Opinion: We’ll Never Address NYC’s Mental Health Crisis Until We Stop Funneling People to Jails & Prisons

“There is no comprehensive network of treatment courts in New York, and those that do exist are woefully underutilized. Far more people should be getting the genuine care and treatment that I got.”

As New Yorkers begin a long-overdue reckoning of our collective failure on mental health policy, I share my story, painful as it is, to offer a window of hope and a path forward. 

My name is Ibrahim Ayu. I am a community activist, attorney, music and film producer, and poet. I am also diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After my mother suffered a stroke in 2021, I cycled for years through the revolving door of incarceration, hospitalization, criminalization, and homelessness. This cruel cycle finally broke last year, when I was connected with a little-known, widely underutilized program that changed my life: mental health court.

This story begins in 2023, when I was arrested in a homeless shelter in Manhattan. At the time, due to systemic bureaucratic failures, I had been without mental health treatment, including prescription medications, for three weeks. To put it simply: I was in crisis. 

I got into an argument with shelter staff, and police were called. When they arrived, things escalated quickly. Officers referred to my mental illness in hurtful terms, and kept threatening to civilly commit me, a trigger for me after enduring the trauma of involuntary hospitalization years earlier. I was accused of injuring an officer who arrested me that day, and was charged with felony assault, punishable by seven years in prison.

For the next few months, I was held in pre-trial detention at Rikers, where things spiraled dramatically. In addition to not receiving my prescribed psychiatric medications, I also was unable to access insulin to treat my diabetes. Eventually, I had to have emergency treatment on my foot to prevent it from being amputated. This was the lowest point in my life. 

Finally, my legal team miraculously got me admitted into the Manhattan Misdemeanor Mental Health Court. This is where my fortunes changed.

Mental health courts seek to divert people from the normal, carceral channels of the criminal legal system by identifying and treating the root causes that drive criminal behavior in the first place. These specialized court programs are staffed with specially trained judges, clinicians, and peers, who work together to develop a comprehensive treatment plan to help the person stabilize and heal.

And that is what they did for me. Together, with my legal team and the angels at the Center for Justice Innovation, which provides the clinical care and case management staffing, we developed a comprehensive treatment plan that addressed my housing instability, my unemployment, and of course, my poorly treated mental health. 

In March last year, I graduated. By that point, I had secured a beautiful supportive housing apartment in the Bronx, started a stable desk job at a municipal agency, and embarked on an excellent mental health and wellness regimen. 

Nearly one year later, I am thriving. In September, I was named one of the 10 best probation clients in the city. In my spare time, I have reconnected with my creative pursuits. I published a book of poetry and have been working as a film and music producer. 

Most importantly, I have found a new purpose in helping others access the same life-changing opportunity that I got. Treatment Not Jail (TNJ) is a proposed bill looking to expand access across the state to the same mental health courts that saved me. There is no comprehensive network of treatment courts in New York, and those that do exist are woefully underutilized. Far more people should be getting the genuine care and treatment that I got. 

I know firsthand that incarceration does not make our streets safer. Let my story be the proof: with the right care, anyone can get better. Providing treatment and services to those who need it most is vital to creating the thriving, healthy, safe communities we all want. 

As I write in my book, Silent Sufferers: Poems & Stories:

For every saint had a past, just like you and me,
And every sinner has a future, waiting to be free.
Just like you and me, souls shining like jewelry
So, let’s enjoy these poems, silent sufferers in this dance,
Finding solace and strength, giving suffering a chance.

Ibrahim Ayu is a community activist, poet, attorney, and music and film producer based in the Bronx.