PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Katherine Bajuk, Public Defender and Mental Health Specialist at New York County Defender Services (NYCDS)
5:39:39
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132 sec
Katherine Bajuk, a public defender and mental health specialist at New York County Defender Services (NYCDS), testifies about the challenges faced by her clients, who are often people of color with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed mental illnesses. She criticizes the current system of involving police in mental health crises and advocates for the inclusion of peer support specialists in crisis response teams.
- Bajuk highlights the disproportionate impact of the current system on Black and Brown individuals, citing high rates of mental illness among those arrested and incarcerated.
- She emphasizes the importance of peer support specialists in de-escalating crises, building trust, and providing appropriate care without unnecessary hospitalization.
- Bajuk argues for removing police from non-violent mental health calls and implementing CCIT's recommendations to better serve New Yorkers in crisis.
Katherine Bajuk
5:39:39
I'm Catherine Bayou, 30 year public defender and mental health specialist at NYCDS.
5:39:45
My clients, all indigent, mostly black and brown folks, due to bias language barriers, no insurance, stigma, often have un or misdiagnosed mental illness causing crises.
5:39:59
Accessing be heard through 911 over involves untrained and inexperienced with mental illness, police.
5:40:07
There to enforce the penal law, leading to escalation and arrest.
5:40:13
Note 42% of our assault 2 clients involving police, etcetera, are flagged with mental illness.
5:40:20
Incarceration.
5:40:22
Note 50 percent of Ryker's Island detainees have mental illness.
5:40:28
Even death.
5:40:29
Note, Wynn Rizarro and too many others.
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Capetuating historically racist weaponization of psychiatry.
5:40:38
Note a white supremacist devil in the details.
5:40:42
See my footnotes.
5:40:45
Harming, not helping.
5:40:48
Many would never even be clients if we followed CCIT's recommendations and removed police from nonviolent calls and added peers.
5:40:58
Piers are the secret sauce to quickly build trust better, de escalate crises, advocate for the right treatment, avoiding unnecessary and unwanted hospital transports, and instead working with and following up with local providers.
5:41:15
With stable housing, community supports, better treatment plans, yielding more engagement in treatment, less emergencies by addressing what brought the person to crisis in the first place with all we know about historical racism and police violence.
5:41:35
New Yorkers in crisis, my clients, your constituents, deserve to be helped, not harmed.
5:41:43
We must choose a better way.
5:41:46
We must choose peers, not police.
5:41:50
Thank you for your time.
