Criminal Justice Advocacy

We fight against the criminalization of mental health challenges and for the humane treatment of people with mental health concerns incarcerated in prisons and jails in New York.

Overview

The Mental Health Project advocates for people with mental health concerns involved in the criminal legal system. We represent the Brad H. Class, all individuals who receive mental health treatment while incarcerated in New York City jails. We are deeply familiar with the difficulties people with mental health concerns experience in correctional facilities and upon release. We organize, build coalitions, and advocate for legislation and policies to prevent people with mental health concerns from encountering the criminal legal system, improve overall conditions in jails and prisons, ensure quality healthcare during incarceration, and promote appropriate discharge planning for successful reentry into the community.

Ending the criminalization of mental health concerns

We support efforts to decarcerate and reinvest in community treatment alternatives for people with mental health concerns in New York. We are coordinating committee members of the Campaign to Close Rikers, which seeks to reduce the jail population, defend the rights of people incarcerated in jails and prisons, and redistribute resources from corrections to community investments, and the Treatment Not Jail (TNJ) Coalition. Through the TNJ Coalition, we advocate for the passage of the Treatment Court Expansion Act (S.4547/A.4869), which would enable more people with mental health concerns to have their criminal cases resolved through participation in treatment.

Read our report: Reimaging Paths to Healing & Justice: Perspectives on Community Diversion.

Read our policy brief: Diversion Not Incarceration: Recommendations to Reduce Incarceration of Black, Indigenous and People of Color with Mental Health Challenges.

Read our testimony in support of the Treatment Court Expansion Act.

Promoting improved healthcare and humane conditions

Our staff are active in the  NYC Jails Action Coalition (JAC), which promotes human rights, dignity, and safety for people in City jails.  We regularly testify at Board of Correction meetings and hearings about issues that affect our community. We also assist people incarcerated in City jails in sharing their concerns with the Board through a collaboration with NYU Law’s Prison Reform and Education Project. We were instrumental in the NYC Board of Correction adopting minimum standards limiting the use of solitary confinement in City jails.  In 2024, we successfully advocated for the enactment of Local Law 42, which ends the use of all forms of solitary confinement.

As leaders in Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement (MHASC), we advocate for the NYS Office of Mental Health and Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to address the punitive nature of residential mental health units in state prisons and to provide therapeutic responses to people in mental health crisis.

Ending the torture of solitary confinement

Through MHASC, JAC, and the #HALTsolitary Campaign, we continue to fight for the implementation of Local Law 42 to end solitary confinement in prisons and jails. People with mental health concerns are more likely to be placed in solitary, and the effects of isolation are devastating to their health and safety.

Read our comments on DOCCS’ proposed regulations regarding implementation of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act.

Read our testimony in support of Intro 549-2022, City Council legislation to end the use of solitary confinement in NYC jails.

Reentry

Under Brad H., people with mental health concerns are entitled to discharge planning services to help them transition back into the community.   Unfortunately, many people are released from prisons and jails without the services needed to succeed in the community. We provide individual advocacy for people receiving mental health treatment in NYC. Learn more about our direct services, including discharge planning advocacy for our clients. We also offer reentry and systems advocacy workshops for people with mental health concerns being released from jails or prisons.