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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jennifer Parish, Director of Criminal Justice Advocacy at Urban Justice Center
4:03:21
·
177 sec
Jennifer Parish testifies on behalf of the Urban Justice Center, expressing support for the commission's recommendations to close Rikers Island but strongly opposing the addition of 500 secure psychiatric treatment beds. She argues for community-based services and alternatives to incarceration for individuals with mental health issues.
- Emphasizes the need to divert people with mental health concerns from incarceration without creating new institutional beds
- Advocates for investing in supportive housing and community services rather than building new facilities
- Supports Intro 1100 for more supportive housing and Intro 1242 for coordinating efforts to address mental health issues in the criminal justice system
Jennifer Parish
4:03:21
Good afternoon, my name's Jennifer Parish, and I'm the director of criminal justice advocacy at the Urban Justice Center.
4:03:27
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
4:03:30
Generally, we support the commission's recommendations and their thoughtfulness around this, and their emphasis on the urgency to close Rikers.
4:03:38
But in my limited time today, have to voice our strong opposition to the commission's recommendation to add 500 secure psychiatric treatment beds for people with serious mental health concerns.
4:03:49
We completely agree that this population needs to be diverted from incarceration, and it's unconscionable that the city holds more than 1,400 people with significant mental health needs and the inhumane conditions of Rikers.
4:04:02
We also agree that the Office of Mental Health is responsible for moving people who lack the capacity to stand trial out of Rikers and that should be a priority for the commissioner of OMH.
4:04:14
And they can do that.
4:04:15
They can do that without creating 500 new beds.
4:04:18
They could use the fact that they have outpatient restoration of competency to reduce the number.
4:04:24
And while there may need to be an increase beyond the 100 beds they have planned, it's certainly not 500 people.
4:04:30
We can also see how taking people out of Rikers who are in that process of being evaluated or coming back could speed up their trials.
4:04:39
But let's make no mistake about it, the state law does not allow that right now.
4:04:44
So we should not be building those beds without that change in the law because whatever is built is gonna be a jail.
4:04:52
We just have to come to terms with that.
4:04:54
Look at what they've done with outpatient therapeutic housing units.
4:04:57
That originally was designed by CHS to be a medical mental health model where they would be running how treatment's provided.
4:05:05
But look what DOC has done with it.
4:05:07
They want to put two eighty two officers in Bellevue where they'll have 103 people.
4:05:13
That's not acceptable and that's a jail and we should not create more psychiatric treatment beds which would be the same thing.
4:05:20
But even more importantly than that, the idea of creating these beds, if I can just have a couple more minutes, is so shortsighted because what we're doing is creating another institution, not creating services in the community.
4:05:33
And all of these people will be released eventually.
4:05:36
So what we should be investing in is all the other things that the commission includes, including what Intro 1,100 will allow more supportive housing.
4:05:46
And one crucial piece of this is the legislation that you have, Intro twelve forty two, because we need somebody who's coordinating all of that.
4:05:53
A lot of the barriers to getting people with mental health issues out is combining what DOHMH is doing, correctional health services, and what's going on in the mental health treatment court.
4:06:03
So if we pass the Treatment Court Expansion Act, more people will be able to have alternatives to incarceration.
4:06:09
And if we fund those, then we can actually reduce the population in a way that will create safety for the community and stability for those individuals.