Akeem Browder Discusses Election, Mental Illness, and Rikers Island
Image via http://www.akeembrowder2017.org/contact
Election day has come and gone for New York City, with democrat Bill DeBlasio elected to serve his second term as mayor. While November 7th marked the end of the opposing parties mayoral run, it was just the tip of the iceberg for green party candidate and social activist Akeem Browder.
“While it’s said that I lost the election, I know the goal, not the aim, but the goal was attained. The goal was for me to inspire someone, to not only just come after me, but to come after and give some kind of thought as to where New York should be.”
Brother of Kalief Browder, a teenager who was extensively held in Rikers Island for a crime he did not commit and later committed suicide after his release, Akeem Browder since dedicated his life to enabling the change he wants to see in the world. Other politicians such as DeBlasio and city comp troller Scott Stringer have talked the talk about their aspirations to shut down Rikers for good, but the current mayor’s actual plan is “anything less than half assed” according to Browder.
Regarding Deblasio and first lady of New York City Chirlane McCray’s plan that spans the next ten years, he had this to say.
“Your husband and yourself have been in office for four years, you have another four years since he got re-elected, in those four years a plan should have been developed, not now talking about the problem. Knowing that in ten years your husband and yourself won’t even be in administration, for another four years is all you have, its a half-assed plan and is really considered lip service to the people.”
According to Browder, all these politicians who talk big talk about shutting down Rikers Island are missing the bigger picture.
“So everyone is doing this talk, because it’s becoming a fad. To talk about Riker’s is a new trend now, and we have to realize that Riker’s island is one jail, not all the jails… When we look intently at Riker’s you won’t look at the other several jails throughout New York City. The solution doesn’t come with just talking about the problem, solutions come with, like what I had said when I was running for office, we need to start [using] the appropriate measures like mental institutions that we have in New York.”
Browder noted how the Transitional Services for New York mental health facility in the Bronx is only at 17% capacity, meanwhile 68% of the inmate population at Riker’s island are mentally ill and desperately need this rehabilitation if they ever wish to re-integrate to society. He also discussed how the lack of rehabilitation in the American prison system is inexcusable when compared to foreign countries.
“Even in Israel, there’s women and men that go to jail for murder and come home as doctors, because it’s rehabilitative. They go to jail to serve their time, but while they’re serving their time we all know that this person is going to come back home. So, do we want another person hurt? But lot of the problems that we have in America is because we fear and control first.”
The Kalief Browder Foundation was started by Akeem Browder as a non profit organization to help current and former inmates get the help they need to reintegrate into society. One area that they have focused their efforts on is working towards giving proper mental health diagnoses to those who were incarcerated, as the diagnostic statistical manual of mental illnesses doesn’t recognize the mental ailments prisoners develop while incarcerated the same way they would for other post traumatic stress disorders.
A mural painted in memorial of the late Kalief Browder, via http://animalnewyork.com/2015/street-artists-paint-touching-tribute-to-kalief-browder/
“If you were in the military you have a post traumatic stress disorder, or if you were in some kind of natural disaster you have a post traumatic stress disorder that is qualified and ready for you to get services in that aspect…We wanted to give way to the D.S.M. to open up in the D.S.M. five a new designation for diagnosis, and what we titled the post incarceration syndrome.”
Inmates commonly develop manic depression, multiple personality disorder, and schizophrenia due to the isolation and violent environments they are placed in while imprisoned or in solitary confinement.
So what’s next for Akeem Browder? He plans on running for mayor again in the next election, but in the meantime he is putting together a bill of rights for job seekers, teaming up with a women’s activist group that recently got undocumented workers the right to employment. Browder also hopes to work towards helping the homeless receive the rights they deserve in the coming years.
“I will work towards getting the homeless in New York to a status where they can vote because it’s important. If they want to vote they’re citizens just like everyone else. Just because they’re homeless doesn’t give you the right as a state legislator to exclude them from civic engagement. So I’m going to work for that, hopefully it doesn’t take more than four years but I’ll fight everyday for the rights of people who are disenfranchised.”