New York City has committed to closing the infamous Rikers Island by September 2027. Today, however, the number of people in New York City jails is climbing, more than half of those incarcerated have a mental health diagnosis, and one in five has a serious mental illness. The jail is the largest mental health provider in the City and among the largest in the world, and the burdens of this dysfunctional system fall most heavily on Black and brown communities. The state of affairs is inhumane to those incarcerated, an obstacle to the City’s promise of closing Rikers, and a threat to the safety of people living with mental illness and New York more generally. Please join us for a frank discussion with experts, advocates, and officials about how to keep people with mental illness from entering Rikers, shorten the time they spend there, and break the cycle that so often leads them back to jail. This panel will examine the problems, progress and possibilities.

Welcome by
Matthew Diller, Dean and Paul Fuller Professor of Law, Fordham Law School

Opening Remarks by
Judge Jonathan Lippman, Of Counsel, Latham & Watkins

Moderator:
Lauren Jones, Legal & Policy Director, National Center for Access to Justice

Panelists: 
Alvin Bragg, Manhattan District Attorney

Judge Matthew D’Emic, Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge, Presiding Judge of the Brooklyn Mental Health Court, and Chair of the New York State Judicial Task Force on Mental Health

Wesley Caines, Deputy Executive Director, The Bronx Defenders and Board Member, Correctional Association of New York

Dr. Ayesha Delany-Brumsey, Chief Strategic Growth Officer, Fountain House 

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

In-person
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Reception to follow

Fordham Law School
Costantino Room (Second Floor)
150 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023

Livestreamed Program
6:30 – 8 p.m.

Sponsored by
Access to Justice Initiative at Fordham Law and the
National Center for Access to Justice (NCAJ)

For Our Profession, Society, and World