TESTIMONY
Jennifer Parish on the Failure to Invest in Preventative Services to Reduce Incarceration and its Impact on Mental Health
5:21:14
·
3 min
Jennifer Parish discusses the lack of investment in preventative services and its impact on mental health within the incarcerated population.
- Parish criticizes the mayor's proposed budget for cutting funding for services that have shown success in reducing incarceration, including supervised release and alternatives to incarceration.
- She emphasizes the need for a community-based mental health safety net, noting that 21% of the jail population has a serious mental illness.
- Parish advocates for expanding services like forensic assertive community treatment and justice-involved supportive housing.
- She highlights evidence of the psychological impact of jail conditions and the negative effects on individuals with serious mental illnesses.
- Parish calls for more alternatives to incarceration, especially for those with mental health needs.
Jennifer Parish
5:21:14
Good afternoon.
5:21:15
My name is Jennifer Parish.
5:21:16
I work at the Urban Justice Center Mental Health project.
5:21:19
I'm a member of the halt solitary campaign, the jail's action coalition, and the campaign to close Rutgers.
5:21:25
You would think that the city's legal obligation to close records by 2027 would actually be spurring investment in preventative services and interventions designed to decrease the gel population.
5:21:37
But instead the mayor's proposed budget slashes funding for services that are have demonstrated success in reducing incarceration such as supervised release and alternatives to incarceration.
5:21:48
And what's more of the mayor's budget includes no funding for developing a true community based mental health safety net, which is desperately needed given that 20% of the gel pop actually 21% of the gel population now has a serious mental illness.
5:22:03
We know that forensic act teams, friends like a start of community treatment teams known as act teams, and justice involves supportive housing are effective, but the administration has chosen not to expand those services.
5:22:15
It's vital that the council rely on evidence about what creates actual community safety and provides for individual growth and recovery.
5:22:24
The Department of Correction does not promote public safety.
5:22:26
We know that incarceration has little, in fact, on crime rates, and it can actually lead to increased crime.
5:22:33
Everything possible must be done to keep people out of this harm inducing system.
5:22:38
You have to look no further than the presentation that health and hospital Correctional Health Services presented to the border correction on February 27th.
5:22:46
They talked about the psychological impact of jail itself.
5:22:51
And how that those conditions such as being separated from the community, the disruption it caused, exposure to trauma, loss of control in that unpredictable setting.
5:23:01
All of that leads to anxiety, mood changes, and causes people to have worse mental health conditions than when they came in or to develop on it.
5:23:11
They didn't have that already.
5:23:13
It's shameful that we have about 1300 people who are diagnosed with a serious mental illness on Rikers Island right now.
5:23:20
And what does that look like to them?
5:23:22
I mean, if you look at the the report that the border corrections just recently introduced that was talked about in this hearing about use of chemical agents.
5:23:32
What does it say about how people with serious mental illness are treated?
5:23:35
48% of the cases they looked at involve people with a recent history of being housed in a specialized mental health unit.
5:23:44
That's not even the whole 13 hundred people.
5:23:47
They can't even all qualified to be at a specialized mental health unit.
5:23:50
To be at a specialized mental health unit, you need to be needing serious care and yet 48% of the ones were subjected to chemical spray of the ones that they looked at.
5:24:01
And 16% of the people who were sprayed in those cases had engaged were actually engaged in self harm or had a ligature around their neck.
5:24:10
That's shameful.
5:24:12
In December, the mental health project put out a report to address how all of these systems are really interconnected it.
5:24:19
And we need to find services in the community for people with mental health.
5:24:25
We need to find service that get them out, like forensic assertive community treatment needs.
5:24:30
And we also need to expand alternatives to incarceration that are specifically focused on this population.
5:24:36
You.
