Justyna Rzewinski left her job as a clinical supervisor for mental health on Rikers Island just three weeks ago.

Her job: to work with some of the island’s most seriously mentally ill detainees.

What You Need To Know

• The Adams administration claims there is no solitary confinement on Rikers Island


• But now a former staffer says detainees with mental illness were locked in all the time


• Her patients would be locked in for weeks before being let out

“I just couldn’t be there anymore, just seeing these individuals being locked in a lot of the time,” Rzewinski told NY1. “I couldn’t even sit in my office cause they were screaming and banging and I would hear them and it was really difficult to pretend that it’s not happening and do work.”

Rzewinski sat down with NY1 in her first television interview to share her story, days after uncovering a practice she says is standard operating procedure in the city’s mental health units on Rikers —locking seriously mentally ill detainees in their cells for days, weeks or even months at a time.

“It really depended, but I did have patients who were locked in for weeks, over a month, and a lot of patients would rotate from one mental health unit to another. So they were locked in one unit, they’d be locked in another unit. So, it could be a few months,” Rzewinski said after NY1 asked how long people were locked in for.

“When they’re locked in, they’re not getting their medications because their medications come on the unit or in the...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiogFBVV95cUxQSklOSk93X2llc3kzT1VFYVd3...