PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Cassandra Kelly, Attorney at Legal Aid Society's Criminal Law Reform Policy Unit
4:28:34
·
146 sec
Cassandra Kelly from the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Law Reform Policy Unit testified about the negative consequences of police involvement in mental health crisis responses. She emphasized the need for a non-police, public health-based approach to mental health crises.
- Kelly highlighted the harm caused by the current system, including police violence and unnecessary criminalization of individuals in mental health crises.
- She called for the removal of NYPD from mental health crisis responses and investment in community-based mental health services.
- The testimony referenced written objections to the B-HEARD program and suggested alternatives based on harm reduction principles and peer support.
Cassandra Kelly
4:28:34
Good afternoon.
4:28:35
My name is Cassandra Kelly, and I'm an attorney at the League League League Society's Criminal Law Reform Policy Unit.
4:28:40
I the legal aid society, we see the profound consequences of over policing, especially in generally under resourced communities that so many neighborhoods we represent come from.
4:28:50
A 911 call from mental health assistance is often met by cops with guns who have no insight into how to deescalate the situation or connect that person to recovery based mental health care and support.
4:29:02
Police have killed and injured too many of our community members during these encounters, and they are almost never held accountable.
4:29:08
If people survive these police encounters, they are routinely thrown into the criminal legal system.
4:29:13
They meet our lawyers and our social workers in filthy city arraignment booths, traumatized, and further decompensated by their sudden and sometimes violent arrest and detention.
4:29:23
All lawyers have to explain to these New Yorkers that impossibly inhumane situation they are in, that their mental health crisis resulted in their arrest, and that legally it must now fight to keep them off the irreparably dangerous Rikers Island.
4:29:37
This should never be the path for our neighbors in crisis and in need of care.
4:29:42
It is essential that we remove the NYPD from mental health crisis response once overall, continuing to send police to respond to mental health crisis, send a message, that the city does not care about the lives, safety, or dignity of people living with mental illness.
4:29:56
And given the NYPD documented history of racial discrimination and violence, the threat to the lives of Black and Brown New Yorkers with mental illness is especially high.
4:30:05
The criminal ecosystem causes harm and is not the answer to public crisis.
4:30:09
Instead, we need to invest in a non police public health based response to mental health crises that use harm reduction principles, centers, peers who understand and live with mental illness, as frontline workers and ensures that New Yorkers get immediately connected to recovery based mental health care and support.
4:30:25
We must also invest in robust community based mental health services that help prevent escalation by escalation and crisis by providing daily affordable access to mental health services and additional funding and support for a start of community treatments like Act.
4:30:39
In our written testimony, we expand upon these objections to the BEHARD program and our suggestions for investment, but I will refer you to the analysis provided by our friends at Communities United for Police Reform, who have analyzed the gaps and identified solutions that will move us out of a cultural approach to crisis situations and into a public health based mental health crisis response.
4:30:59
Thank you.
