PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tasha Carter Beasley, Former Inmate at Rikers Island
0:08:39
·
12 min
Tasha Carter Beasley, a former inmate at Rikers Island, provides powerful testimony about her experiences of sexual abuse and the long-lasting trauma it has caused. She details the challenges of speaking up, the fear of retaliation, and the ongoing struggle with emotional scars that affect every aspect of her life.
- Beasley emphasizes the need for safe spaces, resources for healing, and policy changes to prevent abuse and support survivors.
- She highlights the intergenerational impact of her trauma, discussing a conversation with her granddaughter about the abuse.
- She emphasizes the importance of being heard and validated, as well as the difficulties of the prison grievance system and rebuilding life after incarceration.
Tasha Carter Beasley
0:08:39
Good morning to the city council.
0:08:41
My name is Tasha Carter Beasley.
0:08:44
I am also formally incarcerated in Reikiz Allen in 1996.
0:08:51
When I went into Raikaz Allen, I was a mother of 8 children at that time.
0:09:01
I was suffering from mental illness, drug addiction, and a slew of other things that you can imagine that will cause you to go to to jail.
0:09:21
And in jail, and in my consideration, I never was safe.
0:09:30
I never really had the opportunity to reach out to my family, to let them know what was happening to me inside.
0:09:46
How a guy here today is amazing because I had to rebuild my life that was shattered.
0:09:57
I didn't know how to do that.
0:09:59
I didn't have any places to go after I was incarcerated.
0:10:03
I didn't have any opportunity to help me understand that if I spoke of for myself that I would be safe, that I would be heard, that I would not suffer my past to define who I am presently.
0:10:24
I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother, and I have suffered a lot of shame behind the things that have happened inside of Raikazalyn to me.
0:10:35
I can't take back that time, but I relive it every day.
0:10:43
I really didn't even know how to answer my granddaughter's sixteen years old, and she read the news article She's sixteen years old.
0:10:53
She's in high school.
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She's getting ready to go to NYU.
0:10:58
And she asked me, she said, grandma, what happens?
0:11:03
Are you in there?
0:11:05
And I didn't I didn't know what to tell her but the truth.
0:11:11
I couldn't help but to think that by any chance or anything that would happen to her that she would go through those stores and and suffer that same fate or maybe in school or maybe anywhere in the neighborhood and not be able to effectively say what happened to me.
0:11:33
I was manipulated.
0:11:37
I was made to believe that I was at fault because I was not mentally healthy at the time.
0:11:46
I was suffering from a lot of tribulations that started for me and right goes out.
0:11:56
My life was better before.
0:11:59
My life was better even with being on drugs and in the street.
0:12:03
It was like my life was better outside where I was able to at least run, at least I would be able to go somewhere and maybe hide myself, but inside the reconciling, I was never able to hide myself.
0:12:18
I was subject to fear.
0:12:20
I was subject to house housing areas being because I spoke up.
0:12:28
Because I told somebody and I told people over the telephone, I told other inmates, but none of that none of that mattered.
0:12:39
And when and when you're inside of a place where you kinda feel like you're the fault of your own situation, it's kinda hard to really articulate that I need to speak up for myself.
0:12:55
So I surrounded myself around other women that were my my sisters and my peers that suffered same things.
0:13:06
So that's how I lived my life life mostly in groups and settings of other women that needed healing and didn't have the tools because we didn't have the tools.
0:13:15
We were marginalized women.
0:13:17
No one can tell you how do you go and get healed from sexual abuse and sexual violence.
0:13:23
How can I take the memories out of my mind?
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How do I have a relationship with someone that is not an abuser?
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How do I know the difference?
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How can I trust myself if I can discern?
0:13:38
That I'm in danger, and I can't speak up.
0:13:43
But let me go on to read.
0:13:46
I had did write something, and I'm here today to speak about the profound emotional trauma and the results of that sexual abuse.
0:13:54
This trauma isn't a monetary affliction.
0:13:58
It lingers.
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It affects every aspect of the survival's life.
0:14:03
It's the shadows that follow us.
0:14:07
The stigma, the shame, the embarrassment, manifesting as anxiety and depression, and the overwhelming sense of isolation.
0:14:20
Survivors often struggle to trust again and to feel safe in their own bodies, in their environments.
0:14:27
The emotional scars run deep.
0:14:30
I can't stress that enough.
0:14:32
The emotional scars, they run deep.
0:14:41
Impacting my relationships, my career, my overall well-being, This isn't something that we can overcome alone.
0:14:53
Alone kept me isolated.
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Feeling alone made me wanna kill myself.
0:15:02
Billing alone made me subject to more crime in my life.
0:15:09
And as policy makers, I believe you have the ability to enact real change by providing resources for mental health supporting and ensuring access to safe spaces.
0:15:23
That's the biggest thing.
0:15:26
Where do you go when you have been violently or seduced into a position that causes memories and causes flashbacks and causes every aspect of your life to be from that thing that happened to you.
0:15:48
If these spaces are not created, then we have no healing.
0:15:52
We need policies that's going to promote programs to prevent this.
0:16:03
And we need help to rebuild our lives.
0:16:07
Your support can transform our community into a place where survivors feel heard and validated, and that's a big thing.
0:16:18
I didn't feel validated for a long time.
0:16:20
It took my children to forgive me for even being in that space.
0:16:28
And still today, I have a lot of survival's remorse Still today, I can identify with my abusers, and sometimes that makes me uncomfortable.
0:16:38
Sometimes.
0:16:46
It's overbearing in a sense that I care whether you believe me or not.
0:16:57
I care whether you wanna hear me or not.
0:17:00
I care that you know what it takes to stand here to tell you that things happen to me that I'm not happy about.
0:17:13
And the Department of Corrections shouldn't be happy about it.
0:17:18
And I never thought I'd be here today, though.
0:17:21
I'm a tell y'all this.
0:17:23
I never thought that when I did open my mouth and when I did I would be this far today, to put a face, to put feelings, to put a story, to put a narrative, to understanding why we have to be heard, and why we have to be paid attention to.
0:17:41
Because guess what?
0:17:44
You got pictures of somebody's private part, and you or in your mouth that you can't erase and it shouldn't have never happened, that's hard to live with.
0:17:58
That's hard to walk with your head up.
0:18:00
That's hard to say that this happened to me.
0:18:05
I don't know sometimes whether to be angry.
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I don't know whether to run.
0:18:09
It took me a lot to get here today.
0:18:12
It did.
0:18:13
It did.
0:18:13
I didn't just wake up.
0:18:15
I've been walking around with this inside of me where where I was I didn't I I wanted to stay to myself about it because I can't take no more of not listening, not being heard, not being violated.
0:18:33
It's a sensitive situation.
0:18:35
Of course, nobody wants to hit a dark side of what you can't see.
0:18:39
And inside the jail, no one can see what was happening to us.
0:18:44
Because we were secluded, isolated, controlled.
0:18:49
The grieving system was not set up for us.
0:18:53
It was not set up for us to feel so privy to go and write a grievance between by the people who are holding keys to your incarceration.
0:19:02
That's holding keys for your medication line, for your calls, for your visit.
0:19:08
For commissary.
0:19:10
It's a whole life inside.
0:19:12
And I've seen that people you're afraid to hear about the dark things that, oh, I don't know what they I don't know how they can hide it any longer.
0:19:24
So thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity to express just the shade of what And and and my story is just and I have not given you the ins and outs because guess what?
0:19:41
I'm tired.
0:19:43
I'm tired of people not listening.
0:19:45
I'm tired of people judging me.
0:19:47
I'm tired.
0:19:48
That sometimes we don't even don't even care.
0:19:50
We get it no more because that's how deep trauma goes, that you will give up on it, that everything that you're fighting for and so many people and so many so much energy opposed to us being heard, opposed to people being held accountable.
0:20:12
They didn't have no problem with putting me in jail, and I went to jail for hurting myself.
0:20:20
I was in at it.
0:20:21
I was in jail for hurting myself.
0:20:24
And I was I did the time for hurting myself.
0:20:27
And at the same time, while I was incarcerated, they hurt me more.
0:20:32
And that's when it began that my sorrows began.
0:20:36
But today, I have to tell you, I'm far from that place that I wanna see myself.
0:20:46
I'm far from it.
0:20:48
I'm not away from the memories.
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I'm not away from the trauma.
0:20:51
I'm not away from maturing.
0:20:53
I'm not away from the fear of the opposite sex.
0:20:56
I don't even know how to relate anymore.
Sandy Nurse
0:21:02
Okay.
0:21:03
Yeah.
0:21:03
Thank you for
Tasha Carter Beasley
0:21:04
letting me.
0:21:05
You and for your time.
0:21:07
Thank you.
0:21:09
Thank you.
