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Q&A
Borough-based jail facilities and mental health care opportunities
0:14:24
ยท
178 sec
Dr. Stossel discusses the opportunities presented by new borough-based jail facilities for improving mental health care and overall conditions for incarcerated individuals.
- She describes the new facilities as beautiful, with features like natural light and wood finishes that can make a significant difference for people struggling with mental health issues.
- Dr. Stossel emphasizes the importance of physical infrastructure in providing adequate space for programming and therapy.
- She suggests implementing more positive reinforcement and incentives in the new facilities to create a culture of engagement and personal growth among incarcerated individuals.
Keith Powers
0:14:24
Got it.
0:14:25
And just a final question here and then I'll pass over to any colleagues who have questions.
0:14:30
Obviously the city is undertaking an effort here to open up the borough based jail facilities and newly designed facilities that I would suppose have an opportunity to provide different access to clinical services and mental health services inside the jail facility.
0:14:50
Can you talk a little bit about and I may be wrong by that, by the way but just curious to see your thoughts on that and where there might be opportunities or what your recommendations would be inside of new facilities about how they might treat mental health differently or how they might provide better care?
Dr. Lauren Stossel
0:15:09
Yeah I think it's a huge opportunity.
0:15:12
I hope it's an opportunity that we're not going to squander as a city.
0:15:15
Think I toured the outposted units that are being developed at Bellevue.
0:15:20
They were under construction.
0:15:23
They're beautiful.
0:15:24
You know, they look like the Norwegian prisons.
0:15:26
Everything is wood.
0:15:27
There's a lot of natural light.
0:15:28
I think that environment makes a really big difference, you know, therapeutically for people who are struggling with mental health crises.
0:15:37
I think there's a lot that we can do in terms of physical plant.
0:15:41
The infrastructure, the physical infrastructure at Rikers is crumbling.
0:15:44
It's just incredibly difficult.
0:15:46
One of the questions that you asked in the pre hearing questions was about getting people to take more advantage of programming.
0:15:54
I think I didn't include this in my response, but one issue with programming was that there was nowhere to do it.
0:16:00
Know there just are no big open spacious rooms where people feel like they can sit around and actually be educated about something or engage in sort of a group therapy.
0:16:11
So I think there are a lot of opportunities you know physically.
0:16:14
I think also having the rural based jails in you know in the city itself already makes a big difference in terms of visits, in terms of legal access.
0:16:25
And I think we do have an opportunity by shrinking, you know, the footprint of each place to really have cultural change.
0:16:34
And I think what I would like most to see would be more positive reinforcement.
0:16:39
The positive reinforcement, you know, incentives really are not part of DOC's programming.
0:16:45
It's really very, you know, punishment based.
0:16:48
You break a rule, you get punished, and I think that really creates a culture of learned helplessness among incarcerated individuals.
0:16:55
I really believe that if people had more opportunities to rise to the occasion to demonstrate that they are able to stay in behavioral control, that they are able to help others, that they are able to sort of participate meaningfully in a community, that they would, you know, if they felt that they were able to earn privileges by doing that.
0:17:14
And I think because the borough based jails are at least an opportunity to sort of start from scratch in some ways, that's something that I would really love to see.