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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Sarita Daftary, Co-Director of Freedom Agenda
4:00:07
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3 min
Sarita Daftary, Co-Director of Freedom Agenda, testifies on the importance of closing Rikers Island and implementing alternative strategies to reduce incarceration and improve public safety. She emphasizes the need for preventive measures, supportive housing, diversion programs, and alternatives to incarceration.
- Urges the council to fully fund supportive housing, crisis response teams, and economic opportunities to prevent harm before it occurs
- Advocates for expanding diversion opportunities and alternatives to incarceration, citing successful programs like supervised release and the 6A program
- Recommends caution in expanding electronic monitoring and forensic psychiatric treatment beds, emphasizing the need for proper guardrails and excluding DOC involvement
Sarita Daftary
4:00:07
Good afternoon Chair Nourish, Councilmember Kaban.
4:00:10
I am co director of Freedom Agenda.
4:00:12
We coordinate the campaign to close and we're grateful to the council for your commitment to closing Rikers, including through your budget priorities and holding this hearing.
4:00:20
The defenders of mass incarceration have always tried to convince us that Rikers Island makes us safer, but our members know that Torture Island fuels cycles of violence instead of interrupting them while sucking resources away from the things that actually work, and their experience is affirmed by the independent Rikers Commission report.
4:00:38
We urge the council to think about our efforts to close Rikers along the spectrum.
4:00:42
We should first aim to prevent harm before it occurs and prevent people from reaching a point of crisis.
4:00:46
This includes fully funding supportive housing, IMT and ACT teams, crisis respite centers, clubhouses, mentoring, economic opportunity.
4:00:54
It is stunningly cruel that our city has the resources and proven models to do this, but chooses instead to let thousands of our neighbors spiral into crisis and then sends them to suffer and potentially die in crumbling jails built on decomposing trash.
4:01:09
That is the reality.
4:01:11
We need to both open more supportive housing units and make it possible for more people to access them returning from jail and prison as Intro 1,100 would do.
4:01:18
Thinking again about this spectrum, when harm has occurred and an arrest has been made, we need diversion opportunities that protect the presumption of innocence and focus on root causes, like the treatment court expansion act at the state level and supervised release.
4:01:30
We also need multiple forms of accountability, including alternatives to incarceration, which show much better rates of success than Rikers.
4:01:37
For example, the commission report shows that only one of one hundred and fifteen people released under the six a program from 2022 to 2024 was readmitted to Rikers compared to an average thirty three percent of people released from Rikers overall.
4:01:52
But instead of using this tool right now to decarcerate, DOC is letting the jail population and deaths in custody soar.
4:02:00
That is unconscionable.
4:02:01
While electronic monitoring and forensic psychiatric treatment beds that are mentioned in the commission report may be part of the strategy for closing Rikers, they sit on the end of the spectrum that is closest to incarceration and not be pursued at the expense of the solutions that I previously described.
4:02:18
In the memo I attached to our testimony, we outline important guardrails for the council to keep in mind when considering expansion of electronic monitoring and forensic treatment beds.
4:02:26
Importantly, the Department of Correction should not have any role in the new forensic treatment beds being contemplated.
4:02:32
Our written testimony includes more about the bills, but if I can get ten more seconds, I want to follow-up on two things from earlier.
4:02:39
In terms of right sizing DOC, you know, agency transition, workforce transition, an important place to start is cutting the vacancies they have now.
4:02:48
They are not going to fill 1,100 new roles.
4:02:50
They are barely going to keep their headcount constant.
4:02:53
And so we cannot allow the city to live in a reality where they think they're gonna have 7,000 staff because they're gonna plan on incarcerating 8,000 people.
4:02:59
Like they have to start grappling with reality, including cutting those vacancies.
4:03:04
And in terms of DOC accountability and really changing the culture of how the jails operate, BOC, strengthening BOC oversight is gonna be crucial to that, and we're gonna be following up with our council allies about the charter revision process as a venue for that, or a vehicle.
4:03:17
So thank you.