Topeka ? Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill Wednesday that gives law enforcement officers an alternative to incarcerating someone who is taken into custody due to an emotional crisis brought on by mental illness or substance abuse.

The Crisis Intervention Act would allow people age 18 and older to be placed in a licensed crisis intervention center for up to 72 hours for “emergency observation and treatment,” at the end of which they would have to be released or transferred to another facility such as a state psychiatric hospital or a community hospital authorized to take involuntary admissions.

Douglas County Administrator Craig Weinaug, a vocal advocate of the measure, said the act gives the county a new option as it looks to develop a mental health crisis intervention center in partnership with Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center and other community partners.

“The next step is for the state to write regulations for the licensing to go with a 72-hour hold,” he said. “Then the decision will be made if that is a type of service we would want to include in a crisis center. It’s good to have that option.”

The law puts limits on the circumstances in which a person can continue to be detained. It mandates, for example, that people held in such centers be evaluated by the head of the center within four hours of admission, again within 23 hours, and a third time within 48 hours.

If any of those evaluations shows that the person no longer meets the legal standards for holding someone involuntarily due to mental illness or substance abuse, the center would be required to release the individual.

In addition, the law mandates that the second evaluation be conducted by someone other than the person who conducted the first evaluation.

The bill passed both chambers of the Legislature by unanimous votes earlier this month.