[Senate Hearing 108-740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 10:37 a.m., in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike DeWine (chairman) presiding.
Present: Senators DeWine and Landrieu.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency
STATEMENT OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR., DIRECTOR
ACCOMPANIED BY:
PAUL BRENNAN, COMMUNITY SUPERVISION OFFICER
REVEREND DONALD ISAAC, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EAST OF THE RIVER
CLERGY-POLICE-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKE DE WINE
Senator DeWine. Good morning. Today we are reviewing the
fiscal year 2005 budget request for the District of Columbia's
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency and the District
of Columbia's Public Defender Service.
Under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-
Government Improvement Act of 1997, the Federal Government is
required to finance both of these independent agencies. First,
we will hear from Paul Quander, Director of CSOSA. His agency
is responsible for supervising adults who are on pretrial
release, probation, and/or parole supervision in the District
of Columbia.
The President's fiscal year 2005 Budget request is $187.5
million for CSOSA, an increase of $19 million or 12 percent
over the fiscal year 2004 enacted level. We would like to hear
how these additional resources would be used to further the
agency's mission and goals. Last year, this subcommittee
appropriated funds above and beyond the President's request to
enable CSOSA to reduce its caseload ratio for sex offenders
from 36 to 1 down to 25 to 1; for domestic violence offenders,
from 42 to 25 to 1; and for offenders with mental health
problems from 47 to 1 to 25 to 1.
Also, this subcommittee provided additional resources to
allow CSOSA to purchase GPS anklet monitoring equipment to
ensure that parolees are not going to places like schools,
libraries, where they are prohibited from frequenting. I am
concerned, however, that the fiscal year 2005 budget request
does not include the funds to continue these important efforts,
and this is something that this subcommittee will have to deal
with.
After Mr. Quander testifies, we will then be joined by the
Reverend Donald Isaac who will discuss the District's faith/
community partnership with CSOSA which aims to reconnect
offenders with their communities before returning home from
prison. I am interested to see how CSOSA is using video
conferences to allow families and mentors here in the District
to stay in touch with their loved ones who are incarcerated 5
hours away down in North Carolina.
Mr. Ronald Sullivan will then testify, during the second
panel, to present the Public Defender Service budget. PDS is an
independent Federal agency that provides legal representation
to indigent adults and children facing criminal charges in the
District. PDS also provides legal representation for people in
the mental health system, as well as the children in the
delinquency system, including those who have special education
needs due to learning disabilities. The President's budget
request for PDS is $29.8 million which is an increase of $3.7
million over fiscal year 2004 enacted level.
As usual, witnesses will be limited to 5 minutes, 5 minutes
for their oral remarks in order to leave time for questions and
answers. Copies of all the written statements will be placed in
the record in their entirety.
We would also like to recognize, of course, Eleanor Holmes
Norton, who is here. Eleanor is back there somewhere.
There she is. Thank you for joining us, again.
We always welcome her here.
Senator Landrieu, for an opening statement or comments.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARY L. LANDRIEU
Senator Landrieu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief,
but I do want to make just a few comments and welcome to our
panelists that are here with us. And, Mr. Quander, it was very
nice meeting with you, even just briefly, yesterday.
But I wanted to just recommit myself to working as a
partner with Chairman DeWine. We have worked very well chairing
and serving as ranking member alternately over the years of
this committee as we work with the Mayor and the leadership to
strengthen the District of Columbia in any number of ways:
through improving our schools and education; through supporting
and revitalizing the family court and child welfare system; and
through working with leaders, like yourself, to bring more
public safety into strengthening our public securities system.
The Mayor, I think, is absolutely correct when he states
that the goal of this District, as well as many cities
throughout the Nation, is to stabilize and encourage people to
stay in the District or to move back to the District, and there
are many aspects that go into a person's decision or family's
decision to do that. Public safety is one of them. So we thank
you for the work and the progress that we are making in that
area.
The mission of the agency that you supervise is extremely
important to maintaining and improving public safety. There are
over 16,000 offenders and 8,000 defendants at any given time. I
understand, from your prepared statement, that more inmates are
transitioning directly from prison to the community with no
halfway house options, which is a real challenge and something
I hope we can address and speak about this morning.
In addition, I want to make note of the great progress made
during the course of the brief existence of this agency in
terms of the caseload reductions that our committee has helped
to work with you to make true. Also, the number of parolees
rearrested on new drug charges has dropped from 27 percent to
18 percent, which is, I think, a significant drop and a real
measure of some success in certain areas.
Although we do have, Mr. Chairman, some effective drug
testing programs, I think our resources are still scarce to
provide the kind of extensive and comprehensive drug treatment
that is necessary, not just in this District and City, but in
cities throughout the United States.
So, I just want to commend CSOSA for reducing the caseload.
I want to work with you, Mr. Chairman, and make sure we can
continue to reduce that caseload. To try our very best to work
on strategies to reduce the turnover rate, which is very
important, to make sure that these cases are prosecuted and
processed in a timely manner just for the rights of the victim,
as well as for the rights of the accused. I have a more lengthy
statement, but that will suffice for the time being and I look
forward to the testimony and the questions. Thank you.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL STRAUSS
Senator DeWine. Senator Strauss has submitted a statement
which will also be included in the record.
[The statement follows:]
Statement of Senator Paul Strauss
Chairman DeWine, Ranking Member Landrieu, and others on this
subcommittee, as the elected United States Senator for the District of
Columbia, and an attorney who practices in our local courts, I would
like to state for the record that I fully support the fiscal year 2005
Budget Request for the District of Columbia Court Services Offender
Supervision Agency and the Public Defender Services, I would like to
thank you for holding this hearing this morning. On behalf of my
constituents, I appreciate your consideration of the needs of the
people in the District of Columbia. It is vital that these two agencies
be fully funded in the amount asked for today. As the elected Senator
from the District of Columbia, I myself cannot vote on this
appropriation. Therefore, I am limited to merely asking you to support
the requests.
Due to our lack of self-determination, we are unable to provide or
fund certain government services on a local level. Consequently, the
Federal Government has sole discretion as to the funding levels for
these agencies. I do not intend to discuss the issue of self-
sufficiency and budget-autonomy here today. However, as long as
Congress continues to control these institutions, which should be
operated by the District, Congress has an obligation to fully fund the
budget requests of the agencies present.
The sixth amendment to the Constitution guarantees the accused to
have ``. . . assistance of counsel for his defense.'' Public Defender
Services (PDS) satisfies this mandate by playing a vital role in our
system of due process. In order to uphold the Constitutional rights of
indigent Defendants, it is crucial that PDS's financial requirements
are met. The District of Columbia's Public Defender Services have
demonstrated an outstanding record of performance. In their 30 years of
existence, PDS has set a national standard of excellence with its
innovative approaches that are applied by some of the most talented
lawyers in the country. They are an agency that this Congress, this
subcommittee, and the citizens of the District of Columbia should be
proud of.
The other organization present here today also provides a necessary
service to the people of Washington, DC. The Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) encompasses multiple stages of the
legal process. Among them is the Pretrial services Agency (PSA), which
Supervises defendants pending trial and/or sentencing. Additionally,
the Community Supervision Program (CSP) manages the cases of offenders
on probation, parole, or supervised release. Overall, CSOSA has
developed a pragmatic approach to both administering the cases of the
accused, and in reintegrating past criminal offenders into society.
Furthermore, it offers valuable services to victims and provides
separate services for women, children, and those in need of
professional treatment. The Assessment and Orientation Center (AOC)
clinically treats both defendants and offenders who are afflicted with
drug addictions. With an 80 percent completion rate, and a decreased
arrest rate among graduates by 75 percent, AOC has an outstanding
record of success. However, without sufficient funding AOC may have to
revert to a ``single treatment approach'', which is known to be much
less effective than a multifaceted intervention. Furthermore CSOSA has
been in the process of expanding their operation by hiring additional
supervision officers, and enhancing their global Positioning System,
which monitors high-risk domestic violence and sex offenders. Moreover,
all of the programs of CSOSA ensure the safety and well being of the
citizens of the District of Columbia. It is therefore imperative that
their budget request is granted so that they can continue to do so.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the subcommittee for holding
this important hearing. I ask that you approve the budget proposals
submitted today. I commend Senators DeWine and Landrieu for their
continued interest in the fate of our Nation's Capital. Their valuable
support has sustained the functioning of our vital institutions. I
would also like to applaud the witnesses from both agencies, who have
constructed compelling testimony in justifying their budget requests.
Finally, I would like to thank Regina Szymanska and Brian Rauer for
their help in preparing this statement. I look forward to further
hearings on this topic, and I'm happy to respond to any requests for
additional information.
Senator DeWine. Well, I think, this is going to be a very
interesting hearing.
Our first witness is the Honorable Paul Quander, Jr., who
is the Director of the Court Services and Offenders Supervision
Agency, who was nominated by President George Bush on October
18, 2001 and confirmed by the Senate. Prior to his appointment,
he served as Assistant United States Attorney in the District
of Columbia and as Deputy Director for the District of Columbia
Department of Corrections. We welcome him back.
And thank you very much, and you can proceed with a
statement and then we will go to the videotape, then.
STATEMENT OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR.
Mr. Quander. Thank you, and good morning.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to appear today in support of the Court
Services and Offender Supervision Agency's fiscal year 2005
budget request.
As you know, CSOSA's budget request includes the Pretrial
Services Agency which, although a component of CSOSA, operates
independently with a separate budget. The District of Columbia
Public Defender Service also transmits its budget with CSOSA
but is not a part of CSOSA.
CSOSA's fiscal year 2005 budget request totals
$187,490,000, an increase of 12 percent over fiscal year 2004.
Of this, $118,343,000 is for the Community Supervision Program;
$39,314,000 for the Pretrial Services Agency; and $29,833,000
for the Public Defender Service.
At any given time, the Community Supervision Program
supervises approximately 14,000 offenders on probation, parole,
or supervised release. The Pretrial Services Agency supervises
approximately 7,000 defendants pending trial and/or sentencing.
The Community Supervision Program's proposed budget
represents a 13 percent increase over fiscal year 2004 funding.
Of the $14 million increase, approximately $8.9 million is
allocated to one new program initiative. This increase funds
staffing and operating expenses for the first year of
operations for our Reentry and Sanctions Center.
In fiscal year 2002, CSOSA received $13 million in no-year
funds to renovate Karrick Hall, an eight-story building on the
grounds of D.C. General Hospital. This facility housed CSOSA's
21-bed Assessment and Orientation Center since 1996. The
Assessment and Orientation Center provides 30 days of intensive
clinical assessment, treatment readiness, and reintegration
programming to high-risk defendants and offenders with serious
drug abuse problems. Since its inception, over 80 percent of
participants have completed the program, and arrest rates among
program graduates decreased nearly 75 percent. Based on its
demonstrated effectiveness, CSOSA will expand this program as
the focal point of a Reentry and Sanctions Center.
At present, the Assessment and Orientation Center treats
approximately 250 individuals per year. The 108-bed Reentry and
Sanctions Center, once completed, will provide approximately
1,200 program slots annually.
This expansion will allow us to make the program available
to women, develop a dedicated mental health unit, and open
three additional men's units. In addition, the center will
provide short-term residential interventions as a sanction for
individuals who relapse.
CSOSA's program model emphasizes accountability. Our
flexible system of intermediate sanctions enables us to balance
our external controls with the offender's developing sense of
internal self-control. We know, however, that external
authority alone is not sufficient to increase the offender's
sense of responsibility to self, family, and community. For
that, he or she needs to establish permanent, personal
connections to positive individuals and institutions. These
connections are essential to long-term change.
Supervision occupies, at most, a few years of a person's
life. During that time, the offender must develop the personal
resources that will permanently support him or her.
In the District of Columbia, as elsewhere, faith
institutions are a permanent source of guidance, fellowship,
inspiration, and assistance. These institutions have long
histories of helping the less fortunate and encouraging
personal change. Therefore, faith institutions are a natural
point at which to connect returning offenders with their
communities.
In 2001, CSOSA and the City's clergy forged a partnership
to develop mechanisms through which faith institutions could
contribute to successful reentry. We chose mentoring as our
first initiative to emphasize the value of personal
relationships in this work. From the initial call to action in
January 2002, to last month's Reentry Worship events, we have
raised awareness and involved over 200 volunteers in our
mentoring program.
Last year, we expanded the mentoring program to reach
inmates at the Rivers Correctional Institution in North
Carolina, which is a Bureau of Prisons contract facility
housing over 1,000 D.C. offenders. Reverend Donald Isaac, the
Chairman of the CSOSA Faith/Community Partnership Advisory
Council will share the clergy's perspective on this initiative
with the subcommittee.
As the faith initiative matures, we hope to demonstrate the
public safety benefits of linking returning offenders with the
community's natural support systems. We are in the initial
stages of evaluating the program, but we have already seen the
difference this intervention can make in individual lives.
This has been a year of great promise for CSOSA. We have
continued to refine the tools we use to supervise offenders.
This spring, we will implement an expanded automated screening
instrument that combines risk scoring and needs assessment to
generate a prescriptive supervision plan for each offender. We
recently expanded our case management system to include
automated treatment tracking. With the additional fiscal year
2004 funding supported by the subcommittee, CSP, Community
Supervision Program, has begun hiring additional supervision
officers to lower high-risk offender caseloads and expand our
use of Global Positioning System monitoring on high-risk
domestic violence and sex offenders.
The Pretrial Services Agency has made significant progress
with implementation of a new program funded last year, the
Mental Health Supervision Unit. This new unit provides
comprehensive mental health assessments and links defendants
with a range of mental health services provided by the City's
Department of Mental Health.
During fiscal year 2003, Pretrial Services Agency also
provided strong support to the D.C. Superior Court's
implementation of its new East of the River Community Court.
The shift from a traditional case processing orientation to a
problem-solving system of supervision has been very labor-
intensive for PSA, and the agency continues to explore ways to
realign existing staff to lower general supervision caseloads.
Community supervision plays a vital role in keeping our
city safe. It is the bridge that offenders must cross to move
from bad choices to a better life. It is our job to make it
both difficult and undesirable for the offender to reverse
direction and travel backwards. Our supervision officers have
an equal responsibility to encourage progress and address non-
compliance and relapse.
Every time I visit one of our field units, I am reminded
how difficult their job is. But every time I hear that an
offender got a promotion at work or completed treatment, I am
reminded how rewarding it can be. As more partners join us in
this work, I believe our forward momentum will carry more and
more offenders to the long-term success of living as
productive, crime- and drug-free citizens.
PREPARED STATEMENT
We thank the subcommittee for its continued interest in,
and support of, our initiatives. I will be pleased to answer
any question you may have at this time.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul A. Quander, Jr.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear today in support of the Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency's fiscal year 2005 budget request. As you
know, CSOSA's budget request includes the Pretrial Services Agency
(PSA), which, although a component of CSOSA, operates independently
with a separate budget. The District of Columbia Public Defender
Service also transmits its budget with CSOSA's but is not part of
CSOSA.
CSOSA's fiscal year 2005 budget request totals $187,490,000, an
increase of 12 percent over fiscal year 2004. Of this, $118,343,000 is
for the Community Supervision Program (CSP), $39,314,000 for PSA, and
$29,833,000 for the Public Defender Service.
At any given time, CSP supervises approximately 14,000 offenders on
probation, parole, or supervised release. PSA supervises approximately
7,000 defendants pending trial and/or sentencing.
CSP's proposed budget represents a 13 percent increase over fiscal
year 2004 funding. Of the $14 million increase, approximately $8.9
million is allocated to one new program initiative. The increase funds
staffing and operating expenses for the first year of operation for our
Reentry and Sanctions Center.
In fiscal year 2002, CSOSA received $13 million in no-year funds to
renovate Karrick Hall, an eight-story building on the grounds of D.C.
General Hospital. The facility has housed CSOSA's 21-bed Assessment and
Orientation Center, or AOC, since 1996. The AOC provides 30 days of
intensive clinical assessment, treatment readiness, and reintegration
programming to high-risk defendants and offenders with serious drug
abuse problems. The program has been extremely successful. Since its
inception, over 80 percent of participants have completed the program,
and arrest rates among program graduates were found to be nearly 75
percent lower than among offenders who did not receive this
programming. Based on its demonstrated effectiveness, CSOSA decided to
make this program the focal point of a Reentry and Sanctions Center
that would serve a larger population. At present, the AOC treats
approximately 250 individuals per year; the 108-bed Reentry and
Sanctions Center will provide approximately 1,200 program slots
annually.
This expansion will allow us to make programming based on the AOC
model available to women, develop a dedicated unit for individuals with
serious mental health issues, and open three additional units for male
defendants and offenders. This type of intensive, structured,
sanctions-based treatment is clearly effective, and we are very pleased
that we will soon be able to expand its use.
We are also pleased that we will not need to interrupt the program
during the renovations. We have procured an interim facility in
Northwest Washington and are now completing the transfer of operations.
The new space also allows us to increase overall capacity to 27 beds
during the renovation period.
Developing the Reentry and Sanctions Center demonstrated the value
and effectiveness of our community partnerships. We worked closely with
the city during the Reservation 13 master planning process to identify
the best location for the Center at this site. Once the decision to
renovate Karrick Hall was finalized, we worked cooperatively with the
city and neighborhood associations on our short-term occupancy of the
interim facility. At each stage of the process, we kept our partners
and neighbors informed of our intentions. The community has continually
supported our presence and recognized our contribution to public
safety.
CSOSA's Reentry and Sanctions Center will expand the range of
program options available to our supervision officers. Most treatment
professionals believe that relapse is part of recovery. A single
treatment experience is rarely sufficient to enable long-term substance
abusers to overcome their addiction. Most often, the road to recovery
is fraught with obstacles and detours. The Reentry and Sanctions Center
will provide not only the initial 30-day preparatory program, which
increases the likelihood that subsequent treatment will be effective,
but also short-term residential sanctions for individuals who relapse.
CSOSA's program model emphasizes accountability. Our flexible
system of intermediate sanctions enables us to balance our external
controls with the offender's developing sense of internal
accountability. We know, however, that external authority alone is not
sufficient to increase the offender's sense of responsibility to self,
family, and community. For that, he or she needs to establish
permanent, personal connections to positive individuals and
institutions. These connections are essential to long-term change.
Supervision occupies at most a few years of a person's life. During
that time, the offender must develop the personal resources that will
support a changed lifestyle.
In the District of Columbia, as elsewhere, faith institutions are a
permanent source of guidance, fellowship, inspiration, and assistance.
These institutions have long histories of helping the less fortunate
and encouraging personal change. Therefore, faith institutions are a
natural point at which to nurture connection between returning
offenders and their communities.
In 2001, CSOSA and the city's clergy forged a partnership to raise
awareness of the offenders' needs and develop mechanisms through which
faith institutions could help to meet them. We chose mentoring as our
first initiative to emphasize the value of personal relationships in
this work. From the initial call to action in January 2002, to this
year's Reentry Worship events early last month, we have raised
awareness and involved over 200 volunteers in our mentoring program.
Rev. Donald Isaac, the Chairman of the CSOSA Faith/Community
Partnership Advisory Council, will share the clergy's perspective on
this initiative with the subcommittee.
Last year, we expanded the mentoring program to reach inmates at
the Rivers Correctional Institution in North Carolina, which is a
Bureau of Prisons contract facility housing over 1,000 D.C. offenders.
We will show a short video about the mentoring program and a clip of
our video conference mentoring with Rivers at the conclusion of Rev.
Isaac's statement.
As the faith initiative matures, we hope to demonstrate the public
safety benefits of linking returning offenders with the community's
natural support systems. We are in the initial stages of evaluating the
program, but we have already seen the difference this intervention can
make in individual lives. Mentors have helped their mentees get and
keep jobs, maintain abstinence, find housing, and heal family
relationships. A mentor cannot and should not replace the community
supervision officer, but the mentor can help the offender to establish
relationships that last far beyond the supervision term.
Beyond mentoring, the faith initiative makes available to offenders
the support services offered by many churches and mosques. These
services include job training programs, food and clothing banks,
counseling and support groups, and family services. Through referral to
faith-based services, CSOSA expands the range of support available to
offenders.
This has been a year of great promise for CSOSA. We have continued
to refine the tools we use to supervise offenders. This spring, we will
implement an expanded automated screening instrument that combines risk
scoring and needs assessment to generate a prescriptive supervision
plan for each offender. We recently expanded our case management system
to include automated treatment tracking. With the additional fiscal
year 2004 funding supported by the subcommittee, CSP has begun hiring
additional supervision officers to lower high-risk offender caseloads
and expand our use of Global Positioning System monitoring on high-risk
domestic violence and sex offenders. CSP and PSA also processed almost
4,000 treatment placements.
PSA has made significant progress with implementation of a new
program funded last year, the mental health supervision unit. This new
unit provides comprehensive mental health assessments and links
defendants with a range of mental health services provided by the
city's Department of Mental Health. We expect that this will greatly
improve our ability to supervise defendants who manifest significant
programmatic needs.
During fiscal year 2003, PSA also provided strong support to the
D.C. Superior Court's implementation of its new East of the River
Community Court. The shift from a traditional case processing
orientation to a problem-solving system of supervision has been very
labor-intensive for PSA, and the Agency continues to explore ways to
realign existing staff to lower general supervision caseloads.
Community supervision plays a vital role in keeping our city safe.
It is the bridge that offenders must cross to move from bad choices to
a better life. It is our job to make it both difficult and undesirable
for the offender to reverse direction and travel backwards. Our
supervision officers have an equal responsibility to encourage progress
and address non-compliance and relapse. Every time I visit one of our
field units, I am reminded how difficult their job is. But every time I
hear that an offender got a promotion or completed treatment, I am
reminded how rewarding it can be. As more partners join us in this
work, I believe our forward momentum will carry more and more offenders
to the long-term success of living as productive, crime- and drug-free
citizens.
We thank the subcommittee for its continued interest in, and
support of, our initiatives. I will be pleased to answer any questions
you may have at this time.
Senator DeWine. Great. Thank you very much.
You have--why don't we go to your presentation?
Mr. Quander. Thank you, and with the----
Senator DeWine. Then we will go to questions. You can, you
know, bring up Reverend Isaac, now, or----
Mr. Quander. Actually, if I may----
Senator DeWine. Or do you want----
Mr. Quander [continuing]. I would like to invite, with the
Committee's permission, Paul Brennan, who is a supervisory
community supervision officer and an individual who is
intimately responsible for actually implementing and actually
making sure that the Global Positioning System monitoring
system is working.
DEMONSTRATION OF GPS MONITORING
Paul supervises one of our sex offender units, and these
are the individuals who we want to make sure we have constant
control and monitoring. So Paul has been instrumental in
getting the system up and running, and he is the individual who
is most familiar, and I would like to invite him to come
forward and to just talk for a moment and explain what we have
done and how we have done it.
Paul.
STATEMENT OF PAUL BRENNAN
Mr. Brennan. Good morning. First, I would like to make sure
you have a handout that looks like this, to follow along.
Senator DeWine. We do not.
Mr. Brennan. Well, let us look here.
Senator DeWine. Yes. One. Okay. Very good. Okay.
Senator Landrieu. We have another one.
Senator DeWine. We are in business.
Mr. Brennan. Great. What I am going to show you is just a
brief clip of an offender--of a sex offender, high-risk sex
offender released from prison. It is going to show his
movements to a location that we later had to investigate----
Senator DeWine. All right.
Mr. Brennan [continuing]. And I will talk about the
findings of what we found out. What you will see on the screen
is the offender at a bus stop that we identified. The green
represents--the green dots represent the offender. The arrows
will represent movement of the offender.
As you can see, the offender is around this bus stop here.
Senator DeWine. Where does this show up, though, in the
real world? I mean, it does not show up here in the Capitol on
the screen. Where is it?
Mr. Brennan. It shows up on our computer screen that we can
pull up from our office.
Senator DeWine. And who monitors that?
Mr. Brennan. The supervising officers will monitor this on
a daily basis.
Senator DeWine. The officer for that particular individual
or is there just somebody who monitors it in general?
Mr. Brennan. Each officer will be monitoring their
offender's movements each day.
Senator DeWine. Okay.
Mr. Brennan. They will be most intimately aware of what the
issues are to look for.
Senator DeWine. Okay.
Mr. Brennan. With this particular offender, he's a child
molester and we want to keep him away from schools. He's not
allowed to use the internet and so forth.
You see his movements as he comes into the City. He stops
at this location. We lose GPS at this location. That typically
means an offender has gone inside of a building. We know that
this is G Street. We know that Martin Luther King Library is
down here.
We brought the offender in and investigated why he was in
this particular location, and from that investigation
determined that he was using the internet at Martin Luther King
Library which was a condition of his release that prohibited
him from doing such. So from that, we were able to sanction the
offender, put tighter restrictions on him.
I am going to show you another clip of the same offender
who is at the halfway house. He goes to the same bus stop. Down
at the bottom of the screen you can--in your handout you can
see it clearer, the time, the date, and he travels down to
Anacostia Metro Station. Now, he's on his way--he is permitted
to leave the halfway house to go to a job program. The job
program is not in this area.
So what caused us to be concerned is: Why is he going out
of his way to go to this particular stop? What we notice are
the red indicators here of schools. The time of day is between
7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. So when kids are going to school, they
may be taking that particular subway station.
As I play the movements, you can see that the offender is
there for an extended--almost an hour, which is highly unusual,
and you can see him loitering around the location. And this,
right here, and that to us is suspicious. Why is he in that
location?
In a minute you'll see him now getting on public
transportation. We lose GPS. That means he is probably on a
bus, and then he ends up in this location. He gets off the bus,
and now he is walking to his program. You see a school here.
And there is his program, right here. And it sees him stop.
Now, here is the closest Metro. So, why was he at the Anacostia
station? We later determined that he had gone there repeatedly.
That was enough for us to take it back to the parole commission
and revoke his parole.
Do we have time for one more clip?
Mr. Quander. Let me just make a point. We would never have
known the travel pattern of this individual unless we had the
monitoring system. What happened was once he went to the
Anacostia station, the next morning when the supervising CSO
took a look at his screen, the information automatically was
there. So he could look at it, analyze it, and indicate--the
indications were right there, that there were three schools,
and we also saw that he was standing there for 1 hour.
And why does a sex offender get off at a subway stop which
is not the closest one to where he is going and which is in
close proximity to three schools? We were able to use this
information to confront him with it and get him to acknowledge,
No. 1, yes, he was there and, No. 2, he should not have been
there. And then we could take the appropriate action.
The other thing that this allows us to do is when we
present this to a releasing authority, whether it is the
Superior Court or the U.S. Parole Commission, it makes it very
difficult for people to explain away. There is no longer an
issue as to whether or not you were there. This technology
proves it. There is not much that you can say. It is
irrefutable, essentially, and allows us to keep control over a
population that we are most concerned about. Okay.
Senator DeWine. Good. No, that was great. Thank you, very
much.
Mr. Quander. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead.
Mr. Brennan. The hardware is up here if you wanted to
examine it. Also, in the green packets, there is a description
of how it works and that is from the company. Feel free to
review that.
Senator DeWine. Sure. Go ahead.
Senator Landrieu. How expensive was this system to put in
place and what is the annual cost of maintaining it? And I am
not talking about the people that have to analyze it. I am just
talking about the software and the general maintenance.
Mr. Quander. We are--we have a vendor, a contract with a
vendor. Our costs are $6 a day per unit that we have available
to us. The committee appropriated $100,000 for us to get the
program up and operational. We would like to expand the use to
get as many as 200 individuals on to the GPS system.
Senator Landrieu. Let us talk about the cost if we could,
Mr. Chairman, for just a minute. This is the device that costs
$6 a day?
Mr. Quander. It is the whole system.
Senator Landrieu. It is the whole system?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Senator Landrieu. And for $6 a day you can monitor a
felon----
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Senator Landrieu [continuing]. A person? And we have money
to monitor how many?
Mr. Quander. Right now, we can monitor 100 individuals.
Senator Landrieu. And how many do we have?
Mr. Quander. Right now, there are nine that are actually on
the program.
Senator Landrieu. No. How many offenders are we trying--
what is our goal of trying to monitor, how many?
Mr. Quander. I am--I have funding to monitor 100. I would
like to monitor 200.
Senator Landrieu. All right. How many----
Senator DeWine. But how many----
Senator Landrieu [continuing]. Then would----
Senator DeWine. Excuse me. How many are we actually
monitoring right now?
Mr. Quander. Today, we have nine offenders on GPS.
Senator DeWine. Why are we only at nine?
Mr. Quander. Because we are still in the pilot phase of the
program----
Senator DeWine. Okay.
Mr. Quander [continuing]. And we are evaluating. The other
issues are: We have to train staff. Right now, most of the
offenders are in the sex offense unit, and so Mr. Brennan, who
supervises that unit, has received the training and the know
how. The other thing, it is intensive as far as analyzing the
material.
Senator DeWine. Okay.
Mr. Quander. Once this information is provided, then the
CSO has to sit down, has to analyze it, know the patterns, and
then confront the individual and do the follow up. So, it is
labor intensive. So, we have to be in a caseload ratio.
So, right now, although the sex offense caseload is about
29 to 1 as of January, this past January, the closer we get it
down to those lower numbers, the more effective we can use
this, make this tool.
Senator Landrieu. Let me try to re-ask my question, and I
am very impressed with the technology and, believe me, I want
to help you, and I can see the benefits of it. I can also see
the--and understand the issue you just raised because we have
talked about it before. But as good as the technology is, it is
only as good as you can analyze it and have the people there to
sit at the screen and to do the appropriate calculations and
then take the time to follow up.
So I am clear, I am just trying to understand that this
pilot, although it is good, it seems to me to be very, very
small in the sense that we have, according to this, 500 sex
offenders that are released on the streets and we are
monitoring nine, nine people right now?
Mr. Brennan. We have actually hooked up over 50 in the
course of the pilot.
Senator Landrieu. So 50 out of 500 of the sex offenders.
And how many of the mental health--we have 666 mental health
individuals that are described as mental health. Are we
monitoring any of those?
Mr. Quander. None of the mental health population are on
the GPS.
Senator Landrieu. How about domestic violence?
Mr. Quander. Well----
Senator Landrieu. We have 1,122?
Mr. Quander. During the course of the pilot phase, there
have only been two, I believe, domestic violence individuals.
Senator Landrieu. This is a very small pilot, but it is
very promising.
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Senator Landrieu. But the problem is: The resources are
short and the staffing issues are substantial. But it seems
like, is it the, I guess--I am going to finish up here in a
minute.
But is it the code of consensus of the professionals that
do this that this is a pretty extraordinary system if it can be
funded and staffed appropriately? Because, as you said, I mean,
I am sure everything is--nothing is foolproof, but this seems
pretty convincing to me; that is, trying to monitor activities
of people and trying to catch them before another terrible
incident occurs. Is that your general sense?
Mr. Quander. It is, and----
Senator Landrieu. I am not trying to lead you to an answer.
I just want to know what your feeling is, yes or no.
Mr. Quander. It is, and let me try to respond this way.
Possibly 3 weeks ago we provided training to the Judges, the
Criminal Division Judges in Superior Court, for what is
involved in dealing with the sex offender, and a portion of
that training dealt with the Global Positioning System, and we
walked through it because we wanted to educate them so that
they knew it was available so that they could use it.
Once we did that demonstration, the phone calls have been
coming in. So there is a need. There is agreement in the
community, the criminal justice community, that this works,
that it is a tool that can better protect the public.
It is also a tool that helps us assist the offenders to be
successful in their period of supervision. The more individuals
that I can keep on the streets of the District of Columbia
successfully complying with the rules, the better we are as a
city, and the better their chances are for completing
supervision successfully in taking advantage of all the other
tools that we have available. This helps us to keep offenders
accountable, and if we have them accountable, then we can do
all the other things that we need to do to make that
transition.
Senator DeWine. The pilot program will run its course when?
Mr. Quander. Well, we have funding for this fiscal year,
and we have funding for 100 for next fiscal year, but as I
indicated, we are very interested in trying to expand, because
I want to make it available to the CSO's who have individuals
who are just on their regular caseload.
Senator DeWine. When do you think you will move from the
nine up to the next stage? I mean----
Mr. Quander. Actually, we are looking to do that by the end
of May. There is some training that has to take place with the
staff. There are some union issues that have to be overcome,
but I am not anticipating any problems, because we are talking
about a change in the way that we do business. So by the end of
May we should be close to having 50 and by the end of the
fiscal year, we will have a minimum of 100 people, I believe,
on the Global Positioning System.
Senator DeWine. What kind of union issues do you have?
Mr. Quander. Union issues are just that there is a change
in the way that we are going to do business. This is going to
require our staff to analyze material, to be familiar with
patterns, to do things just a little differently. I am not
anticipating any problems. In fact, I have a meeting with the
union scheduled next week. They know where we are going. The
staff is very receptive. They like it. It gives them an
opportunity to do the work that they really want to do, and
that is to make a change in individual's lives. The more tools
that we can give the staff, the easier it is for them to do
their job and the better the results.
Senator DeWine. Good. Okay. Very good. What else do you
have to show us here?
Mr. Quander. There is one additional slide if you would
like to, Paul.
Senator DeWine. Yes, I think we had better--I think we had
better move to Reverend Isaac at this point.
Mr. Quander. Reverend Isaac?
Senator DeWine. Reverend Isaac became the Director of the
East of the River Clergy-Police-Community Partnership in 2001.
This partnership was created to address issues associated with
high-risk youth and the young adults who are at risk of being
in the criminal justice system. Reverend Isaac also serves as
the Chairman of CSOSA's Faith Advisory Committee, and is a
member of the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, and has
served on the Board of Directors of the Thurgood Marshall
Charter School.
Reverend Isaac. Yes. Good morning.
Senator DeWine. Reverend, thank you for joining us.
Reverend Isaac. Thank you for having me.
Senator DeWine. We appreciate it very much.
Reverend Isaac. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF REVEREND DONALD ISAAC
Reverend Isaac. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
thank you for this opportunity to appear today to represent the
partnership between the Court Services and Offender Supervision
Agency and the District of Columbia faith community.
I am Reverend Donald Isaac, Executive Director of the East
of the River Clergy-Police-Community Partnership and Associate
Pastor of the Southeast Tabernacle Church. I am also Chairman
of the CSOSA Faith/Community Partnership Advisory Council, and
it is in that context that I come before you today.
Over the past few years, government has begun to understand
and notice the extent to which the faith institutions
contribute to community stability, family strength, and public
safety. The executive order establishing the White House Office
of Faith-Based and Community Programs states that, ``Faith-
based and other community organizations are indispensable in
meeting the needs of poor Americans and distressed
neighborhoods.'' As a minister in the District of Columbia, I
see the truth of that statement every day.
I have dedicated my ministry to reversing the trend of
escalating crime and violence amount our City's young people.
Therefore, I am very interested--I was very interested when
CSOSA issued the call in 2001 asking the City's clergy to
establish a faith/community partnership that uses the power and
resources of faith institutions to help offenders under
community supervision.
From the very beginning, several aspects of CSOSA's
approach to the faith/community partnership were encouraging.
First, CSOSA represents--respects the autonomy and authority of
faith institutions. Second, they acknowledge that our resources
are limited, and that a partnership is a two-way street. They
are willing to give something to get something. CSOSA put in
place and funded a structure to support offenders' access to
faith/community programs and services. And third, they value
and respect all creeds and denominations.
CSOSA supports the efforts of our Advisory Committee--or
Council to remain truly representative of the City's
congregations. Our Advisory Council currently has 19 members
drawn from the City's diverse Christian and Muslim
congregations.
The Faith/Community Partnership chose mentoring as its
first initiative because it allows individual volunteers and
returning offenders to connect in an immediate and personal
way. Relationships are the core of mentoring, but successful
mentoring involves much more than conversation. It involves
empathy and support. Mentors must be able to understand the
obstacles and temptations their mentees face, the obligations
of community supervision, and the opportunities they need to
find.
CSOSA has developed and delivered mentor training that
touches on most of these issues, but no classroom experience
can prepare an individual for how hard the work is.
The initial 100 matches between mentors and mentees have
yielded wonderful examples of that support. Shirley Hall was
released from prison in October 2002 at the age of 39. When she
joined us, she had a long history of drug use and
incarceration. In fact, she was referred to us after having her
parole revoked for drug use. She told us that she needed the
support of other women to stay out. We placed her with Upper
Room Baptist Church.
Reverend Catherine Bago, the associate pastor, has worked
for many years with substance abuse and runs a well-regarded
aftercare program. Shirley received a lot of support from the
women's group at Upper Room, as well as from Reverend Bago
personally. She has been drug-free since her release and is
pursuing a long-term career as a commercial driver. She has
managed to stay clean even though she has faced a lot of
stress. Both her parents have been ill, and she started a job
that did not work out. She may have relapsed, but she did not.
She stayed strong and credits that success in part to the
support she received from Upper Room.
Ms. Hall's case provides a good example, not just of the
personal support mentoring provides, but of faith-based support
services, as well. Ms. Hall's parole has had a special
condition requiring substance abuse aftercare. Attendance at
Reverend Bago's program has enabled her to satisfy that
condition in a way that reinforced her connection to the faith
community. Upper Room's program lasts as long as Ms. Hall wants
to attend it. Ms. Hall has had access to a supportive women's
group long after her parole has ended.
The District of Columbia faith institutions provide a wide
range of support services, including job training and
placement, family counseling, food and clothing banks, and
transitional housing. We at the East of the River Clergy-
Police-Community Partnership are proud of our recently
developed housing facility, which was dedicated as part of this
year's reentry activities.
ERCPCP is also pleased to have been selected as a pilot
program for the Ready4Work Program administered through the
Department of Labor. This program will enable us to greatly
expand our job readiness and placement activities over the next
3 years.
Another lead institution in the CSOSA Faith/Community
Partnership, New Commandment Baptist Church, has received funds
from the Department of Justice to expand its program, as well.
Our involvement with CSOSA has prepared us for the challenge of
administering broader initiatives and, in turn, the offenders
under CSOSA supervision will benefit from an increased range of
support programs.
The CSOSA Faith/Community Partnership has grown from a
dozen ministers at a conference table to a City-wide initiative
involving hundreds of individuals. We are beginning to attract
the additional resources needed to expand the services that are
essential to success. We have expanded mentoring to reach out
to prisoners, to prison inmates before they return home.
Because those early weeks are so critical, we want to make sure
the inmate knows where to find us as soon as he gets off the
bus.
All this adds up to a promising start. CSOSA is committed
to working with us, and we are committed to providing permanent
fellowship and support to any offender who wants it. We are in
this for the long haul, and we hope that the resources will be
available for us to make even more of our inspirations into
realities.
CSOAS--excuse me. CSOSA reached out to us because they
recognized the limitations of law enforcement. Community
supervision lasts only a short time, while the faith community
can be a source of permanent inspiration. Community supervision
is a consequence of past behavior, but faith institutions can
influence the course of future behavior. Community supervision
is about external accountability, but faith is about internal
change. As in any good marriage, the two partners in this
enterprise complement each other.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I look forward to continuing our work with CSOSA, and I
thank you again for this opportunity to tell you about it. I
will be happy to answer any questions that you may have at this
time.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Reverend Donald Isaac
Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, thank you for this
opportunity to appear today to represent the partnership between the
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency and the District of
Columbia faith community. I am Rev. Donald Isaac, Executive Director of
the East of the River Clergy-Police-Community Partnership and Associate
Pastor of Southeast Tabernacle Church. I am also the Chairman of the
CSOSA/Faith Community Partnership Advisory Council, and it is in that
capacity that I come before you today.
Over the past few years, government has begun to notice the extent
to which faith institutions contribute to community stability, family
strength, and public safety. The Executive Order establishing the White
House Office of Faith-Based and Community Programs states that
``[f]aith-based and other community organizations are indispensable in
meeting the needs of poor Americans and distressed neighborhoods.'' \1\
As a minister in the District of Columbia, I see the truth of that
statement every day. I have dedicated my ministry to reversing the
trend of escalating crime and violence among our city's young people.
Therefore, I was very interested when CSOSA issued their call in 2001,
asking the city's clergy to establish a faith/community partnership
that uses the power and resources of faith institutions to help
offenders under community supervision.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ White House Office of the Press Secretary, ``Executive Order:
Establishment of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,''
January 29, 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the beginning, several aspects of CSOSA's approach to faith/
community partnership were encouraging. First, CSOSA respects the
autonomy and authority of faith institutions. Second, they acknowledge
that our resources are limited, and that a partnership is a two-way
street. They are willing to give something to get something--CSOSA put
in place and funded a structure to support offenders' access to faith
community programs and services. And third, they value and respect all
creeds and denominations. CSOSA supports the efforts of our Advisory
Council to remain truly representative of the city's congregations. Our
Advisory Council currently has 19 members drawn from the city's diverse
Christian and Muslim congregations.
The Faith/Community Partnership chose mentoring as its first
initiative because it allows individual volunteers and returning
offenders to connect in an immediate, personal way. Relationships are
the core of mentoring, but successful mentoring involves much more than
conversation. It involves empathy and support. Mentors must be able to
understand the obstacles and temptations their mentees face, the
obligations of community supervision, and the opportunities they need
to find. CSOSA has developed and delivered mentor training that touches
on most of these issues, but no classroom experience can prepare an
individual for how hard the work is.
The initial 100 matches between mentors and mentees have yielded
some wonderful examples of that support. Shirley Hall was released from
prison in October 2002 at the age of 39. When she joined us, she had a
long history of drug use and incarceration; in fact, she was referred
to us after having her parole revoked for drug use. She told us that
she needed the support of other women to stay out. We placed her with
Upper Room Baptist Church. Rev. Catherine Bago, the associate pastor,
has worked for many years with substance abuse and runs a well-regarded
aftercare program. Shirley received a lot of support from the women's
groups at Upper Room, as well as from Rev. Bago personally. She has
been drug-free since her release and is pursuing a long-term career as
a commercial driver. She has managed to stay clean even though she has
faced a lot of stress--both her parents have been ill, and she started
a job that didn't work out. She might have relapsed. But she didn't.
She stayed strong, and she credits that success in part to the support
she received from Upper Room.
Ms. Hall's case provides a good example not just of the personal
support mentoring provides but of faith-based support services as well.
Ms. Hall's parole has a special condition requiring substance abuse
aftercare; attendance at Rev. Bago's program enabled her to satisfy
that condition in a way that reinforced her connection to the faith
community. Upper Room's program lasts as long as Ms. Hall wants to
attend it. Ms. Hall will have access to a supportive women's group long
after her parole is ended.
The District of Columbia's faith institutions provide a wide range
of support services, including job training and placement, family
counseling, food and clothing banks, and transitional housing. We at
East of the River Clergy-Police-Community Partnership (ERCPCP) are very
proud of our recently developed housing facility, which was dedicated
as part of this year's Reentry Week activities. ERCPCP is also pleased
to be selected as a pilot site for the Ready4Work program administered
through the Department of Labor. This program will enable us to greatly
expand our job readiness and placement activities over the next 3
years. Another lead institution in the CSOSA/Faith Community
Partnership, New Commandment Baptist Church, has received funds from
the Department of Justice to expand its programs. Our involvement with
CSOSA has prepared us for the challenge of administering broader
initiatives, and in turn, the offenders under CSOSA supervision will
benefit from an increased range of support programs.
The CSOSA/Faith Community Partnership has grown from a dozen
ministers at a conference table to a citywide initiative involving
hundreds of individuals. We are beginning to attract the additional
resources needed to expand the services that are essential to success.
We have expanded mentoring to reach out to prison inmates before they
return home. Because those early weeks are so critical, we want to make
sure the inmate knows where to find us as soon as he gets off the bus.
All this adds up to a promising start. CSOSA is committed to
working with us, and we are committed to providing permanent fellowship
and support to any offender who wants it. We are in this for the long
haul, and we hope that the resources will be available for us to make
even more of our inspirations into realities. CSOSA reached out to us
because they recognized the limitations of law enforcement. Community
supervision lasts only a short time, while the faith community can be a
source of permanent inspiration. Community supervision is a consequence
of past behavior, but faith institutions can influence the course of
future behavior. Community supervision is about external
accountability, but faith is about internal change. As in any good
marriage, the two partners in this enterprise complement each other.
I look forward to continuing our work with CSOSA, and I thank you
again for this opportunity to tell you about it. I will be happy to
answer any questions you may have at this time.
Senator DeWine. Reverend, thank you very much.
Am I understanding that you have a video that shows some of
the teleconferencing that goes on with some of the inmates? Can
you show that for us?
Reverend Isaac. Yes.
That is it.
Senator DeWine. Good. That is very good. Now, who has the
availability to access that? I saw that was a mentor there, or
he was identified as. Family members have the ability to do
that, as well, or----
Mr. Quander. Actually, we do; we invite the family members
down, during certain portions of the video conferencing, so
that we can establish that connection. Some of the men--what we
are trying to emphasize are those pro-social values that the
faith institutions have, and a part of that is that
restructuring of that family or reconnection because some of
those family bridges have been burned and the mentors and the
faith community help us, oftentimes, reestablish and reconnect
with those men, and the more that we can do that the more
support that we have, the more assistance that the CSO has in
making sure that offenders are being held accountable, and at
the same time that those services and support mechanisms are in
place.
So the family members do come down, including the children,
so that they can reestablish those connections with their
fathers.
Senator DeWine. Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. Let me pursue that line of questioning
about trying to keep convicted felons connected to their
families, restrengthening the families where possible.
With the women prisoners--I understand that we have quite a
challenge with all the prisoners, but particularly with women,
many of whom are mothers, as many of the men would be fathers.
But I understand that the majority of women are placed either
in West Virginia or Connecticut?
Mr. Quander. That is correct.
Senator Landrieu. And how many miles away are those
facilities, Alderson and Danbury?
Mr. Quander. I am not sure, but I believe that Alderson is
within 500 miles of the District, but I also believe that it is
probably a 6- or 7-hour drive there. Danbury is going to be an
8-hour drive, I believe.
Senator Landrieu. Okay.
Mr. Quander. So it is a significant distance that families
often have to travel so that they can stay connected. One of
the things that we are working with, just as we have
established this video conference with Rivers in North
Carolina, we are working with the Bureau of Prisons and with
other organizations and the faith group to establish a similar
link either at Alderson or at Danbury. So that we can start the
same process and, hopefully, we can strengthen what we are
doing and strengthen those families through this
teleconferencing capability.
Senator Landrieu. And I am just focused on the number here.
I have about 12 percent of the population that we are talking
about is female, about 8,000 in jail. So, roughly, that would
be a little over 800, maybe 1,000 female individuals, if my
math is correct. Eight thousand in jail, 12 percent female,
does that match with what you all--approximately, 1,000?
Mr. Quander. I think it is going to be a little less than
1,000 female offenders----
Senator Landrieu. Okay. Eight hundred?
Mr. Quander [continuing]. Through a----
Senator Landrieu. Eight hundred, maybe? Somewhere--am I
right, between about 700 and 1,000? Is that safe?
Mr. Quander. I believe that would be accurate. Yes.
Senator Landrieu. Okay.
Mr. Quander. But the Bureau of Prisons would have the best
stats, the best information.
Senator Landrieu. Okay. If there is 700, Mr. Chairman, to
1,000, I am wondering what kind of other options there are for
the teleconferencing opportunities, whether they are, you know,
once a week, once a month, once a quarter, with family members,
or trying to get some of those inmates closer to the community.
I think there are a couple of components here.
I mean one is trying not to just reunite them with the
community, but reunite them with the families which is part of
the community which is important, trying to keep those bonds
from fraying in the first place, as well as, the professional
supervision, so it all works together in an integrated way.
And, Mr. Chairman, I think we have quite a challenge, A, to
try to keep these inmates closer, physically, but also use this
technology when the physical location is impossible to really
make that connection. Now, what is limiting us? Is it--again,
is it the cost of the software? Is it the--what are the
limitations so that this is not being available to all, let us
say, 700 or 800 women, now?
Mr. Quander. One of the issues is that the women are not
located in one facility. They are spread throughout the
country. Alderson, I believe, houses the largest number of
female offenders, D.C. co-defenders. And, I believe, that
number is going to be--actually that is, as I understand it,
there are 67 women in Alderson facility. There is, I believe, a
lesser number in the facility in Massachusetts--in Connecticut.
All total from the Bureau of Prisons, I understand, is
approximately less than 300 females that are housed in Bureau
of Prisons' facilities throughout the country, but they are
spread throughout the country. And so, thus, one of the
limitations is that we do not have them in one or two central
locations. Those two central locations are Alderson and
Danbury. And so that is why we are focusing on that.
We have actually had meetings with the Bureau of Prisons,
and the Bureau is receptive. They see the benefit. The wardens
and the support staff in those facilities see the benefit of
doing this. We are just in the process of trying to make it
happen. We are the agency that actually receives the
individuals once they have left the prison. What we want to do
is sort of extend our reach to get them before they have come
to us, because we think there are some services that we can
provide that will help them with that transition, and the faith
community has been very supportive, and we think we are there.
Senator Landrieu. Well, the final thing I will say on that,
I think the Chairman and I would be more than happy to help you
with the Bureau of Prisons to try and develop a stronger
partnership as people are getting close to their release time,
to move them closer to the community, physically, and then
connect them via as much, you know, using some of this new
technology as possible, not just for the women but for the men.
But, I think, particularly in terms of many of these women
who are the primary caretakers of the children, we want those
relationships to be maintained as much as possible. So that is
all I will say, Mr. Chairman. But any ideas you have, please
let us know and we will work with you on that.
Mr. Quander. Thank you. One of the things that we have
discussed with the Bureau is designating those two facilities
and the Rivers facility, essentially, as a feeder site; as
individuals get closer to their release date, using those
facilities so that we can have a critical mass, and if we have
a critical mass at these facilities, then we can continue to
use those services.
If the facility is Alderson or Danbury, that is fine. And
the Bureau has indicated its willingness to work with us to,
maybe, sort of, funnel individuals in that direction, so that
if we can get them there, then we can start establishing some
of the services that, I think, we can provide.
STATUS OF REENTRY AND SANCTIONS CENTER
Senator DeWine. Mr. Quander, I just have one question. In
your written statement and your oral statement, you talked
about the Reentry and Sanctions Center.
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Senator DeWine. I am unclear how far along that is as far
as capacity. You say, ``At present, the AOC treats
approximately 250 individuals per year. The 108-bed Reentry and
Sanctions Center will provide, approximately, 1,200 program
slots annually.'' So are you totally up and running or--I do
not quite understand that.
Mr. Quander. No. Where we are----
Senator DeWine. This and that.
Mr. Quander. Okay. Where we are, Senator, is that we have a
facility which is on the grounds of D.C. General Hospital,
Karrick Hall, which is--we have to renovate, essentially gut,
put new heating, air conditioning. I mean, we have to go in.
This committee appropriated $13 million----
Senator DeWine. In 2002, right? Which one----
Mr. Quander. Yes. But we had to negotiate with the city. We
had to bring the community in. There were a lot of issues that
needed to be resolved before we could actually enter into the
lease agreement, which took us a while to get.
Senator DeWine. So where is that construction? Where is
that?
Mr. Quander. Actually, all the paperwork is done. We had 21
men that were in the facility. They have been relocated to
swing space, which is in the community. Construction is
beginning. We are anticipating having the facility ready for
operation, hopefully, in May of 2005. We will be able to expand
that population in our facility so that we can house women
there, so that we can house a mental health unit and four units
for men, which will really increase our capacity to provide the
type of service that we need. And with this group, this is the
group of that core 30 percent of long-term substance abusers
with at least six prior contacts. These are the individuals
who, we believe, are doing most of the damage in our city. If
we can get their substance abuse problems under control----
Senator DeWine. So you will be rolling by May of next year,
then?
Mr. Quander. That is what we are anticipating, having the
facility and going in and rolling. Yes.
Senator DeWine. And what does that do then to your
operating budget when you hit that level?
Mr. Quander. Well, right now, we are funded--we have
partial year funding for that, that will take us through fiscal
year of 2005. And fiscal year 2006, there is going to be a
substantial increase that we are going to need to continue the
operation.
Senator DeWine. Are you covered in this proposed budget
then?
Mr. Quander. Yes, for 2005.
Senator DeWine. That would be a partial year, then?
Mr. Quander. A partial year, that is correct.
Senator DeWine. And you are covered in the President's
budget for that?
Mr. Quander. Yes, for the partial operations.
Senator DeWine. Because you are going to be substantially
up--I mean, once you move into that facility, it is like you
are moving into any new facility, your costs just kind of go
up, is that right?
Mr. Quander. That is correct. So for the partial year 2005,
I believe, we are covered. The issue will be in fiscal year
2006, when we go to full-year funding for the program.
Senator DeWine. Let me ask one last question and then we
will move to our next panel: This committee has worked with you
to take down the ratio when you are dealing with sex offenders
and other special population offenders, but from your budget
submission, it appears that your general population--you are at
a ratio of 1 to 125. That sounds high. How does that compare to
other jurisdictions?
Mr. Quander. No, actually, our general population--our
general supervision numbers are about 50 to 1. What you may be
referring to----
Senator DeWine. Maybe I misread that.
PRETRIAL CASELOADS
Mr. Quander. But I would like to speak to that just for one
moment, because that is the ratio of the general supervision in
the pretrial services area for those individuals who have not
been adjudicated or convicted.
Senator DeWine. Pretrial?
Mr. Quander. Pretrial.
Senator DeWine. Okay.
Mr. Quander. That ratio is extremely high, as you noted. It
is about 127 to 1. I believe----
Senator DeWine. How does that compare to other
jurisdictions, pretrial service----
Mr. Quander. In the----
Senator DeWine [continuing]. Comparing apples to apples,
then?
Mr. Quander. It is difficult to compare because the
District is unique. If you look at Federal pretrial in
surrounding jurisdictions, Northern Virginia and in Maryland,
those numbers are in the range of about 60 to 1. What we have
requested is an area that will get us down to 80 to 1. It is--
--
Senator DeWine. How about State pretrial?
Mr. Quander. State pretrial, there are not any standard
numbers that we have been able to really pull together, but we
do know that 127 to 1 is--that does not allow us to do anything
but just to process the paperwork. If we are going to do the
type of supervision that we need, our numbers in that area have
to come down, and they have to come down dramatically.
Senator DeWine. So these--just so I understand, these would
be the felons, misdemeanors, what are they? Who are they?
Mr. Quander. On the pretrial side?
Senator DeWine. Yes, right, that is what we are talking
about.
Mr. Quander. It would be felons and misdemeanors----
Senator DeWine. Mostly a----
Mr. Quander [continuing]. But mostly felons.
Senator DeWine [continuing]. Mixed group.
Mr. Quander. Yes, but mainly felons that are in there and
then----
Senator DeWine. Mainly felons?
Mr. Quander. That is correct.
Senator DeWine. Okay. Pretrial, mainly felons, 125 to 1.
Yes, that does sound high.
Mr. Quander. It is.
Senator DeWine. We all agree it is high, right?
Mr. Quander. Yes, we do.
Senator DeWine. We agree it is a problem?
Mr. Quander. We believe it is a potential problem. Yes.
Senator DeWine. So, really--I mean, we are using nice words
here, but we are not doing much.
Mr. Quander. We are only----
Senator DeWine. We are watching them on paper?
Mr. Quander. We are processing----
Senator DeWine. Processing paper, but that is about all we
are doing, is it not?
Mr. Quander. I like to go out, and I like to talk to the
people that are really do the work, and I went out recently and
spoke with a pretrial services officer and she said, ``Mr.
Quander, all I am doing is processing paper.''
Senator DeWine. Well, if they mess up, we know it maybe.
Mr. Quander. Exactly. And she indicated that she----
Senator DeWine. If the police pick them up again, we know
it, but that is about it.
Mr. Quander. And she said she wants to do more, but she
cannot with the caseload with the way that it is.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator DeWine. I see it. Okay. So we have got a problem.
Okay. All right. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Quander. Thank you.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Agency for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Mike DeWine
community supervision program
Question. What are the key performance goals and measures used to
manage CSOSA's offender supervision program?
Answer. CSOSA's Community Supervision Program (CSP) has adopted
improvement in public safety as its most important outcome. While many
factors influence public safety, CSP can contribute to it by reducing
recidivism among the population under supervision. Both new convictions
and revocations that result in loss of liberty contribute to the
overall recidivism rate.
The achievement of this long-term outcome depends on CSP's success
in changing the offender's behavior and assisting him or her in
establishing a stable, crime-free lifestyle. It is necessary to
confront the problems most often at the root of criminal behavior as
well as to enforce conditions of release. CSP targets five key
intermediate outcome areas for its offender population that must first
be addressed to improve public safety:
--Decrease Rearrest.--The rate of rearrest is one indicator of
potential criminal activity among the supervised population.
Effective supervision and sanctions should result in a
decreased rearrest rate among the offenders under supervision.
--Decrease Technical Violations.--Offenders violate the conditions of
their release by using drugs, changing residence or traveling
without permission, failing to complete treatment, and other
behaviors. Such ``technical'' violations often precede more
serious criminal behavior. CSP has therefore targeted a
reduction in the percentage of offenders who accumulate
multiple technical violations as an important measure of
whether its sanctions-based supervision model is effective.
--Decrease Drug Use.--Substance abusers must make progress toward
reducing their drug use. CSP tracks changes in substance abuse
using drug testing. The measurement of drug use (as measured by
positive test results) will reflect the effectiveness of the
Agency's testing policy and sanctions for positive tests.
Positive drug test results among offenders who have received
treatment will be the primary method for assessing the
effectiveness of treatment interventions.
--Increase Job Retention.--CSP works with its partners in the
community to develop employment opportunities for offenders
under supervision. Because of data availability concerns,
initial targets focused on the rate of employment among its
offenders. However, with the deployment of a new information
system, CSP has modified the measure to focus on the offender's
ability to maintain employment. This new measure allows for job
change and periods of training but not for long periods of
unemployment.
--Increase Education Levels.--An offender's chances of success
improve markedly if he or she functions at a higher educational
level. CSP has implemented a system of learning labs to provide
educational programming. The objective is to enroll offenders
needing assistance in a GED or adult literacy program and to
measure progress throughout participation.
Progress toward the intermediate outcomes is directly related to
achievement of the long-term outcome of increasing public safety in the
District of Columbia. If offenders are held accountable for their
actions and improve the factors that contribute to personal and
economic success, they are less likely to recidivate. In that way,
achievement of the intermediate outcomes results in the long-term
outcome of reduced recidivism.
Critical Success Factors (CSF's)
CSOSA established the following four Critical Success Factors
(CSF's) as our primary operational strategies. The CSF's define the
core day-to-day activities within community supervision. Without
successful performance of these activities, it would be impossible to
make progress toward the Agency's intermediate- and long-term outcomes.
--Risk and Needs Assessment.--Establish and implement (a) an
effective risk and needs assessment and case management
process, including regular drug testing, to help officials
determine whom it is appropriate to release and at what level
of supervision, including identification of required treatment
and support services, and (b) an ongoing evaluation process
that assesses an offender's compliance with release conditions
and progress in reforming behavior so that further
interventions can be implemented if needed;
--Close Supervision.--Provide close supervision of offenders,
including immediate graduated sanctions for violations of
release conditions and incentives for compliance;
--Treatment and Support Services.--Provide appropriate treatment and
support services, as determined by the needs assessment, to
assist offenders in reintegrating into the community; and
--Partnerships.--Establish partnerships with other criminal justice
agencies, faith institutions, and community organizations in
order to facilitate close supervision of the offender in the
community and to leverage the diverse resources of local law
enforcement, human service agencies, and other local community
groups.
The CSF's define interdependent processes that, taken as a whole,
determine long-term outcomes. Risk and needs assessment continually
inform how offenders are supervised and which services they receive.
Through partnerships with the community and other criminal justice
agencies, CSP develops service capacity and improves its supervision
practices.
CSP has also put in place a system of output-oriented performance
measures to track specific oeprational activities related to each CSF.
Most of these activities are defined within Agency policies. Therefore,
the specific performance measures track whether we are in fact
implementing our program model.
Question. How does CSP classify offenders to enable close
supervision of those offenders who are high risk for committing serious
or violent crimes?
Answer. To classify offenders into an appropriate level of
supervision, CSP uses a screening instrument that is automated and
fully integrated within its information system, SMART (Supervision and
Management Automated Records Tracking). The screener is administered by
the Community Supervision Officer (CSO) and reviewed by the Supervisory
Community Supervision Officer (SCSO). Based on answers provided in the
screener, a score is calculated for the offender's risk. The score, in
combination with the SCSO's and CSO's assessment, is used to recommend
the offender's classification to an appropriate supervision level
(Intensive, Maximum, Medium, or Minimum). Although the recommendation
is generated automatically, it can be overridden by the CSO with
supervisory approval. Close supervision is provided to offenders who
are in an Intensive or Maximum level of supervision.
The current version of the screener focuses primarily on risk level
and does not incorporate other factors which, when addressed through
programmatic interventions, can affect recidivism (see Andrews, Bonta,
& Hoge, 1990; and Andrews, Zinger, Hoge, Bonta, Gendreau, & Cullen,
1990). ``Principles of Effective Intervention,'' developed by several
prominent Canadian researchers (also known as the Canadian Model),
recommends the use of a comprehensive risk and needs assessment to
determine the offender's risk of recidivism. This comprehensive
assessment includes factors such as:
--Criminal associates;
--Criminal attitudes;
--Antisocial personality patterns;
--Family functioning;
--School/work;
--Substance abuse; and
--Use of leisure time.
CSP has redesigned and broadened its screener instrument to
incorporate the Canadian Model. This new assessment instrument will
also be fully automated within SMART and will not only recommend a
level of supervision but also will generate a recommended prescriptive
supervision plan. This plan will present realistic goals and objectives
for the offender, define appropriate intervention strategies, and track
the offender's progress. The new screener will enhance and standardize
the case planning process and will ensure that all offenders are
appropriately classified, supervised, and placed in programming. It is
expected that the new screener will become operational by the early
summer of 2004.
supervision strategies
Question. What techniques are used to monitor the offenders,
particularly those who are high risk?
Answer. CSP's supervision strategy emphasizes both risk management
(minimizing the likelihood of reoffense) and cost avoidance (minimizing
the circumstances in which reincarceration is necessary to contain the
offender's non-compliant behavior). Both strategies are achieved
through appropriate classification and programmatic placements, as well
as the use of graduated sanctions to address non-compliance.
Several practices have been implemented to closely monitor high
risk offenders. These practices include the use of:
--electronic monitoring;
--supervisory reprimands;
--increased office reporting;
--accountability tours;
--halfway house placements;
--halfway back; and
--GPS monitoring (pilot) for high risk offenders.
These practices are employed within the context of the offender's
individual case plan and Agency operating policies. There is no
effective ``one-size-fits-all'' approach to community supervision. Each
offender is a unique individual requiring a unique set of programmatic
interventions and behavioral controls. The Agency has developed a
comprehensive array of tools that the Community Supervision Officer can
deploy in the formulation and execution of the case plan.
Although the Agency has made impressive strides in the full
implementation of its supervision strategy, not all elements are fully
operational. For example, the revised auto screener is being tested
prior to full implementation, and the planned Reentry and Sanctions
Center will increase the range of intermediate sanctions available to
CSO's. The GPS monitoring program will also be expanded to become a
permanent option for supervising high-risk offenders. With the full
implementation of the remaining elements of the Agency's strategy,
baseline data will be captured from which the Agency will be able to
set strategic benchmarks and initiate longitudinal studies to access
the strategy's effectiveness.
Question. How many offenders entered CSOSA supervision in fiscal
year 2003? How many departed after successfully completing terms of
community supervision? How many offenders did CSOSA supervise over the
course of a year?
Answer. CSOSA provided supervision to 21,603 individuals in fiscal
year 2003. The flow of intakes and case closures is summarized in the
following table.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Satisfactory Closures\1\
Type of Case Intakes -------------------------------
Expiration Termination
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Probation....................................................... 6,025 1,728 438
Parole.......................................................... 1,943 394 14
Supervised Release.............................................. 55 19 ..............
Civil Protection Order.......................................... 440 174 7
Deferred Sentence Agreement..................................... 287 74 4
-----------------------------------------------
TOTAL..................................................... 8,750 2,389 762
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ A case may be closed satisfactorily either through expiration of the supervision term, or early termination
due to the releasing authority's decision to discontinue supervision (generally as a result of the offender's
exceptional compliance).
Question. What is the average length of supervision for
probationers and parolees?
Answer. The average length of probation is 20 months, and of
parole, 5 years (60 months).
Question. Describe CSOSA's use of intermediate sanctions on
offenders.
Answer. Intermediate sanctions represent forms of punishment, less
restrictive than incarceration, that are intended to provide a range of
correctional options that vary in severity, according to the offenders'
non-compliant behavior, and are related to the offender's level of risk
and needs. Intermediate sanctions are designed to both hold offenders
accountable for their actions and to deter them from engaging in
criminal activity. These sanctions are best supported when integrated
with treatment and intervention programs focused on the offender's
needs, such as substance abuse, employment, and other issues that may
contribute to the likelihood of reoffense. By using intermediate
sanctions, CSOSA tries to change the offender's maladaptive, non-
compliant behavior and to increase the likelihood that the offender
will achieve successful reintegration into the community.
Successful use of intermediate sanctions requires close
supervision, good documentation, well-informed collaboration,
sufficient resources, and a clear understanding between CSOSA staff and
the offender. The most notable tool CSOSA uses to impose intermediate
sanctions is the offender accountability contract, which reflects
widely accepted ``best practices'' in offender supervision.
A critical factor in CSOSA's strategy to reduce crime and the rate
of recidivism is its ability to introduce an accountability structure
into the supervision process and to provide swift responses to non-
compliant behavior. According to CSOSA policy, offenders under
community supervision must enter into an accountability contract within
25 working days of the case assignment. By signing this document, the
offender acknowledges his or her responsibilities under probation,
parole or supervised releases as granted by the D.C. Superior Court or
the United States Parole Commission. The accountability contract
clearly informs the offender of the consequences of non-compliance with
the rules and regulations of community supervision. The offender
acknowledges that he/she understands which behaviors will lead to
intermediate sanctions and which behaviors will result in the request
of a hearing before the releasing authority and possible
reincarceration.
According to Agency policy, there are substance abuse violations
and other non-criminal ``technical violations'' that warrant the
imposition of different intermediate sanctions. If the CSO has reason
to believe the offender is in violation of the general or special
conditions of the offender's release, intermediate sanctions are
imposed to address the non-compliant behavior. Sanctions available for
the CSO to use include:
--Daily check-in with the supervision officer for a specified period
of time;
--Attendance at a group activity for a specified period of time;
--Increased drug testing;
--Increased face-to-face appointments with the supervision officer;
--Electronic monitoring for a specified period of time;
--Community service for a specified number of hours;
--Placement in a residential sanctions facility or residential
treatment facility for a specified period of time; and/or
--Travel restrictions.
The use of these intermediate sanctions not only serves to hold
offenders accountable and assist in changing their non-compliant
behaviors, but also assists the Agency in achieving its mission of
increasing public safety and reducing recidivism.
Question. Describe CSOSA's experience in reporting offender
violations to the releasing authorities.
Answer. On a regular and consistent basis, CSS staff meet with
administrative staff of the United States Parole Commission (USPC) and
the Administrative Judges of the Superior Court for the District of
Columbia to discuss issues of mutual concern. With regards to the USPC,
agreements have been reached on the types of cases that will require
the immediate issuance of a retake warrant by the USPC (i.e.,
subsequent offender felony arrest involving a victim). For all cases in
which the Agency has deemed the offender to be an imminent danger to
public safety, the USPC has agreed to the faxing of violation reports
to their office. These emergency violation reports receive the highest
priority for review and consideration by the USPC staff for
presentation to a Commissioner. Our experience generally has been that
the USPC is very responsive to the Agency with both the request for an
emergency warrant and the violation reports that are processed on a
non-emergency basis.
With regards to the Judiciary, staff must request in the violation
report that a show cause (violation) hearing be scheduled. Our
experience is that the Judiciary usually does not issue bench warrants
based solely on the request of staff. Once a violation report is
submitted, a violation hearing is scheduled based on the Judge's
calendar (schedule) and can take from 30 to 60 days to be held. Once a
violation hearing is scheduled, the Court notifies the offender and
his/her attorney by mail of the scheduled date for the violation
hearing. If the offender fails to report to the violation hearing on
the scheduled date, the Judge will immediately issue a bench warrant
for the offender's arrest. In cases where CSOSA staff are concerned
that the offender poses a significant public safety risk, staff can
request an expedited violation hearing from the Judiciary. On rare
occasions, the Judge may issue a bench warrant, prior to a hearing, if
the risk is deemed imminent. In instances of an expedited violation
hearing, the hearing is usually set within a two-week timeframe. It has
been our experience that the Judiciary honors CSOSA staff's request for
a show cause hearing.
Question. What is the rearrest rate for offenders under CSOSA
supervision? How has that rate changed in the past year?
Answer. In fiscal year 2003, the overall rearrest rate was 15
percent (13 percent for probationers and 17 percent for parolees). The
fiscal year 2002 arrest rate was 18 percent (21 percent for
probationers and 13 percent for parolees).
reentry strategy
Question. CSOSA has been working with various stakeholders to craft
a Citywide Offender Reentry Strategy. Please describe the process and
the status of implementation.
Answer. Between December 2001 and April 2002, a group of community
advocates, community-based service providers, and government agency
representatives worked together to craft a comprehensive reentry
strategy for adult offenders returning from incarceration to the
District of Columbia. The primary participants in this process
included:
--Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA),
--Office of the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice (DMPSJ),
--Office of the Corrections Trustee,
--D.C. Prisoners Legal Services Project,
--D.C. Department of Corrections (DCDC),
--D.C. Department of Mental Health (DMH), and
--Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
The goal of the ``Comprehensive Reentry Strategy for Adults in the
District of Columbia'', which was completed in June 2003, is to provide
a detailed, long-range plan for an effective continuum of reentry
services for D.C. offenders during incarceration, transition from
incarceration to the community, and life in the community during and
after supervision. In addition, the strategy proposes an agenda for
reentry service provider quality assurance, community education about
the relationship between public safety and effective reentry, and
legislative priorities.
The core of the strategy is the development of an assessment-driven
reentry plan tailored to each offender's needs, strengths, and
aspirations. The plan should remain with an offender through the three
phases of reentry: institutionally based programs, transitional
services, and community reintegration.
In September 2003, five workgroups led by respected leaders from
criminal justice system agencies and community-based organizations
completed an Action Plan that sets an implementation timeline for the
strategy. The strategy establishes ambitious goals for all parties
involved, emphasizing that reentry services should be available to all
offenders returning from some form of incarceration (jail or prison) to
the community.
Implementation requires coordination among Federal agencies
involved in the local criminal justice system, local agencies, and
community-based organizations. Improved pre-release planning provides
represents the cornerstone process to build an effective, integrate
reentry system. Pre-release planning begins with the functional
assessment of the risk factors that define the intensity supervision if
the offender leaves incarceration to parole or supervised release. The
functional assessment also identifies needs that require intervention
if an individual's risk factors are to be reduced in order to promote
improved public safety.
Implementation of the strategy involves broad participation by
local, Federal, and non-profit agencies. The city will take a major
step toward implementation this spring by opening the One Stop Reentry
Service Center, which will provide subsidized job training and wrap-
around support services to an initial cohort of 165 adult offenders and
40 juvenile offenders. Initial funding for the pilot year of the
Service Center's operations will be provided through a Department of
Justice grant. The Mayor plans to include in his fiscal year 2006
budget a request for operating funds to sustain and expand the center.
Question. What are the most critical needs of offenders under
supervision? How are those needs being addressed, both by CSOSA and by
the District of Columbia?
Answer. Most offenders enter supervision with needs in the areas of
employment/education and substance abuse. Over 50 percent of the
offender population is unemployed, and about 60 percent tested positive
for drug use at least once during fiscal year 2003. Approximately 4,100
offenders tested positive two or more times for PCP, heroin, or cocaine
in fiscal year 2003. Mental health issues may accompany and exacerbate
these problems.
Housing is also a critical need for many offenders. Often, the
combination of unemployment and substance abuse leads to residential
instability. The offender may leave prison with nowhere to go or may
lose his or her residence due to drug use or financial issues.
Underlying all these issues is the offender's need to develop healthy
social relationships and to learn how to manage his or her time.
The following table summarizes CSOSA's activities in each area of
need and the District of Columbia agency responsible for each type of
need. The table is adapted from the ``Citywide Reentry Strategy''.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responsibility of
Area of Need CSOSA Activity City Agencies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSTANCE USE/HISTORY........... Assess offender's Addiction
addiction Prevention and
severity. Recovery
Place offender in Administration--(
the appropriate service capacity
substance abuse needs to expand
treatment program to address the
(current remaining needs
appropriation of the offender
allows for CSOSA population).
to meet 16
percent of the
population's
addition
treatment need).
Place offender in
drug testing
requirements.
Enforce violations
of behavioral
contract.
EDUCATION/LEARNING DISABILITIES. Conduct a Test of State Education
Adult Basic Office in
Education to collaboration
assess the with the
educational University of
functioning level District of
of individual Columbia (service
offenders. capacity needs to
Provide adult expand to address
basic education the remaining
programming at needs of the
one of four offender
learning labs population).
staffed by CSOSA
learning lab
specialists.
EMPLOYMENT...................... Conduct a Test of D.C. Department of
Adult Basic Employment
Education. Services--Plans
Assess offender's are in place to
vocational utilize Serious
aptitude and job and Violent
skills. Offender Reentry
Assist offender in Initiative funds
job search if he to provide Life
or she has Skills, Job
employment Training, and
history, an 8th Placement
grade reading services to
level or better, approximately 150-
and marketable 200 offenders
job skills. (additional
Provide or make employment
referrals to city training and
agencies for placement service
adult basic capacity is
education needed).
services or
referrals.
HOUSING......................... Counsel offender (Service capacity
to seek a healthy needs to expand
residential to address the
environment; remaining needs
encourage of the offender
offender to move, population).
if necessary.
Maintain listings
of transitional
housing options
available through
non-profit and
faith community
and refer as
necessary.
MENTAL HEALTH................... Refer offender to Mental Health
CSOSA contract Psychological
psychologist for Evaluation--D.C.
mental health Department of
screening to Mental Health.
determine need Counseling,
for more in-depth community-based
psychological support services
evaluation and for offenders
treatment. with diagnosed
Place offenders mental health
with diagnosed disorders--D.C.
mental health Department of
disorder or Mental Health.
Offender conforms
to the norms of
daily
functioning,
dress, appearance
and behavior.
PHYSICAL HEALTH/DISABILITY...... Refer to D.C. D.C. Department of
Department of Health--Primary
Health. Healthcare at
neighborhood
health clinics
operated by the
D.C. Health and
Hospital Public
Benefit
Corporation.
LEISURE TIME/SOCIAL Counsel offender (Service capacity
RELATIONSHIPS. to develop pro- needs to expand
social hobbies to address the
and interests. remaining needs
If eligible, refer of the offender
for Faith population).
Community
Partnership
services,
including
mentoring.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question. Supply the Committee with a description of CSOSA's faith-
based initiative, including the number of offenders who have
participated in the initiative and any accomplishments to date. Are
faith-based institutions also providing services to meet offenders'
needs?
Answer. CSOSA's faith-based initiative is a collaboration between
the Agency and the District of Columbia's faith institutions. The
initiative focuses on developing mechanisms through which offenders on
supervision can establish permanent connections with the community's
positive, pro-social institutions. Crime is inextricably linked to the
individual's alienation from mainstream values. By overcoming that
alienation, the faith community can help the offender replace negative
associations and attitudes with positive contact and messages.
Furthermore, the faith institution can address issues of personal
accountability and change that are beyond the scope of community
supervision. The church or temple cannot (and should not) replace law
enforcement, but it can provide a permanent source of positive contact
and moral guidance. The Community Supervision Officer represents
external accountability by enforcing release conditions; the faith
institution represents internal accountability by stressing spiritual
growth. In addition, CSOSA recognized from the initiative's inception
that the District's faith institutions provide many practical support
services, such as tutoring, job training, food and clothing banks,
personal and family counseling, and substance abuse aftercare. CSOSA
wanted to ``tap into'' this important source of community-based
programming in order to expand the range of support services available
to offenders.
The faith initiative's governing body is the CSOSA/Faith Community
Partnership Advisory Council. Established in 2001, the Advisory Council
membership represents a range of denominations; efforts are currently
underway to broaden both the membership of the Council and its
representational diversity.
Late in 2001, CSOSA and the Advisory Council chose mentoring as the
initial focus of the initiative to connect faith institution volunteers
with offenders returning to the community from prison. A successful
outreach event was held in January 2002, in which faith institutions
across the city addressed the issue of reentry and issued a call for
volunteers. Over 400 people attended our initial mentor information
meeting in February 2002. Since then, the ``Reentry Worship'' event has
become an annual citywide occurrence.
CSOSA and the Advisory Council then established a structure through
which the mentor program could be coordinated and faith institutions
could provide services to offenders. The city was divided into three
clusters, and CSOSA issued a Request for Proposals to establish a
contractual relationship with a lead institution in each cluster. The
lead institutions are: Cluster A (Wards 7 and 8)--East of the River
Clergy/Police/Community Partnership; Cluster B (Wards 5 and 6)--Pilgrim
Baptist Church; Cluster C (Wards 1, 2, 3, 4)--New Commandment Baptist
Church.
Each institution employs a Cluster Coordinator, who coordinates
mentor and other service referrals and performs outreach to increase
the involvement of faith institutions in the cluster.
CSOSA also developed and implemented training programs for both
mentors and the program coordinators at each faith institution. The
training familiarizes prospective mentors with the structure and
requirements of community supervision, the offender profile, and the
program's administrative and reporting requirements, as well as
providing role-playing exercise in which mentors encounter the
challenges of mentoring. To date, approximately 200 mentors and
coordinators from more than 40 institutions have been trained.
The initial cohort of 24 returning offenders was ``matched'' with
mentors in August 2002. Since then, the number of offenders in the
program has grown to over 100. In 2003, CSOSA expanded the program to
include inmates at the Bureau of Prisons' Rivers Correctional
Institution in North Carolina. Rivers houses over 1,000 District of
Columbia inmates. Thirty-three Rivers inmates were placed with mentors,
who attended biweekly mentoring sessions conducted through video
conference technology. All but four of the inmates have been released
as of February 23, 2004.
Mentoring remains just one facet of CSOSA's faith initiative.
Through the cluster coordinators and site visits by CSOSA staff,
outreach ministries and services have been identified. In addition,
faith institutions have been directed to Federal, local, and
philanthropic resources to upgrade their capacity for service. For
example, CSOSA has verified the capacities and availability of the
following outreach services:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Institution Outreach Ministry Available Capacity
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AP Shaw United Methodist........ Anger Management.. 7 program slots.
Grace Apostolic................. GED classes....... Varies.
Paramount Baptist............... Food and Clothing. 10-12 referrals
weekly.
SE Tabernacle................... Job Services 30 referrals/
Referrals. month.
Weekly support Maximum 15 per
group for Ex- week.
offenders.
Redemption Ministry............. Job Training/ 35 referrals per
Placement. class cycle.
Substance Abuse Ongoing capacity
Counseling. for 15 clients.
Family Assistance Varies according
(housing, to need.
transportation).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Through grant funding from the U.S. Department of Justice,
Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS), one of CSOSA lead faith
institutions, New Commandment Baptist Church, is now able to facilitate
and expand its ability to intercede, with CSOSA and other faith
institutions, to improve the likelihood that participating parolees
will have lower rates of recidivism. CSOSA's network of
interdenominational faith-based participants will contribute to the
success of this effort. Collaborating with the District of Columbia
Jobs Partnership, New Commandment Baptist and other faith institutions
are able to enroll returning offenders in job readiness training
programs, educational and vocational training, interviewing skills and
job placement.
Another participating faith institution, East of the River Clergy/
Police/Community Partnership, has recently received a grant award from
the U.S. Department of Labor to facilitate and place returning
offenders into jobs which offer career opportunities. It is projected
that the availability of this resource will substantially build the
capacity of the District of Columbia to better serve the returning
offenders and their families.
From the enthusiasm of a core group of concerned citizens, the
CSOSA faith initiative has grown to a citywide effort involving
hundreds of individuals in a wide range of activities to support
returning offenders. We look forward to the initiative's continued
growth as a sustainable long-term resource that offenders can access
both during and after their term of supervision.
Question. Does CSP have specific programs to meet the needs of
female offenders?
Answer. Currently, CSP has several gender-specific programs to
address the needs of female offenders. CSP contracts for residential
placements in gender-specific residential programs, such as Demeter
House, which treats chemically-addicted mothers, who may be accompanied
by their children while in the program. The Substance Abuse and
Treatment Branch also provides weekly in-house group sessions for
women. In addition, the Transitional Intervention for Parole
Supervision (TIPS) program has a community supervision officer on-site
at the Fairview Community Corrections Center to assist women with
reentry issues. The Fairview CCC also may be used for public law
placements and as an intermediate sanction for high risk/needs women
offenders.
CSP is working to expand gender-specific programs. The expanded
Reentry and Sanctions Center will contain a unit for female offenders.
Additionally, a team of managers received training at the National
Institute of Corrections Academy last year on implementing effective
agency-wide programs for female offenders. The members of this team now
are leading a work group to implement these strategies around such
issues as victimization and trauma, mental health and medical problems,
family and child rearing, and economic self-sufficiency. The Agency is
working to:
--Implement additional, in-house gender-specific group counseling
programs and training group facilitators;
--Develop a comprehensive training curriculum that provides
information/tools for line staff and administrators to
effectively manage female offenders;
--Compile a resource guide to ensure that Community Supervision
Officers are aware of, and have access to, available in-house,
community and government programs;
--Work with our faith-based partners to female women offenders are
linked to mentors;
--Strengthen partnerships with the many community organizations and
government agencies that provide services to this population;
and
--Arrange child-care opportunities with our community partners to
allow female offenders to engage in programming and supervision
activities.
Question. CSP last requested an increase in drug treatment funds in
fiscal year 2002. Is this funding sufficient to meet the demand for
treatment? What measures are in place to ensure that these resources
are used most effectively? Is there any evidence that CSOSA drug
treatment reduces drug use, rearrest, and recidivism in the District of
Columbia?
Answer. During fiscal year 2003, CSOSA's Office of Research and
Evaluation estimated that there were over 4,100 chronic substance-
abusing offenders in need of treatment intervention. This estimate is
based on the number of offenders who tested positive for cocaine,
heroin or PCP two or more times. (Offenders testing positive for
marijuana and/or alcohol are generally given intermediate sanctions and
referred to in-house services.)
Each offender, on average, requires three placements to satisfy
treatment-programming requirements. For example, offenders with chronic
substance abuse histories are most often referred to detoxification
followed by residential and outpatient services. For the chronic drug-
using population, CSOSA would require the ability to make a minimum of
12,300 substance abuse placements per year (4,100 offenders 3
treatment placements).
The fiscal year 2003 appropriation (approximately $8.6 million)
enabled CSP to make 2,021 treatment placements. This addressed 16
percent of the estimated requirement. To ensure that limited treatment
funds are being used efficiently our treatment specialist staff
performs a battery of assessments to determine the appropriate
treatment recommendation for each offender.
In fiscal year 2003, a data management system was introduced, which
allowed automated tracking of the agency's treatment related data.
Fiscal year 2003 was the pilot year for use of the automated tracking
system and the system was modified and adjusted as required during the
year. It is anticipated that data on the effectiveness of interventions
will be available from the automated treatment tracking system within
the next 6 to 9 months.
Question. Does CSOSA contract for drug treatment services? How do
you ensure that vendors are providing quality services?
Answer. CSOSA currently contracts with 11 drug treatment vendors
throughout the Washington metropolitan area. Quality Assurance
Specialists routinely monitor each vendor to ensure that all treatment
services are provided in accordance with national and local standards.
Vendor monitoring occurs through compliance reviews and unannounced
site visits. The compliance reviews are performed on an annual basis
based on standards for treatment services. The areas subject to review
include staffing, documentation, physical plant and administrative
operations. Upon completion of the review, the vendors are provided
with a time sensitive plan to correct any deficiencies. Subsequently,
this plan is monitored through unannounced site visits to ensure
compliance.
In an effort to continue improving the quality of interventions
provided by our drug treatment vendors, CSOSA also provides ongoing
technical assistance.
Question. What management strategies are employed for inmates on
Special Supervision?
Answer. Special Supervision is the rendering of comprehensive,
treatment-oriented services, combined with intensive supervision, for
those offenders assessed as ``special needs'' offenders. Special needs
offenders include offenders convicted of sex crimes and crimes of
domestic violence, those diagnosed with a mental illness, and those
assessed with a substance abuse addiction. Programmatic improvements
for special supervision populations continue to evolve. However, the
increasing number of offenders presenting with co-ocurring disorders,
combined with limited staff resources, continues to present challenges
in providing comprehensive services for these populations.
special supervision
Question. What do you do differently for Special Supervision
Offenders than the General Supervision population?
Answer. Special supervision offenders are high risk offenders.
Immediately upon release to the community, ``special needs'' offenders
are placed on an intensive or maximum level of supervision for the
first 90 to 180 days, with weekly community and office contact,
including urinalysis surveillance for illegal drug use. To closely
manage these special supervision offenders, CSO's working with these
caseloads have much smaller caseloads ratios than CSO's managing
general supervision offenders. The Agency's target caseload supervision
ratio for the ``Special Supervision'' teams is 25 offenders per CSO,
versus 50 offenders per CSO for general supervision. This smaller ratio
allows the special supervision CSO to provide close offender
accountability, intensive counseling, treatment referrals, and tracking
activities. The Agency is approaching the targeted caseload ratio,
which will improve public safety.
To ensure that all ``special needs'' offenders receive required
services, a comprehensive referral, placement and assessment tracking
system has been implemented for all sex offender, mental health, and
substance abuse cases. These offenders are carefully screened to match
appropriate treatment services with their needs. CSO's refer offenders
to treatment groups on-site, as well as makes referrals to vendor-
provided treatment services, such as residential substance abuse
treatment and sex offender treatment services. Also, sex offenders,
depending on their classification level, are required to register with
the Sex Offender Registry, every 90 days or once a year, for life, as
determined by their conviction and the law. In fiscal year 2003, 185
sex offender assessments and 42 polygraph examinations were conducted.
Offenders convicted of a domestic violence offense participate in
CSOSA-provided Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP) or Family
Violence Intervention Program (FVIP), if the offender is unable to
afford private domestic violence counseling services. These group
sessions also can include family members and, if appropriate, the
victim of the offense and/or other interested community support
persons. In addition, CSOSA offers individual counseling as needed.
Those offenders who can afford to pay for private domestic violence
treatment are closely monitored to ensure attendance and progress in
treatment.
Question. This committee included funds in CSOSA's fiscal year 2004
appropriation for 27 new positions to provide for increased supervision
of high-risk sex offenders, mental health cases, and domestic violence
cases, as well as to expand the use of global positioning system (GPS)-
based electronic monitoring. GPS electronic monitoring employs state of
the art technology to offender supervision and hold great promise for
solving crimes and detecting offender movements or patterns that would
enable CSOSA to take action before he or she commits more crime. This
technology would appear to be a valuable tool for supervising all high-
risk offenders, and in particular, sex offenders and domestic violence
offenders in which offenders are supposed to avoid certain locations,
such as schools or specific residences.
What is the status of implementing the special supervision
initiative? When will the new officers be hired? When filled, what will
the new caseload ratios be?
Answer. Two new Special Supervision Teams start CSP's 6-week
training academy on March 22, 2004. After these staff complete training
and enter supervision duties, CSP caseload ratios for sex offender,
mental health and domestic violence supervision will be reduced to
approximately 29:1 (based on January 2004 cases). CSP is unable to hire
additional staff from the fiscal year 2004 supervision initiative due
to inadequate funding for these positions in our fiscal year 2005
budget request. Simply, CSOSA cannot support all 27 staff in fiscal
year 2005 with the resources contained in our fiscal year 2005 budget.
If all staff from the fiscal year 2004 special supervision initiative
were hired, these high-risk caseload ratios would decrease to 25:1.
Question. What is the status of implementing the GPS system? What
criteria do CSOSA use to determine which offenders are placed under
electronic or GPS monitoring? Using these criteria, how many offenders
would be placed on GPS at any given time? How many offenders are
currently under GPS monitoring?
Answer. CSOSA currently is piloting Global Positioning System (GPS)
electronic monitoring technology to monitor movement of the highest
risk offenders in the community. Primarily used as a tool to monitor
sex offenders, CSOSA also utilizes GPS to monitor high risk domestic
violence offenders. These populations generally have stay away orders
from people or places within the community, and GPS has shown promise
to be a useful tool to monitor compliance with these conditions. GPS
allows CSOSA to place strict curfews on offenders, as well as to
establish ``exclusion zones,'' which are areas or addresses the
offender is prohibited from entering. Offenders who are placed on this
type of electronic monitoring generally have violated conditions of
their supervision, and the GPS is used when other intermediate
sanctions have been exhausted. Additionally, offenders whom CSOSA deems
particularly high risk, due to their originating offense or suspicion
that the offender may be re-offending, also may be placed on GPS
monitoring. Offenders who are under parole or supervised release
supervision may be placed on GPS electronic monitoring at CSOSA's
discretion. In probation cases, CSOSA must obtain a court order,
modifying the offender's supervision conditions, in order to place the
offender on GPS monitoring.
Since April 8, 2004, 51 offenders have been placed in the GPS pilot
at a cost of $6.00 per day, per offender. Currently, 9 offenders are
under GPS. Using CSOSA's criteria, above, for placing sex offenders,
domestic violence offenders, and other high risk offenders under GPS,
the Agency estimates that the following number of offenders could be
placed under GPS in fiscal year 2004:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No. Offenders
Fiscal Year 2004 Under GPS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
October-December, 2003................................ 0
January-March, 2004................................... 12
April-June, 2004...................................... 30
July-September, 2004.................................. 60
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The system currently piloted by CSOSA is a passive one, which means
CSOSA is notified of violations by e-mail the next business day
following the violation. Some violations also may be reported to our
sex offender supervision staff by cell phone. At any time, our staff
also may link to the GPS system and track real-time the offenders who
are in the program. However, CSOSA is not a 24-hour law enforcement
Agency and does not have the resources available to respond immediately
to each violation.
Through future collaborations with the Metropolitan Police
Department (MPD), it is CSOSA's goal to provide MPD with the ability to
respond immediately to GPS electronic monitoring violations of CSOSA
offenders as the violations occur. Additionally, the GPS data can be
linked to MPD crime data to assist law enforcement to determine if
offenders on GPS tracking were at or near reported crime sites.
Currently, CSOSA contracts for GPS services with Veridian, which is
a component of General Dynamics. The hardware used for monitoring is
provided by PRO TECH Monitoring, Inc. CSOSA uses Veridian, instead of
direct contracting with PRO TECH Monitoring, Inc., because Veridian
offers several advantages that PRO TECH Monitoring, Inc. does not
currently offer, such as:
--Web based access to the data;
--Linkage with police crime data; and
--The ability to change hardware if a new, more advanced, efficient,
or cost-effective product enters the market with another
company, other than Pro Tech.
Question. Is the GPS technology being used for defendants?
Answer. No. However, if resources become available, the Pretrial
Services Agency would pilot this type of monitoring for high-risk
defendants with court orders to stay away from particular persons or
places.
information systems
Question. What is the status of CSP's offender case management
system, for which funding was provided in fiscal year 2002?
Answer. Initially deployed in January 2002, the Supervision and
Management Automated Records Tracking System (SMART) replaced an
unreliable and outdated legacy system. SMART has provided the Agency
with an efficient and accurate method for tracking supervision
activities, improving supervision management and reporting, and
enhancing management of the treatment process for offenders.
Since the supervision module's initial release, many features and
modules have been added to SMART. A treatment module has been
implemented to track each offender's progress, as well as a related
module that allows treatment vendors to verify attendance at scheduled
outpatient sessions. This integrated treatment module not only
encompasses the tracking of offender treatment activities, but also
manages all treatment-related financial transactions. In addition,
CSOSA now has the capability to electronically transmit Pre-Sentence
Investigation (PSI) reports directly to the Superior Court and the
Assistant United States Attorney's Office. Current modules under
development will provide automatic notification when the Metropolitan
Police Department arrests an offender under supervision, as well as the
revised screener and the prescriptive supervision plan.
In order to continue the significant improvements in offender
supervision, CSOSA needs to continue enhancing SMART's capabilities.
The current intake procedure involves the manual process of entering
sentencing information from both the Courts and the Bureau of Prisons
(BOP). The proposed Intake Module would streamline this function by
automating the transfer of sentencing information directly from the
Courts and the Bureau of Prisons, as well as electronic Notices of
Actions from the U.S. Parole Commission. Automatic transmission of
sentencing information would ensure that CSOSA receives the sentencing
information for each offender. Additional proposed enhancements also
include:
--Wireless mobile computing to provide officers with access to the
SMART application while performing supervision in the
community;
--Biometrics to provide a fail-proof method for identifying offenders
reporting for drug testing or drug treatment programs;
--Archiving and expunging case records in accordance with Federal
regulations;
--Additional interagency data sharing with both local and Federal law
enforcement agencies; and
--Improved management and operational reporting using Business
Objects to ensure the effective supervision and allocation of
resources to attain the Agency's critical success factors.
Without these technological enhancements, it will be very difficult
for CSOSA to continue its forward momentum in improving public safety
through close supervision.
Question. Are CSOSA information systems integrated with other law
enforcement systems? Are CSOSA systems secure from hackers?
Answer. CSOSA has aggressively implemented internal process
automation, remote connectivity to external criminal justice data
repositories, and justice data exchange. The information collected and
managed by SMART is requested by local and national law enforcement
agencies. The Agency has established data exchange agreements with
several local and Federal law enforcement agencies. Criminal justice
data is currently being exchanged with the Metropolitan Police
Department, the Pretrial Services Agency, the District of Columbia
Department of Corrections, the United States Attorney for the District
of Columbia, the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, the
U.S. Parole Commission, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Federal
Bureau of Investigations. The fulfillment of the Agency's mission is
contingent on obtaining timely and accurate information from law
enforcement agencies. Interagency data exchange provides the necessary
criminal data for preparation of Pre-Sentence Investigation reports
(PSI), Alleged Violation Reports (AVR), Warrants, and Notices of Action
(NOA's) to improve offender supervision, and ways to control crime and
improve the safety of the public.
While CSOSA facilitated some initial electronic data exchange
agreements with other agencies, it is crucial to establish additional
exchange processes with the other law enforcement entities, such as the
Courts. SMART is capable of receiving data from other entities, yet
other agencies systems are not always postured to participate in the
data exchange process.
The successful deployment of SMART, and the initial data exchange
communication with other agencies, has moved the Agency closer to
accomplishing our strategic goals. As we increase our data exchange
capability with other law enforcement agencies, the need to enhance
security measure increases. To continue this forward movement, it is
imperative that CSOSA systems, data and infrastructure be secure. CSOSA
continues to make strides in addressing IT security. We have developed
an IT Security Master Plan, established an Incident Response Team, IT
Security and Patch Management Working Groups, however more work must be
accomplished to ensure a secure information technology environment.
SMART is a critical Agency system that must be secure. As the
sophistication of hackers advance, CSOSA must enhance the capability to
protect Agency resources to ensure that measures can be taken to fend
off attacks and exploits. The challenge of managing new exploits and
adherence to emergent Federal regulations (FISMA, A-130 etc.) requires
a vigilant IT Security Program. CSOSA must implement an IT Security
tool set to include enhanced WEB scanners, network intrusion software,
and e-authentication devices. Also, the implementation of the IT
Security Master Plan is necessary to comply with FISMA and/or
regulatory requirements. The successful implementation of an Agency IT
Security Program is dependent on identifying adequate resources to
secure the Agency's information technology resources and comply with
regulatory requirements.
Question. CSOSA's fiscal year 2002 appropriation included
$13,015,000 in no-year funds to renovate Karrick Hall or some other
facility for use as CSOSA's Reentry and Sanctions Center. What is the
status of the renovations?
Answer. In September 2002, CSOSA signed a long-term lease with the
District of Columbia for the use of Karrick Hall as CSOSA's Re-entry
and Sanctions Center. Also, in September 2002, the city government was
developing a Master Plan for the D.C. General Hospital Campus,
including negotiating a transfer of control of the land from the
Federal Government to the D.C. Government. CSOSA worked closely with
the D.C. Government and the community throughout these planning
processes. In July 2003, we reached agreement with the city to proceed
with the renovation of Karrick Hall. A contract for Architectural and
Engineering Design and Construction Management was signed in September
2003.
Karrick Hall is an eight-story, 60,000 square foot building and
since 1996, has been the home of the Assessment and Orientation Center.
The AOC program is a model program CSOSA now operates in partnership
with the Washington Baltimore High Intensity Drug Task Force program,
also known as HIDTA. When Karrick Hall is complete, the AOC will become
CSOSA's Reentry and Sanctions program.
On February 27, 2004, the AOC vacated Karrick Hall and moved into a
temporary location at 1301 Clifton Street, NW. The AOC will be at 1301
Clifton until the renovation is complete, in the spring of 2005. While
at 1301 Clifton, the AOC will expand its program from 18 beds to 27.
Karrick Hall is a 60,000 square foot eight-story building
constructed on the grounds of the D.C. General campus circa 1961. The
renovations include:
--Replacing the building's infrastructure (installing all new
plumbing, electrical, windows and exterior architectural
features as well as new heating and air condition systems and
fire systems);
--Installing two new elevators in place of the existing units; and
--Installing new restrooms and ensuring all new systems meet the
requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other
handicap accessibility requirements.
When complete, the Reentry and Sanctions Center will expand to 108
beds, which will service 1,200 offenders and defendants annually. The
program will include 4 male units, one unit dedicated to females and
one unit for the dually diagnosed.
We are very excited about this initiative because the AOC program
has a proven track record of success. A study conducted by the
University of Maryland in May 2002 found there was a 74 percent
reduction in re-arrests 1 year following completion of the AOC program.
Expanding the capacity of this program has obvious positive impacts on
public safety and quality of life.
reentry and sanctions center
Question. Does CSOSA's fiscal year 2005 budget include funding for
the expanded operation of Reentry and Sanctions Center?
Answer. CSOSA's budget request includes only partial-year funding
for fiscal year 2005 because the building renovation will not be
complete until spring 2005. Fiscal year 2006 will be the first full
fiscal year that all six units at Karrick Hall will be fully
operational. The full-year operating cost in fiscal year 2006 will be
approximately $18 million. To fund complete, annual operations would
require an increase in fiscal year 2006 of approximately $5.5 million.
Question. Does CSOSA perform independent audits of its budget and
finances? What are the results of such audit, including audit findings
and status of corrective actions?
Answer. Although not required by the Chief Financial Officers Act
or other Federal law or regulation, since inception CSOSA's Funds
Control policy required an annual audit of our budgetary financial
statement (Statement of Budgetary Resources). The auditing firm of
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) LLP has conducted four independent audits
of CSOSA's Statement of Budgetary Resources since Agency inception. In
each audit, no material weaknesses were identified and CSOSA received
unqualified opinions. The audit of CSOSA's fiscal year 2002 Statement
of Budgetary Resources successfully concluded in September 2003. Thus
far, the only finding raised has been concerns about our ability to
fulfill new and much more stringent standards resulting from
legislation enacted in 2002.
financial management
Question. Please elaborate on the new legislation and standards
affecting CSOSA's financial management.
Answer. The Accountability of Tax Dollars Act of 2002 (Public Law
107-289) establishes new requirements in the area of financial
management for all small agencies. These are the same financial and
audit requirements which the larger cabinet level agency have been
subject to for the past several years. The Act requires all executive
agencies, regardless of size, to prepare and audit six financial
statements versus the one Statement of Budgetary Resources currently
prepared and audited by CSOSA. This will increase the scope of audit
coverage and will require CSOSA to implement additional policies,
systems and procedures in many areas. The changes are all positive
steps in improving stewardship of taxpayer dollars, but CSOSA is
struggling to put the proper infrastructure in place. It will take time
and additional resources.
Question. Does the fiscal year 2005 budget include the request for
financial resources to comply with the new laws affecting financial
management, and if not, what is the cost and how will you deal with the
problem?
Answer. We estimate the Agency-wide cost (including the Pretrial
Services Agency) to be $980,000 and we will no choice but to divert
funding from programs such as supervision, treatment or employee
training.
Question. Within the past 2 weeks, the Washington Post reported on
the arrest of a repeat sex offender who is suspected of several rapes,
as well as molesting a 12-year-old girl. The Post also reported that
Superior Court had sentenced the man to probation several months prior
to the recent assaults but procedural errors resulted in this sex
offender being unsupervised by CSOSA. Do you understand the full extent
of the problems that caused this to happen? Please describe how such
errors could have been avoided, or could be prevented in the future,
including any resources that may be necessary.
Answer. CSOSA has closely examined this case. The exchange of data
between Superior Court and CSOSA needs to be improved by increasing
automation. These automated changes may require the Clerk's office to
modify its existing business processes. CSOSA also needs to institute
some operational changes within our Offender Intake program. We have
short-term fixes in place in our attempt to ensure that we receive
probation grants from the Court and input all intake data into SMART.
However, we recognize the need for permanent solutions in terms of both
automation and the enhancement of our Offender Intake operation. We
recently completed a comprehensive review of the Offender Intake
operation. The review defined organizational and procedural changes
that would enhance the operation's efficiency. The review very clearly
stated the need for additional resources, but more analysis is needed
to accurately quantify the impact. Funding for these improvements has
not been requested in the fiscal year 2005 budget.
Question. Provide the number of D.C. inmates in each Federal Bureau
of Prisons facility by gender.
Answer.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA INMATES IN THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS (AS OF
FEBRUARY 25, 2004)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Facility State
State Facility Males Females Total Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALTalladega FCI 19 ....... 19 19
ARForrest City FCI 1 ....... 1 1
AZPhoenix FCI 2 ....... 2 2
CAAtwater USP 19 ....... 19 .......
CADublin FCI 0 6 6 .......
CATerminal Island FCI 1 ....... 1 .......
CAVictorville Med FCI 2 ....... 2 28
COFlorence ADMAX USP 28 ....... 28 .......
COFlorence FCI 4 ....... 4 .......
COFlorence High USP 29 ....... 29 .......
CODenver CCM 1 ....... 1 62
CTDanbury FCI 0 84 84 84
DCD.C. Community Corrections 199 20 219 219
FLColeman Med 24 1 25 .......
FLColeman USP 182 ....... 182 .......
FLMarianna FCI 9 ....... 9 .......
FLMiami FCI 1 ....... 1 .......
FLPetersburg FCI 48 ....... 48 .......
FLTallahassee FCI 1 16 17 282
GAAtlanta USP 354 ....... 354 .......
GAJesup FCI 19 ....... 19 373
ILGreenville FCI 13 ....... 13 .......
ILMarion USP 28 ....... 28 .......
ILPekin FCI 4 ....... 4 45
INTerre Haute USP 193 ....... 193 193
KSLeavenworth USP 218 ....... 218 218
KYAshland FCI 6 ....... 6 .......
KYLexington FMC 20 10 30 .......
KYManchester FCI 32 ....... 32 68
LAOakdale FCI 1 ....... 1 .......
LAOakdale FDC 3 ....... 3 .......
LANew Orleans CCM 1 ....... 1 5
MADevens FMC 38 ....... 38 .......
MABoston CCM 1 ....... 1 39
MDCumberland FCI 214 ....... 214 .......
MDBaltimore Community 26 2 28 242
Corrections
MIMilan FCI 3 ....... 3 .......
MIDetroit CCM 1 ....... 1 4
MNRochester FMC 18 ....... 18 .......
MNSandstone FCI 1 ....... 1 .......
MNMinneapolis CCM 3 ....... 3 22
MOSpringfield USMCFP 61 ....... 61 61
MSYazoo City FCI 2 ....... 2 2
NCButner FMC 65 ....... 65 .......
NCButner Low 17 ....... 17 .......
NCButner Med 48 ....... 48 .......
NCSeymour Johnson FPC 11 ....... 11 .......
NCMcRae CI 18 ....... 18 .......
NCRivers CI 1,119 ....... 1,119 .......
NCRaleigh CCM 2 ....... 2 1,280
NJFairton FCI 109 ....... 109 .......
NJFort Dix FCI 44 ....... 44 153
NYBrooklyn MDC 5 ....... 5 .......
NYOtisville FCI 63 ....... 63 .......
NYRay Brook FCI 39 ....... 39 107
OHElkton FCI 9 ....... 9 9
OKEl Reno FCI 3 ....... 3 .......
OKOklahoma City FTC 30 ....... 30 33
ORSheridan FCI 2 ....... 2 2
PAAllenwood Low 10 ....... 10 .......
PAAllenwood Medium 95 ....... 95 .......
PAAllenwood USP 259 ....... 259 .......
PALewisburg USP 258 ....... 258 .......
PALoretto FCI 3 ....... 3 .......
PAMcKean FCI 85 ....... 85 .......
PAPhiladelphia FDC 21 9 30 .......
PASchuylkill FCI 145 ....... 145 .......
PAPhiladelphia CCM 2 1 3 888
SCEdgefield FCI 125 ....... 125 .......
SCEstill FCI 49 ....... 49 174
TNMemphis FCI 31 ....... 31 .......
TNNashville CCM 1 ....... 1 32
TXBeaumont Low 3 ....... 3 .......
TXBeaumont USP 46 ....... 46 .......
TXCarswell FMC 0 16 16 .......
TXFort Worth FMC 7 ....... 7 .......
TXTexarkana FCI 1 ....... 1 .......
TXThree Rivers FCI 1 ....... 1 74
VALee USP 409 ....... 409 .......
VAPetersburg Med FCI 281 ....... 281 690
WIOxford FCI 4 ....... 4 4
WVAlderson 0 67 67 .......
WVBeckley FI 161 ....... 161 .......
WVBig Sandy USP 147 ....... 147 .......
WVGilmer FCI 235 ....... 235 .......
WVMorgantown FCI 87 ....... 87 697
--------------------------------------
TOTAL 5,880 232 6,112 6,112
------------------------------------------------------------------------
pretrial services agency
Question. According to the fiscal year 2005 Pretrial Services
Agency budget submission, the current caseload for defendants who are
``extensively supervised'' is 127:1. What types of charges are included
in ``extensively supervised'' cases, what type of supervision is
provided, and what, if any, implications does this have for public
safety? If this is not the appropriate caseload ratio, what is? What,
if any, resources are needed to achieve public safety goals? What
changes to supervision practices would be expected if caseloads were
reduced?
Answer. Within the General Supervision program, defendants who pose
a higher level of risk to community safety or of not returning to Court
are classified as in need of ``extensive supervision.'' Defendants who
fall into this category have been charged with a wide range of
offenses--from misdemeanors to dangerous and violent felonies. Many of
the felony defendants are eligible for pretrial detention based on
their charge (i.e., robbery, burglary, possession with intent to
distribute), but the Court has determined that placement in the
community under extensively supervised release conditions should
initially be ordered. The Court's expectation is that, in order to
ameliorate the risk to public safety while on pretrial release,
conditions such as drug testing and regular reporting will be closely
supervised by PSA.
With the current high caseload ratios, PSA is not able to provide
the supervision expected by the Court or required by PSA's internal
policies and procedures. In fiscal year 2002, General Supervision
Pretrial Service Officers (PSO's) were unable to respond to over half
of defendants' condition violations, such as noncompliance with drug
testing and contact requirements. Currently, PSO's often cannot respond
quickly to violations of release conditions and, in many instances,
defendants are testing positive for illegal drugs for many months until
they have a court date where the PSO is finally able to respond. This
is particularly troubling with high risk felonies pending indictment,
where the first court date after the preliminary hearing is often many
months after the defendant has been released to PSA. During that time,
because the PSO's are ``managing'' their caseloads on the basis of
court dates rather than providing extensive supervision, warrant checks
and criminal records checks are not regularly done to see if defendants
have been arrested again in a neighboring jurisdiction while on
release. Curfew conditions are not monitored by visits to defendants'
homes. Treatment or employment opportunities are not pursued. In short,
these higher risk defendants are not being appropriately supervised, at
considerable risk to public safety.
Information provided by two neighboring Federal pretrial districts
under the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts indicates that their
caseloads average between 42:1 and 64:1 (Eastern District of Virginia
42:1, District of Maryland 64:1). If PSA were to reduce extensive
supervision caseloads to 60:1, it would require the following
resources:
PSO'S REQUIRED FOR CASELOADS AT 60:1 (AVERAGE MARCH-JUNE 2003)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Additional
Extensive Supervision Cases PSO's Required PSO Total
(121:1) \1\ for 60:1 60:1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Felony...................................................... 1,346 11 11 22
Violent Misdemeanor......................................... 412 3 4 7
Domestic Violence........................................... 547 5 4 9
Nonviolent Misdemeanor...................................... 1,338 11 11 22
---------------------------------------------------
Total................................................. 3,643 30 30 60
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Caseloads fluctuate over the year depending on whether the Court orders ``extensively supervised'' or
monitored conditions. This depends on the risk level of the particular defendant. The Extensive Supervision
breakdown reflects an average from March through June, 2003 when the ratio was 121:1. The 127:1 ratio
addressed in the question represents the period from March through September, 2003.
With additional resources, pretrial services officers would be able
to initiate case management of defendants with extensive supervision
conditions. Supervision plans would be established that would include
the following:
--provide orientation with defendants so that they are advised about
supervision/program requirements;
--assess defendant's needs and risks by reviewing the bail report/
risk assessment and by completing a social services needs
screener;
--conduct regular warrants and criminal history checks to ensure
there has not been a rearrest in a neighboring jurisdiction
while on release;
--assess and refer defendants for substance abuse, mental health
needs, or social services where appropriate and resources
permit;
--execute contracts for sanctions-based substance abuse treatment
where appropriate and resources permit;
--monitor conditions of release throughout the case so that non-
compliance can be reported expeditiously to the court instead
of only on court dates;
--respond expeditiously to non-compliance with release conditions
through sanctions or referral to appropriate resources such as
treatment or a request for judicial action;
--respond to non-compliance with drug testing after three drug
testing infractions within 30 days rather than only on court
dates;
--report to the court and investigate loss of contact with the
defendant; and
--administer and recommend incentives where appropriate.
Question. Many Federal agencies have not received full funding for
pay raises in the last several years. What impact does this have on the
Pretrial Services Agency's ability to meet program goals?
Answer. Pretrial Services Agency's ability to accomplish our
program goals relating to Risk and Needs Assessment, Close Supervision,
Treatment and Services, and Partnerships is directly tied to our
ability to hire our authorized 325 FTE. Since our certification as an
independent entity within CSOSA in August of 2000, PSA has experienced
significant but mission-essential program growth in the areas of staff
and contract treatment. During this short period of time, PSA has been
very successful in incrementally establishing the necessary
infrastructure to support our growing FTE level; and now we need to
maintain this FTE level to successfully provide front-line services to
defendants and accomplish our mission.
By fiscal year 2005, the cumulative impact of the unfunded pay
raise increment, the difference between the President's Budget and
Congress's enacted authorization, could well be over 5 percent of
payroll, or over $1 million. As a small agency where approximately 72
percent of our fiscal year 2005 funding goes into salaries and
benefits, there are few options to address this increment beyond
reducing staffing or reducing treatment dollars, which directly impacts
the achievement of program goals. For example, with the option utilized
this fiscal year, fiscal year 2004, approximately 16 positions were not
filled until February to help address the fiscal year 2004 pay raise
increment of 2.1 percent, or $565,000 (difference between 2.0 percent
in the budget and the 4.10 percent actual).
Conversely, reducing available FTE will incrementally increase
supervision caseload ratios. Higher caseload ratios, particularly in an
area such as General Supervision, where the ratios are already too
high, can only cause increased concern for public safety. For fiscal
year 2005, to address the potential unfunded pay raise increment of
approximately 1.8 percent, or $486,000.00 (difference between the 1.5
percent in the budget and the possible parity pay with DOD at 3.5
percent), PSA will be confronted with not being able to fill vacancies
and/or a reduction in contract treatment funding.
community court
Question. What is the role of PSA with the D.C. Superior Court's
Community Court? Does PSA have resources that are adequate to support
this initiative?
Answer. The District of Columbia Superior Court launched the East
of the River Community Court (ERCC) in September 2002, and it was
expanded in the fall of 2003. The ERCC shifted case management from a
traditional case processing orientation to a problem-solving system of
supervision. The general philosophy of the Court is grounded in a
therapeutic and restorative justice model, incorporating an active
connection with the community. Problem-solving is achieved by assessing
individual needs and tailoring meaningful solutions through drug
testing, substance abuse treatment, job training, other social services
and community service. PSA assessment and supervision practices have
been modified to respond swiftly and frequently to assist the Court in
making informed decisions about release conditions intended to problem-
solve individual need and to assure appearance in court and public
safety. Accountability is enforced by PSA to improve the defendant's
sense of value to the community, as well as to prevent the defendant
from becoming involved in further criminal behavior. Today, a few PSO's
within the General Supervision program are supervising 482 defendants
released through the ERCC, and 433 of those defendants have a drug
testing condition.
Managing individual needs of defendants processed through the ERCC
involves a labor-intensive effort by PSO's. Defendants who opt for
trial or agree to diversion are released with a variety of release
conditions intended to support problem-solving. PSO's spend added time
with defendants attempting to instill a desire for self-improvement and
community awareness while maintaining the system's requirements of
assuring defendants' return for court dates and safety of the
community. In some instances, PSA supervises dual sets of release
requirements for an individual defendant. Diversion agreements with the
prosecutor and court-ordered release conditions are simultaneously
imposed and fashioned to promote personal change. The PSOs'
productivity levels are increased by the two sets of release
requirements and the types of conditions imposed. Defendants need time
to modify negative behaviors or to make retribution to the community
through community service. As a result, the supervision period is
lengthened. Non-compliance with problem-solving strategies prolongs the
length of a case as PSO's attempt to work with defendants for
successful outcomes. When defendants succeed at diversion, prosecutors
prefer to keep their cases open for an extended period to ensure
continuing compliance. Defendants who fail diversion opportunities and
request a trial automatically extend the pretrial supervision period.
PSA resources are not adequate to effectively continue under the
community court model. Although the Court would like to expand the
reach of the community court to other districts beyond 6D and 7D, PSA
does not have sufficient staff or treatment dollars to support such an
expansion. Misdemeanor cases that usually average 170 days can end up
on the court docket for longer periods, sustaining the need for PSA
oversight and treatment funds. Resources are stretched thin to cover
the variety of release requirements, to manage the high-maintenance
nature of problem-solving, and to prolong supervision to promote
successful outcomes or to support a second period of supervision.
drug treatment
Question. PSA last received an increase in contract drug treatment
funding in fiscal year 2002 to address the defendant population. How
many defendants have drug use problems? To what extent is this funding
sufficient to meet the demand for treatment? What controls are in place
to ensure that these resources are used most efficiently and
effectively?
Answer. PSA cannot currently meet the entire substance abuse
treatment need in its supervision population. Although defendants
frequently are not under pretrial supervision for the period of time
necessary to complete an entire treatment regime (placement in
detoxification, residential and outpatient treatment sometimes followed
by transitional housing), it can reasonably be expected that the
typical defendant in need of treatment would receive up to two
placements while under PSA supervision.
During fiscal year 2003, there were approximately 3,700 defendants
who had at least three drug testing violations while under pretrial
supervision. Defendants are referred for comprehensive substance abuse
assessments after three positive drug tests, and approximately 96
percent of those assessments reflect a need for treatment. PSA drug-
using defendants in fiscal year 2003 needed approximately 7,104
substance abuse treatment placements (3,700 defendants 2 treatment
placements each @ 96 percent). In-house and contract treatment
placements totaled 1,958 in fiscal year 2003, and 215 additional
substance abuse placements were made with externally funded community-
based providers, a total of approximately 31 percent of the potential
need. These placements served approximately 1,200 defendants.
PSA has established and implemented significant best practice
controls consisting of both manual and automated processes to ensure
that the application of contract drug treatment funding is efficiently
and effectively optimized.
PSA has an active contract treatment services quality control
program in place, and quality assurance of the services is written into
the contracts by the incorporation of the D.C. Department of Health
standards for drug treatment facilities. Quality is a major evaluation
factor in awarding the treatment services contracts. Each offeror is
required to submit a quality assurance plan for providing services to
PSA. The treatment facilities must be certified under the D.C.
standards for a treatment facility, and evidence of that certification
is required for award of the contracts. The treatment services
contracts are closely monitored by the Treatment Branch, Contract
Treatment Services Unit, Contracting Officer Technical Representatives
(COTR's). The COTR's make scheduled and unscheduled site visits to the
treatment facilities, inspecting the services provided and utilizing a
quality assurance plan and checklist to ensure compliance with the
contract terms and conditions. Issues, or potential issues, resulting
from site visits are immediately coordinated with a PSA Contract
Officer and addressed with the respective vendors.
Initial treatment placements are made by the COTR's utilizing an
automated Task Order writing subsystem, which is an on-line, real-time
application integrated with PSA's case management system for defendants
and the internal funds control system, producing timely, reliable, and
accurate information. Treatment vendor invoices are received by PSA's
Accounting Section and reconciled with the automated Task Order writing
subsystem. This process allows for continuous maximum use of available
funds. For defendants who are placed on probation, the COTR's
coordinate with CSOSA to transfer the defendants into the CSP offender
supervision program without interruption of treatment services or
creating duplicate obligations.
Question. How many defendants did the Pretrial Services Agency
supervise over the course of fiscal year 2003? What was the rate of
rearrest for pretrial defendants while under the supervision of the
agency? What is the rearrest rate for drug users in contrast to non-
drug users?
Answer. In fiscal year 2003, the Pretrial Services Agency
supervised a total of 20,948 defendants. These defendants represent
26,589 cases, meaning that some defendants have multiple cases and have
been placed on pretrial release and supervised more than once. This may
occur when a defendant is on release in one case and is rearrested on a
different case, either during the period of pretrial supervision, or
after the defendant's period of supervision is over.
Twelve percent of PSA's defendant population was rearrested at
least once during the period of pretrial supervision. As would be
expected from the research documenting the links between drug use and
crime, drug-using defendants (defined as those with at least one
positive drug test) have higher rearrest rates than non-drug using
defendants. In fiscal year 2003, 17 percent of drug-using defendants
were rearrested as compared to only 2 percent of non-drug using
defendants.
The fiscal year 2003 rearrest rate is marginally lower than the
rates from the previous 2 years. In fiscal year 2001, the rearrest rate
for all defendants was over 13 percent, with 19 percent of drug-using
defendants rearrested, and a little over 6 percent of non-drug using
defendants rearrested. In fiscal year 2002, the overall rearrest rate
was over 14 percent, with over 20 percent of drug-using defendants
rearrested, and 7 percent of non-drug using defendants rearrested.
Question. What is the status of PSA's defendant case management
system?
Answer. Version 1.0 of PRISM, Pretrial's case management system,
was deployed in March, 2002. This release supported all aspects of
defendant supervision, case management, drug test results, and
substance abuse treatment. Version 1.5 was deployed in January, 2003,
and added automated case assignment and task management functions.
Version 2.0 development effort will be completed during the 4th quarter
of fiscal year 2004. Staff training will begin in fiscal year 2004 with
deployment slated for 1st quarter, fiscal year 2005. Version 2.0 will
incorporate criminal history, arrest processing, and bail reports to
court, and will replace the Agency's legacy ABA DABA (Automated Bail
Agency Database) and DTMS (Drug Test Management System) information
systems.
In future versions, we hope to automate the release order process
and create an electronic release order. The release order is the
initial document that places a defendant under Pretrial Services
supervision. Currently, the release order is a multi-part paper form,
which is prepared manually by PSA and court staff in the courtroom and
signed by the judge. PSA staff manually enters information on the
release order into PSA's case management system.
Over 30 courtrooms in D.C. Superior Court prepare and forward
release orders to PSA throughout the week. Incomplete or illegible
release orders or orders not received by PSA are common problems.
Breakdowns in the manual process of transmitting release orders
ultimately result in defendants not being supervised. Timeliness in
posting new release conditions or any bond changes is paramount to
effective supervision. Accuracy of on-the-record release conditions is
also essential to ensuring the appropriate release conditions are
imposed and supervised.
Automation of this process would create an electronic release
order, which could be generated in the courtroom, with printed copies
available immediately for all relevant parties. Information could be
posted real-time to both Pretrial Services' and D.C. Superior Court's
information systems, assuring that both systems had reliable, timely,
and accurate information.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Mary L. Landrieu
re-entry and sanction center
Question. Please provide the schedule for renovation of Karrick
Hall and how long the agency intends to remain in this facility, as
part of the Reservation 13 master plan.
Answer. In September 2002, CSOSA signed a 10-year lease with the
District of Columbia for the use of Karrick Hall as CSOSA's Re-entry
and Sanctions Center. From September 2002 to June 2003, CSOSA, the D.C.
government, and several stakeholders worked to resolve planning issues,
including the transfer of control of the land from the Federal
Government to the DC government and the siting of the CSOSA facility
within the framework of the Reservation 13 Master Plan. In June 2003,
CSOSA reached agreement with the City to proceed with the renovation of
Karrick Hall. A contract for Architectural and Engineering Design and
Construction Management was signed in September 2003 and complete
renovations are scheduled to be complete in Spring 2005. CSOSA plans to
continue full operations at Karrick Hall at least throughout the term
of the existing lease.
Karrick Hall is a 60,000 square foot 8-story building constructed
on the grounds of the D.C. General campus circa 1961. Since 1996,
Karrick Hall has been the home of the Assessment and Orientation
Center. The AOC program is a model program CSOSA now operates in
partnership with the Washington Baltimore High Intensity Drug Task
Force program, also known as HIDTA. When Karrick Hall is complete, the
AOC will become CSOSA's Reentry and Sanctions program.
On February 27, 2004, the AOC vacated Karrick Hall and moved into a
temporary location at 1301 Clifton Street, NW. The AOC will be at 1301
Clifton until the renovation is complete, in the spring of 2005.
The renovations include:
--Replacing the building's infrastructure (installing all new
plumbing, electrical, windows and exterior architectural
features as well as a new heating and air condition systems and
fire systems);
--Installing two new elevators in place of the existing units;
--Installing new restrooms and ensuring all new systems meet the
requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other
handicap accessibility requirements.
When renovations are completed in Spring 2005, the Reentry and
Sanctions Center will expand to 108 beds, which will service 1,200
offenders and defendants annually. The program will include four male
units, one unit dedicated to females and one unit for the dually
diagnosed. CSOSA's Fiscal Year 2005 Budget request contains funding for
partial-year operations of all six units in fiscal year 2005.
We are very excited about this initiative because the AOC program
has a proven track record of success. A study conducted by the
University of Maryland in May 2002 found there was a 74 percent
reduction in re-arrests 1 year following completion of the AOC program.
Expanding the capacity of this program has obvious positive impacts on
public safety and quality of life.
supervision and treatment
Question. What role does drug treatment play in reducing
recidivism?
Answer. Research supports the conclusion that effective drug
treatment plays a significant role in reducing recidivism. Nationally,
it is estimated that drug treatment results in a 45 percent reduction
in criminal behavior in the 2 years following successful completion of
treatment. A similar trend is seen in research conducted on
participants of the Baltimore/Washington High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area (HIDTA) treatment continuum, the system on which
CSOSA's substance abuse treatment continuum is based. The HIDTA
program, which is grant-funded through the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, targets geographic areas identified as having high
concentrations of drug-related criminal activity, such as the
Baltimore/Washington area. The evaluation of the Baltimore/Washington
HIDTA treatment program was conducted by the University of Maryland and
showed that the overall arrest rate for HIDTA treatment participants
dropped 51 percent, and the arrest rate for participants of the HIDTA
Assessment and Orientation Center, which is operated by CSOSA, dropped
74 percent in the 12 months following successful completion of the
program.
Within CSOSA, we are currently developing a system to evaluate the
impact of treatment on recidivism. The integration of an automated
treatment tracking module with our SMART case management system during
fiscal year 2003 allows us for the first time to analyze the impact of
treatment on criminal behavior. During fiscal year 2003, drug related
violations accounted for 58 percent of all technical violations
reported for the year. We anticipate that our outcome analysis will
mirror the findings of both the national and HIDTA outcome studies and
will show a reduction in recidivism and technical violations amongst
offenders who were referred to and successfully completed a continuum
of treatment services during fiscal year 2003.
Question. How many offenders and defendants are served by drug
treatment, compared with the population identified as in need of
treatment?
Answer. CSOSA estimates that approximately 4,100 chronic substance-
abusing offenders required treatment interventions in fiscal year 2003,
based on the number of offenders who tested positive for cocaine,
heroin or PCP two or more times. It is important to note that CSOSA
also supervises offenders who test positive fewer than two times that
are also in need of treatment services. For purposes of this analysis
4,100 offenders will be used as a low-end estimate.
Each offender, on average, requires 3 placements to satisfy
treatment-programming requirements. For example, offenders with chronic
substance abuse histories are most often referred to detoxification
followed by residential and outpatient services.
Using the estimates described above, CSOSA requires the ability to
make a minimum of 12,300 substance abuse placements per year (4,100
offenders 3 treatment placements) to meet the population's need. The
fiscal year 2003 appropriation enabled CSOSA to make 2,021 treatment
placements, or just 16 percent of the total estimated need.
Approximately 40 percent of offenders needing treatment are
supervised at the Intensive or Maximum level, indicating a relatively
high level of risk to public safety. CSOSA has focused treatment
resources on this population to meet a higher percentage of need among
the highest-risk offenders.
Question. What kinds of programs are people placed in? Residential
or out-patient? How do you determine which service providers offenders
are referred to?
Answer. CSOSA currently provides the following substance abuse
services:
--7-Day Medically Monitored Detoxification,
--28-Day Intensive Residential Treatment,
--120-Day Residential Treatment,
--120-Day Residential Treatment and Transitional Housing for Women
with Children,
--180-Day Residential Treatment for Dually-Diagnosed Substance
Abusers,
--90-Day Supervised Transitional Housing,
--Intensive Outpatient and Outpatient Treatment,
--Traffic Alcohol Education Services.
In addition to the services above, CSOSA also provides the
following in-house interventions:
--Substance Abuse Education Groups,
--Assessment/Orientation Groups (Pre-treatment services),
--Anger Management Groups,
--Sanction Groups.
The level of treatment recommended for each offender is determined
by an evaluation conducted by CSOSA staff. The evaluation considers a
variety of factors including pattern of drug use; amenability to
treatment; prior treatment history; risk to public safety; and
employment/living status.
Question. How does CSOSA coordinate supervised release with drug
treatment and counseling if those services are not provided at the
halfway house?
Answer. CSOSA does not provide treatment services to offenders
residing in the halfway house on ``inmate'' status. For those
individuals, the Bureau of Prisons provides contract treatment
services. When the individual is released, the individual continues
treatment under CSOSA's contract with the same vendor.
CSOSA staff assess offenders who reside in the halfway house on
``released'' status (parolee, supervised releasee or probationer under
a Public Law placement) to identify their specific treatment needs. The
offenders are permitted to leave the halfway house to attend substance
abuse treatment sessions at the identified treatment program. Upon
leaving the halfway house, the offender's treatment continues and, if
needed, the offender is referred to the next level of care.
Offenders who enter supervision with no prior halfway house stay
are assessed for treatment needs as part of CSOSA's intake and case
planning process. If the offender has a release condition requiring
treatment, placement is initiated at that time.
Once the individual is under CSOSA supervision, the Community
Supervision Officer (CSO) is responsible for ensuring that the offender
is in full compliance with the treatment plan, sanctioning the offender
for any behavioral non-compliant acts, meeting with the treatment
professional to facilitate offender compliance, monitoring the offender
until successful completion of treatment, or referring the offender
back to the releasing authority if continued non-compliance with
treatment results in removal from treatment or unsatisfactory
compliance.
success rate of women offenders re-entering the community
Question. What specific steps or initiatives are underway to enable
successful re-entry of women?
Answer. Currently, CSOSA's Community Supervision Program (CSP) has
several gender-specific programs to address the needs of female
offenders. CSP contracts for residential placements in gender-specific
residential programs, such as Demeter House, which treats chemically-
addicted mothers, who may be accompanied by their children while in the
program. The Substance Abuse and Treatment Branch also provides weekly
in-house group sessions for women. In addition, the Transitional
Intervention for Parole Supervision (TIPS) program has a community
supervision officer on-site at the Fairview Community Corrections
Center to assist women with reentry issues. The Fairview CCC also may
be used for public law placements and as an intermediate sanction for
high risk/needs women offenders.
CSP is working to expand gender-specific programs. The expanded
Reentry and Sanctions Center will contain a unit for female offenders.
Additionally, a team of managers received training at the National
Institute of Corrections Academy last year on implementing effective
agency-wide programs for female offenders. The members of this team now
are leading a work group to implement these strategies around such
issues as victimization and trauma, mental health and medical problems,
family and child rearing, and economic self-sufficiency. The Agency is
working to:
--Implement additional, in-house gender-specific group counseling
programs and training group facilitators;
--Develop a comprehensive training curriculum that provides
information/tools for line staff and administrators to
effectively manage female offenders;
--Compile a resource guide to ensure that Community Supervision
Officers are aware of, and have access to, available in-house,
community and government programs;
--Work with our faith-based partners to female women offenders are
linked to mentors;
--Strengthen partnerships with the many community organizations and
government agencies that provide services to this population;
and
--Arrange child-care opportunities with our community partners to
allow female offenders to engage in programming and supervision
activities.
Question. Does CSOSA coordinate with the Child and Family Services
Agency (CFSA) or D.C. Public Schools to follow-up on women re-entering
family life?
Answer. CSOSA makes every effort to connect returning offenders
with programs and services that can help them achieve successful
reintegration in the community. While there is no agency policy
requiring coordination, Community Supervision Officers (CSO's)
informally confer and collaborate with the city's social services
agencies on cases in which there is a common interest. The CSO may need
to be aware of services the offender or her children receive from CFSA,
or the CSO may initiate referral for such services. Typically, if the
offender needs educational programming, s/he will be referred to a
Learning Lab for assessment. The Learning Lab may refer the offender to
D.C. Public Schools evening programs if appropriate.
criminal justice coordinating council
Question. Is the CJCC well-equipped in its current status to
continue to aide in the creation of seamless criminal justice services
that enhance public safety and maximize resources?
Answer. Over the course of 2003-2004, the CJCC has been able to
strengthen its position within the criminal justice community as a
resource tool and a catalyst for system reform, institutional
modification and program analysis. In January of 2003, the member
agencies of the CJCC made a commitment to address a variety of issues
by completing a multi-year strategic plan. These issues are being
addressed through committees and workgroups using a process of careful
investigation and recommendations. CJCC provides support to these
workgroups through research, data collection and tracking. The CJCC is
now in the process of completing its second, annual report for fiscal
year 2003.
There is a general improvement in the trust and solicitation of
multiagency approaches to problem solving which can only make the city
services stronger and more efficient. Through the CJCC there has been
the successful establishment of an infrastructure to support these
multiagency efforts, report on progress and measure success. The
support of the Mayor, D.C. Council, OMB and Congress has provided a
strong foundation for the development of the CJCC.
re-arrest rate and parole revocation
Question. Would you please submit to the committee a comparison of
the re-arrest rates and parole revocation hearings in the District to
other jurisdictions of similar size? (Please coordinate response with
PDS).
Answer. The percentage of offenders arrested while under CSOSA
supervision was 18 percent in fiscal year 2002 and 15 percent in fiscal
year 2003. Although comparable neighboring jurisdictions (i.e.,
Baltimore and Richmond) do not report their rearrest data in a similar
fashion, we will soon move to a more comparable reporting format--
recidivism rates measured over a 24- to 36-month period for entry and
exit cohort offender populations.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ In January 2003, the Virginia Department of Corrections
released a 3-year recidivism study indicating that nearly 30 percent of
roughly 9,000 offenders returned to incarceration. Of those who
returned, the greatest share returned within the first year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To accomplish the above reporting objective, CSOSA is exploring a
data sharing agreement with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. This
particular agreement will enable the agency to implement its recidivism
studies by verifying and tracking all known and reported rearrests
contained in the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Once
in place, ORE will collect and verify all known arrests for stratified
random samples of entry and exit cohorts. We hope to begin reporting
our 24- and 36-month rearrest rates beginning in the summer of 2005 and
on a regular basis thereafter.
Between fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2003, the United States
Parole Commission reported 768, 1,072, and 1,240 revocation hearings
for D.C. offenders respectively. These hearings fall into three
categories--institutional, expedited, and local. Only local revocation
hearings require the presence of CSOSA's CSO's for introduction of
facts.\2\ A large share of these revocations resulted from hearings
that were requested following an offender's persistent drug use and/or
technical violations regardless of rearrest or prosecutorial decision
to present charges to the judiciary.\3\
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\2\ USPC [actual] local revocation hearings were 481 in fiscal year
2001, 660 in fiscal year 2002, and 562 in fiscal year 2003.
\3\ The Virginia study also indicated that nearly of third of
recidivists were revoked to incarceration following technical violation
and the remaining following arrests for a new charge.
Public Defender Service
STATEMENT OF RONALD S. SULLIVAN, JR., DIRECTOR
Senator DeWine. Let me invite our second panel up, which is
one witness. Mr. Ronald Sullivan, Jr. is Director of the Public
Defender Service in the District of Columbia. He was appointed
Director in June 2002. Mr. Sullivan was in private practice
here in the District and was a visiting attorney for the Law
Society of Kenya. He sat on the committee charged with drafting
a new constitution of that country.
Mr. Sullivan is leaving the Public Defender Service this
summer to take a professorship at Yale. We welcome him.
Mr. Sullivan, thank you for being here today.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you very much.
Senator DeWine. Would you like to make a statement? And
then we will have some questions.
Mr. Sullivan. Indeed, I would.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Landrieu.
INTRODUCTION
I come before you today in support of the fiscal year 2005
budget request on behalf of the Public Defender Service for the
District of Columbia, or PDS as we are commonly known as in the
criminal justice system.
Throughout its history, PDS has maintained its reputation
as the best public defender service in the country, local or
Federal. PDS is a legal services provider that this Congress,
this subcommittee, and this City can be proud of.
Our track record, both historically and recently, speaks
for itself. Indeed, just this past summer the United States
Supreme Court appointed one of our attorneys to a case of
national importance. The case regarded the construction and
application of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, which forbids State
officials from depriving individuals of their Constitutional
rights under color of State law.
The exquisitely graceful brief produced by our attorney on
behalf of a prison inmate proved convincing. Last Thursday, the
Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 opinion, adopting PDS's position.
I ask you, when was the last time you recall this Supreme Court
agreeing 9-0 on anything?
PDS'S FISCAL YEAR 2005 BUDGET REQUEST
With this backdrop, I move to PDS's fiscal year 2005
request. PDS requests $29.8 million and 227.5 FTE in direct
budget authority. This request includes $2.3 million as our
first ever capital investment in information technology.
The investment will provide for development of our case
data management systems. It will enhance our security over
privileged attorney/client information, and it will reduce our
risk of losing client information in the event of a local
disaster.
Indeed, recently, the Cook County defender office in
Chicago was virtually destroyed by fire. This sort of disaster
can occur, and if the institutional defender service is not
prepared, we risk grinding the criminal justice system to a
halt.
Coupled with this technology investment, we are targeting
to improve PDS's operational efficiencies in the areas of
program planning and development, administration, human
resources, and financial management. There is far more detail
in my written submission, but suffice it to say PDS's skeletal
professional support staff is woefully inadequate to support an
agency of this size and scope.
PDS'S FISCAL YEAR 2004 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Now, briefly to fiscal year 2004 accomplishments: As this
subcommittee knows from recent press accounts, PDS, in its
class action litigation against the District, recently filed a
motion to place the D.C. Youth Services Administration in
receivership as a consequence of its nearly two-decade long
neglect of the District's most needy children. The District's
lack of compliance with dozens of court orders to date is not
acceptable.
In addition to its class action litigation, PDS represents
individual citizens one at a time when they are faced with
criminal charges.
One example illustrates how PDS affects the lives of D.C.
citizens. Recently we represented a 70-year-old man. Let me
call him John, so as not to further the injustice brought upon
him. John was charged with felony gun possession. He had never
been in trouble before. He worked part-time as a special police
officer and was licensed to carry a handgun while on duty and
to and from his home to work.
One day after work, he stopped at the headquarters--the
headquarters of the special police officer's department--to
pick up some work related paperwork. He forgot to remove his
handgun before walking into the building, since, technically
speaking, he did not work at the headquarters.
As a result of this mistake, John was arrested and faced
the possibility of a felony conviction with a 5-year prison
sentence. The conviction would have cost him his job, his means
to supplement his retirement, and his spotless reputation,
which he had built over 70 years.
Fortunately, John was represented by a well-trained public
defender. The result--it took John's jury 10 minutes to elect a
foreperson and render a verdict of not guilty.
PDS seeks fairness in every case it handles, and this is
but one example of how PDS affects the lives of concrete people
and the administration of justice in our Nation's capital.
PDS's mission to represent indigent citizens in the District
with diligence and zeal is clear and well defined. We do it
responsibly. We do it efficiently. We do it cost effectively,
but most importantly we do it well.
The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia
has been and continues to be this country's model defender
agency. With your support, we will continue in this proud
tradition.
PREPARED STATEMENT
I see the yellow light is on, which indicates that my time
is nearly expired. I thank you for your time and attention. I
would be happy to answer any questions that this subcommittee
may have.
Senator DeWine. Thank you very much.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr.
Good afternoon, Mister Chairman and members of the subcommittee. My
name is Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., and I am the Director of the Public
Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). I come before you
today to provide testimony in support of PDS's fiscal year 2005 budget
request. We thank you for your support of our programs in previous
years.
The Public Defender Service, unique among local public defender
offices in that it is federally funded,\1\ has continued to maintain
its strong reputation in the area of providing quality criminal defense
representation in the District of Columbia. Just last week, the United
States Supreme Court, in a 9-0 opinion, ruled for a PDS client in a
case briefed and argued by a PDS attorney at the request of the Court.
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\1\ As a result of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-
Government Improvement Act of 1997 (the ``Revitalization Act''), PDS
was established as a federally funded, independent District of Columbia
organization. In accordance with the Revitalization Act, PDS transmits
its budget and receives its appropriation as a transfer through the
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) appropriation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This case is just the latest successful example of PDS's long
history of providing quality defense representation. PDS has always
been committed to its mission of providing and promoting
constitutionally mandated legal representation to adults and children
facing a loss of liberty in the District of Columbia who cannot afford
a lawyer, and we have had numerous significant accomplishments in
pursuit of that mission. However, before PDS became a federally funded
entity, we did not always have sufficient funding to allow us to
achieve as high a level of proficiency in our administrative
functioning as we are known for in our legal representation. PDS's
relatively new status as a federally funded entity \2\ has created the
opportunity for us to focus more on enhancing our administrative
functions: in the past 7 years, PDS has established a human resources
office, an information technology office, and a budget and finance
office where none previously existed. To continue this ``administrative
maturation,'' PDS has a need for a more sophisticated structure that
will permit not only the integration of these functions with each other
and with PDS's program functions, but will permit the organization to
better monitor performance and to achieve even greater results. In
furtherance of these goals, PDS has already adopted Federal best
practices in a number of support areas, and we are preparing to adopt
additional Federal best practices in even more areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ See n. 1.
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It is for these reasons that PDS seeks funding for our sole fiscal
year 2005 requested initiative, the Program Management and Performance
Integration Initiative. For fiscal year 2005, PDS requests $29,833,000
and 227.5 FTE in direct budget authority, which includes a request for
8.5 new FTE and $3,714,000 to support this new initiative. This
proposed increase in personnel resources and funding--PDS's first ever
Federal capital funding request--is consistent with the President's
emphasis on achieving measurable results and improving operational
efficiency.
background
Since undertaking in 1970 its intended role as a model public
defender, PDS has developed and maintained a reputation as the best
public defender office in the country--local or Federal. It has become
the national standard bearer and the benchmark by which other public
defense organizations often measure themselves. In a first ever
employee survey conducted just 6 weeks ago, 99 percent of responding
staff reported being proud of working at PDS. The independent firm that
conducted the survey informed us that PDS received one of the highest
overall scores the firm had ever observed in assessing staff commitment
to an organization's mission. Congress and the District of Columbia can
also be proud of this local defender office for our Nation's capital.
In the District of Columbia, PDS and the District of Columbia
Courts share the responsibility for providing constitutionally mandated
legal representation to people who cannot pay for their own attorney.
Under the District of Columbia's Criminal Justice Act (CJA), the
District of Columbia Courts appoint PDS generally to the more serious,
more complex, resource-intensive, and time-consuming criminal cases.
The Courts assign the remaining, less serious cases and the majority of
the misdemeanor and traffic cases to a panel of approximately 350 pre-
selected private attorneys (``CJA attorneys''). Approximately 100
lawyers on staff at PDS are appointed to represent:
--a significant percentage of people facing the most serious felony
charges;
--a substantial percentage of individuals litigating criminal
appeals;
--the majority of the juveniles facing serious delinquency charges;
--nearly 100 percent of all people facing parole revocation; and
--the majority of people in the mental health system who are facing
involuntary civil commitment.
While much of our work is devoted to ensuring that no innocent
person is ever wrongfully convicted of a crime, we also provide legal
representation to children in the delinquency system who have learning
disabilities and require special educational accommodations under the
Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act,\3\ people with mental
illness who are facing involuntary civil commitment, and recovering
substance abusers participating in the highly successful Drug Court
treatment program.
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\3\ 20 U.S.C. 1400, et seq.
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PDS has also provided training for other District of Columbia
defense attorneys and investigators who represent those who cannot
afford an attorney, and provided support to the District of Columbia
Courts. In addition, PDS has developed innovative approaches to
representation, from instituting measures to address the problems of
clients returning to the community who have been incarcerated to
creating a one-of-a-kind electronic case tracking system. Other public
defender offices across the country have sought counsel from PDS as
they have used our work as a pattern for theirs. As Federal best
practices continue to spread to the State and local level, PDS is
ideally situated to become a model for how a public defender office can
be operated most effectively in the 21st century.
fiscal year 2005 request
Program Management and Performance Integration Initiative
For fiscal year 2005, PDS requests $29.8 million and 227.5 FTE in
total direct budget authority. This request includes $2.3 million as
our first capital investment in information technology. The investment
will allow us to expand our case and data management systems to provide
more efficient attorney services. Software development and deployment,
and associated hardware and licensing will enhance security of
privileged attorney-client information and reduce our risk of loss of
client information in the event of a local disaster.
Recent experience in Chicago drives home the importance to the
smooth operation of the criminal justice system of ensuring that the
defender organization can continue to operate even if its offices are
damaged or its computer systems are destroyed. Last fall, the building
housing the Cook County defender's main offices was virtually destroyed
in a fire. Had the Cook County defender lacked the capacity to retrieve
data from backup sources and create sufficient off site work terminals,
the criminal justice system would have stalled, and representation
would have been rendered ineffective.
PDS is also working to improve its operational efficiencies. PDS
seeks $1.4 million as the resources needed to reach a level of
sophistication in program planning and evaluation, administration,
human resources, and financial management that corresponds to PDS's
reputation for quality defense representation. As explained in detail
in our fiscal year 2005 Congressional Budget Justification, the $1.4
million in requested support would be used for:
--program data collection and analysis;
--data system integration;
--performance planning;
--performance measurement;
--compliance with Federal standards for systems, accounting, and
reporting; and
--coordination of electronic financial, personnel, and performance
records.
Historically, PDS has maintained skeletal support in these critical
administrative areas; however, increased performance assessment and
accountability demands require that we improve our capacity in those
areas. This need was also reflected in the results of the PDS employee
survey; our scores were slightly lower on questions related to the
quality of our administrative operations. Additional support for PDS
programs and PDS attorneys will increase the potential for greater
efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out PDS's mission. One of
PDS's goals is to maximize the time that attorneys, investigators, and
social workers spend doing that for which they are best suited--
developing creative and effective ways to pursue justice in the
District of Columbia.
fiscal year 2004 accomplishments
During fiscal year 2004, in addition to handling a variety of
criminal, juvenile, parole, mental health, and other legal matters, PDS
has been very successful in instituting changes to improve the overall
quality of the District of Columbia justice system.
Fiscal Year 2004 Initiative: Appellate Response Initiative
In fiscal year 2004, Congress and the President provided a program
increase for PDS totaling .5 FTE, and $100,000 in support of one new
initiative--PDS's Appellate Response Initiative. PDS used the funding
to hire a new attorney in the Appellate Division, where the workload
has increased by approximately 50 percent since the passage of the 1997
Revitalization Act without any corresponding increase in staff levels.
The newest Appellate Division attorney began working just over 2 weeks
ago; her work will contribute toward reducing the backlog of unfiled
appellate briefs. This backlog is due to the staffing shortage and to
the substantially shorter briefing schedules now being imposed
generally in appellate cases by the District of Columbia Court of
Appeals.
This additional resource will enhance the ability of attorneys in
the Appellate Division to meet their obligations, which include
providing constitutionally mandated appellate legal representation to
individuals who cannot afford an attorney, responding to requests from
the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Superior Court for
amicus curiae (``friend of the court'') briefs on complex or unusual
issues in criminal cases, and devoting a significant amount of time to
training both PDS and non-PDS lawyers.
general program accomplishments
Criminal Justice System Reforms
PDS has remained vigilant in protecting the rights of the indigent
in the District of Columbia criminal justice system in old cases and in
new ones.
Well-being of Children
Throughout fiscal year 2003 and continuing in fiscal year 2004, PDS
has drawn renewed attention to the conditions under which children live
who have been committed to the care of the District of Columbia through
the juvenile justice system. All experts agree that proper intervention
in the lives of these children at this juncture is key to breaking the
cycle of involvement in the system. Current conditions for committed
children not only fail to advance the cause of reducing recidivism;
current conditions actually promote recidivism among these children.
As a result of PDS's tireless 18-year effort in a case known as
Jerry M., the plight of committed children has been the object of
intense examination in the media, in the political arena, and just last
week in hearings before Superior Court Judge Dixon. In these hearings,
PDS and co-counsel are seeking to have the District's Youth Services
Administration put into receivership to finally produce the concrete
changes necessary to save these children and protect the community.
Whatever the outcome of this litigation, the plight of these most
vulnerable children will improve because this case has put YSA on
notice that the city and the public are watching. Through this lawsuit,
juvenile justice experts have had an opportunity to examine the
children's living conditions and recommend concrete actions that YSA or
a receiver will be able to take to immediately improve the well being
of committed children.
PDS has carried out this litigation while simultaneously providing
services that address every aspect of a child's involvement with the
court system in innumerable individual cases and in innumerable ways.
Among the most important have been: (1) developing qualified attorneys
to represent children by generating hours of training for court-
appointed counsel who practice in the new Family Court; (2) increasing
the services to children with educational disabilities through
litigation handled by PDS lawyers with expertise in special education
advocacy; and (3) working collaboratively with a wide variety of
organizations to help children transition back to the community. This
last effort is a direct result of a fiscal year 2002 initiative
establishing our Community Re-entry Project, which carries on to this
day.
In fiscal years 2003 and 2004, PDS approached Catholic University
about providing services to girls committed to the care of the District
of Columbia. With PDS's experience and expertise, a proposal has been
developed for creating a group home for girls on the university's
campus, serviced by the university's graduate programs. The proposal
includes long-term involvement by the university in the lives of these
girls, or what experts refer to as ``after-care.'' The proposal calls
for providing school services, health care, mental health services,
family services, and mentorship not only while the girls reside on
campus but also after the girls leave the group home and transition
back into our community. Such a wrap-around approach to caring for
committed children could be developed at every university in this city.
The potential of such programs for saving the lives of District of
Columbia is enormous.
PDS is committed to staying on the forefront of looking for ways to
improve the treatment of children involved in our court system.
Fairness in the Criminal Justice System
A logical outcome of PDS's vigorous pursuit of its mission is the
attention PDS devotes to identifying and addressing questions related
to fairness in the criminal justice system. PDS champions this cause in
every single case it handles. Because these are too numerous to
describe, we focus on three cases and one project that are
illustrative.
Special police officer.--Recently in the Superior Court for the
District of Columbia, our client, a 70-year-old former sergeant in the
Marine Corps, was charged with felony gun possession. Our client had
never been in trouble before. He operated his own security business and
worked as a part time special police officer. He was licensed to carry
a handgun while on duty and while traveling between his home and his
work. One day on his way to work, he stopped at a District government
office to drop off a form to renew his business license, forgetting
that he was wearing his gun in its holster. As a result of this
innocent mistake, he was arrested and charged. He faced the possibility
of a felony conviction and 5-year prison sentence. The conviction would
have cost him his business--his means to supplement his retirement
income. Fortunately, he was represented by a well-trained and dedicated
public defender. The result--it only took his jury 10 minutes to elect
a foreperson and render a verdict--not guilty.
Detention order reversed.--Another example involved appellate and
trial representation. Recently, PDS represented a young man charged
with murder in an appeal from the trial court's decision to hold him in
jail until his trial. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial judge's
ruling that there was sufficient reliable evidence to justify holding
our client in jail until his trial. What the trial court, the Court of
Appeals, and PDS did not know at the time this appeal was argued was
that the prosecutor had failed to reveal all the relevant facts during
the hearing before the trial judge. Through tenacious litigation and a
persistent search for the truth, PDS uncovered evidence making it clear
that the government's eyewitness was very suspect: the government's
eyewitness was not simply a bystander as the trial court had been led
to believe, but, rather, the witness had participated in shooting the
victim and had only implicated PDS's client as part of an effort to
secure a deal with the government. Once PDS uncovered the truth, PDS
undertook consultations at the highest levels with the United States
Attorney's Office, resulting in a very unusual joint motion to vacate
the Court of Appeals opinion, an opinion that was rendered on a
compromised set of facts. The result--the opinion was vacated, the
integrity of the court was preserved, and truth--and thus justice--
prevailed. Later, the United States Attorney's Office, after weighing
the merits of the murder case itself, dismissed the charges against the
PDS client altogether.
Erroneous eyewitness identification.--Finally, PDS has been
advancing the position for several years that eyewitness
identifications can be inaccurate. Recent studies of cases where DNA
has exonerated individuals have demonstrated that in the vast majority,
eyewitnesses were mistaken in their identifications. Indeed, we know
that defendants in the District of Columbia have been wrongfully
convicted as the result of erroneous eyewitness identifications: more
than a decade ago, a Superior Court jury convicted a former PDS client
of multiple felonies in large part because of mistaken eyewitness
testimony. After spending a year in prison, our client was exonerated
by DNA evidence. Cases like these undermine public confidence in our
criminal justice system. And yet, every single day, District of
Columbia courts are allowing juries to evaluate eyewitness testimony
without accurate information about its limitations.
Over the past 30 years, social scientists have identified many of
the specific reasons that eyewitnesses make mistakes. For example,
studies have shown that a witness's subjective confidence in the
strength of her identification has virtually no correlation with the
accuracy of the identification. Unfortunately, the lay public,
uninformed that social science and empirical evidence undermine
reliance on such evidence, routinely misjudges what weight to give
eyewitness testimony. Introduction of accurate social science evidence
into the courtroom, and the use of jury instructions that accurately
reflect this science, would go a long way toward preventing these kinds
of errors.
PDS has already begun to lay the groundwork to update this sort of
ungrounded legal thinking so that criminal cases will be decided on the
basis of reliable science. PDS has developed model instructions,
identified experts, and most recently conducted a jury survey to
demonstrate conclusively to jurists in the District of Columbia that
the average juror is not familiar with current scientific research
regarding eyewitness identification and that jurors can benefit from
the testimony of experts when evaluating eyewitness evidence. Bringing
the law in the District of Columbia in line with more than 16 States,
including Alabama, Arizona, California, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Texas;
multiple Federal circuits; and the United States Army Court of Criminal
Appeals is yet another example of PDS's ongoing efforts to provide
quality representation.
These are but a small sample of how PDS positively affects people's
lives and the administration of justice here in the Nation's capital.
other program accomplishments
PDS engaged in a number of activities during fiscal year 2004 that
improved the overall administration of justice or that had significant
implications for individual clients.
Appellate Division
The Appellate Division's appellate litigation has impact throughout
the District's criminal justice system as decisions in their cases
often establish or clarify the standards trial court judges and
litigants must follow in criminal and juvenile cases. The complex and
novel legal issues the Division is called upon to address therefore are
best handled by experienced and talented attorneys--which the Division
has no lack of. As previously noted, in fiscal year 2003, even the
highest court in the land looked to the Appellate Division for
assistance.
Supreme Court litigation.--The Supreme Court of the United States
appointed an attorney from the Division to represent an incarcerated
man where the Federal courts of appeals had issued conflicting opinions
on the applicability of a rule to lawsuits challenging the conditions
of confinement, but not implicating the fact or duration of
confinement, i.e., matters lying at the core of habeas corpus
jurisprudence. The Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously in favor of
the arguments advanced by the PDS attorney.
Failure to disclose bias.--In a case in which for 10 years the
Appellate Division challenged the United States Attorney's Office's
refusal to comply with its obligation to provide exculpatory
information, the trial court issued an order granting a new trial for a
client whose trial on a murder charge was marred by secret payments
from the government to the sole eyewitness and by a prosecutor who
incorrectly argued to the jury that the government had done nothing to
benefit the witness. The Appellate Division obtained two reversals of
trial court post-conviction rulings before the trial court ultimately
decided that PDS's post-conviction pleadings warranted a new trial.
Prosecutorial misconduct.--In another lengthy case involving
exculpatory evidence, the Appellate Division advanced First Amendment
claims to convince the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia to unseal the post-conviction proceedings in a Federal court
conspiracy case. The court documents in that case included, among other
things, a Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility
report concluding that a prosecutor had committed misconduct by
misusing government funds to pay government witnesses and their
families and friends. The District Court ultimately ruled in PDS's
favor in November, after Appellate Division lawyers had been litigating
for almost 2 years to allow the light of public scrutiny to shine on
court proceedings.
The Appellate Division has been seeking a new trial on behalf of
that same client as a result of gross misconduct by the same former
Assistant United States Attorney whose malfeasance is detailed in the
now-unsealed OPR report. Among other claims, our motion shows that the
prosecutor misused a fund for the payment of court witnesses to provide
secret payments to witnesses at the trial of our client. This
misconduct parallels some of the misconduct that the Justice
Department's own internal investigation uncovered in the Federal court
case.
Government admissions.--In still another case involving the
government's duty of fairness, the District of Columbia Court of
Appeals ruled that certain statements in a search warrant affidavit
endorsed by an Assistant United States Attorney constituted government
admissions and could be introduced by a PDS client at his trial. This
ruling is important because it meant that the government would pay an
evidentiary price for taking opposite positions on critical factual
questions in two different proceedings. The case is also important
because it is one of the most developed decisions on the question of
when government submissions in court constitute admissions.
Attorney-client privilege.--In In re PDS, the Court of Appeals
wrote an opinion that may be one of the most extensive discussions of
an issue of national importance--namely the scope of the crime fraud
exception to the attorney-client privilege. In this case, a trial judge
had held PDS in civil contempt (but stayed execution of any penalty
upon PDS's representation that it would comply with the court ruling if
affirmed on appeal) for refusing to disclose information it believed to
be protected by the attorney-client privilege. The Court of Appeals
concluded that PDS was acting within the highest standards of the bar
in investigating the case as it had, and that the information held by
the PDS lawyer was protected by the attorney-client privilege because
the elements of the crime fraud exception had not been shown.
Habeas corpus litigation.--In a series of cases involving Appellate
and Special Litigation Division attorneys, we have been litigating the
question of whether District of Columbia judges have habeas corpus
jurisdiction over cases involving clients with District of Columbia law
issues, but who are incarcerated outside the District. We have
litigated this question in both the District of Columbia Court of
Appeals and in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit. The question is now pending before the United States
Supreme Court in a separate case. The question is immensely important
to our clients and to District of Columbia citizens, because in the
wake of the Revitalization Act, District of Columbia prisoners were
moved from the now closed Lorton facility to non-District facilities.
Because these prisoners were sentenced in the District's courts for
violations of local District of Columbia laws, and because their parole
is governed by laws unique to the District of Columbia and generally
involves facts that occurred in the District of Columbia, the most
logical forum for hearing District prisoner claims is the District of
Columbia courts where the bench and bar have substantial expertise in
addressing District law questions. In fact, the District of Columbia
government has supported PDS's position--not the Federal Government's--
in this litigation.
Special Litigation Division
The Special Litigation Division's focus on systemic issues in the
District of Columbia justice system leads it to litigate those issues
before every court in the District of Columbia--the Superior Court and
Court of Appeals in the local system, and the District Court, the Court
of Appeals, and the Supreme Court in the Federal system. These are some
of the highlights of our litigation:
Conviction of the innocent.--With the advent of DNA testing, we now
have evidence that the American criminal justice system sometimes
produces demonstrably wrong results--innocent people are convicted, and
the real culprit goes free. DNA testing is a powerful tool for catching
these mistakes, but its scope is limited to the few cases in which
biological evidence is available, can be tested, and is connected to
the crime. For every DNA exoneration, there are countless cases where
testing cannot help because no DNA was left at the scene, the
biological evidence was too degraded to obtain a conclusive result, or
the evidence that was once there has been lost or destroyed.
In order to effectively address the recurring, institutional
problems that contribute to the conviction of the innocent, PDS's
Special Litigation Division has focused on two major problems revealed
by the DNA exonerations: common misperceptions about the reliability of
eyewitness identification evidence, as described above, and juror
misunderstanding of the demonstrated phenomenon of ``false
confessions''--situations in which someone who did not commit the crime
admits to it anyway. PDS's Special Litigation Division has marshaled a
variety of resources on these subjects, including social science
research, testifying experts, surveys of potential jurors to determine
the reason for their failures to properly understand these subjects,
and information about the causes of wrongful convictions around the
country, in order to help the courts begin to address these problems
systematically. The focus of these projects is to allow the defense to
point out potential flaws in the reliability of seemingly solid
evidence, so that the adversarial system will work more efficiently and
not continue to produce wrongful convictions at such an alarming rate.
Unfair delay in release from jail.--Another recurring problem in
the District of Columbia's criminal justice system is its failure to
release people who have been found not guilty after trial or whose
charges have been dismissed. While local corrections officials have
asserted some need to ``check''--often for several days--to ensure that
the right person is being released and that the case really was
dismissed, other systems around the country have managed to do this
before the charges are dismissed so that people can be released
directly from the courtroom. Los Angeles, for example, has developed a
model procedure that ensures that people with no pending charges are
not held in jail unnecessarily.
The Special Litigation Division has contacted local corrections
officials and attempted to educate them on the extreme unfairness and
likely illegality of the current system, and has prepared model
pleadings for lawyers at PDS to use to attempt to secure speedy release
for clients who are no longer facing criminal charges. Because local
officials have proven unreceptive, however, PDS also has been
cooperating with the lawyers litigating a class action lawsuit against
the District to address this issue.
Special education services for youth at the D.C. Jail.--The Federal
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act \4\ was enacted to ensure
``that all children with disabilities have available a free appropriate
public education that emphasizes special and related services designed
to meet their unique needs.'' The youth housed at the District's jail
are clearly entitled to these services--and need them most
desperately--but are not receiving anything close to what the law
requires because the District's public school system and the D.C.
Department of Corrections do not have any comprehensive system in place
for identifying those youth who are entitled to special education
services at the jail, and for providing those services to them. PDS's
Special Litigation Division is currently seeking to compel the
District's school system and Department of Corrections to provide these
important services.
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\4\ 20 U.S.C. 1400, et seq.
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Civil Legal Services Unit
Special education services for children in delinquency cases.--PDS
continues to meet the need of children in the delinquency system for
special education advocacy. The Unit's attorneys specialize in advocacy
under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which
mandates special accommodations in public schools for children who
cannot be adequately educated in a traditional classroom setting due to
a learning disability or other challenge. The Unit's attorneys ensure
that children receive an appropriate diagnostic assessment and work
with the school system to secure alternative educational programs. This
past year, the Unit doubled the number of PDS juvenile clients who are
receiving appropriate special education services and treatment in
community schools and non-correctional facilities as an alternative to
detention and commitment.
Offender Rehabilitation Division
Our Offender Rehabilitation Division offers clients access to
resources they often could not find on their own. The benefits to the
clients come in many areas, including employment, education, and
housing.
Employment.--Over many years, a former star athlete on a
professional team lost everything--his job, his family, his home, his
friends, and his pride--to cocaine. He began selling drugs, he was
arrested, and he wouldn't accept anyone's help before he was referred
to ORD. At the time our staff became involved, he didn't even have
enough money for a $10 ID card. Through ORD's intervention, he gained
the courage to interview for a job at a local trade association where
he began an intensive job training and parenthood program. The result--
he graduated from the program and has gone on to be a successful
fundraiser for the association. He has not only gone from being
involved in the criminal justice system to being a productive member of
our community--he has gone even further and is giving back.
Education.--A young woman who had been in the neglect system
virtually all of her life later was charged with a juvenile offense and
sent to the District's juvenile detention facility in Laurel. The
Division assisted her in moving into a therapeutic group home, and now
she is enrolled as a freshman at a local university where scholarship
programs are paying for her education.
Public benefits.--Some of our most challenging clients are severely
mentally ill persons who are arrested on less serious charges, but
incarcerated pending trial, and who are without support systems. Their
incarceration results in the cancellation of all their benefits (SSI,
SSDI, Medicaid). Without their benefits, our clients lose access to
affordable housing and some essential services. Because of the
collaborations that the Offender Rehabilitation Division staff is
developing with a number of agencies and with individual contract
providers of mental health services, this situation is improving. More
and more of our severely mentally ill clients are now able to obtain
financial benefits, housing, intensive outpatient mental health
services, and in the last year, we have had tremendous success helping
these clients re-enter the community without re-offending.
Training
Forensic science conference.--In addition to PDS's usual training
efforts (e.g., annual Criminal Practice Institute and CPI Practice
Manual, courses for court-appointed CJA attorneys and investigators),
PDS coordinated and presented its first forensic science conference
last summer using funds from a Department of Justice grant program.
This free training program for defense attorneys included as presenters
a number of nationally known forensic science experts. The success of
this conference led the grantor to award funding to PDS for a similar
conference to be held in May of this year.
Investigator certification.--After adopting an investigator
training proposal from PDS, the Superior Court implemented a
requirement that all CJA criminal investigators be certified, receive
initial training, pass a background check, and maintain their
certification by attending PDS training. Senior PDS investigators and
PDS staff attorneys prepare the training materials and coordinate
training sessions on all aspects of criminal investigation to allow CJA
investigators to maintain their certification. Over the past 2 years,
PDS has held nine 20-hour training sessions and has certified 188 CJA
investigators. PDS has scheduled two additional sessions in July and
November 2004. This program is designed to ensure that now, and in the
future, there are sufficient qualified investigators to assist CJA
attorneys.
Special education.--PDS's special education attorneys provided
training in the fall to new Superior Court judges on special education
issues relevant to children involved in the delinquency and neglect
systems.
Administrative Accomplishments
PDS has been able to institute additional improvements in its
operational functions. Particularly now that PDS is a federally funded
entity, we seek to reach a corresponding level of sophistication in the
administration and execution of our responsibilities. Recent
improvements made by PDS provide the necessary infrastructure to
support our programs and our program staff and increase the potential
for greater efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out PDS's mission.
Case management system.--PDS has expanded internal access to its
self-designed case tracking software. The program, ``Atticus,''
provides comprehensive case management functionality for PDS attorneys,
staff, and management. Atticus now links the Trial, Investigations, and
the Offender Rehabilitation Divisions to streamline referrals and
processing for criminal and juvenile cases. Attorneys, investigators,
and program developers can now report and track case events in a
central electronic location, reducing or eliminating staff's reliance
on less efficient means of communication, and ensuring that all staff
who share responsibility for an individual case are kept fully informed
on all case developments as needed.
Strategic planning.--PDS has developed an Office of Management and
Budget-approved 5-year strategic plan similar to the plans required of
Federal executive agencies under the Government Performance and Results
Act. PDS has also prepared a draft annual performance plan that has
received preliminary approval from the Office of Management and Budget.
PDS has begun to establish the baseline measures described in its plans
in preparation for implementing the strategic plan in fiscal year 2005.
PDS continues to make progress toward establishing the administrative
infrastructure necessary to support the development of a performance-
based budget request.
Appellate brief bank.--PDS has completed the establishment of an
appellate brief bank that consists of briefs filed in the Appellate
Division's cases over the past 25 years. This searchable, comprehensive
brief bank now provides far easier, more effective access to previously
completed research, enabling attorneys to avoid unnecessary duplication
of effort.
Each of the above reforms, cases, or projects has contributed to a
better, more efficient criminal justice system, or has improved the
quality of services provided to people who cannot afford an attorney in
the District of Columbia justice system. These activities are all
consistent with PDS's goal of efficiently providing representation by
qualified attorneys to those PDS is dedicated to serve.
conclusion
PDS's current increased focus on enhancing its administrative
functions represents a further step toward better serving clients and
toward better serving as a model defender organization. The right to a
qualified attorney for people who cannot afford one can be read to
include an expectation that representation will be provided to clients
not only effectively, but also efficiently. As PDS has been in the
forefront in meeting and exceeding the standards defining what it means
to satisfy the requirements of the right to counsel, it can also be on
the forefront in modeling excellent financial and management practices
in support of that right.
I respectfully request your support of this initiative, and I would
like to thank the members of the subcommittee for your time and
attention to these matters and for your support of our work to date. I
would be happy to answer any questions the subcommittee members may
have.
Senator DeWine. Senator Landrieu.
PDS DIRECTOR SULLIVAN'S DEPARTURE
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Sullivan, I want to say that we
greeted the news of your leaving to go to Yale with very mixed
emotions, because you have, you know, done an outstanding job,
and your leadership has been really extraordinary, and your
commitment very inspiring, but we wish you the best at Yale.
I am hoping, though, that before you leave that you will--
and I am certain you will--give some indication of some others
that could follow in the leadership that you have outlined
because this is truly a very important agency for the District
and for the Nation. And while we have made great progress,
there is still some tremendous challenges, as you are aware.
So I, for one, would be interested in your, you know,
private comments along those lines. And as you leave, what
three to four focuses should we give special attention to?
Mr. Sullivan. Well, I thank you very much for your kind
words first of all. It is bittersweet for me, as well. I was,
in a sense, born and raised in this agency. I started as a
staff attorney in this agency, and I bleed the colors of PDS.
So it is with mixed emotions that I leave. I do look
forward to my new opportunity, and I have promised to send many
bright young law students to Washington, DC to be public
defenders, so in that way I will still contribute.
As to my successor, the search started in February, early
last month, and applications are due by the 16th of March. And
by the end of March, beginning of April, I anticipate that our
board of trustees will have selected a new director.
I happen to know that our very capable deputy director,
Avis Buchanan, who is sitting behind me, is applying for the
directorship, and I certainly wish her well in that endeavor.
IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
As to--from our perspective, as to the three or four most
important issues facing the District, at least with respect to
the criminal justice system, No. 1, I would speak about
forensic issues. I have written in detail in my written
statement, particularly about some of the science that we are
becoming acquainted with with respect to identifications.
We have seen in the DNA context that for an overwhelming
majority of persons who have been convicted and incarcerated,
sometimes for years, but DNA evidence has exonerated them, the
principal basis of the conviction was a false identification.
And in almost every time, it was nothing vindictive about the
identification. It was an honest mistake.
Over the past several years, psychologists and professors
in psychology departments in universities across the country
have been looking into this issue of identification and,
frankly, we have learned a lot about how to do identifications,
the best way that police should present lineups, and a whole
host of issues surrounding how we can better our identification
processes.
Some States, New Jersey for example, have adopted sweeping
changes in their identification procedures. And we have
encouraged the District of Columbia to do the same. We have
presented the Court with some of the social science findings
about identifications.
And, indeed, I have been in a room with--filled with
lawyers where most of the room picked the wrong person. There
is a video clip, and it would sort of replicate a crime and
then, you know, show different pictures. We have learned, for
example, that identification is a relational concept. That is
to say, if you show somebody six pictures, the mind tends to
work in a way that you pick the one that looks most like who
the perpetrator was. Whereas, if you show pictures in sequence,
then that is a much better way to get at the actual
perpetrator.
So at any rate, I do not want to bore you two with a litany
of the problems with our current identification system, but it
has resulted in--and we know because of DNA that it has
resulted in false convictions, and that is something that we
are working to eradicate.
We have begun in the last couple of years a forensic
practice group at the agency, where we are looking into not
only that, but DNA sciences, mitochondrial DNA is becoming a
much more important aspect of the criminal justice system; the
metallurgy science, with respect to bullets and that sort of
thing, these are all very important issues. So that is one.
Second, I would say jury pool issues. There are problems in
the District with respect to a too narrow jury pool. We are
working with the Court to see what we can do to expand the jury
pool so that all citizens can, as is consistent with their due
process rights and the Constitution, participate on the juries
in the District of Columbia.
So those are two sort of overarching issues to give you an
idea of some of the things we are working on.
Senator Landrieu. Very good. Very helpful. Thank you.
IN RE JERRY M. LITIGATION
Senator DeWine. Good. Mr. Sullivan, your agency is suing
the District on behalf of children in the juvenile justice
system. And you cite years and years of the system failing
these kids.
Your lawyers told a D.C. Superior Court judge last week
that the court-appointed receiver should take over the Youth
Services Administration, to operate the agency and report to
the Court every 2 months about changes and improvements. I
wonder if you could give us some information, more information
about this suit and what problems you see with the City's Youth
Services Administration?
Mr. Sullivan. The problems frankly, Mr. Chairman, are
legion. It has been nearly two decades of not complying with
even the most basic requirements for the health and safety of
the most needy children in the District.
One example, I think, will illustrate just the mind-set of
this particular agency with respect to the children. Recently,
we were in the hearings, my agency was in the hearings in front
of Judge Dixon, and one of the complaints that we made in our
receivership application was that children had to stuff
towels--and this is at Oak Hill, the juvenile detention
center--towels in holes in their rooms to keep rats from coming
in at night.
The question the District posed to the expert who produced
this finding was that, ``Well, sir, could it be that these are
not rats, but they are very large mice,'' as if that in some
way justifies the presence of rodents in the children's rooms.
I mean, and that is just one example that is just
indicative of some of the problems, but the report from the
inspector general, I think, in many ways lays out some of the
most critical shortcomings of the Youth Services
Administration. For example, numerous residents who tested
negative for drugs when they went into this locked, secure
facility tested positive for marijuana and PCP once they were
in there.
Senator DeWine. That is unbelievable, is it not?
Mr. Sullivan. And unacceptable.
Senator DeWine. And it is shocking.
Mr. Sullivan. And unacceptable. And the inspector general
postulated that the guards were the source of the illegal
contraband.
In violation of every fire prevention and safety
requirement imaginable, locks on the housing unit doors are
manual and cannot provide safety in the event of fire. Oak Hill
did not have a trained health and safety officer there.
Nearly 100 percent of the youth at Oak Hill are--test
positive for drugs. It is--I mean, the list goes on and on and
on. And it has been like this for nearly two decades.
Senator DeWine. Well, that is what is shocking, is that it
has been that way for two decades. And so Senator Landrieu and
I are, you know, are going to hold a hearing. And it may take
more than one hearing, frankly, to review the District's
juvenile justice system.
We want to hear specifically, you know, how the system is
broken, why the City has been unable to fix this problem in
almost two decades. You know, when you hear these--what the
facts are, it just, you know, has to trouble anybody. You know,
I am troubled to note that children in the city as young as 10
who are merely truants or victims of a failed foster system are
being incarcerated with serious teenage offenders. I mean, that
just has to trouble anyone, you know. You know, that is not
supposed to take place anyplace in this country today. We
passed that a long, long time ago, I thought, in this country.
You know, we hear that system allowed a 12-year-old boy to
be sexually assaulted by nine other boys while incarcerated at
the City's detention facility. We have learned that drugs are
readily available as you point out in the facility. Where are
they coming from? You know, we can only surmise or guess.
So we are going to hold a hearing. Senator Landrieu and I
are going to do that. And if it takes more than one hearing, we
are going to bring in the people who know about this, and we
are going to talk to them, and we are going to try to get to
the bottom of this. So we appreciate your diligence on this,
and what the lawyers who work with you have done in this area.
We congratulate you for your diligence in this area.
Senator Landrieu, anything else?
Senator Landrieu. No.
Senator DeWine. Should --
WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE
Senator Landrieu. Well, I do, actually, want to submit for
the record, and maybe you can respond to this briefly and in
writing. There was a case--and I know we are short on time, Mr.
Chairman, but there is a case pending--if the staff will help
me find the news article in The Post a couple of days ago. Here
it is. The case of lengthy delays, Ida and Charles Chase were
arrested in the slaying of Julius Alderman during an apparent
robbery. This was 6 years ago.
I understand that subsequently Mr. Chase has died of a
heart attack, but Ida is still in jail, 6 years waiting for the
trial. And every time we try to go to trial, something happens.
Can you just comment about this, so that I can----
Mr. Sullivan. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Landrieu. Briefly, and then perhaps at--more at
length in writing?
Mr. Sullivan. Yes, absolutely. I will comment very briefly
to the degree I can. I, obviously, cannot divulge any
confidential information.
However, I can say that Ms. Chase maintains her innocence
and is anxiously anticipating her trial date. It has been too
long. There have been delays in this trial. She wants to go to
trial, and she wants to prove her innocence, and the attorneys
on the case are committed to doing that.
I will say just parenthetically, and I do not--unless
obviously you are inclined, I do not want to get into a back
and forth. If the predicate of the question has to do with the
article, that is, in my view, one of the most irresponsible
pieces of journalism that I have ever experienced and certainly
beneath the standards of a major newspaper. It is replete with
omissions and misstatements and allows for inferences that are
factually false.
For example, I will just take the very last continuance.
They make a lot about that in the paper. They say the defense
asked for more time to review evidence. Well, what happened was
that a month before trial, the FBI indicated to us that they
found two additional hair samples that had not been disclosed
before and had not been tested.
We said, ``Well, we need to test those.'' One of them was
on a piece of duct tape, which is very important to the facts
of the case, which I will not go into.
We said, ``We need to test it. We need a brief time to get
it tested. It will take a few weeks from the lab, and we are
ready to go.''
The Court granted it. The prosecutor did not oppose it. The
prosecutor said, ``I am tied up from January to July. So it is
in July.''
So the article says, ``Oh, defense asked for a pass. There
is a seven-month delay.'' But it does not mention that, ``Well,
the reason for this delay, for example, is that there is a--the
prosecutor was not available for seven months.''
There was one other huge omission. The article indicated
that Judge Bowers said that there will be no further
continuances and granted two more, but simply did not mention
that what happened was that the D.C. Council passed the
Innocence Protection Act, and our client, with advice of
counsel, asserted her rights under the Innocence Protection Act
to pre-trial testing of biological material, recognizing that
that would delay the start date. But there was material that
was back in, oh, boy, April--somewhere around April of 2002,
the IPA was passed.
All of the biological material was supposed to be disclosed
and, you know, we still did not get those two hairs until a
couple of months ago. So there is a lot that happened in that
case. I do agree that it was--it is too long. We are anxious to
get to trial. But for the article to lay the blame simply in
the defense attorney's lap is wrong. But we are ready to go,
and we think that it is going to be a good result.
Senator Landrieu. And I appreciate it. And you have made--
you know, you have made very direct and excellent and
clarifying comments.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
But I would just say to the Chairman that we do have a
challenge on our hand to create a system where neither those
that are accused of a crime have to wait 6 years in jail for
their day in court, nor those victims that have suffered
terribly have to wait that long. So let us get about the work,
Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Service for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Mary L. Landrieu
re-arrest rate and parole revocation
Question. Would you please submit to the Committee a comparison of
the re-arrest rates and parole revocation hearings in the District to
other jurisdictions of similar size?
Answer. Statistics comparing the District's parole revocation rates
to those of cities of a similar size are difficult to obtain, in part
because there is no longer a local paroling authority that maintains
such statistics for D.C. parolees. As of August 5, 1998, through the
implementation of the Revitalization Act,\1\ the U.S. Parole Commission
assumed responsibility for making parole decisions for D.C. Code
offenders. The Commission estimates that slightly fewer than 50 percent
of D.C. parolees return as parole violators. However, most of these
``violators'' are charged not with new crimes, but with minor
administrative violations such as failing to meet with their parole
officer, failing to obtain steady employment, or failing to overcome
their drug addiction.
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\1\ National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement
Act of 1997, Public Law 105-33.
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Last year, parole boards nationwide conducted 143,154 violation
hearings with California, New York, and Texas conducting 50 percent of
them.\2\ In the District of Columbia, the Public Defender Service
represented 1,349 persons who were facing revocation of their parole
before the U.S. Parole Commission. Most of these individuals had not
committed new crimes but had failed to follow a condition of parole
release.
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\2\ Association of Paroling Authorities International, Parole Board
Survey 2002.
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There has been a 652 percent increase in the number of parole
violators, according to an analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) data by the nonpartisan Urban Institute.\3\ In fiscal
year 2002, 19 State paroling authorities reported an increase in
resources in order to keep up with the demands created by the volume of
revocation hearings.\4\ Twelve States had double digit increases in
their parole population in 2002. Four States had a parole population
increase of 20 percent or more: North Dakota (27 percent), New Mexico
(26 percent), Kentucky (23 percent), and Oklahoma (21 percent).\5\
Nationally, this was the largest increase in the parole population
since 1995.
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\3\ See, ``7-Fold Jump in Parolees Sent Back to Prison Since 1980,
1 in 3 State Prison Admissions is Result of Parole Violation,'' Urban
Institute, November 2, 2002.
\4\ Association of Paroling Authorities International, Parole
Board, Survey 2002.
\5\ Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, ``Probation and Parole
in the United States, 2002,'' August 2003, NCJ 201135.
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The lack of community resources is an overwhelming stumbling block
to successful re-entry. Many parolees lack the educational or
vocational skills necessary to become productive members of society. A
parolee who has lost everything that he has accomplished due to
technical parole violations must start anew upon his return to the
community. According to a report from the Association of Paroling
Authorities International, housing is the number one issue facing
parolees upon their return to the community.\6\ Other issues they face
include a lack of available, licensed, substance abuse treatment and
vocational/employment resources and services. The chronically ill, the
elderly, and women particularly face insurmountable obstacles.
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\6\ Association of Paroling Authorities International, Parole Board
Survey, 2002.
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We echo the sentiments of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown: ``The
revolving door is failing. They aren't getting the marketable skills
and literacy they need in prison. It's a big huge problem.'' \7\ Parole
violators leave the prison walls but they cannot leave the stigma
associated with incarceration. A study on public attitudes toward
prisoner reentry revealed that most respondents were aware that
prisoners face daunting obstacles in returning to the community and
establishing a noncriminal lifestyle. Most admitted, however, that they
had not given much thought to prisoner reentry.\8\ Many persons leave
prison with no particular place to go and very little support or
monitoring.
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\7\ See, ``Parole Violators Crowd California Prisons,'' Associated
Press, Newsday.com, March 8, 2004.
\8\ See, ``The Revolving Door: Exploring Public Attitudes Toward
Prisoner Reentry,'' March 2002, Urban Institute.
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One of the goals of PDS's Community Defender Program is to educate
ex-offenders, including those on parole, about their legal rights and
responsibilities following their release on parole. To that end, the
bilingual Community Re-entry Program Coordinator regularly makes
presentations at offender orientations hosted by the Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency, particularly those targeted at Spanish-
speaking clients. The CRP has also presented educational sessions to
other groups, including women at the Washington Transitional Center who
are parolees. Topics covered in the educational presentations include
housing, employment, family law, public benefits, sex offender
registration, DNA testing, immigration, and community resources that
are available to ex-offenders and parolees. The CRP, along with the
Parole Division, has also developed an outline covering the same
topics, which will be presented at the D.C. Jail to prisoners pending
release.
dna sample collection response initiative
Question. With the increase in cases involving DNA, have you found,
informally, that fewer convictions are overturned on appeal?
Answer. There are two reasons why the advent of DNA technology is
not likely to result in fewer cases being overturned on appeal. First,
very few cases involve biological evidence and, second, quality control
issues affecting the reliability of DNA evidence are likely to generate
more rather than less appellate litigation for the foreseeable future.
To date, there have been relatively few DNA cases in the District
of Columbia, and potential DNA cases represent a very small sample of
the cases in the criminal justice system. That is, only a small
fraction of criminal cases present situations where DNA can be used to
exonerate someone (because biological evidence is often not present or
not preserved), and in even fewer cases can DNA inculpate someone
(because it is more difficult to show a ``match'' than an exoneration
when, for example, the sample is degraded--allowing for minimal
analysis, or the sample is a mixed sample--a sample in which more than
one person's DNA is present).
In the District of Columbia, there has been and will continue to be
considerable litigation concerning the reliability of DNA results as
the technology changes and as forensic labs are subject to lower
standards than, for example, medical labs. Recent examples of problems
in quality assurance at DNA labs include the scandal involving a DNA
lab in Houston where results were falsified and contamination was
rampant, and the termination of an FBI analyst after it was revealed
that for 2 years, she had failed to run negative controls while
analyzing samples.
Thus, while cases involving DNA evidence where there has not been a
challenge to the reliability of the results may make appellate courts
more confident in the results at trial, examples of numerous DNA
exonerations actually inform us that mistakes are likely being made in
cases where no biological evidence was left at the scene. This should,
if anything, make appellate courts more rigorous in their review,
although as a practical matter we have not noticed much of a change.
The D.C. Council did, however, pass the non-DNA portion of the
Innocence Protection Act, D.C. Code 22-4135, in 2002. The express
purpose of that provision was to provide closer review of innocence in
non-DNA cases, on the theory that at least as many mistakes were being
made in those cases as were made in the cases where DNA exonerations
had demonstrated trial mistakes were made. It is too early to tell
whether this provision will result in closer judicial scrutiny of
innocence.
Question. Or, is there anecdotal evidence that the court and public
are more willing to convict a defendant if scientific evidence is
present?
Answer. PDS does have polling results of potential jurors in a
specific case that show that jurors place extraordinarily high credence
in scientific evidence and in DNA evidence in particular. In the view
of most potential jurors, DNA evidence is by far the most reliable form
of evidence, and approximately one out of three jurors believes that it
``can never be wrong.''
Our polling results also show that jurors begin trials with very
little understanding of DNA evidence, and particularly its variety and
limitations. For example, a little under half of the jurors begin the
trial not understanding that different types of DNA evidence exist
(nuclear and mitochondrial). Even when jurors are told that different
types exist, around half do not understand that nuclear DNA evidence is
more discriminating than mitochondrial DNA evidence.
Our polling data also showed that jurors place considerable weight
on eyewitness identification evidence and are not familiar with the
growing body of science delineating the weaknesses associated with
eyewitness identification. Currently, however, efforts to present
eyewitness expert testimony are usually denied by trial judges.
PDS is actively engaged in training to improve defense attorneys'
ability to explain DNA evidence to jurors, litigation to improve the
quality of DNA evidence that is admitted in criminal trials in the
District of Columbia, and litigation to provide jurors with expert
information concerning eyewitness identifications.
representation of juveniles with special education needs
Question. Does PDS handle special education administrative cases or
those that go to court?
Answer. Generally, PDS handles special education cases at the D.C.
public schools administrative proceedings level, while concurrently
serving as the clients' education advocates in delinquency cases in the
Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Special education administrative hearing decisions, of course, are
appealed to the United States District Court. Because PDS has an
excellent record in obtaining favorable outcomes for its clients in
special education administrative proceedings, PDS attorneys have not
had to pursue client claims in the U.S. District Court thus far, except
on one occasion; J.C., et al. v. Vance, et al., Civil Action No. 03-CV-
971) (D.D.C.) filed on May 2, 2003. The major issue in the J.C. case is
the District of Columbia's failure to provide federally mandated
special education services to eligible youth incarcerated at the D.C.
Jail.
Question. Is PDS part of the court ordered attorneys' fees in
special education cases? If so, how much has PDS collected?
Answer. PDS does not apply for or otherwise receive attorneys' fees
in special education cases.
Question. What role does PDS play in determining what assessment
program a child receives or which business or other group performs that
assessment?
Answer. The D.C. Public Schools system assumes responsibility for
determining what evaluations and assessments should be performed for
children and for having them conducted by either D.C. Public School
evaluators or independent specialists.
In those instances in which the D.C. Public Schools either fails to
perform evaluations and make educational assessments--or fails to
perform appropriate, complete, or necessary evaluations and
assessments--PDS will identify and seek independent assessments and
evaluations from highly qualified specialists and experts in the fields
and in disciplines associated with the disabilities of the child who is
to be evaluated.
Question. Does PDS play a part in determining what special
education program or school a child is sent to?
Answer. As the parent's attorney in special education
administrative proceedings and as the child's education attorney in the
related Superior Court delinquency proceedings, PDS may make
recommendations and advocate for or against particular special
education program placements, depending on the needs of the child. PDS
does not itself decide the child's placement.
creation of a mental health treatment program
Question. I understand the OPTIONS program was created to reduce
the number of mentally ill offenders who are incarcerated or
institutionalized because no treatment is available.
Would you highlight the effectiveness of the program and the
services it provides to the District of Columbia that were non-existent
before now?
Answer. OPTIONS was created as a diversion program to divert
mentally ill offenders charged with misdemeanors away from the jail or
another onerous condition of release to a more therapeutic environment.
This assures the court that the risk of flight is minimal and the
mental health issues are being adequately addressed. The program has
been very effective in that many people have been connected or
reconnected to the mental health system and are getting the appropriate
treatment. The OPTIONS program is linked with Community Connections, a
private core service agency that affords a myriad of services and
contracts with the Department of Mental Health. An OPTIONS client is
given a case manager who not only services the client's mental health
needs, but also serves as a court liaison--ensuring that clients are
present at their court hearings and providing information to the court
about the client's progress. The case management provided is aggressive
and comprehensive. OPTIONS clients have access to psychiatrists to
prescribe medication and, with the help of a treatment team, clients
have individually tailored treatment regimens designed to address their
individual needs. Therapeutic programs include, but are not limited to,
day programs that provide substance abuse counseling, group therapy
regarding mental health issues, forensic groups designed to address the
unique needs of forensic clients, work training programs, and
assistance with benefits and housing. Although acceptance into a core
service agency is available to any D.C. resident with a mental illness,
the OPTIONS program was the first program to target recent offenders to
connect them with services and housing and to help them successfully
navigate through the criminal justice system. Approximately 200 people
a year have been serviced through the OPTIONS program since its
inception in 2001. Examples of great success stories include an
individual who successfully completed the program, received a
probationary sentence, and got her own house through the Home First
program; she is still stable and doing well.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator DeWine. Well, Mr. Sullivan, we wish you well, and
we thank you for your good service very much.
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you very much.
Senator DeWine. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., Wednesday, March 3, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of
the Chair.]