By Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator, Community Access, Project Coordinator, Communities for Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC (CCINYC)
Coalition Says the City Needs More Options
Recent police shootings of people in emotional distress have catalyzed our coalition of mental health advocates and organizations to further reform efforts. We testified about needed efforts at a recent City Council hearing, focusing on the need for alternatives to police responding to New Yorkers in crisis. On the day we testified, another NYC resident, Miguel Richards, was shot and killed by the NYPD. He was only 31 years old. Video of his shooting was recently released.
To create change, we need the Mayor to revive the defunct Taskforce on Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice. We need to bring all stakeholders together to build efforts to solve issues of community policing. And, we need the coordination of the Mayor’s office to find non-police alternatives to 911 calls of people in emotional distress.
We are planning a press conference for Wednesday, October 18, at the steps of City Hall in Manhattan at Noon. Everyone is invited to join us as we bring these pressing needs to the media to better inform elected officials.
My Testimony at the City Council Hearing on the NYPD Response to Mental Health Crises
“Thank you to the members of the Council for hearing this testimony today. My name is Carla Rabinowitz. I am the Advocacy Coordinator at Community Access and the Project Coordinator of CCINYC, a coalition of 75 organizations and stakeholders whose mission is to improve relations between the NYPD and the mental health community by advocating for a fully responsive Crisis Intervention Team approach and diverting mental health recipients away from the criminal justice system.
“Community Access is a 44-year-old non-profit that helps people with mental health concerns through quality supportive housing and employment training.
“CCITNYC and Community Access request that you revive the Mayor’s Task Force on Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice. This Taskforce met twice in 2014 and has since been defunct.
“We ask that you recommend the Mayor assign this Taskforce to the oversight of a Deputy Mayor.
“We need all stakeholders and all city and state agencies at the table to suggest alternatives to police responding to these EDP calls. Expanding co-response teams throughout the city, more mobile crisis teams, and pairing mental health peers with police to calm down these encounters are a few ideas to explore.
“Some of the contributions of the Taskforce have already been taken up by the city, including the implementation of CIT training for some members of the NYPD.
“The NYPD training is going well, though there is still a significant need for adequate training.
We ask that at least 15,000 officers be trained, especially since Rikers is closing and there will be more of these encounters. Countless people have been saved by CIT officers. CIT officers saved a child threatening his mom with a knife, and stopped many potential suicides.
“But CIT training alone is not going to prevent these recurring deaths.
“Since the NYPD started CIT training, at least 6 mental health recipients have died in police encounters:
“Mario Ocasio, age 51, in June 2015; Rashan Lloyd , age 25, in June 2016; Deborah Danner, age 66, in October 2016; Ariel Galarza, age 49, in November 2016; Dwayne Jeune, age 32, in July 2017; and Andy Sookdeo, age 29, in August 2017.
“We need to solve issues before mental health recipients get into crisis, and for that we need funding of community services.
“We need alternatives to hospitals, which recipients fear, like Respite care, where people in crisis can learn to recover and get connected to long-term support.
“We need to support the police by building diversion centers to provide a rapid handoff of New Yorkers in acute crisis from police custody to get immediate care and long-term connections to community resources.
“We need community forums with police and mental health recipients to reduce the fear in the mental health community when the police arrive.
“And most importantly, we need the Mayor to revive his 2014 Taskforce on Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice. And place this Taskforce under a Deputy Mayor, with the resources to get things done.
“We need all stakeholders and all city and state agencies at the table to suggest alternatives to police responding to these EDP calls. Expanding co-response teams throughout the city, more mobile crisis teams, and pairing mental health peers with police to calm down these encounters are a few ideas to explore.
“Therefore, we ask that you recommend the Mayor revive his 2014 Taskforce on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health.”
Showing posts with label crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crisis. Show all posts
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Mayor De Blasio Pledges to Implement Crisis Intervention-Team Model
Mayor De Blasio Pledges to Implement Crisis Intervention-Team Model
By Carla Rabinowitz, Community Organizer, Community Access, Inc.
Police Can and Should Handle People in Crisis with More Care
Three years ago Community Access and a few organizations formed the Communities for Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC (CCITNYC) to improve relations between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and New Yorkers with mental illness.
Our goal is to encourage the police to implement a new model of police training where police can identify someone in crisis and respond in a way that de-escalates the crisis, and recognizes that the person in crisis is mentally ill and not a criminal. We now have more than 75 organizations supporting us.
Fortunately, the mayor shares our vision and will create two centers where police can drop off people in crisis and will train 5,500 of the city’s 35,000 officers on identifying mental health symptoms and de-escalating crisis situations.
This is part of the mayor’s new Task Force on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health. Other areas of change include post-booking diversion, CIT-like training for correction officers, and more help when people leave prison and re-enter the community. In all, the mayor has pledged $130 million for this effort.
A CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) is a method of policing that provides officers with the tools they need to respond to incidents involving people in emotional distress. CITs ensure safe and respectful interactions between mental health recipients and law enforcement.
CITs require coordination between the public health system, police departments and the mental health community. Police need a place to quickly drop off people in crisis and return to other police calls. This is why the mayor’s centers are so important. Without them, police could sit for hours in emergency rooms with each person in crisis.
CITs are needed because the NYPD responds to 150,000 calls of those in mental health crisis a year. They call these calls EDPs (Emotionally Disturbed Person calls). And today NYPD officers receive little training on how to handle these calls.
So what happens? A family member or a housing agency calls for an ambulance if a person is in crisis. Police show up and go into their routine training model of “Command and Control,” proving police are in control. Police may start shouting commands or say to the mental health recipient “do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Right away the encounter escalates, and the mental health recipient who is in crisis becomes more upset. Sometimes all that happens is a long wait at a hospital or city jail. Sometimes, these encounters take a turn for the worse. In the last two years there have been several fatalities and beatings of mental health recipients by the NYPD. There are also the financial costs.
New York City has set aside $674 million to cover claimants' cases against it and expect to pay $782 million in 2016. Police misconduct, injury and civil rights allegations against the NYPD make up more than 1/3 of claims against the city. Just one of those shootings could cost a city millions of dollars.
The benefits of a CIT program are:
1. Less time for officers in between crisis calls. Chicago reduced this down time from eight hours to 30 minutes;
2. Fewer injuries to police and mental health recipients. San Antonio, which has trained 92% of officers, has not seen one use-of-force case since 2008. Houston, which trained 50% of its 5,200 officers, also reported a drop in cases of force;
3. Improved perception of police by mental health recipients and staff at mental health agencies. Many times families or mental health providers are the ones who call the police. They need to know they can trust how police will treat the people they are helping to care for;
4. Law enforcement’s better view of mental health recipients and better confidence working with mental health recipients;
5. More positive media relations for the NYPD and the mayor. In response to one recent police shooting of a person in crisis, the mayor said that he was going to put new training into place to better help address these incidents; and
6. Lends prestige to NYC. Before the mayor’s plan was released, NYC was the only one of the seven largest cities in the USA without CIT training of police.
Some cities like Houston and Los Angeles have social workers riding along with police. Houston has the social worker co-responder model, but does more. Houston trains all of its officers in the traditional CIT 40-hour training and has a telephone line for officers who are not trained in CIT to call in and get advice when the officer is handling an EDP call.
CITS are a win-win for police, the mental health community and the general public. I am excited that the mayor has embraced better training of police and more interactions with mental health community leaders.
By Carla Rabinowitz, Community Organizer, Community Access, Inc.
Police Can and Should Handle People in Crisis with More Care
Three years ago Community Access and a few organizations formed the Communities for Crisis Intervention Teams in NYC (CCITNYC) to improve relations between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and New Yorkers with mental illness.
Our goal is to encourage the police to implement a new model of police training where police can identify someone in crisis and respond in a way that de-escalates the crisis, and recognizes that the person in crisis is mentally ill and not a criminal. We now have more than 75 organizations supporting us.
Fortunately, the mayor shares our vision and will create two centers where police can drop off people in crisis and will train 5,500 of the city’s 35,000 officers on identifying mental health symptoms and de-escalating crisis situations.
This is part of the mayor’s new Task Force on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health. Other areas of change include post-booking diversion, CIT-like training for correction officers, and more help when people leave prison and re-enter the community. In all, the mayor has pledged $130 million for this effort.
A CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) is a method of policing that provides officers with the tools they need to respond to incidents involving people in emotional distress. CITs ensure safe and respectful interactions between mental health recipients and law enforcement.
CITs require coordination between the public health system, police departments and the mental health community. Police need a place to quickly drop off people in crisis and return to other police calls. This is why the mayor’s centers are so important. Without them, police could sit for hours in emergency rooms with each person in crisis.
CITs are needed because the NYPD responds to 150,000 calls of those in mental health crisis a year. They call these calls EDPs (Emotionally Disturbed Person calls). And today NYPD officers receive little training on how to handle these calls.
So what happens? A family member or a housing agency calls for an ambulance if a person is in crisis. Police show up and go into their routine training model of “Command and Control,” proving police are in control. Police may start shouting commands or say to the mental health recipient “do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Right away the encounter escalates, and the mental health recipient who is in crisis becomes more upset. Sometimes all that happens is a long wait at a hospital or city jail. Sometimes, these encounters take a turn for the worse. In the last two years there have been several fatalities and beatings of mental health recipients by the NYPD. There are also the financial costs.
New York City has set aside $674 million to cover claimants' cases against it and expect to pay $782 million in 2016. Police misconduct, injury and civil rights allegations against the NYPD make up more than 1/3 of claims against the city. Just one of those shootings could cost a city millions of dollars.
The benefits of a CIT program are:
1. Less time for officers in between crisis calls. Chicago reduced this down time from eight hours to 30 minutes;
2. Fewer injuries to police and mental health recipients. San Antonio, which has trained 92% of officers, has not seen one use-of-force case since 2008. Houston, which trained 50% of its 5,200 officers, also reported a drop in cases of force;
3. Improved perception of police by mental health recipients and staff at mental health agencies. Many times families or mental health providers are the ones who call the police. They need to know they can trust how police will treat the people they are helping to care for;
4. Law enforcement’s better view of mental health recipients and better confidence working with mental health recipients;
5. More positive media relations for the NYPD and the mayor. In response to one recent police shooting of a person in crisis, the mayor said that he was going to put new training into place to better help address these incidents; and
6. Lends prestige to NYC. Before the mayor’s plan was released, NYC was the only one of the seven largest cities in the USA without CIT training of police.
Some cities like Houston and Los Angeles have social workers riding along with police. Houston has the social worker co-responder model, but does more. Houston trains all of its officers in the traditional CIT 40-hour training and has a telephone line for officers who are not trained in CIT to call in and get advice when the officer is handling an EDP call.
CITS are a win-win for police, the mental health community and the general public. I am excited that the mayor has embraced better training of police and more interactions with mental health community leaders.
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