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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Daniele Gerard, Senior Staff Attorney at Children's Rights
7:02:21
·
106 sec
Daniele Gerard, representing Children's Rights and the NYC Jails Action Coalition, advocated for closing Rikers Island and prioritizing social services over increasing the Department of Corrections budget. She emphasized the need for humane jail conditions and alternatives to incarceration.
- Criticized the proposal to hire 1,100 additional correction officers, suggesting the $150 million could be better spent on housing, mental health care, and reentry programs.
- Urged the council to focus on budget priorities that improve the lives of incarcerated individuals and other marginalized New Yorkers.
- Recommended making jails more humane with better programming, education, recreation, food, and medical care.
Daniele Gerard
7:02:21
Thank you, chair nurse, chair Brennan, and chair Aviles, and committee members.
7:02:27
My name is Danielle Girard.
7:02:29
I'm a senior staff attorney at children's rights, a member of the New York City Jail's Action Coalition.
7:02:33
We advocate for young adults on Rikers, and we support closing Rikers.
7:02:37
Thank you for your efforts to rightsize the administration's lopsided budget.
7:02:41
Please continue to focus on budget priorities that improve the lives of our incarcerated neighbors and other desperate New Yorkers.
7:02:49
Funding 1,100 additional correction officers to add to the bloated DOC budget makes no sense given absenteeism and lack of accountability among current staff.
7:02:58
For that $150,000,000 the city could fund housing, community based mental health care, ATI's and reentry programs and more.
7:03:07
We need less DOC staff for a smaller jail system not to continue incarcerating mentally ill and marginalized members of our communities on the humanitarian disaster that is Rikers.
7:03:19
We urge you to continue to put social services at the forefront of any budget expenditures.
7:03:25
Every dollar spent on those services does a lot more to increase real public safety than locking up thousands of people at an astronomical cost.
7:03:34
And while you are at it, please make our jails as humane as possible with meaningful programming, educational opportunities, recreation, and enough food so that people don't go to bed hungry on top of timely and quality medical and mental health care.
7:03:50
We urge you to consider the testimony that we submitted on March 7 for your preliminary budget hearing.
7:03:56
It explains in detail how Children's Rights believes the city's criminal legal budget priorities should be realigned to fulfill these objectives.
7:04:04
Thank you for your work, and thank you for holding these hearings.