REMARKS
Remarks by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on Ending Solitary Confinement
0:06:59
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159 sec
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams shares his perspective on his bill banning solitary confinement in his remarks.
Speaker 2
0:06:59
Thank you so much.
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Peace and blessings.
0:07:00
Love and nice, everyone.
0:07:02
Wanna thank everyone who here, including chiners, congratulations.
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Thank you for your support, speaker Adams, former chair, customer Rivera, all the call sponsors.
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Thank you to all of the families who turned their painted purpose families like Brandon Rodriguez, Lilian Polanco, Khalif Brouder, and so many families that we did not know their names and are still suffering repercussions.
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Thank you to the advocates.
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And my staff among them, Nick Smith, Elizabeth Acevedo, Jeffrey Severe, Gwen Safrin, Solomon, Solomon Acevedo, Elizabeth Montemented to say.
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Especially Veronica Davies and especially Rosie Mendez, who's here, who helped carry this on their back.
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I I just wanna say I think sometimes folks don't realize this stuff really weighs heavily on me.
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I do take a lot of time to make sure I'm listening to what everyone is saying.
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And what this bill fundamentally do, it does.
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Is try to end any vestiges of solitary confinement that still exists, and it tries to change the use of isolation to change behavior.
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Not only has it not been changing behavior, it is known to cause long lasting effects on people.
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That's what this bill does.
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It's not gonna fix everything that's going with the bikers.
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But it is gonna address that one issue hopefully.
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So far, we've had 2 people die in strikers and I wanna make sure we're lifting up the detainees.
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I also wanna make sure I'm lifting up corrections officers who are also in this room and I hear you and I see you and many of them came from the same communities as the detainees.
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I don't want corrections office to be in harm's way.
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I'll put in danger.
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There's been already some arms broken and limbs harmed this year as well.
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And I wanna make sure I could keep putting that on the record Corrections offices, permanent black females being sexually assaulted, doors that are not locking bathrooms in that work, Those are things that we have to talk about as well.
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We see you and we hear you.
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We will not agree on this bill, but it does not mean that what you lift up is not worthy of us addressing and we should and we must.
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With that, I'm hoping this finally ends the messages and the isolation that has been harming to people what is intended to do.
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I look forward to conversations about how we can implement this as successfully and efficiently as possible.
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Thank you, colleagues.
Speaker 1
0:09:25
Thank you, public advocate.
0:09:27
Can I open the floor for any members who wanna say anything?
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This is not your vote.
0:09:32
If you wanna explain your vote, you can explain that, but other other members weren't on the committee if you'd like to say anything.