Chair links mental health care to Rikers closure and diversion
Brooks-Powers argues that closing Rikers and transitioning to borough-based jails requires reducing the jail population and meeting mental health needs. She says treatment, discharge planning, and diversion are necessities for the closure plan.
As the city works towards closing Rikers Island and transitioning to a borough-based jail system, these questions take on added urgency.
This transition can only happen successfully if our jail population is reduced and if a substantial share of the population is not having their mental health needs met, then we are not moving towards our goal.
Meeting these needs through treatment inside our jails today, through discharge planning, and through diversion to keep people out of custody in the first place is not separate from the closure plan.
It is a necessity for it.
For that reason, today's hearing aims to better this council's understanding on how mental health care is provided to the individuals currently housed in our jails
and what additional investments or reforms are needed to ensure that incarceration does not become the default response to unmet behavioral health needs.