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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Helen "Skip" Skipper, Executive Director of NYC Justice Peer Initiative and Vice Chair of NYC Board of Corrections
5:32:08
ยท
168 sec
Helen "Skip" Skipper, representing both the NYC Justice Peer Initiative and the NYC Board of Corrections, urges for divestment from the Department of Corrections and Rikers Island. She advocates for redirecting funds towards behavioral health decriminalization, supportive housing, and community-based mental health initiatives.
- Skipper emphasizes the need for increased funding for alternatives to incarceration (ATI) and reentry programs.
- She shares her personal experience of cycling through recidivism for 25 years due to mental illness and addiction.
- Skipper invites the council to her Justice Peer Conference to witness firsthand the work of smaller organizations that she believes should receive funding.
Helen "Skip" Skipper
5:32:08
Hello.
5:32:09
Thank you.
5:32:09
Thank you for allowing us to speak.
5:32:11
My name is Helen Skip Skipper.
5:32:13
I sit here today not only as the executive director at the New York City Justice Peer Initiative, but also as a member and vice chair of the New York City Board of Corrections.
5:32:21
As a member of the board, a position Drew nominated and appointed me to, I'm here to speak, shed truth to light and urge you to divest funding from the Department of Corrections and its home base of Rikers Island.
5:32:33
Additional funding is a complete waste of resources that are desperately needed for housing, treatment, education, and other investments.
5:32:40
It is time to use our precious resources to fund the things that work.
5:32:44
Funds diverted from this cash cow that is perpetually hungry could be used to decriminalize behavioral health.
5:32:51
Where is it okay for Rikers Island to be the largest behavioral health facility in the country?
5:32:56
A facility that does not afford the necessary treatment and support needed.
5:33:01
Diverted funds can be spent on housing such as GIST and other supportive housing modalities.
5:33:06
We need more intensive mobile and forensic asserted community treatment teams to counteract the behavioral health crisis our city is currently in.
5:33:14
The closed Rikers Island plan also promised a new community based mental health safety net.
5:33:21
The administration has clearly fallen short of that goal.
5:33:24
The number of people in Rikers diagnosed with serious mental illnesses has increased more than sixty percent since January 2022.
5:33:32
These teams incorporate those of us with lived experiences who have successfully navigated these traumatic systems and stand at the ready to support and mentor individuals so that they too can be the best they can be without interception from the criminal justice system.
5:33:47
We need to restore funding to the Office of Criminal Justice for ATI reentry program.
5:33:52
We somehow seem to forget it that if we keep incarcerating folks, these very same folks are going to come home eventually, and to what?
5:34:00
I ask.
5:34:00
We need to go further higher and deeper and increase discretionary funding for alternatives to ATI's.
5:34:08
Recidivism is very real in this great city, and I can definitely speak about this.
5:34:12
I'm almost finished.
5:34:13
From a personal lived experience views, I cycle on a hamster wheel of recidivism for twenty five years suffering from mental illness and addiction.
5:34:21
I am not going to read the rest of this, but I want to let everybody know that I have invited you to my Justice Peer Conference, where you can see firsthand the organizations that should be receiving funding, the good work we're doing, the work that we're doing that is literally outpacing and outlasting what DLC is doing.
5:34:41
Please, I urge you all to look to fund the smaller organizations that are crawling around, boots on the ground, hands in the mud, we are crawling around.
5:34:52
This is where the funding needs to go to.
5:34:55
Thank you very much for the additional time.