 |
| 2022 | 7,859 | 2,719 |
| 2023 | 7,108 | 2,584 |
| 2024 | 6,389 | 2,629 |
| 2025 | 5,071 | 2,543 |
The report’s separate offense table on PDF p. 16 has different totals. We use only the p. 15 trend series here, do not mix the tables and do not use the report’s unreconciled rate columns. The difference needs a public explanation.
2025 is the latest complete police year verified for this page. This is not a claim about 2026 year-to-date crime or proof that a particular program caused the decline.
Better statistics.
Not the whole story.
In the 2026 county survey, 18.7% of adults said they felt only “slightly safe” or “not at all safe” walking alone in their neighborhood.
That share was higher than in the 2020 and 2023 surveys. We need to understand where improved crime statistics have not yet translated into people feeling safer.
This measures perceived safety across Yellowstone County, not the probability of being a crime victim in Billings. It does not contradict the city’s reported-crime decline; the measures and geography differ.
Yellowstone County · Community health survey estimates
Source: 2026 Yellowstone County Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), p. 98. Repeated surveys, not the same people tracked over time.
How to read the county survey
The 2026 CHNA includes 692 adults: 412 randomly sampled responses and 280 community-outreach responses, weighted to the county population. The report gives an overall maximum sampling error of ±3.7 percentage points at 95% confidence.
That margin should not be applied automatically to smaller subgroups and does not capture every possible source of bias. Child measures are reported by an adult, not surveyed directly from children. See CHNA pp. 6–12.
Safety has to
reach our homes.
A community cannot call the job finished while people are being hurt by someone close to them. The county survey found that 18.2% of adults had ever been physically hurt by an intimate partner.
Protection means taking threats seriously, following up after a report and making it possible to reach help. Children and survivors should not disappear into the space between agencies.
Our standard should be fewer repeat victims and safer families, not simply more arrests or closed case files.
Yellowstone County · 2026 survey · Lifetime experience
18.2%
More than 1 in 6 adults surveyed
Source: 2026 Yellowstone County CHNA, p. 97. Self-reported lifetime physical harm, not an annual domestic-violence rate or a count of police reports.
Help has to be
within reach.
Families need more than a phone number or a place on a waiting list. We should know whether the right care is actually available, how long people wait and what happens when they cannot get in.
54.9%
of county adults said their lives had been negatively affected by their own or someone else’s substance use.
Source: 2026 Yellowstone County CHNA, p. 145. Includes “a little,” “somewhat” and “a great deal.” This is not an addiction-prevalence estimate or the share of crimes caused by substances.
13.1%
of respondents with a child under 18 at home reported an unmet child mental-health need in the past year.
Source: 2026 Yellowstone County CHNA, p. 65. Adult proxy report for the prior 12 months, not 13.1% of all county children. This subgroup differs from the all-adult measure alongside it.
These are health and family-impact measures, not evidence that people with mental-health or substance-use needs are inherently dangerous. Accountability and appropriate care both belong in a serious safety strategy.
Before someone
gets hurt.
I will work to bring a Montana version of Florida’s Marchman Act to our state: a clear, recovery-focused path for families to seek assessment and treatment during a dangerous substance-use crisis.
To me, the gaps in our current approach are too important to leave alone. We need a process that families, first responders, courts and care providers can actually use, with strong safeguards and somewhere appropriate for a person to receive care.
This is a campaign goal, not an enacted Montana law or a promise that involuntary treatment will prevent every crisis. The goal is protection and a chance at recovery, not punishment for having an addiction.
Why this is personal
My father struggles with alcoholism. While I was in Florida, he became so intoxicated that our family was at risk. I was worried about my children, my siblings and myself, and I was worried about him.
My family was able to use Florida’s Marchman Act to get him out of the home and into a care center before anyone was hurt. We did not want him harmed, and we did not want him to harm anyone else.
In his state, I believed a fight was likely. I believe that intervention kept violence from happening and protected all of us, including my father. That experience is why I want Montana families to have a clear path to help before a crisis becomes a tragedy.
John Maxwell · My family’s experience
Protection with due process
Include prompt judicial review, access to counsel, a meaningful standard of evidence and the least restrictive appropriate care. A diagnosis, family disagreement or refusal of treatment alone should not be enough to take away someone’s liberty.
Care that is actually available
Pair the law with funding, trained staff, safe transportation and treatment capacity. An order on paper is not enough if there is no appropriate place to go or no follow-up support after a crisis.
What exists now, and what I want to change
Montana is not starting from nothing. MCA § 53-24-302 already provides an alcohol-focused court commitment process that specified family members and others may petition to use, subject to statutory criteria and rights. It requires a finding that adequate, appropriate and likely beneficial treatment can be provided.
The separate mental-health commitment definition excludes addiction or intoxication alone, while recognizing that a mental disorder can co-occur with chemical dependency (MCA § 53-21-102). That distinction matters when a crisis centers on substance use rather than a qualifying mental disorder.
Florida’s Marchman Act provides for involuntary substance-use assessment and treatment when legal criteria are met. Its criteria include loss of self-control due to substance use together with specified impaired-judgment or serious-harm conditions; refusal of services alone is not enough (Florida Statutes § 397.675).
My proposal is to learn from that approach, modernize Montana’s substance-use framework and make it workable here, not simply copy Florida’s law. The details need Montana constitutional and clinical review, input from families and people with lived experience, and a funded implementation plan. The personal account above describes my experience, not a guarantee of outcomes for other families.
Support the people
doing the work.
Billings’ Community Service Officers handled 8,582 incidents in 2025, up 35.1% from 2024. The annual report describes a team of ten nonsworn CSOs.
Their duties include cold property-crime reports, minor crashes, traffic control and investigative support. That is meaningful work, and it deserves to be measured honestly.
More incidents handled does not tell us how many crimes were prevented or how many sworn-officer hours were saved. We should track those outcomes, not assume them.
Billings Police Department · Annual workload counts
Source: BPD 2025 Annual Report, PDF p. 29. Incident workload, not unique residents, arrests or convictions. Percentage change calculated from published counts.
Incidents and cases are different measures
The same report lists 1,867 CSO cases in 2023, 2,133 in 2024 and 1,985 in 2025. Incidents rose in the last year while cases fell. These measures should not be added together or treated as interchangeable.
CSOs are nonsworn staff, distinct from sworn school-resource, downtown or domestic-violence officers. The chart does not establish that the CSO program caused the citywide crime decline.
A report is only
the beginning.
Safety also depends on what happens after someone calls: timely response, a usable report, a real investigation and a fair resolution. We need to know where that process still breaks down.
Get current answers on old delays
The December 2024 independent assessment described about 600 backlogged case reports at its August visit and nearly six weeks for non-custody reports to reach a detective. Those findings call for a current progress report, not an assumption that the same backlog exists today.
CPSM assessment, December 2024, pp. 66–67. Historical findings; not verified September 2026 conditions.
Follow a child’s case through the system
Montana’s 2026 federal review identified gaps in safety planning and access to services across its reviewed sites. We should be able to see whether children are reached promptly, kept safe and protected from repeat harm.
Montana Child and Family Services Review, March 2026. A multi-site review including Billings, not a Billings-wide failure rate.
Plan for the whole justice system
Detention planning has to account for staffing, health care and how long cases take to move through court. We should evaluate secure capacity alongside timely hearings, defense and prosecution resources, and appropriate supervision.
Context: Yellowstone County Jail Needs Assessment and August 2026 addendum. This page does not endorse or oppose a bond or levy. Proposed beds are not the same as currently staffed capacity.
Fewer people hurt.
That is the goal.
We can support the people protecting our community and still demand better results. Our fight is for a system that helps families before, during and after a crisis.
Protect survivors and children
Push for timely follow-up, clear handoffs between agencies and access to advocacy, safe housing and care. Measure repeat harm and whether people actually reach help, while protecting their privacy.
Intervene before a crisis becomes a tragedy
Work toward a Montana version of the Marchman Act, with clear legal standards, due process and funded care. Make access real by tracking staffed capacity, wait times, turnaways and follow-up support.
Support effective, fair public safety
Focus on deployable staffing, useful CSO support, timely investigations and fair case resolution. Accountability must include due process, public trust and outcomes, not simply the number of arrests.
Show the public what is working
Seek a clear, regularly updated scorecard: reported crime, response times, family protection, care access and case delays. Reconcile conflicting figures and use matching dates before claiming a trend.
These are campaign priorities, not claims of enacted legislation or programs already delivered. State government, local agencies, courts and service providers have different responsibilities; lasting progress requires working across them.
A safer future.
For every family.
We should not have to choose between recognizing progress and facing what still needs to change. Our families deserve both: honest answers and a community that refuses to leave them behind.
Evidence reviewed September 21, 2026. Police counts refer to Billings; health surveys refer to Yellowstone County. Dates and definitions stay with each chart. This page is a focused summary of the supplied community-safety research, not a complete inventory of local harm or services.