Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Justyna Rzewinski : A Whistleblower's Fight for Mental Health in Prisons
09 May 2025
Send us a text Justyna Rzewinski shares her experience as a whistleblower after working at Rikers Island and her ongoing advocacy for criminal justice reform focusing on mental health treatment. • Working with different organizations to close Rikers Island and advocating for better treatment of mentally ill inmates • Fighting for smaller borough-based jails to replace Rikers, potentially saving $1 billion annually from DOC's $2.8 billion budget • Advocating for mental health courts and programs to divert people with mental illness away from incarceration • Connecting pre-trial defendants to mental health services, education, employment, and housing resources • Witnessing remarkable transformations when mentally ill inmates receive proper treatment in appropriate facilities • Challenging misconceptions about mental illness through education and sharing personal experiences • Working on legislation to mandate healthcare professionals to report abuse seen in correctional facilities • Demonstrating how one voice speaking up against injustice can create meaningful systemic change Our experience shows that mental illness treatment works when provided in appropriate settings. We encourage everyone to learn more about criminal justice reform and share these conversations to create better understanding and awareness. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
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Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real-life people who will inspire... and show that you are not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantra. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World's Humanity Over Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis special event. Today, we're joined by an incredible guest, Justyna Roszynski.
With over a decade of experience working with populations impacted by the criminal legal system, Justyna is a passionate advocate for criminal justice reform and a dedicated force for meaningful change. She's here to share her inspiring story, and I'm thrilled to have her on the show. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure. If you would, could you expand on what you're doing now since you left Rikers Island?
So since Rikers, let me see what has changed. I've just been really involved with different organizations that are working to close Rikers. So I've been doing a lot of work with that and attending conferences, doing some speaking engagements.
What is your focus on Rikers now? You've worked there and then you left. Then once you left, you became a whistleblower to tell everyone some of the things that was going on in the prison. What's your focus now on what you saw, what they do and what you think needs to be changed?
you know, how they treated people with a severe mental illness and we're working to eventually close it or while it's not being closed for a federal receivership to take over.
It does make sense for the short term, instead of just closing it, trying to address some of the things that do need to be changed so things can be better and restructure it so that it can still be a facility that is used, but one that is done in a better situation for all involved.
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