PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Ray Schwartz, Member of Correct Crisis Intervention Today (CCIT) NYC
4:11:22
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134 sec
Ray Schwartz, a member of Correct Crisis Intervention Today (CCIT) NYC, provided testimony on the city's mental health crisis response. He expressed concerns about the current system, where police still respond to a majority of mental health crisis calls, and advocated for a non-police response to these situations.
- Schwartz has over 40 years of experience in the mental health field across public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
- He questioned why there is a public safety/criminal justice response to what he sees as a public health need.
- Schwartz offered to meet with committee members to review and analyze the city's data on mental health crisis responses.
Ray Schwartz
4:11:22
I think 2 minutes.
4:11:26
Good afternoon.
4:11:27
Thank you, Chesley, Salim, Nocice, and O'Bola, and all the other members of the committee.
4:11:34
My name is Ray Schwartz, and I am a resident in New York City and have worked in mental health services in both public and private and nonprofit sectors as an employee and a member of nonprofit board boards in the mental health field.
4:11:48
I am here to support and be part of the CCIT advocacy efforts.
4:11:55
My experience and observations for more than 40 years in the mental health field still leave me puzzled as to why there is a public safety criminal justice response to a public health need.
4:12:07
While we heard has been the New York City government response to altering how a mental health crisis is responded to their last minute data dump when analyzed, still has the police responding to more than 79 70% of 911 calls.
4:12:24
Other localities are doing much better.
4:12:27
Stereotyping and Stereotyping and bias about people living with the mental illness is suppressing the development of the fully implemented non police response to mental health crisis calls.
4:12:42
I and my other did last Friday's day to day to them.
4:12:46
I'm does provide is an attempt to provide meaningful data requires real scrutiny.
4:12:52
I and my colleagues from CCIT are willing to meet with you and staff to to to to to review the end and use the data to identify what information is missing, unexplained, and questionable in order to accelerate the transformation of a city's mental health crisis response.
4:13:15
So it is focused to addressing public health need and permits the police to use their available resources to address public safety.
4:13:25
I did include my testimony, some other comments and questions about the data.
4:13:30
Which I hope you guys will be able to review and get us engaged and participated.
4:13:36
Thank you.
