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PUBLIC TESTIMONY

Testimony by Justyna Rzewinski, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, on Rikers Island Conditions and Mental Health Care

5:41:31

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Justyna Rzewinski, a licensed clinical social worker who worked on Rikers Island, testified about the dire conditions and inadequate mental health care in the facility. She described widespread practices of "deadlocking" mentally ill inmates, unsanitary conditions, and the urgent need to close Rikers Island.

Rzewinski witnessed inmates with severe mental illness being locked in cells for weeks or months without medication, even in units meant to provide the highest level of mental health care.
She emphasized the need for budget allocations to expand justice-involved supportive housing, add mental health teams, and reduce wait times for services.
Rzewinski called for closing Rikers Island, describing it as necessary to honor the dignity and humanity of community members held there.

Justyna Rzewinski

5:41:31

Good afternoon.

5:41:32

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

5:41:36

My name is Justina Rizinski.

5:41:38

I'm a licensed clinical social worker.

5:41:40

From December 2023 to September 2024, I worked on Rikers Island.

5:41:46

Despite everything I had read, nothing prepared me for what I witnessed.

5:41:51

I saw a widespread undocumented practice called deadlocking, where people with severe mental illness were locked in their cells for weeks and even months without medication.

5:42:01

This happened in the MO units, even in the PACE units, supposedly the highest level of mental healthcare on Rikers.

5:42:10

Patients decompensated rapidly, sitting in filled, smearing feces surrounded by maggots and flies.

5:42:17

Water was shut off and basic sanitation denied.

5:42:21

They were being punished for things like looking at an officer inappropriately or if they got angry and responded in an angry manner.

5:42:29

It was difficult to know what exactly the patient did because this was never documented.

5:42:35

Rikers functions as the second largest psychiatric institution in The US.

5:42:40

I watched people with severe mental illness and individuals deemed unfit to stand trial, those under the seven thirty designation sit in deadlock for months awaiting transfer to a state hospital.

5:42:52

When they returned from OMH, they were often transformed, clean, stable, coherent.

5:42:59

The people that are held there are community members, our brothers, sisters, friends, and parents.

5:43:05

They are human beings, many of them deeply vulnerable.

5:43:09

Closing Rikers is not just possible, it's necessary.

5:43:12

We must do it to honor the dignity and humanity of our community, and this is how we can do it.

5:43:17

City council must make sure that this year's budget includes the following investments.

5:43:23

Add 26,600,000.0 to expand justice involved supporting housing to 500 units per the closed Rikers agreement.

5:43:31

Allocate 24,700,000.0 to add

Lynn Schulman

5:43:35

Just just wrap it up and then you can submit the rest of it.

Justyna Rzewinski

5:43:38

To add 15 teams and pilot step down models, current funding is 5,300,000.0 is insufficient to address with to address a wait list of over 400 people.

5:43:49

Invest 7,000,000 to expand FAC teams and pilot act step down teams to reduce average wait times of six to twelve months.

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