[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE LOCAL ROLE OF THE U.S. PAROLE COMMISSION: INCREASING PUBLIC SAFETY,
REDUCING RECIDIVISM, AND USING ALTERNATIVES TO RE-INCARCERATION IN THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE,
POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-30
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
54-385 WASHINGTON : 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DIANE E. WATSON, California LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ------ ------
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
------ ------
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of
Columbia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, Chairman
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
Columbia MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland ------ ------
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
William Miles, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 22, 2009............................... 1
Statement of:
Fulwood, Isaac, Jr., chairman, U.S. Parole Commission;
Adrienne Poteat, Acting Director, Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency; Laura Hankins, special
counsel, D.C. Office of the Public Defender; Jesse Janetta,
the Urban Institute; Martin F. Horn, distinguished
lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; and Charles
Thorton, Returning Citizens United......................... 9
Fulwood, Isaac, Jr....................................... 9
Hankins, Laura........................................... 38
Horn, Martin F........................................... 74
Janetta, Jesse........................................... 59
Poteat, Adrienne......................................... 27
Thorton, Charles......................................... 85
Parker, James, D.C. Code offender under USPC/CSOSA
Jurisdiction; and Samuel Green, D.C. Code offender under
USPC/CSOSA Jurisdiction.................................... 109
Green, Samuel............................................ 111
Parker, James............................................ 109
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Fulwood, Isaac, Jr., chairman, U.S. Parole Commission,
prepared statement of...................................... 11
Hankins, Laura, special counsel, D.C. Office of the Public
Defender, prepared statement of............................ 41
Horn, Martin F., distinguished lecturer, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, prepared statement of.................... 76
Janetta, Jesse, the Urban Institute, prepared statement of... 61
Lynch, Hon. Stephen F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 3
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the
District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 6
Poteat, Adrienne, Acting Director, Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency, prepared statement of......... 29
THE LOCAL ROLE OF THE U.S. PAROLE COMMISSION: INCREASING PUBLIC SAFETY,
REDUCING RECIDIVISM, AND USING ALTERNATIVES TO RE-INCARCERATION IN THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service,
and the District of Columbia,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen F. Lynch
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Lynch and Norton.
Staff present: William Miles, staff director; Aisha
Elkheshin, clerk/legislative assistant; and Daniel Zeidman,
deputy clerk/legislative assistant; Howie Denis, minority
senior counsel; Mitchell Kominsky, minority counsel; and Alex
Cooper, minority professional staff member.
Mr. Lynch. The subcommittee is now in order. The
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the
District of Columbia hearing has now come to order. I welcome
all the Republican and Democratic members of the subcommittee,
witnesses, and all those of you in attendance.
As you are all aware, the purpose of this afternoon's
hearing is to examine a host of issues related to offender
reintegration, recidivism, and overall public safety in the
Nation's Capital.
The Chair, the ranking member, and the subcommittee members
will each have 5 minutes to make an opening statement. All
Members will have 3 days to submit statements for the record.
In evidence of the absence of several of our Members, I will
allow Members to submit any statements for the record during
the course of this hearing and for, as I said, 3 days beyond.
Ladies and gentlemen, again, I thank you for your
attendance here at the subcommittee's fourth D.C.-related
Oversight Committee hearing entitled, ``The Local Role of the
U.S. Parole Commission: Increasing Public Safety, Reducing
Recidivism, and Using Alternatives to Re-Incarceration in the
District of Columbia.'' Today's hearing gives the subcommittee
the opportunity to examine the impact of the U.S. Parole
Commission and other related Federal agencies on public safety
in the District of Columbia.
Currently the District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction
where the control over aspects of its local criminal code
offenders is determined by the policies and practices of
Federal agencies such as the Parole Commission or the Court
Services and Offender Supervision Agency. The National Capital
Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997
[Revitalization Act], transferred the responsibility for and
the cost of certain State criminal justice functions such as
house parole and the supervised release of adult felons
convicted under the D.C. criminal code from the District of
Columbia to the Federal Government.
While considerable progress has been made over the past 10
years since the enactment of the Revitalization Act, the
District of Columbia continues to confront the host of
challenges regarding the implementation of effective felon
supervision, reentry, and revocation systems and practices.
With nearly 6,500 D.C. Code felons in the custody of the
Federal Bureau of Prisons and over 15,000 offenders on
supervised release with the CSOSA, it is critical that the
subcommittee conduct the requisite oversight to ensure that the
hybrid mix of Federal and local criminal justice
responsibilities in the District of Columbia is being carried
out as seamlessly, consistently, and effectively as possible.
This is the context in which today's hearing has been
called. I thank our witnesses for agreeing to join us in
conducting such a dialog.
Today's hearing is also intended to address other related
policy challenges such as the difficulty of keeping D.C. Code
felons who are housed in Bureau of Prisons facilities miles
away from the District of Columbia connected to their families
and communities, the use of graduated sanctions versus
automatic revocation, and the pending agenda of the USPC given
its newly appointed leadership.
I would like to again thank my colleague, Congresswoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton for her tireless effort in this policy
area and for recommending today's hearing topic. Again, I thank
all of those in attendance this afternoon. I look forward to
hearing the testimony of our witnesses.
This concludes my opening statement.
In the absence of the ranking member, Mr. Chaffetz, I now
recognize Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia
for 5 minutes.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen F. Lynch follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.002
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Chairman Lynch. With your
permission, I will simply summarize my opening statement and
ask that the remainder be placed in the record.
All the thanks are due to you, Chairman Lynch, for
scheduling this hearing on the U.S. Parole Commission, the
first since President Barack Obama appointed former D.C. police
chief, Isaac Fulwood, Junior Chair of the U.S. Parole
Commission.
The unprecedented local responsibility of the U.S. Parole
Commission gives this agency important responsibility for
public safety in the District of Columbia today. In 2009,
approximately 6 percent of the crimes have been committed thus
far by offenders while on parole or supervised release,
accounting for 4 percent of violent arrests, 3 percent of
weapons arrests, and 6 percent of drug arrests.
While the Parole Commission is a Federal agency created and
funded by the Congress since 1930, today it fits squarely
within the subcommittee's jurisdiction under the 1997 National
Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act
which transferred certain function to the Federal Government.
And of course it is squarely within our Federal jurisdiction
over Federal parolees.
This transfer of the function and the cost from the
District of Columbia was made during the District's most
serious financial crisis. It means that the Bureau of Prisons
now has jurisdiction over 9,500 D.C. Code felons. All of them
will 1 day pass through the U.S. Parole Commission. Many of
them are doing so now from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in
facilities located across the United States.
I will be particularly interested to hear about, if I may
say, new approaches, not just existing approaches but new
approaches, that can meet the Commission's unique local
responsibilities to the District of Columbia to increase public
safety and reduce recidivism.
I believe what we hear today will be instructive to
jurisdictions all across the United States, Mr. Chairman,
because jurisdictions are releasing people from prison because
they can't afford to hold them. In the good times they just
took in everybody they could find who looked like he had
committed a crime. Now they are putting people out on the
streets without the kind of careful work that is being done by
the U.S. Parole Commission and that is recommended by the
experts that you have called before us.
The serious changes in the economy today mean that today's
hearing, while particularly important to the District of
Columbia, needs to have the attention of the Nation.
Incarceration and re-incarceration are very expensive and have
very poor crime reduction records. Incarceration separates and
strains families and communities with little crime or
recidivism reduction to show for it.
We are pleased to welcome all of today's witnesses. Mr.
Chairman, I look forward as I know you do to their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.004
Mr. Lynch. I thank the gentlelady.
At this time I would like to welcome all of our witnesses
to take their assigned seats as we begin this portion of our
hearing. Is Mr. Cornell Jones here? I know we have changed the
order of the witnesses.
Welcome. It is committee policy that all witness to provide
testimony are to be sworn in. Could I ask you to please rise
and raise your right hands?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Lynch. Let the record indicate that all of the
witnesses have responded in the affirmative.
Your entire printed statements are already included in the
hearing record. Let me begin by introducing panel one.
Mr. Isaac Fulwood is chairman of the U.S. Parole
Commission. On November 20, 2004, Isaac Fulwood was appointed
as a U.S. Parole Commissioner by President George W. Bush. He
served 29 years as member of the Metropolitan Police Department
and in 1989 became the 25th chief of police.
Ms. Adrienne Poteat was named the Acting Director for the
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency in July 2008. In
this position, Ms. Poteat oversees a Federal agency that was
created by the D.C. Revitalization Act of 1997.
Ms. Laura Hankins is special counsel to the director at the
Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia. She
represents PDS in commenting on legislation before the D.C.
City Council, the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission,
and on the committee responsible for drafting the District
patent criminal jury instructions. Her management
responsibilities include supervising the Defender Services
Office, the PDS division responsible for determining the
eligibility of defendant to receive court appointed lawyers and
for initially assigning lawyers to criminal cases.
Mr. Jesse Janetta is a research associate for the Urban
Institute. He has research and evaluation experience addressing
issues related to prisoner reentry, parole, probation
supervision, and risk prediction. Prior to coming to the Urban
Institute, Mr. Janetta was the research specialist at the
Center for Evidence-Based Corrections at the University of
California at Irvine.
Mr. Martin Horn is a distinguished lecturer in the
Department of Law and Police Science at John Jay College. He
was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as
commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation
effective January 1, 2002. One year later, Mayor Bloomberg
appointed him to serve as commissioner of the New York City
Department of Corrections. He held both positions
simultaneously until coming to John Jay College in September
2009.
I understand now that Mr. Charles Thorton will be appearing
in place of Mr. Cornell Jones. Mr. Cornell Jones is the
chairman of the Returning Citizens United, Inc., a D.C.-based
advocacy group for the formerly incarcerated. Under Mr. Jones
leadership, Returning Citizens United has made great strides in
redirecting many at risk youth and adult men from self-
destructive behavior to positive and self-directed behaviors.
Again, I welcome all the witnesses. I invite Mr. Fulwood to
offer a summation of your statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF ISAAC FULWOOD, JR., CHAIRMAN, U.S. PAROLE
COMMISSION; ADRIENNE POTEAT, ACTING DIRECTOR, COURT SERVICES
AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY; LAURA HANKINS, SPECIAL
COUNSEL, D.C. OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER; JESSE JANETTA, THE
URBAN INSTITUTE; MARTIN F. HORN, DISTINGUISHED LECTURER, JOHN
JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE; AND CHARLES THORTON, RETURNING
CITIZENS UNITED
STATEMENT OF ISAAC FULWOOD, JR.
Mr. Fulwood. First let me say good afternoon. Thank you to
Chairman Lynch for inviting us to the hearing. I especially
thank Congresswoman Norton, who is my Congresswoman, for
inviting me and taking an interest in the U.S. Parole
Commission.
The Parole Commission today, as mandated by Congress,
carries out the following duties: making parole and revocation
decisions for parole-eligible Federal offenders, making parole
and revocation decisions for parole-eligible D.C. Code
offenders, setting and enforcing the conditions of supervised
release for District of Columbia Code offenders, and making
release decisions for U.S. citizens convicted of crimes in
another country who wish or elect to return to the United
States for the service of sentence.
Most of the Commission's day to day work involves the D.C.
Code offenders. As of the end of fiscal year 2008, about 70
percent or 9,236 of the persons under the Commission's
jurisdiction of 12,696 were D.C. Code offenders. Of the 1,842
revocation hearings conducted by the Commission during fiscal
year 2008, 87 percent of them or 1,608 were D.C. Code
offenders. In the 12 months ending August 31, 2009, roughly 90
percent of the 2,020 warrants issued by the Commission were for
D.C. Code offenders.
The Parole Commission is a public safety agency charged by
Federal and District common law with the duties of enforcing
public safety. The Commission keeps in mind for all of its
decisions that the public safety is paramount.
For our work involving parolee decisionmaking, the
Commission uses guidelines that look at the severity of the
crime for which the person has been sentenced, the likelihood
that the offender will commit another crime if released, prison
conduct, and prison program performance. The Commission is
presently involved in redefining the instrument to improve its
predictive powers. In other words, we have done a study.
The area of the Commission's work that is growing is
setting conditions of release and conditions of supervision.
The Commission works closely with the Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency to ensure that offenders under
supervision are carefully monitored and are given an
opportunity to acquire skills and receive treatment that will
enable them to become good citizens. CSOSA has established a
Reentry and Sanctions Center to provide assessment and reentry
programing for offenders, as well as residential sanctions for
offenders who violate release conditions.
The Commission fully supports the program by ordering as a
condition of release from prison the offenders identified by
CSOSA as meeting the programs be assessed by the Reentry and
Sanctions Center. The Commission also imposes on such offenders
a condition of supervision that requires participation in
treatment programs recommended as a result of the Reentry and
Sanctions Center assessment.
CSOSA reports regularly to the Commission on each offender
it supervises for the Commission. If it becomes necessary to
remove someone from the community, CSOSA will ask the
Commission to issue a warrant.
We would like to see people under supervision succeed and
become good citizens. If persons under supervision have become
a risk to the public, we will issue a warrant. To avoid having
to issue a warrant by intervening when the behavior of someone
under supervision starts to deteriorate, CSOSA and the
Commission have established a reprimand sanction program.
When CSOSA becomes concerned that an offender's behavior is
becoming questionable, a reprimand sanction hearing is
scheduled. A commissioner conducts an internal and informal
hearing with the offender. A representative of the Public
Defender Service and the supervising officer discuss the
matter. An improvement plan is worked out for the offender with
the goal of motivating offenders to change whatever behavior
has caused concern before that behavior requires the Commission
to take an action.
It has been my experience both as chief of police in
Washington, DC, and as a commissioner that a major problem
faced by returning offenders is drugs and alcohol. Addiction
makes it difficult for returning offenders to be law-abiding
and to stay out of trouble. The Commission is involved in two
programs designed to address addiction problems in the District
of Columbia offender population. The programs offer inpatient
addiction treatment in a secure environment of offenders
arrested on the Commission warrant charging relatively minor
violations of conditions of supervision.
Mr. Lynch. Mr. Fulwood.
Mr. Fulwood. Yes?
Mr. Lynch. Sir, you are over by a couple of minutes. Could
I ask you to just sum up? I think a lot of the information you
want to provide will be through the question and answer. I
appreciate the comprehensiveness of your statement.
Mr. Fulwood. OK, let me give you the two programs. The two
programs that we talked about are the Residential Secure
Substance Abuse Program, which is run by the D.C. Department of
Corrections. It is a program that is designed for a 90 day
period of behavioral modification to deal with the problem of
addiction. The second program is the Secure Residential
Treatment Program, which is run by CSOSA along with the U.S.
Parole Commission. That is good for 180 days to try to change
the offender's behavior. Those are the two programs.
When you think about the reprimand sanction hearing,
another program designed specifically to address not putting
people back through incarceration, that is trying to figure out
the best method to get them to be motivated to do a better job.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fulwood follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.020
Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much.
Ms. Poteat, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ADRIENNE POTEAT
Ms. Poteat. Chairman Lynch, Congresswoman Norton, and other
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify. I am pleased to appear before you today
on behalf of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency
to discuss the work of CSOSA and its connection with the U.S.
Parole Commission.
CSOSA is a Federal law enforcement agency with a unique
local mission. The Agency supervises approximately 16,000 men
and women on probation, parole, or supervised release in the
District of Columbia. Two thirds of these offenders are
probationers who have gone to prison and are accountable to the
D.C. Superior Court rather than the U.S. Parole Commission.
Most of the remaining third, about 6,000 offenders, are on
parole or supervised release from a term of incarceration in
the Federal Bureau of Prisons and are accountable to the USPC.
Our offenders face many challenges. Thirty percent have a
history of violent crime. Sixty-four percent have a history of
substance abuse. Thirteen percent have a formally diagnosed
mental illness. Many others have undiagnosed mental health
conditions. Nearly 40 percent do not possess a high school
diploma or GED. Only 47 percent of our population is employed.
On an average day, 800 offenders reside in D.C. homeless
shelters or have housing situations that are considered
unstable. Stable housing and employment are critical factors
affecting the likelihood that an offender will commit a new
crime, violate the terms of their release, and ultimately
whether or not they will be revoked to incarceration.
We partner with numerous local and Federal agencies and
community-based organizations to access the education,
training, employment, family services, mental health and
substance abuse treatment, and other services that our clients
need. Yet, while we recognize the critical importance of these
services, CSOSA's critical mission is public safety. Our main
strategy is in support of the public safety mission for close
supervision.
Through a system of graduated sanctions, CSOSA imposes
increasingly restrictive penalties on offenders for violating
their release conditions. Sanctions can involve increased
office visits, drug testing, GPS monitoring, or residential
placement in halfway back or the 102 bed Reentry and Sanctions
Center [RSC], that we opened in 2006.
Our Office of Research and Evaluation is currently working
with the U.S. Parole Commission on the development of a new
violation sanctions matrix and the integration of that tool
with CSOSA's own graduated sanction matrix. The alignment of
these tools will provide uniformity in the response to
supervision violations by parolees and supervised releasees in
the future.
In May 2006, in conjunction with the USPC, we created an
alternative sanction option called the reprimand sanction
hearing for offenders on parole and supervised release. This
program permits the USPC a face to face opportunity to address
an offender's noncompliant behavior as a last step before a
formal parole revocation hearing. From May 2006 to July 2009,
259 hearings were conducted. Participating offenders have shown
a higher level of compliance following these hearings.
USPC and CSOSA are in daily contact regarding the
adjustment of the 6,000 offenders under their jurisdiction and
our supervision. Routine communications include both
recommendations to reward compliant behavior as well as
placement on inactive supervision. We also do the submission of
AVRs on offenders that are noncompliant.
Just yesterday CSOSA launched the new Secure Residential
Treatment Program [SRTP], which will serve as an alternative
placement for eligible D.C. Code offenders on parole or
supervised release who face revocation for technical violations
including substance abuse and, in some cases, new criminal
violations. We are partnering in this endeavor with the USPC,
the Department of Corrections, and the Public Defender Service.
The initial pilot program will consist of a 180 day
treatment regimen including and involving 32 offenders. It is
scheduled to run until March 2010. During this pilot
demonstration, CSOSA will fund and operate the Treatment
Intervention Center.
The USPC has been an integral partner in our efforts to
establish the SRTP program and to implement the pilot
demonstration.
We look forward to the continuation of our close
collaboration with the U.S. Parole Commission as well as our
local and Federal partners as we work together to enhance
public safety while reducing the rate of incarceration as one
of our alternate goals.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. I
welcome any questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Poteat follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.029
Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much.
Ms. Hankins, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF LAURA HANKINS
Ms. Hankins. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Laura Hankins,
special counsel to the director of the Public Defender Service
for the District of Columbia. Thank you for the invitation to
testify today on the local role of the U.S. Parole Commission.
The Public Defender Service has represented over 90 percent
of D.C. Code offenders who have faced revocation of parole or
supervised release since the Parole Commission replaced the
D.C. Board of Parole. Thus we have a unique perspective on and
a strong interest in the Commission's increasingly local role.
Reducing recidivism increases public safety. One way to
reduce recidivism is to develop and appropriately use
alternatives to re-incarceration. PDS commends the Commission
and CSOSA on the development and increasing use of two drug
treatment programs and on the continuing work of the reprimand
sanction hearings. My understanding is that those hearings are
held approximately 3 days a month. We are very gratified to
hear the attention that they are getting at this hearing and
hope that signals that the Commission will hold those hearings
more often.
It should be noted, however, that the need to develop
incarceration alternatives and to fine tune the systems
concerning who should get such an alternative and who instead
should be re-incarcerated is becoming increasingly acute as the
population over whom the Commission has authority changes. As a
result of the Revitalization Act, parole was abolished in the
District effective August 5, 2000 and replaced by supervised
release and revocation terms.
Generally speaking, terms of supervised release are shorter
than the amount of time an offender is on parole. The
revocation term, the amount of time for which an offender can
be sent back to prison if he is revoked, is also shorter. This
determinate sentence supervised release scheme gives the Parole
Commission and CSOSA an opportunity to concentrate their
resources on those persons most likely to re-offend, that is
persons recently released from prison. In the long run, this
scheme should mean fewer people on supervision at any given
time, particularly when compared with having to supervise
people who are on parole for decades or for life.
But it also means that the Commission needs to examine how
it budgets the supervision and revocation time with which it
has to work. The question of whether it makes sense, for
example, to send someone back to prison for 12 months for
having committed a low level technical violation like testing
positive for marijuana use is more critical to answer when the
offender can only be put back on supervised release for 2 more
years and if he violates again can only be sent back to prison
for at most 12 more months.
At a hearing on the Commission held by this subcommittee
last year, the director of PDS was afforded the privilege of
testifying. At that time, PDS noted a number of issues that we
hoped to see the Commission address. Two issues in particular
deserve mention today. One, the salient factor risk assessment
tool needed to be redesigned in order to account for factors
that correlate to recidivism and in order to be relevant to the
population most often being assessed by the tool, offenders
facing revocation, not offenders seeking a parole grant. Two,
the corresponding guidelines that direct the sanction for a
parolee upon finding a violation needed to be recalibrated to
shorten the re-incarceration periods and allow the
reinstatement of low risk supervisees for low severity
violations.
There might be reasons for the Commission not to address
these issues, though some specific fixes were recommended by an
expert the Commission helped to hire. And since the Commission
voted to adopt those recommendations, it is difficult to
imagine what those reasons might be. But even if one assumes
that the status quo provides good reason not to follow through
on the recommendations, the climate change facing the
Commission in the form of offenders in a very different
sentencing system should give the Commission serious pause.
If D.C. offenders continue under the authority of the
Commission, 1 day there will be no more parole grant hearings,
the very type of hearing for which the salient factor tool was
designed. Instead, the Commission's work will essentially be
all revocation hearings. But using the salient factor score at
revocation hearings is like forcing a square peg into a round
hole at every hearing. It is impossible for a parolee or a
supervisee facing revocation to get a perfect score. Therefore
it is impossible under the corresponding guidelines to get a
recommendation of no re-incarceration.
In addition to changing some of its systems, how the
Commission exercises its discretion should also be examined.
PDS noted last year that while the Commission has the
discretion to allow supervisees to remain in the community
pending their final revocation hearings, it essentially never
exercises that discretion and opts instead to detain at the
jail virtually all persons facing revocation. This is no small
issue. Last week, roughly 600 people, approximately 20 percent
of the D.C. jail's population, were there for parole
revocations. While according to Commission procedures the time
between an arrest on a violation and the final revocation
decision should not be more than 86 days, the current wait is
closer to 4 months.
Even putting aside the justness of exercising its
discretion to allow some parolees and supervisees to remain in
the community, particularly those who are employed and have not
lost contact with their supervising officer, the climate change
facing the Commission should push it toward using its
discretion to release people. Supervisees get credit for time
spent in jail. With shorter overall terms of supervision and
revocation, reflexively using jail time is essentially wasting
the resource of supervision and revocation time. Using up 4
months in jail on a violation that is ultimately not supported
or which results in reinstatement on parole means 4 fewer
months of supporting that offender's reentry and supervising
his behavior to increase public safety and 4 fewer months as a
sanction should he later violate his supervised release
conditions.
The Public Defender Service appreciates the opportunity for
treatment and success on supervision provided by the
Commission's new drug programs and continues to applaud
Chairman Fulwood on reprimand sanction hearings as he has
championed them. The climate change facing the Commission,
however, calls for a new look at how revocation proceedings and
sanctions are carried out.
I appreciate the opportunity to present this testimony to
the subcommittee and would be pleased to work with the Members
in their ongoing consideration of these issues. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hankins follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.047
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Ms. Hankins.
Mr. Janetta, you are now recognized for an opening
statement for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JESSE JANETTA
Mr. Janetta. Thank you very much to Chairman Lynch,
Congresswoman Norton, and the committee for the invitation and
opportunity to share with you some of what we know about what
constitutes best practice in parole supervision to the end of
reducing recidivism and facilitating successful community
reintegration.
The parole field at this point in time is undergoing a
tremendous amount of flux. It is coming out of a period during
which there was a very heavy reliance on surveillance and
monitoring which, while foundational tools of community
supervision, have repeatedly been shown by themselves and in
the absence of other interventions to have little or no impact
on recidivism. And there has been an increasing focus across
the country on approaches to parole and parole supervision that
seek to change the behavior of parolees.
So at this time I would like to highlight four broad
principles from the research and expert and practitioner
consensus that should guide best practices in parole in any
jurisdiction.
The first is that there should be clear accountability both
for those conducting parole and for the parolees who are being
supervised. There should be accountability for the parolers,
the supervisors, in terms of making a clear focus on recidivism
reduction as a goal, setting targets, and measuring performance
relative to that. In parolees, it should be tailored their
conditions and specific to that individual's circumstances so
that all of their conditions of parole are tied to factors that
put them at risk for recidivism and that are in the whole
realistic for them to abide by.
The second principle is that it is important to
strategically allocate limited parole resources. In terms of
people, focus on moderate to high risk offenders. In terms of
time, focus on the critical period immediately after release
when the risk of recidivism and other behaviors such as a
return to substance abuse are highest. In terms of place,
structure supervision around the communities and neighborhoods
where the highest proportion of parolees return and often where
the greatest risk factors for recidivism are present.
The third principle, which takes place at the case
management level or in the relationship between the parole
officer and the parolee, is to build supervision around
individualized supervision plans that are informed by validated
risk and needs assessment information. Involve the parolees in
the work of setting their goals so that you can increase their
buy-in and their commitment to what, after all, is their
behavior change plan. Reaches out to also engage their informal
social support networks, their friends, families, and
employers, the people who will continue to be in their lives
and must support the maintenance of their behavior change long
after the formal period of supervision has ended.
The fourth and final principle is to build into the way
that parole and parole supervision are conducted both a rewards
and a sanctions structure. The rewards structure should
recognize and reward successes when they occur, based on
research that indicates that rewards and incentives are much
more powerful in terms of changing people's behaviors than the
threat of sanctions. But also there needs to be a sanctions
policy that recognizes that parole violations are going to
occur; that they need to be responded to in a problem solving
way; that is graduated, as several of the members of this panel
have already mentioned; and that reserves re-incarceration for
cases where other options have been exhausted or where there is
a pressing need to do so.
With those four principles in mind, I would like to make
two concluding observations.
The first is that in this work of successfully facilitating
reintegration through parole supervision, partnerships are
absolutely necessary. There must be broad partnerships
incorporating law enforcement, the community, and community
providers. But also there needs to be a partnership between the
three core entities, the paroling authority, the parole
supervision authority, and institutional corrections, who
really need to come together around a common goal and purpose
for reintegrating people who are leaving prison. In many cases
in jurisdictions across the country, this is not the case. They
may collaborate not closely or sometimes work in ways that are
at cross purposes.
The final thing I would like to leave you with is that we
can look around the country and we can see signs of promise for
success in implementing these kinds of approaches to parole
supervision. Look at the pilot proactive community supervision
model in Maryland which realized success in reducing re-arrests
and warrants for parole violations. Look also at some of the
outcomes realized by States participating in the Transition
from Prison to Community Initiative including Missouri,
Georgia, and Michigan which have all seen improved outcomes in
terms of recidivism and returns to prison.
I think that the take-away message is that there is hope
for these kinds of approaches to do the kind of work relative
to recidivism reduction and community integration that we all
want to see.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Janetta follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.060
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Martin Horn, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN F. HORN
Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Norton. I would
like to talk about just a couple of things that I think will
help us to fulfill the goal that Chairman Fulwood put forth,
which is to see people succeed.
It is my experience that all individuals leaving prison, as
a group, have some statistical probability of success of
failure. The challenge to us as a community is to increase the
odds that they succeed. I think that the manner in which we
release people matters. Another thing that I think matters
greatly and that we need to talk about if we are interested in
improving public safety, particularly as it relates to
individuals released from Federal prisons back to the District,
is that how they experience prison matters.
Let me say first of all that I think there are three
critical issues that must be addressed to promote success.
Those are sobriety, employment, and housing.
I believe that sobriety is a primary issue. It is a primary
condition. I am not a teetotaler. I am not making a moral
judgment. But I know this after 40 years, if an individual
leaves prison or jail and starts getting high, they will not
succeed. In order to promote sobriety, we must ensure that
their experience in prison is an experience of sobriety, that
our prisons and jails are drug-free, that while in prison and
in jail individuals learn how to stay sober, and that upon
release they are provided with connections to those agencies
and organizations that can assist them in achieving sobriety.
It is my understanding that CSOSA has available to it
approximately $15 million for drug treatment. Nonetheless, it
is further my understanding that this meets only approximately
25 percent of the need among the persons under their
supervision. It is further my understanding that while in the
Bureau of Prisons approximately 40,000 individuals annually are
afforded exposure to their drug and alcohol treatment programs.
On any given day, there are only 100 D.C. Code violators
enrolled in these programs.
If we are serious about reducing crime committed by persons
upon their release from prison, we have to ensure that they
leave prison sober, that they know how to stay sober, and that
we provide continuous access to treatment because recovery does
not proceed in a straight line.
With respect to employment, it is my understanding that
approximately 40 percent of the D.C. Code violators who are
released are released without a high school diploma. This makes
the challenge of finding work even more difficult as they are
entering a work force market where 80 percent of the work force
in the District has high school diplomas. I think that we must
question why, given that D.C. Code violators as I understand it
have a rather lengthy stay in the Bureau of Prisons, we cannot
get them educated while they are imprisoned.
In today's world, in order to work one must have certain
documentation. One cannot, as we all know, work without proof
of citizenship or a legal permission to work and a social
security number. Despite the best efforts of CSOSA through
their VOTEE program, I believe it is called, nonetheless large
numbers of offenders leave prison today without the documents
necessary. It is unconscionable in today's day and age that
individuals leave prison without the Social Security Card,
Birth Certificate, or other documents that would make them
legally eligible to begin working upon their release from
prison.
I think this should become a performance standard within
the Bureau of Prisons. We should ask them to report on the
number of persons leaving prison who leave with the requisite
documents.
Finally, with respect to housing, all of these issues are
of course made more difficult by the great distance that D.C.
Code violators are held from the District in Federal prisons.
It makes obtaining a job all the more difficult. One way of
ameliorating this problem is by releasing individuals back into
the community through some form of halfway house.
Despite the fact that roughly 25,000 individuals return to
the District from Federal prisons, there are only three
residential Reentry Centers, as I understand it, in the
District. I believe that despite efforts to open more of them,
the District like my own city of New York experiences what we
refer to as NIMB, not in my backyard. No one wants it. It will
take a great deal of political will by the political power
structure of the District and the Congress to create the
requisite number of halfway houses so that individuals leaving
prison leave in a rational way.
I also want to point out that the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of
1988 imposes restrictions on the access to public housing and
Section 8 vouchers by individuals who are convicted of drug
crimes. This is something that does stand in the way of
reentry. It complicates reentry. It is something that Congress
should reconsider.
I also want to finally say that data is critically
important. I think that CSOSA has an excellent data collection
and management capability. I think that we ought to adopt the
idea that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. We
ought to look at how we manage our workloads and our caseloads,
focus on the high risk cases, and pretty much leave the low
risk cases to themselves.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.069
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Thorton, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES THORTON
Mr. Thorton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Norton, for
giving us the opportunity to come and speak today. I must say I
did not prepare a statement because this was a last minute
opportunity.
Mr. Lynch. I understand and I apologize for that.
Mr. Thorton. It is fine.
I will say that Returning Citizens United is a group of
formerly incarcerated activists who have taken up the role of
getting involved with how District residents reenter society
and what we can do as activists and role models to take part in
these conversations and be represented.
I must say, I agree with a lot of the things that I have
heard. I personally have worked with CSOSA and I think we are
on the right track.
Personally, I know sobriety directly relates to reentry. I
don't think it is by mistake that I have had 19 years of
sobriety and have been home and have been reentered into
society successfully for 19 years. I know it goes hand in hand.
One of the things that my experiences have taught me is that
when you can deal with your addiction, you stand a much better
chance of staying in society.
Education is really big. Personally, as a direct result of
education, I have been able to establish a life for myself. I
am a home owner now and have been married for going on 10
years.
What we are trying to do is to be the example for other
people coming home and reentering society. What we have seen
happen is that a lot of times when these meetings take place
and when people are called to hearings, a lot of times there
are not returning citizens involved in these meetings. There
are not formerly incarcerated people who are at the table when
all of these decisions are being made. I want to emphasize that
we are talking about successful formerly incarcerated
individuals, individuals who have reentered society
successfully and who are beyond the right path now.
Personally, as I said, I am a home owner, a tax payer, and
married. I am doing all the things that denote citizenship. Now
I want to be a role model, having the avenue to do that and
having the means to be able to be that role model.
One thing I will say is that in any successful reentry,
usually there is a hand that was reached out from a formerly
incarcerated person to show another person the way. I think we
have a unique ability to meet a person where they are as a
result of having been there. What we at Returning Citizens
United are trying to do is have that used. We are looking to be
role models and mentors and to take part in the conversations
that are being had.
One of the things is that in the District of Columbia there
is an Office that as of right now doesn't even have a Director
whose goal and role it is, from my understanding, to look at
reentry and recidivism and at how the District of Columbia is
dealing with it. I think it is almost criminal that no one is
even here representing the District of Columbia. Where are
their beds? What are they doing? What is their strategy? What
is this Office even doing to advance this conversation? What
strategies are in place from that Office to assist in this
conversation?
One of the things, also, is that there are a lot of rules
in the books right now that are just not being carried out. I
am involved with several nonprofit organizations. I am a
trainer with Sasha Bruce YouthBuild and I do trades training. I
was just at a Section 3 meeting. There are rules in the books.
A lot of development that is taking place in the District of
Columbia is mandated to use District residents, returning
citizens, but there is no oversight and that is not happening.
Developers are continuously finding loopholes and ways to get
around that happening. It is just an ongoing process.
But again, as a successful person who has successfully
reentered society, I know we have a role for this to take
place. There is a role for us in this. That is why we are here
today.
Thank you.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Thorton. I thank you for your
testimony and for your example. I think you did pretty well
without a prepared statement.
Let me begin. I am going to yield myself 5 minutes for some
questioning.
I have had a fair amount of dealings with the houses of
correction in the Boston area and in Massachusetts as well as
our prison system. My own experience from talking with the
inmates and visiting the prisons is that at least in the
prisons that I have been to, only a handful, maybe four or
five, the addiction rate to alcohol, cocaine, or heroin is
probably, one or the other, close to 80 or 90 percent from the
inmates that I have talked to. Ms. Poteat, Mr. Horn, Mr.
Thorton, you have all hit on that. I know there are some
differences here in the population and in the administration.
Ms. Poteat, you mentioned the non-compliance hearings that
you conduct. What are the most common violations that might
have a person re-incarcerated? What do those violations usually
consist of? Or are they so far across the map that you can't
pin any one down?
Ms. Poteat. No, the most common ones are new arrests,
repeated drug violations with uses of various drugs, and loss
of contact procedures where the offenders fail to report to
their CSOs and are unaccountable for. We do even have a small
magnitude of those that have violated the GPS process.
Mr. Lynch. I am supposed to be managing four bills on the
floor in about a minute.
In my limited experience, sometimes the connection to the
community and to other people who have gone through this
process successfully, that is a very important element of
success. If we are shipping people outside of the community and
breaking that connection between the support systems, the
families, and the parolee, I think that is counterproductive.
How do we step back from that, take that into consideration,
and try to give these parolees the best chance of success?
Ms. Poteat. One of the things that we have done at CSOSA
was when the Bureau of Prisons transferred a large portion of
offenders to Rivers Correctional Facility, we took a tour and a
visit down there with staff. We listened to some of the issues
or concerns that the offenders raised. Part of those problems
were they were away from their families, they were without
resources, and there were a lack of programs and support
systems.
As a result of that, we elected to start a mentoring
program where we would do video conferencing from our offices
as well as going down there. We would take a pool of staff as
well as employment vendors and other community resource
activists to the prisons so that they could hear what these
offenders were in need of prior to their return to the
facility. In addition, we did some case management training
onsite with their staff so that they recognized some of the
challenges these men would face coming back to the District of
Columbia with some of the resources that we have and some of
the problems facing them with housing or employment.
We tried to keep them in connection with CSOs so that there
was communication for the offender to have a smooth transition
once they come back to the District. So upon their return, we
had some idea of what these men needed before they arrived. And
we could hook them up with some of those resources prior to
their arrival here.
Now, we couldn't meet with all of them because there were
some offenders at other sites in the Bureau of Prisons that
were so far away that there was a lack of contact.
Family support is very critical for these men's success.
Some of them have been without support systems for so long,
have burned bridges, and as a result need to reconnect with
their families.
The substance abuse history is a critical issue. We know
many of them are abusers as well as just frequent users. They
need to get in some type of substance abuse program. We
recognized that we could not meet all of their needs. With
those where we could do it onsite, we hooked them up with those
services as well as outpatient or inpatient treatment. I talked
about the family integration system.
I will talk about employment. We had employers sit in the
audience when we did video conferencing and talk to the
offenders at Rivers. Some of them were interviewed right then
in terms of the types of jobs they had, the credentials you
needed in order to work at these particular jobs, and what they
needed to do once they returned home.
Those are just some of the things that are so important for
these men and women.
Clothing, some of them were without clothing so we worked
very closely with our place for women as well as others for the
men so that they had suitable clothing.
It is recognized in one of the testimonies that we
submitted that we have worked with the Department of Motor
Vehicles. As was indicated, these men need driver licenses or
some type of identification so that they can get employment.
Along with that, we were able to get a non-driver
identification so that they could come and get the
identification so when they showed up to their employers they
had some form at that time.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
My time having expired, I will now recognize the
distinguished gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who I will ask to take the Chair if you
would. I have some questions that the committee wanted to have
asked as well as your own.
I am going to run over to the floor. I have four bills and
hopefully I will be back as soon as possible. Thank you.
Ms. Norton [presiding]. I thank all of you again for your
testimony.
I want to start with a question that goes directly to
public safety. I think the residents of the District of
Columbia would believe a 2008 District Court for the District
of Columbia decision in Sellmon v. Reilly. The decision said
that the Commission was not applying the correct standard in
making parole decisions and that there were excessively long
sentences. As a result, it is said that we could see the
release of between 500 to 1,000 offenders, on pre-release, of
course, within the next 18 months from the time the decision in
2008. Most of these will have been incarcerated serving
excessively long sentences for at least 15 years.
I would like to know whether any of these inmates are now
released from the 2008 decision. Have they had an effect upon
either your workload or public safety? They would come
immediately under CSOSA and, of course, get to the Commission
only later so I have to ask both of you what the effect of this
2008 District Court Federal decision has been. Is it a decision
involving only those sentenced as Federal violators? Does it
affect D.C. Code violators?
Mr. Fulwood. It impacts D.C. Code violators primarily. The
Sellmon decision requires us to use the D.C. Board of Parole
guidelines that were developed in 1987. We have subsequently
met with Gladys Mack and Walter Ridley to talk about the D.C.
parole guidelines.
There are about 500 offenders under that decision. We are
in the process of reviewing those cases now. Our plan is to
have it completed by January 31, 2010. There are people who are
being released. As you know, because of the equitable street
time statute, we are in the process of terminating people from
supervision. It will have somewhat of an impact but we are
still only talking about 500 people.
Ms. Norton. So it is not 1,000 people? It is really at the
out end only 500?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Let me just ask you as a matter of the data, do
people who have served longer sentences like this tend to be
older when they get out? I guess this is for you as well as the
Chief who has a long record in law enforcement. Do they tend to
be more compliant than younger ones once they are under the
supervision either of CSOSA or of the Parole Commission? Or
does the fact that they were convicted of more serious crimes,
perhaps, make them more difficult for you to handle when they
all get out at one time?
Mr. Fulwood. As you know, we commissioned a study done by
Dr. Jim Austin. The study found that the D.C. population was
serving twice the time of the national average.
Ms. Norton. That was a matter of D.C. law?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes, by the courts. The courts were sentencing
people to longer sentences.
Ms. Norton. Was this pre-Home Rule law or are they just
kind of sailing off into the wind into this period as well?
Mr. Fulwood. No. Not being a lawyer, it is a little bit of
both. I think that what you had is that back in the 1980's when
the crack cocaine epidemic came, you ended up with greater
sentences because of the crack disparity. The Justice
Department is looking at that now to try to figure out how to
better manage this.
Ms. Norton. We did that in the District as well, you are
saying?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes. So that was an issue. The study has shown
that is an issue.
But the study also points out something that was said by
one of the panelists about people who are committing lesser
offenses, that we need to do something about that group and not
focus on that group. We need to focus on the group who are
violent offenders, to take our resources and put them in there.
We need to figure out what is the best way of managing this
group. Ms. Poteat talked about some of the things that they are
doing.
As you know, you and I held a hearing with the people at
Rivers. What we found is that there weren't programs. It is a
privately owned facility for persons who were incarcerated. So
we ended up with now the 500 out program at Rivers. We are
still trying to get a solid unicorp program there now so that
people have the opportunity when they come out to be
successful.
One of the things that we have at the Parole Commission, 80
percent of all the people that we end up having revocation
hearings for are there for technical violators. They are low
level offenders. They either test positive, fail to take the
test, or fail to report for supervision. Those are the three
problems that we face.
Ms. Norton. Let me stop you right there. Here is where my
interest in public safety really wakes up. You know, Chief,
what it means to have violent offenders out here because we
don't get to them because we are getting to the dirty urine
people now. Dirty urine people can lead to big problems if they
have continuing drug problems so I am the last person to want
to deprecate that. I think Mr. Horn or Mr. Janetta also
testified about this distinction.
Does CSOSA and then the Commission prioritize in any way
offenders based on the offense to public safety of the offender
given the large number of folks under supervision that you have
out? I ask that particularly of the three of you at the table.
Is there any priority so that you get to the ones who are
likely to be out here and do violent crimes, I cited some
statistics thus for 2009, or do you take them, excuse me, first
come, first serve?
Ms. Poteat. The answer to that question is yes. We have a
risk screener that we apply to all of the offenders who are
released. Therefore we can determine who is at the intensive
level or who is at the minimum level. We supervise them
accordingly.
When I say that, the high risk offenders will have to
report more. They will be engaged in the accountability tours
with the Metropolitan Police Department with more frequent home
visits and more frequent office visits. All of them are usually
subjected to routine substance abuse testing. We will also
probably put some of those on GPS to monitor their behavior
based on their risk level.
As they progress and do well, then their supervision level
can be lessened.
Ms. Norton. Let me ask about GPS. I am fascinated by that.
Does GPS work so that when you put someone on GPS, most of the
time is that technology effective, not effective, or highly
effective? How would you rate it?
Ms. Poteat. I would say that it is very effective. We have
approximately 812 people on GPS right now. We have trained not
only the Metropolitan Police Department but the Capital Police
and the Park Police. They all have the ability to go in and
look and monitor our GPS system. We have been able to assist
the police department in solving crimes because we are able to
detect if offenders are in close proximity to an offense that
has transpired or on the scene.
Ms. Norton. So do you have a backlog of warrants? I guess
it would be actually CSOSA that issues the warrants. Do you
have a backlog of warrants for offenders that are out on the
street today?
Ms. Poteat. Yes, we do have a backlog of warrants. However,
we have been working very closely with the Parole Commission in
addressing all of those warrants. And the Metropolitan Police
Department has an initiative now where they want all of our
warrants and all of the PSAs so that they can go out and pick
some of them up as well.
Ms. Norton. Let me ask you about the Superior Court Marshal
and, to some extent, the District Court Marshal. Under the
senatorial courtesy that the President has given me, I have now
advertised to go before my commission first people who wish to
be Superior Court Marshal, because that is a Federal
appointment, and District Court Marshal.
Now, I called in the Superior Court Marshal and I was, I
must say, amazed to hear how we are doing. It is a position
that hasn't been filled for a very long time, apparently. There
are Marshals that come from all over the United States to fill
in as needed because, after all, this is Federal and Marshals
can fit in. It looks like an Office doing the best it can but
without any leadership.
If it is hooked up to what you do, I must ask you, how
dependent are you on the Marshals to proceed once you have a
warrant out for an offender?
Ms. Poteat. We have had some positive results with the
warrant units in both Superior and District Courts. We do have
a staff member that is detailed over there and works in
collaboration with the Marshal Service. Therefore some of our
warrants that need to be picked up, they are able to look at
and retrieve or act on immediately.
Ms. Norton. Do you think the backlog has anything to do
with understaffing at the Marshal Service of the Superior
Court?
Ms. Poteat. I really can't address that.
Ms. Norton. So warrants are proceeding as you would expect,
then?
Ms. Poteat. No, there probably needs to be some
improvement.
Ms. Norton. Well, if it is not improvement in management
and you can't speak to whether or not there are enough
Marshals, all I can tell you, Ms. Poteat, is that I need some
guidance. I am looking for somebody who can staff that office
as it should be staffed. I have had complaints from people,
from developers, that you can't get Marshals to go out even
after the District is through with all of its processes. So I
am very concerned with any spill-over.
Continuing along with this violent offenders versus others,
I am not sure I even know what I am talking about. I commend
the Commission and the D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating
Council for the study you have commissioned that casts great
doubt on this so called salient factor score used by the
Commission to assess an ex-offender's likelihood of recidivism
after release. The study, as I understand it, found at best a
weak correlation to recidivism.
I must ask you, particularly when this salient score, as I
think you testified, Chairman Fulwood, is related to the
guidelines, do you agree with the findings of this study? Are
you continuing to use it? Do you intend to continue to use this
salient factor score as it now has been used for years?
Mr. Fulwood. What we have done is, this week, as a matter
of fact, we are meeting with CSOSA and the study author to try
to come up with the rules to govern how we use the study. We
believe that the study is an important study. It will assist us
in changing direction. I support the study at this point
because I think it will get us to where we need to go.
Obviously, one of the difficulties whenever you have
substance abuse offenders is that it is one thing to say we
shouldn't do anything about them. That is OK if they are not in
your neighborhood. That is always the difficult part. If you
live in Southeast Washington, you don't want to look out your
window and see people selling drugs or see people using drugs.
You don't want your children to see it. So that is the
difficult part that we are trying to work out.
The study has a certain predictive power to it about
looking at offenders, looking at their history, what they
originally were arrested for, what programs they used while
they were in the institution. The salient factor score was
developed over time for the Federal population.
Ms. Norton. Not for the D.C. population?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes, it didn't have anything to do with the
D.C. population. So now we are looking at how to better manage
it.
Ms. Norton. Do you think that you should be using or out of
this study will be using new guidance for predicting how
whether people should be on the street or not?
Mr. Fulwood. I think it will help us because it assesses
risk. It looks at low level offenders and medium level
offenders. It looks at categories of what the offenses are and
what the response ought to be. The response of the attorney
from the PDS talked about the fact that we were giving people
the 12 month hit almost automatically. That is not the way it
should be.
Ms. Norton. That is because of the salient factor score and
guidelines?
Mr. Fulwood. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. So that is a kind of uniform approach to public
safety that results in a lack of public safety. There have to
be some differences among these people. That is what I talk
about as a layman with high risk, etc. When you know that
somebody is not a violent offender, if we used a more
scientific scoring they could be at higher risk than somebody
who has been in jail for 20 years and has come out now, for
example. So I am very concerned that you move toward the best
practices and the best data, the best information.
I know under your new leadership that you have been very
concerned about this salient factor notion.
Here I make a point. This Commission is in the throes of a
huge transformation. What the U.S. Government did was to first
say you were going to go out of existence because Federal
parole was abolished. Then Congress in its wisdom decided that
if we are taking public safety responsibilities from the
District of Columbia for fiscal reasons, we have to have
someone to supervise. So it created CSOSA for the first time
and it gave new life to the Parole Commission.
When I ask the chairman about the salient factor score, I
am asking about the old system before Federal parole was
abolished. My grandfather's system is what I am asking about.
What we are asking particularly the Commission and
certainly CSOSA, who must work in league with this, and again
your partners like the Public Defender Service is to transform
a Federal agency, which will continue to be a Federal agency,
into essentially a local parole agency. There is no parole. I
understand that. You are not local. You are answerable to
Congress and not directly to the District of Columbia. This is
unheard of in the history of the United States. We do not give
local functions to a Federal agency. That is what we are asking
you to do. That is why, Chief Fulwood, that is always the
superior title as far as I am concerned, Chairman Fulwood, I am
always cognizant of the fact that we are not asking you to
simply make this thing better. We are simply asking you to turn
it on its head.
The greatest frustration of this subcommittee is seeing how
little a Federal agency can automatically be adapted to the new
role you have been given. For example, the Bureau of Prisons,
which also got this new responsibility, as bad as prisons are,
this is the best one in the United States and in the whole
world. For me to say that about a prison is to talk from how
bad, perhaps, others are. But I must say that this Bureau of
Prisons has been responsive to us. All we had to do was hold a
hearing and we got a state-of-the-art drug program open to
District residents. We got a new facility built at Rivers. We
did that without a law, without a change. We did it with
oversight. When we were in the minority there was no oversight
of this D.C. matter.
But I am interested in those at risk first and how often in
this country we ignore risk in providing for remedy. Now, there
is data from the Justice Department on people with mental
illnesses who may not appear as the people who are at highest
risk, they haven't committed, for example, a violent crime, but
here I am quoting from the U.S. Department of Justice National
Institute of Corrections MacArthur Foundation study, ``People
with mental illnesses, most of whom have co-concurring
substance abuse disorders and face significant clinical, legal,
and socioeconomic challenges are twice as likely as people
without mental illness to have their community supervision
revoked.''
Knowing just that bit of information, it seems to me that
they almost surely would go to the front of the line in need
for supervision and perhaps in need for something to keep them
from going over the top since they are more likely than others.
Can I ask you how they would rate, CSOSA, in your risk
categories? Thirteen percent of the offenders under your
supervision are in this category. Whether they are high risk or
not, their mental illness and substance abuse apparently puts
them at some risk of failing probation.
Ms. Poteat. Congresswoman, yes, they are a risk. But we
treat this population a little differently because we recognize
the fact that they sometimes are dually diagnosed not only with
the mental illness but with the substance abuse. Therefore one
of the things that we did do was to create additional teams to
supervise this population. They have lower caseload ratios and
offer more treatment.
Ms. Norton. But now this re-offending in the sense that
they lose their probation status, does that occur in the
District twice as often? That study, I believe was a national
study.
Ms. Poteat. I am sorry?
Ms. Norton. For the loss of their probation status, they
are ``twice as likely as people without mental illnesses to
have their community supervision revoked.'' That was from a
national study, I believe. Does that occur in the District of
Columbia today? These people who have mental disorders
coexisting with their other problems, are these people twice as
likely? Do you know, Ms. Hankins? Are these people twice as
likely to fail probation?
Ms. Hankins. I am unfamiliar with that specific study.
Ms. Norton. I am just interested in the District of
Columbia experience.
Ms. Hankins. I understand from talking to advocates and
from talking to my colleagues that many of our clients do have
mental health issues and could use increased support and
assistance in being successful on parole and supervised
release.
Ms. Norton. This data may not be available. I am asking
this off the top of my head. I was interested in this study. I
wish you would get to this committee within 30 days the number
of offenders who have diagnosed mental illnesses, perhaps with
other undiagnosed conditions. The study says most have
undiagnosed conditions. Somebody has said that they have a
mental illness of some kind. If they have been in the BOP, I
think those diagnoses are reliable.
I would like to see what happens with those people because
I don't know where they would fall on anybody's list of violent
or nonviolent. All I know is that this national study disturbs
me. I am very pleased to hear you say that they do get
increased supervision and the rest. I would just like to know
what the outcomes are for that very high risk group.
Mr. Horn, your testimony seems to say that New York City
has given special attention to such offenders. Is that true?
You, of course, have just the kind of background we would look
to. You have been commissioner of the New York City Department
of Probation. You have been the commissioner of the New York
City Department of Corrections. You are deeply in touch with
New York's parole restoration work. I had understood that New
York paid special attention to these parolees with very special
needs. I wonder if you think that could be used, for example,
in a system of the kind you have heard testimony about today?
Mr. Horn. Let me say a couple of things. I have been
listening to the conversation. I want to make an observation. I
think it is a mistake to assume that there is necessarily a
relationship between mental illness and dangerousness and
violence.
Ms. Norton. Well, this study says twice as likely, not to
dangerousness.
Mr. Horn. Twice as likely to fail under supervision.
Ms. Norton. That is the point.
Mr. Horn. That is right. In my experience, many of the
people in prison and jail who are diagnosed with a mental
illness are as likely to be diagnosed with depression and
anxiety as with some form of a psychosis that leads to
violence.
Ms. Norton. No, I believe that they include mental
conditions and not just psychosis.
Mr. Horn. Yes. What we have found, for example, is that
many of these individuals fail because their mental illness may
cause them to use illegal drugs as a substitute for legal
medications, either because they cannot get access to the
necessary psychotropic medications or because the side effects
of those psychotropic medications are unpleasant. They choose
to self medicate and so that is why you see this high incidence
of co-occurring disorders, if you will.
Ms. Norton. They self medicate why?
Mr. Horn. Their mental illness causes them discomfort,
whether it is hallucinations, voices, or whatever or simply
depression or anxiety. They can relieve it by using cocaine or
heroin or alcohol or marijuana, which are more pleasurable, if
you will, than some of the very powerful psychotropic legal
pharmaceuticals.
The other thing that we have found is that there is a very
high correlation between individuals who are mentally ill and
individuals who are both homeless and in and out of jail.
Oftentimes we refer to them as street users. We found that 10
percent of our jail population of New York City, for example,
had over a 5-year period been both in jail for times and in
homeless shelters four times in that 5 year period.
Ms. Norton. Were you able to get people with mental
conditions to use their pharmaceuticals?
Mr. Horn. Well, there are several challenges. The first is
we have to make sure that there is a way of paying for their
access to that treatment in the community. That means making
sure they are eligible for Medicaid.
Ms. Norton. Aren't they almost surely eligible?
Mr. Horn. They probably are. But many of them may have lost
their eligibility while in prison because they failed to
register or because Federal law requires that their Medicaid be
suspended while they are incarcerated. Oftentimes we don't do a
good job re-enrolling them.
Ms. Norton. Do we re-enroll them in the District of
Columbia for Medicaid?
Ms. Poteat. In CSOSA, the health teams work with the
offenders in possibly getting these people re-enrolled in
Medicaid.
Ms. Norton. Go ahead, Mr. Horn.
Mr. Horn. The other thing is they need assistance with
housing and they need intensive case management. What we have
done in New York is what we call intensive case management,
that is workers who work exclusively with the mentally ill
offender in caseloads of no more than 10 clients in the
community. The other thing we have done is we have given them
priority for subsidized housing. And we have found a way, both
using Medicaid as well as private foundation funds, to give
them wraparound services.
They require a great deal of support in the community
following release. You cannot deal with them the way you would
deal with the average non-mentally ill offender and expect them
to succeed. They require a great deal of important attention.
Ms. Norton. Let me go to Ms. Poteat, then, because that is
important to note in light of your testimony. I must say, it is
perplexing to me that the secure residential treatment program
is only available to male parolees and supervisees. I have to
ask, considering that drug abuse is two thirds of those under
your supervision and I can't believe that all of those are men,
why is this program available only to men?
Ms. Poteat. Well, with the CTF program we had initially
designed, we were going to have a women's unit. However, during
the stages we determined and found that we had an increasing
population of co-occurring mental health problems so we elected
to open another unit of mental health.
Ms. Norton. Yes, but only for men?
Ms. Poteat. For men. However, with the new pilot program at
the CTF, even though it is a pilot for 32 men, we are in
negotiations with CTF and the Department of Corrections to open
a women's unit when we go full blown.
Ms. Norton. CTF?
Ms. Poteat. The Correctional Treatment Facility. That is
the pilot program we just started. We will have a women's unit
and they are endorsing a women's unit.
Ms. Norton. Let me tell you, Ms. Poteat, you have been in
violation of Federal law. I don't care what the reason was.
From the time that they are children, girls offend less often.
It is too easy to overlook them. Yet the harm done to women may
be far greater since no matter what you are talking about, a
woman who wants to get back her children is most likely to get
them back, if at all possible, when she is released. It is
simply a violation of Federal law to have a unit paid for by
the U.S. Government that excludes women.
In 30 days, this committee and the chairman need a plan.
Yes, I understand you are talking. I want a plan that would be
implemented beginning this fiscal year which begins October
1st. This Member of Congress has worked very hard to get CSOSA
money. I would like a plan within 30 days. I would like a plan
that will, remember you get your new funds on October 1st,
begin its implementation no later than January 1st to pull you
out of violation of Federal law, not to mention out of
bypassing women who may be in need of treatment.
I think frankly that there will be far fewer. It would have
taken nothing to set aside a few places for women. That needs
to be done right away.
Let me quickly go on. I am very concerned to hear about the
detention for 2 to 4 months for the parole revocation hearings.
I want elaboration on that. Does D.C. pay for the time that
they are held in the D.C. jail? Does the D.C. government pay
for that?
Mr. Fulwood. The D.C. Department of Corrections, yes.
Ms. Norton. Well, these people have had their parole
revoked by Federal agencies. That is something we have to do
something about. The whole point of transferring these
responsibilities to the U.S. Parole Commission and creating
CSOSA is to take all the responsibility for public safety, for
detaining and maintaining them, from the D.C. government. As
far as I am concerned, this is a violation of Revitalization
Act. So what you do is to transfer to the District of Columbia
essentially the responsibility, meaning that the District
budget pays for detention for 2 to 4 months while you are
waiting for parole revocation hearings at the jail and
designation to the Bureau of Prisons. And BOP is also, of
course, a Federal agency.
Now, I think it is Ms. Hankins who testified that you have
the discretion whether to hold them in jail or not. I certainly
want to make sure that they are not simply let out of jail
without the appropriate factors and circumstances being
provided. But if you have the discretion, if these people are
being held and have not yet gone back to BOP or been
adjudicated back, what determines whether you are going to jail
these offenders pending the final revocation or not? How do you
determine? How do you make that difficult judgment? What
percentage of your offenders are held as opposed to some other
use of detention?
Mr. Fulwood. If we determine that there is probable cause
and the person goes over to the D.C. jail, they stay there
until we have a hearing for revocation purposes. Then they are
designated to the Bureau of Prisons to be transferred to a
Bureau of Prisons facility.
Ms. Norton. Suppose the person has been arrested for, let
us say, a minor violation like driving without a license. That
is very bad to do, but let us say that they are arrested and
later found not guilty. Maybe they left it at home, for
example. Is their parole or release revoked even if these
charges are later dropped?
Mr. Fulwood. It may be depending upon the totality of the
circumstances.
Let me get to what we need to do. What we need to do is to
use a greater number of summons. That way the person is not
incarcerated.
Ms. Norton. How would that work?
Mr. Fulwood. We are looking at it now.
Ms. Norton. A summons as opposed to what?
Mr. Fulwood. As opposed to an arrest warrant for minor
offenses. With a greater use of summonses, the person wouldn't
be over there at the jail. They wouldn't stay there for a long
period of time. But we would still get the advantage of
bringing them in to find out about their behavior.
We are looking at it now as to a greater use summonses for
the purposes of not incarcerating people. The PDS agrees with
it. They have brought it to our attention also. But we have had
this discussion about it.
The second thing is that we talked about mental health. One
of the problems that we have is that we don't utilize all of
the support systems that are available in the community now. We
just had Legal Services people that came up and talked about
greater use of these services that are available in the
community.
Ms. Norton. Such as what, Chairman Fulwood?
Mr. Fulwood. Referring them to doctors for treatment,
looking at their crime and the relationship to their crime,
looking at whether or not we can supervise them in the
community, and putting them into halfway houses. There are a
variety of things that you can do.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Poteat, are your halfway houses full?
Ms. Poteat. The halfway house determination is by the
Bureau of Prisons. If there are beds available, then they
determine----
Ms. Norton. Do you know whether there are beds available at
the moment?
Ms. Poteat. At Hope Village? Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Why are they not being used? Do you know?
Ms. Poteat. No. We can't make the final determination of
who they accept into the halfway house. The Bureau of Prisons
does.
Ms. Norton. Don't you ask them why they have empty beds at
the halfway house? Would it help you therefore to get people
back into the community? What do they tell you?
Ms. Poteat. Yes, ma'am. In fact, sometimes we have to go
back and ask them if they will reconsider some of the cases. We
even have staff at the halfway houses that are there to work
when the offenders transition out.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Horn, did you have something to say on
that?
Mr. Horn. Yes. I have to get back to the city to teach a
class tonight so I am going to have to run off, but I do want
to make an observation. It is not uncommon for halfway houses
to be reluctant to accept individuals with mental illness. They
may not be equipped to deal with them.
Ms. Norton. But she is saying accept them period, empty
beds with or without mental illness.
Mr. Horn. But it was following from the conversation you
had with Chief Fulwood about the mentally ill.
I wanted to draw your attention to a program in
Philadelphia called First, which is run through the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. It is a halfway house
expressly for individuals with mental illness. I believe it has
been replicated in Erie, PA as well. I would just commend it to
the committee as a model that you may want to pursue.
Ms. Norton. Well, it is something that in the next
appropriations cycle I might want to suggest to the
appropriators for CSOSA.
But I am very concerned if there are halfway house beds
that are not being filled. Those people are coming out of jail.
It is not like CSOSA won't get them. There are beds that are
not being filled. I don't know if it is for fiscal reasons or
whether you know what the reasons are. I am asking staff to
find out within 30 days from the Bureau of Prisons why we are
not bringing more people through halfway houses if the beds are
available.
Mr. Fulwood. We know that evidence-based practice has shown
that one of the things that helps people to be successful is
for them to go to a halfway house.
Ms. Norton. Chief, I remember that when we first got this
responsibility, we showed huge declines in recidivism through
the halfway house mechanism. Then there got to be the NIMBY
notion and there got to be fewer and fewer funded. But what
bothers me is the notion that there are empty beds. We will
deal with the Bureau of Prisons if that is the case.
Mr. Thorton, you asked the question about the elephant that
isn't in the room. I have to say, the District of Columbia was
not invited to this hearing because we couldn't pinpoint either
the data or their work.
Now, we are in touch with Empowerment. We commend the city
for its work on Project Empowerment.
But we are not sure that when the Federal Government took
over imprisonment and parole whether or not that left the city
feeling that there was not the kind of responsibility that they
had before, indeed any responsibility, except that if people
offend criminally or otherwise, if they are to use services
they are going to be our services.
I would like your view of what you think the city, facing
huge problems with funding of programs for law-abiding
citizens, what the city might do to be more helpful in this
regard. Is it simply funding? Does the city pay attention but
it simply doesn't have the funding? Remember that CSOSA has the
major responsibility for supervision, not the city. As someone
who brought up the city, I thought I ought to ask you what
further the city should be doing so that I could speak with the
Council and the mayor to see if new things might be possible
from the city working with CSOSA and the Commission.
Mr. Thorton. One thing is that there should be some type of
strategy in place with the city.
Ms. Norton. A local strategy quite apart from what the
Federal agencies are doing?
Mr. Thorton. Apart from CSOSA. It should be local.
Ms. Norton. You don't see such a local strategy?
Mr. Thorton. I don't see such a local strategy that exists.
We brought up recovery and the role that recovery plays in
successful reintegration. Right now, there are about five
buildings that I am aware of where recovery meetings take place
that are being closed down.
Ms. Norton. What do you mean?
Mr. Thorton. Recovery centers. Buildings where individuals
go in for substance abuse meetings.
Ms. Norton. Do you have to go into a city building in order
for those meetings to take place?
Mr. Thorton. Most of them take place in city buildings,
churches, or others.
Ms. Norton. Why should those be abolished or closed down? I
can understand that they may not have the physical premises for
it.
Mr. Thorton. You brought up a good question. Why?
Ms. Norton. You mean the programs are being abolished?
Mr. Thorton. The specific buildings I am talking about, one
is on 24th Place. Right now, there are 12 meetings that take
place throughout the week in that particular building.
I went through detoxification. When you go into treatment,
one of the things you are told is to find NA meetings and AA
meetings and places to go.
This particular building I am talking about I believe is
operated by APRA. The building is closing down so what happens
is that now you have about 1,300 people who generally go there
for meetings that have no place to go.
Ms. Norton. This is very serious. Staff will be in touch
with the city. The city is under tremendous pressure from the
Great Recession, as we are now calling it. I can understand
that programs have to be closed down, but AA is usually done
without city help. In fact, it can't get any city help because
it is a religiously based program. Many of these are done
through churches and the rest. So I will speak with city
officials to see what we can do to make sure that they work
more closely, I think, probably with CSOSA to make sure that
premises are at least available for meetings that are not
government funded to continue to take place. That would be an
important role for them to play.
The Public Defender says that, this for you Chairman
Fulwood, the Commission accepts the recommendations of the
hearing officers almost always. What is the review process that
the Commission engages in? What scrutiny results in so few
reversals? I will ask Ms. Hankins, truthfully, too. By the time
you get to this point, should we not expect, perhaps, few
reversals?
Mr. Fulwood. What happens is that when the hearing examiner
goes to the facility and has a hearing, they do a summary
report. They make a recommendation. Then there is what I call a
peer review. A second examiner reviews the case and determines
whether or not he agrees or disagrees with the finding. If he
agrees, it will come upstairs to the Commission.
Ms. Norton. So it has already, as it were, been appealed in
a manner of speaking because you got a second person?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes. There are times when there is a
disagreement. Then there is a third review among the examiners.
The supervisor examiners review the case until they get two
people to agree on the recommendation. It subsequently comes
upstairs. The first Commissioner reviews it. If he agrees with
it, he signs off. If he doesn't agree with it and he puts in
another recommendation that is different than the hearing
examiners' recommendation, it then goes through a second
Commissioner until you get two Commissioners who agree on the
recommendation. There is a pretty good review.
They are reversed.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Hankins, you were concerned about this. You
heard the chief say that there are multiple reviews before it
even gets to the Commission level.
Ms. Hankins. The 85 percent statistic may or may not be
particularly impressive in comparison to, say, an appellate
court review of trial judges. I don't know.
What I thought was sort of more interesting was talking to
my colleagues who do have now a lot of experience before the
Parole Commission and have represented over 90 percent of
parolees and supervisees at revocation hearings. If you win a
hearing and either get a no finding where they are able to get
the hearing examiner to find that there was no violation or get
a finding that there is a violation but for some reason there
is a mitigating factor that has been decided so that they have
gone below the guidelines, I have asked my colleagues how often
that is reversed. How often does an appeal improve what has
happened at the examination?
It is the 15 percent that pretty much always get decided
against our clients that I think is the more stunning
statistic, not necessarily the 85 percent affirmance. But when
error is found----
Ms. Norton. How much overturning occurs in appeals in
Federal courts, for example? Isn't it rare indeed?
Ms. Hankins. Not in my Office. We win reversals. It is
certainly isn't the case that every time there is an error.
Ms. Norton. Fifteen percent of the time?
Ms. Hankins. No, I am sorry. It isn't the 85 percent and
the 15 percent. It is of the 15 percent, which way does that
go. What my colleagues are telling me is that it is close to
100 percent of the 15 percent.
Ms. Norton. By the time that they get to that many appeals,
then I would have to ask you how much overturning would you
expect to occur by that time?
Ms. Hankins. How about at least one in the past decade? It
has never happened. In fact, they always do it the other way.
To sort of do it in terms of the prosecution and the defense,
it is always the prosecution's way.
Ms. Norton. Here is where we would like to get this
straightened out. We want to find out what is new and what has
been happening. Now, CSOSA works for a long time with an
offender. The offender may go through a number of violations
before it gets anywhere close to the Commission. Here I have
been focusing and been interested in what happens when it gets
to the Commission.
I believe it was you, Ms. Poteat, who talked about kind of
putting these two parts of the process together so that we know
what kinds of sanctions are used at the CSOSA level and what
kinds of sanctions are used when you get to the Commission
level. Would you help us understand how you are putting
together a new system that relies on sanctions to bring
compliance before an offender offends repeatedly? I would call
them graduated sanctions. Begin with CSOSA and graduate, if
need be, to the Commission level so that we are talking about
one system. I use the word sanction to mean that if improvement
is not made you are on your way back to jail.
How would graduated sanctions work? How are they working
now? When Ms. Hankins says you would expect one in a decade to
be overturned, you could say more than what common sense tells
me. If you have gone through so many steps, maybe you wouldn't
expect even one to be overturned. But I don't know because I
don't know what the graduation is up to the point where you
have a really serious appeal, I would say. By the time you get
to the Commission, it ought to be a dead serious appeal and
there should have been corrections that perhaps would have been
made but for certain complexities in the situation.
I need to know how this new system that we have been trying
to understand and that Chief Fulwood has made some use of even
at the Commission works. How you would knit that together with
CSOSA, using sanctions up the way so that ultimately the
offender with graduated sanctions would get to understand that
he is deeply now in trouble and either change his behavior or
head toward the ultimate sanction of being put back in jail?
Ms. Poteat. All right. You talked about the graduated
sanctions. Just let me give you a brief example. Oftentimes you
start with the least type of sanction for the offender. It may
be a verbal reprimand. Let us say an offender has positive
urine and you continue to do verbal reprimand after verbal
reprimand. You are really not addressing the problem. All the
offender knows is that if they use drugs, the only thing that
you are going to do is give them a verbal reprimand. This new
sanction matrix will apply the appropriate sanction to the
correct behavior.
Ms. Norton. For example, how many verbal reprimands are you
entitled to before you go to something else? Does an offender
know that? Does he know that now?
Ms. Poteat. No because sometimes it may depend on the
particular CSO even though we have a graduated sanction matrix.
Ms. Norton. Should it depend on the CSO? I understand that
in the criminal justice system everything has some discretion.
Ms. Poteat. Yes, it does.
Ms. Norton. But if there is no rule to say there are X
number of verbal reprimand before you get graduated to the next
thing, I don't know why anybody should take it seriously. These
are very smart people. Criminals aren't dumb. They have eluded
capture and they have had some success in the criminal justice
system. So I am looking for sanctions that work and that are
predictable. If they are not predictable, then who cares?
Ms. Poteat. That is what we intend to incorporate,
sanctions that are predictable. But I also must say that as
part of that, even though we may be applying the sanctions, it
is up to the appropriate CSO to be able to enforce and relay
that type of information to the offender.
Ms. Norton. But that is up to you as management to make
sure they are trained to do so.
Ms. Poteat. That is correct.
Ms. Norton. I am assuming that. If that is a problem, then
we really have a problem.
Ms. Poteat. It is not a problem. But we want to make sure,
here again, that it is the appropriate sanction so that by the
time it gets to the Commission they will be able to determine
that we have exhausted everything conceivable.
Ms. Norton. Just a moment. I am not looking for a proxy for
sentencing guidelines here. I know that this terrible system
that we are trying to get rid of. I don't want to see any
version of it repeated in this system. But I think the chances
for abuse by the staff are greater indeed when, in fact, there
is not appropriate training on the one hand and when the
offender does not predictably know that unless there is an
extraordinary reason, X number of this or that is going to get
you to the next sanction, not back to jail but to the next
sanction.
When would a system at least predictably forecast to the
released resident, bearing in mind that there has to be
appropriate discretion? When can we expect such a system matrix
be in use from CSOSA up through and including the U.S. Parole
Commission?
Ms. Poteat. Congresswoman Norton, there is a system already
in place. We are just only enhancing that system.
Ms. Norton. Don't give me bureaucratic talk. I know there
is a system and I compliment CSOSA on that system. But you
cannot tell me today, or at least you haven't thus far told me,
that someone who has had X number of reprimands knows he is on
his way to the next part, what the next part would be, or that
it is written down to tell him what the next part will be. I
think part of the reason is this study that has just been
commissioned would not enable you to predictably do that yet.
The point is that by the time Ms. Hankins gets the case
before the Commission, I don't know, you may represent people
before CSOSA as well, she ought to be able to point to
something that was in place that hadn't taken place. You ought
to be able to say that the rule is that unless there are
extraordinary circumstances, there are X number of reprimands
and then you now go on.
By the way, what would you go onto after a verbal
reprimand?
Ms. Poteat. It could be daily reporting into CSO's office.
It could be GPS. It depends on the behavior and it depends on
the violation.
Ms. Norton. Are GPS and daily reporting at least as
reliable as one another?
Ms. Poteat. GPS is more controllable. We can monitor what
the offender is doing or where they are going.
Ms. Norton. Why would anybody have somebody come every day
if GPS is more reliable?
Ms. Poteat. Sometimes we have people, like if they are
unemployed, come and they may go to the Daily Reporting Center.
Therefore they would be seeing their CSO and they will be
telling them exactly what they have done or where they have
gone throughout the day.
Ms. Norton. That works just as well as GPS?
Ms. Poteat. It is a sanction that we utilize.
Ms. Norton. I am asking the question, does it work as well
as GPS?
Ms. Poteat. It works but GPS is probably more controllable.
Ms. Norton. I don't know. Maybe if somebody is unemployed
you want to have somebody talk to them or something. But I am
looking for a way to keep track of people.
Did you want to say something, Ms. Hankins?
Ms. Hankins. I did. I wanted to sort of talk about a
slightly different type of case. It isn't quite the graduated
sanctions model, although the questions that you are asking are
precisely some of the arguments our attorneys might make.
A hearing examiner might say I am not going to give you a
12 month hit. I am going to reinstate you because your CSO
maybe needs to help you find treatment or something like that.
One of our concerns is that the final decision gets made and it
is frequently, in the 15 percent where it is overturned, that
we are going to go back to the 12 month hit. Forget that we
were going to reinstate you or that we were only going to give
you 4 months. We are going to take it back up to the 12 months.
We don't know how that decision got made.
But there is a slightly different sort of case. Take the
example you gave earlier of driving without a license. There
are sort of new offenses which aren't about graduated
sanctions. Maybe a case was brought in the Superior Court and
it was dismissed. Now there is an allegation of a violation for
having committed a new offense but my colleagues are able to
convince the hearing examiner that this allegation is
unsubstantiated. But the final decision is that we disagree
with the credibility finding of the hearing examiner who
listens to that officer or to that civilian witness. We just
disagree with it. That is probably legitimate in some cases. It
just never goes the other way.
Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. You are saying that the
Commission overturns the fact-finder?
Ms. Hankins. Yes. In 15 out of 100 cases, based on their
estimate.
Ms. Norton. Is that why you want written decisions?
Ms. Hankins. Written decisions and some assurance that
maybe they have at least listened to the tape as opposed to
just read a one page summary that we haven't reviewed and so we
don't know what they have based their decision on.
Ms. Norton. Why haven't you reviewed the summary?
Ms. Hankins. We don't get it. It isn't made public. It is
given straight to the Commission and they make the final
recommendation. So it isn't even really the appeal process. It
is the final decision. After that we can make a FOIA request to
then appeal a decision.
Ms. Norton. Have you made FOIA requests?
Ms. Hankins. We have made FOIA requests. It is not,
however, an excuse or a justification for getting a continuance
of the appeal process if we haven't gotten the summary in time.
Ms. Norton. Chairman Fulwood.
Mr. Fulwood. We sign reinstatements all the time where a
person is restored to supervision when there are multiple
allegations against them. We do listen to the tapes. I have
personally listened to tapes. So that is not correct.
What we need to do is to figure out how to do this stuff
better. One of the things that we have done is that we just had
Alinda Moyer up to the Commission to talk to the hearing
examiners about her views on how we ought to review cases. We
have just gotten from Alinda Moyer a judge who is doing
teaching on how to evaluate credibility. He is going to come up
and teach at the Commission. We know that we have to do this
thing better.
But most of the time when an offender comes before the
Parole Commission, they have committed multiple violations.
There have been graduated sanctions all along. What we find is
that we have to find better ways to motivate people to not
offend.
If you look at the sanction program, Dr. Calvin Johnson who
is sitting back here does some studies on it, when people come
through the sanction program, they generally don't get locked
back up. They don't. They don't re-offend. Not only do they not
re-offend, but they don't test positive. The positive rate
starts to decline because we have developed through CSOSA a
case management plan, treatment modalities, and others to do
this stuff better.
This is an imperfect system because we are dealing with
imperfect people. As we continue to reach out to folks to
figure out how to do it better, we will do it better. There is
no question in my mind.
Ms. Norton. Chairman Fulwood, as I have said earlier, you
are in the throes of recreating the Commission itself. That
means looking at how the Commissioners make these decisions. If
these graduated sanctions work in the new regime, it does seem
to me that it will have an effect here.
I am very concerned about having no basis. Even though that
is not a violation of the Constitution not to know how
decisions are made, I know as a lawyer I would always want to
see what the basis is. I am not sure what it would mean in
terms of workload. Chairman Fulwood.
Mr. Fulwood. Can I give you another example? I had a
sanction hearing. The person had no D.C. permit. That was his
first violation. His second violation was that he had no D.C.
permit. He had been arrested a second time. Not only that, he
tested positive. But in the sanction hearing when we got
together with CSOSA and we interviewed the guy, it was obvious
that there were some mental illness problems. He had some
cognitive deficits. So I called the police and asked why they
locked this guy up. Don't you know that he doesn't understand
this problem? The police took the ticket back.
It is all these kinds of things that happen when you do
this. This is where you have to do this kind of stuff.
Ms. Norton. So the Commission level is when this problem
gets straightened out?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes.
Ms. Norton. It should have been straightened out,
obviously, long before that. It gets back to mental health,
mental condition. Here, low cognition on the part of a
releasee.
Mr. Fulwood. There is one other thing. There is a young
lady sitting behind us, and I am sorry, I apologize for not
knowing her name, Gretchen, who came up and talked about
wraparound services for people who are in the system that have
mental illness problems and how we ought to utilize them more.
We are getting ready to invite her up to talk about this whole
thing of mental health. I just don't think that the system is
designed to deal with people who have mental health problems.
We ought not to be locking these folks up. That is just my
personal view.
Ms. Norton. We certainly ought not to be re-locking them up
once they are out of prison.
Could I ask you all, is it your impression that we are
sending offenders back to jail for parole violations who have
managed to get themselves a job?
Ms. Hankins. Yes, we are sending them back.
Ms. Norton. Have mercy. Shouldn't that be a factor? How
often does that occur? If you have managed to hold a job, even
though there is a violation, how large a factor does being
employed weigh in whether or not to put you back in jail?
Mr. Fulwood. It weighs pretty heavy from the Commission's
standpoint. We look at whether or not the person is employed
and whether or not they have a stable residence. We see that in
the reports. We see the reports from CSOSA. They will note that
this person has a stable residence that they have been living
in for 2 years. They have been employed for 2 years. We should
not lock them up; we should send them through the sanction
program. So they come to the sanction program.
Ms. Hankins. Yet many of them are locked up.
Ms. Norton. Well, why are they locked up? You can have a
job and rob people, too, Ms. Hankins.
Ms. Hankins. Well, we have a number of clients who have
jobs, who have stayed in contact with their community
supervision officer, but who make some other mistake. Maybe
they have tested positive for marijuana.
Ms. Norton. Can you really say that somebody has tested
positive, has a job, and that they are going to send them back
to jail? Ms. Hankins, I have a hard time believing that.
Ms. Hankins. They are detained and 4 months later, if they
are reinstated, they probably have lost that job. Everyone is
detained.
Ms. Norton. Let us go back to that, Ms. Poteat and
Commissioner Fulwood. Isn't that counterproductive? That a
person is unlikely, is he not, to flee if he has managed to get
a job? If you lock him up for 2 to 4 months, how is he going to
retain that job? God knows, he may even not be sent back
ultimately. Is he in danger of flight? Why must he be detained,
I might add, at the expense of the District of Columbia at the
D.C. jail?
Ms. Poteat. I am sorry. As the chairman and I were talking,
those types of offenders we try to recommend for the sanction
hearings or the CTF project.
Ms. Norton. Let me tell you what the discrepancy is here.
The sanctions hearings have been done almost exclusively, have
they not, Chief Fulwood, by yourself?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Chief Fulwood was appointed at my request when
I was in the minority as a Commissioner. He became the only
Commissioner who would do sanctions hearings. So Ms. Hankins is
left here with some people going through this process, the old
process, because there is only one Chief Fulwood.
The reason that having you all at the same table is
important is because it says to the committee that we probably
ought to have more people doing sanctions hearings rather than
having the precious loss of a job through detaining a releasee.
It seems counterproductive, going against CSOSA's and the
Commission's own view that employment is the most important
thing, perhaps, besides housing that you can have if you are
released from jail.
Mr. Fulwood. Look, I agree that employment is important and
that we ought to do everything short of arresting somebody
initially. The greater use of summonses would help to rectify
some of that.
As we look at what group of people we are going to use
summonses for, we have to be careful that we don't disregard
encouraging people to be successful or allow them to thwart the
process so that they just will disregard what we are doing.
We have had cases, and I am sure Ms. Hankins is aware of
them, when guys tested positive 20 times. They didn't go to
jail. We tried to put him in treatment. We put him in treatment
and he walked away because there is no requirement that you
stay there. The person can walk away. That is one reason why
these secure residential treatment programs become an important
part of the process. Even at the Sanctions Center, there are
people that go in the Sanctions Center who walk away from the
Sanctions Center and test positive while they are in the
Sanctions Center.
Ms. Norton. Chief Fulwood, on the basis of your testimony
and the testimony of Ms. Hankins, I am going to ask the
appropriators in the next appropriations cycle, by which time,
of course, we will already have females in treatment in the
District of Columbia, to let you to testify before them so that
we can get enhanced appropriation for treatment that could keep
somebody who has a job from finally just walking away because
he is so addicted.
Yes, Ms. Hankins? I only have one more question before I
let this panel go.
Ms. Hankins. This exchange has been amazing. I think it
lends to fixing the salient factors. With employment, as
shocking as it is that we might send someone back to jail who
has a job, it happens. It happens all the time because having
employment isn't a salient factor score. So it leads right in
to how it is impossible for someone on parole or supervised
release to get a perfect score, meaning that they get a 12
month hit.
Ms. Norton. I can't understand that. Even under the old
Federal guidelines, the whole notion that having a job wouldn't
be worth anything comes as a tremendous shock to me. It says to
me that we should throw the whole thing out. If you have
managed, even in the best of economies, to go to the front of
the line against all of my constituents who are unemployed and
law-abiding and gotten yourself a job, it shouldn't be possible
that doesn't count for anything. I don't care whatever else the
salient factors had to tell me. They have just told me
everything that I need to know.
I want to ask you to set a date on it. You know, Ms. Poteat
and Commissioner Fulwood, that we will be waiting to see that
go bye-bye very soon. I will ask you to tell me what is the
soonest that can be implemented. Since the study has only
recently come out, I will be asking you shortly to tell me how
soon that can be.
Let me ask a question about the last big injustice that
caught my attention when this matter first came to our
attention a few years ago. It is about street time, which
required that the District of Columbia to adopt a new law. That
struck me in the face. It said that District of Columbia
residents have longer sentences than any inmates in the United
States of America. I said, how can that be? It is a progressive
jurisdiction. How did that happen? I come to find out that time
spent on parole before revocation just didn't count.
If you have been out clean and good for how many years and
something terrible happened. I don't know what happened. Maybe
the woman you had been with or your wife left you. I don't know
what happened in your life. Maybe I won't even assume it is one
of Ms. Hankins 15 percent, one of whom should have somehow got
overturned. I am assuming that you had to go back.
I understand that D.C. changed the law. They can at least
keep their street time after revocation. Now, make me
understand the following: It is for except when an offender is
convicted of a felony or sometimes a misdemeanor while on
parole and in situations where offenders do not ``respond to
any reasonable request'' by the Parole Commission or CSOSA.
That looks like a lot of discretion on the part of the
Commissioner or even CSOSA when it comes to street time for
misdemeanors. And it looks like you can't get it for a felony.
I am not even sure how that decision was made but since it is a
Home Rule decision I think it must have some meaning.
How has this new law been implemented? It just passed in
May of this year. Could you give me some examples?
Mr. Fulwood. It became effective on May 20th.
Ms. Norton. May 20, 2009.
Mr. Fulwood. Yes, 2009. The implementing rules became
effective June 17th. What the Good Time Credit Act did was to
eliminate automatic revocation of street time. The new rule
permits the Commission to do several things. One is early
termination of supervision. If you have 5 years of good time,
then we terminate your supervision so you are free to go. You
haven't created any problems. We have looked at the record. We
have a hearing.
Ms. Norton. Even though ordinarily you would not be free to
go?
Mr. Fulwood. Right.
Ms. Norton. That goes to putting more attention on the high
risk people or the people with mental conditions?
Mr. Fulwood. Yes. One of the impacts is that if you are a
sex offender or somebody of that nature, you shouldn't be
released from supervision.
Ms. Norton. So you are the ones we need to look at. Go
ahead, sir.
Mr. Fulwood. Early termination was a good thing. As a
matter of fact, when the law went into effect, the Public
Defender Service had a conference about this whole issue. I had
seven people approach me. Five of them got released from
supervision immediately because the law had taken effect. They
sent me a letter. I wrote a letter back.
Ms. Norton. Were these people with misdemeanors where it is
in your discretion?
Mr. Fulwood. No, they had committed felonies in the
original offense but they had 5 years of good time. They had to
go so we released them from supervision. As you indicated, if
it is a felony, then they lose their time if they commit a new
offense. It is all about whether they commit a new offense. If
they are certain kinds of misdemeanors, they will lose it.
Ms. Norton. Like what? Give me examples.
Mr. Fulwood. Domestic violence. Domestic violence is not
always a felony. They may get an assault for domestic violence.
That is a misdemeanor. We pay attention to domestic violence.
We are not going to release them automatically but we have a
hearing to make those determinations. You may not agree with
the hearing, but we do have a hearing to try to sort through
all of the facts and make an appropriate decision.
Ms. Norton. Ms. Hankins.
Ms. Hankins. With respect to new offenses, this is one area
where it is a little different from how regular revocation
works. My understanding is it requires a conviction in court.
It isn't that a case can get dismissed in court. If there is a
new conviction in court, that person is probably going to be
sentenced on that anyway. So the question of whether they need
to lose their street time on top of getting sentenced on a new
offense and getting, perhaps, a sanction for the time that they
still have, to lose their good time is a third punishment for
the same offense.
Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. You don't get sentenced for all
misdemeanors.
Ms. Hankins. I am sorry?
Ms. Norton. You don't get sentenced for all misdemeanors.
Ms. Hankins. It would strike me that if the offense is
serious enough that someone should lose their good time for it,
then they probably have gotten a sentence for it, whether
misdemeanor or a felony.
Ms. Norton. I know. What I worry about is that the Council,
in its wisdom, did say misdemeanors.
Ms. Hankins. If I could say, it actually wasn't the
Council's wisdom. The bill that was proposed was a lot broader.
It got essentially seriously cut back to mirror the Federal
system because a little part of the Revitalization Act said
that the District cannot change its own parole laws without the
concurrence of the U.S. attorney general. So while the hearing
before the Council was unbelievably moving, and I think
absolutely the votes were there to pass a broader bill, we had
a meeting with the Department of Justice and a number of the
agencies in the Department of Justice. They said you are not
getting that much and they were able to trump the Council. So
it is not really fair to call it the Council's wisdom when it
was the wisdom of the attorney general who trumped it.
Mr. Fulwood. But they passed it.
Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. They passed it.
Ms. Hankins. They took the bird in the hand. It is true,
they took the bird in the hand.
Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. This law was passed in May of
this year based on consultation with what Justice Department?
The prior Justice Department or this Justice Department?
Ms. Hankins. The prior Justice Department.
I do want to say the authority for early release was the
suggestion of the Parole Commission. It is a fantastic part of
the law and we are so happy it is there.
Ms. Norton. Now that we are in the throes of
transformation, Chief Fulwood and Ms. Poteat, I am going to ask
the new Justice Department to review this as well. If the
District was caught having to get the existing Justice
Department to agree to whatever it did, that is fair. Under
administrative law, if there has been a change in the
administrative agency, that can be reviewed. I am asking staff
to have that matter reviewed by the Justice Department to see
whether any changes might be allowable at least by the City
Council, in which case we would so advise them.
I thank each and every one of you for being here. We use
these hearings for a purpose. We are trying to get something
done, not just find out what you know. What you know has been
exceedingly helpful to us.
We understand that the subcommittee chairman has under his
jurisdiction not only the District of Columbia but four bills
on the floor that cover multiple jurisdictions of the
subcommittee.
I thank Chairman Lynch for calling this hearing and for
allowing me to go on so long with questions that will help us
as we try to help the Commission, CSOSA, and all who work with
them to redesign the U.S. Parole Commission to fit the
residents of the District of Columbia. Thank you very much.
We will prepare for the next and final panel.
Mr. Fulwood. Thank you for having us.
Ms. Norton. Let me introduce the next panel. Mr. Samuel
Green is on supervised release with CSOSA. Mr. James Parker, is
also on supervised release. Mr. Parker is an employee of the
District's Department of Public Works.
I am going to ask Mr. Parker and Mr. Green or Mr. Green and
Mr. Parker in whichever order you desire to testify.
I want to thank you before you speak for being willing to
come forward to assist this subcommittee and the U.S. Congress.
This subcommittee tries, whenever possible and whenever
appropriate, to hear from the agencies whose job it is to tell
us what the agencies are trying to do and how successful they
think they are. We heard from some agencies who are trying very
diligently for us. But we can't get a true picture without
talking to the clientele of the agency, the public that acts
with the agency. That is why your testimony is as important to
us this afternoon as the testimony you have just sat through to
hear.
May I hear from whoever wants to speak first? Would you
identify yourself? Tell where you are employed and then tell
something about yourself.
STATEMENTS OF JAMES PARKER, D.C. CODE OFFENDER UNDER USPC/CSOSA
JURISDICTION; AND SAMUEL GREEN, D.C. CODE OFFENDER UNDER USPC/
CSOSA JURISDICTION
STATEMENT OF JAMES PARKER
Mr. Parker. Greetings. My name is James Parker and I am an
ex-offender assigned under the supervision of CSOSA.
I would like to first thank you, Congresswoman Norton, and
your cohorts for allowing me to present.
I had been charged with distribution of heroin in 2003. I
did 26 months at Rivers Correctional. I got out in 2007 and I
am still here.
I was listening to everything that was going on and
basically I can just give you my experience. Being on parole
has been a pivotal part in my live, pivotal meaning that----
Ms. Norton. What has been a pivotal part? I am sorry.
Mr. Parker. Being on parole has been a pivotal part in my
life, pivotal meaning that a lot has transpired in my life
since being on parole. There was a death in my family with my
daughter. There have been sanctions. A lot of different things
have been going on.
Being on parole has especially helped me keep from using
excuses for the choices and actions I made in my life. My
actions are more accounted for now and I owe my respect to
being on parole. Having a parole officer has made my journey
this time a more smooth transition back into society. We all
have heard the stories of people coming out and not being able
to maintain a normal lifestyle, whether it is from issues of
unemployment, substance abuse, family matters, or daily
interactions. I pride myself in sustaining from the jug juices
and plan on keeping it that way forever.
My transition has gone really well because of my parole
officer. She has really heightened my ability to stay focused.
I highly recommend this added supervision because we all fall
short in our shortcomings.
But you also know that there are still some things that I
think need to be worked on as far as improving CSOSA and the
things that are going on to help people be successful in
society. I think it is very important that the--you have to
excuse me. I am a little bit nervous.
Ms. Norton. You are doing well. Just keep talking
naturally.
Mr. Parker. It is very important that your parole officer
is really into you as an individual instead of it just being a
job for her. Although being on parole and having a parole
officer has many positives, I found that the program needs
improvement. As for me, I was fortunate to have a good parole
officer. But there are not as many as fortunate as me. Being a
good parole officer should not just be a job for them but a
mission to have these men and women get back on their feet
after being incarcerated.
I also think parole officers should be more optimistic in
their mindset in dealing with parolees as they would want to be
treated themselves. We are sometimes boxed in a negative notion
that needs to be broken. A lot of us are striving to make a
second chance in society worth it. We just want parole officers
to treat us the way that they would want to be treated. This is
not in my case. I am just speaking on some of the parolees that
have talked to me and who wanted me to bring to your attention
what is going on with them.
I think some of the key points were made today about a lot
of the things that I wanted to say.
As far as being positive in society, it really has a lot to
do with employment. A lot of parolees are getting out and they
are finding it very hard to find jobs. Even though we all know
about our economic structure--it is harder for just people
without a felony to get a job, but with a felony, it is a
little bit harder.
Also, the housing situation for ex-offenders just getting
out is terrible. When they get out, they might have to go to an
environment where the people that they are going with are just
as bad off as they are. Then you are putting them back into an
environment where they really have a messed up choice. They are
coming home to their home environment where there might be
people on drugs and very high poverty. Then once they get into
that environment, they might not come home to a house. There
might not be a house there when they come home. So there is
that.
I just want to close. I want to thank you very much for
having me here. I want to apologize for my nervousness. I
haven't been around a big crowd and spoken in front of a big
crowd. I just want to thank you all for having me.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Parker, for testimony that was
full of information and experience that has enriched us.
Mr. Samuel Green.
STATEMENT OF SAMUEL GREEN
Mr. Green. Good afternoon. My name is Samuel Green.
I would also like to thank Congresswoman Norton and your
peers for giving us a forum to talk about community
supervision.
As you know, I am an ex-offender being supervised by CSOSA.
In 2007, I was convicted for robbery and attempted robbery. I
was sentenced to 22 months in prison. I served 19 months before
being released into the community.
As a 22 year old African American male living in
Washington, DC, on supervised release, I have found that it is
oftentimes difficult to make adjustments to reenter in society.
The difficulties I found in employment, housing, and educated
increased with the criminal record.
However, through the assistance of CSOSA and my CSO I have
been able to make pro-social changes such as remaining drug
free, actively seeking employment, and being currently enrolled
in the Sasha Bruce YouthBuild program.
I want to say that my supervision hasn't been squeaky
clean. I had drifted back into using drugs again, influenced by
my environment. On occasion I have used illicit substances.
When that happened, my first thoughts were that I would return
to jail. But through sanctions I was able to stay on the
street.
I have had sanctions such as a verbal reprimand, a CSSO
conference, GPS, and a USPS issued letter of reprimand.
As a result of these sanctions, I have been in compliance
with supervision with no positive urine. And, as I said
earlier, I am involved in the Sasha Bruce Youth program.
I would like to thank my community supervision officer for
believing in me and CSOSA for providing me with an opportunity
to succeed. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you again as well, Mr. Green, for
testimony that I have already found helpful even before we ask
you any questions. Thank you again for your courage in coming
forward.
Now, you both were convicted of pretty serious felonies.
Yet here you are in the hearing room of the U.S. Congress able
to testify about your lives.
I was interested, Mr. Parker, to hear Mr. Green talk about
his sanctions. Did you ever have a CSOSA or the Parole
Commission apply sanctions to you?
Mr. Parker. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Green, did you see those sanctions as more
and more of a warning and more and more serious restraints on
your release?
Mr. Green. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. What made the sanctions finally work? Both of
you have credited your supervisors. I must say it says a lot
about CSOSA's staff that each of these young men have given
great credit to those who supervised them. In the case of Mr.
Parker, I have to ask him what the sanctions were. Mr. Green
told us what his sanctions were. What made the sanctions
finally hit home to you?
Mr. Parker. I got tired of making excuses about doing this.
Ms. Norton. What sanctions were applied?
Mr. Parker. I had dirty urine.
Ms. Norton. What did they then do to you?
Mr. Parker. When they caught my dirty urine I was on what
they call random. I took the urine out like once every 2
months. So what they did was they brought it back to twice a
week. They heightened it up. They brought it back to twice a
week.
Ms. Norton. That was helpful, wasn't it?
Mr. Parker. Oh, was it. I work and I am married and now I
have to come back in and go through all this stuff. It just
made me realize how much of a fool I was and how far I had
come.
Ms. Norton. Because now you had this greater inconvenience.
Mr. Parker. I had to come back twice a week.
Ms. Norton. And you know that if you didn't come back this
time----
Mr. Parker. They already told me that if I didn't, if I had
gotten another one, then they were going to put me into a GPS
system. I was near enough 40. I will be 42 in 2 more weeks. I
just couldn't even imagine somebody telling me what time to be
in the house and knowing where I am going.
Ms. Norton. So this graduation of sanctions so that they
got more and more serious and more and more restrictive, that
worked for you as well, then?
Mr. Parker. Definitely.
Ms. Norton. You both are employed?
Mr. Parker. I am. I am with the Department of Public Works
but it is seasonal. I start back at the end of October.
Ms. Norton. How did you get the job, Mr. Parker?
Mr. Parker. Through Project Empowerment, which is a
terrific program.
Ms. Norton. This is important because this is a completely
D.C.-funded program.
Mr. Parker. It is outstanding.
Ms. Norton. And here we have the District on its own, quite
apart from CSOSA. Of course, it has had this terrific burden
taken off of it, but it is a city program with one of the
highest unemployment rates in the country also trying to find
employment. The city gave you a job in the city?
Mr. Parker. Yes.
Ms. Norton. We know that there are quite a substantial,
significant number of city jobs that now go to those who have
been released on parole. We will ask CSOSA to try to help us
pinpoint that, though we commend the city for leading by
example on that matter.
You work for Sasha Bruce, Mr. Green?
Mr. Green. Yes.
Ms. Norton. What do you do?
Mr. Green. It is a GED and you can achieve a trade there,
job readiness.
Ms. Norton. So you don't have a job. You go to that
program?
Mr. Green. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Is that also a Project Empowerment program?
Mr. Green. Kind of, yes. I would say yes.
Ms. Norton. I am not sure who runs that program but it is
important. Mr. Green does not have a job now. However, I
suppose it is CSOSA that gives him credit for going to get his
GED and for doing job readiness so that he is not on the street
competing with people who have no record. He is out here trying
to be ready to compete with people who have no record.
Could I ask you, in your own opinion and leaving aside the
excellent employees, Federal employees, who have guided you,
which programs have been most supportive or effective for you?
I mean programs you have been through like the parts of CSOSA
or the Commission or any city program? Which has been most
helpful to you?
Mr. Parker. I think for me it would probably be the
supervision at CSOSA.
Ms. Norton. Really?
Mr. Parker. Yes. I think that to really get myself back on
track before I really go off the edge, it guided me to where I
really need to be and got me totally focused on what I want to
do in life. The job and stuff is good, don't get me wrong. It
is seasonal. I have been there for 2 years. It is seasonal and
it is good. But without me going in the right direction, who is
to say I would have even been there as long as I have been or
even right now. So I would have to go back to where it begins.
Ms. Norton. How about you, Mr. Green?
Mr. Green. For me, I say Sasha Bruce for the weekly
meetings, giving me a sense of home court advantage, and just
making me feel like a good way is a better way.
Ms. Norton. What I think you demonstrated is that when
people hear about people who have commited crimes, they assume
we all start at the same starting line. How did you start life,
Mr. Parker?
Mr. Parker. I would say probably a dysfunctional family, my
environment, wanting to fit in with the crowd.
Ms. Norton. Where did you live, sir?
Mr. Parker. Southeast. That is where I grew up.
Ms. Norton. You were raised by a mother and a father?
Mr. Parker. It was my mother, grandmother, uncle, whoever.
Ms. Norton. Whoever is the important point here. That is
the difference between your starting line and most people's. So
the street got to help raise you.
Mr. Parker. It raised me. It just took me until this point
in my life to feel that drugs and getting high, there is so
much more to life than that.
Life is so beautiful when you are sober. It is so beautiful
when you can go and take your urine and you don't have to worry
about trying to find anything to take and drinking all this
water. You can just go on in and just be comfortable. You are
able to see your grandkids run and play and do little stuff
with you being a part of their lives when you aren't all
drugged out or don't want to be around them.
All in all, being incarcerated for most of my life, just
being able to see how beautiful life is is a major adjustment
for me. That is what keeping me focused. That is what is
keeping me to not even do drugs anymore or be a part of it. I
am just thrilled with where I am at right now.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Green, how did you start out in life?
Mr. Green. Most of the same as him, trying to be cool.
Ms. Norton. Were you raised by your mother and father?
Mr. Green. Just my mother. I tried to live up to my father.
Ms. Norton. What section of the city, Mr. Green?
Mr. Green. Southeast. Like my father, he was in and out of
jail all his life. He is in jail now, but that is another
story. I was just trying to be cool. I just idolized the bad
guys when I was little. Do you know what I am saying?
Ms. Norton. Yes, I do know what you are saying, Mr. Green.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Green. My bad. That is all to my story.
Ms. Norton. I ask you to tell those two painful stories
because we are so inclined to be judgmental and to assume that
here we all are and all we have to do is what I did. I had a
mother and a father and grandmother and everyone else
surrounding me. Changes in family life and in circumstances in
big cities leave their issues. CSOSA and the Commission, not to
mention the Bureau of Prisons, are left to deal with those
issues.
I just want to say as your Congresswoman who represents you
that I am proud to represent you.
Mr. Parker. We are proud of you for all you have done for
us.
Ms. Norton. Well, I had a whole lot more advantages in life
just starting out with Coleman and Vela Holmes as parents. That
was all the advantage that most people need. You start there
and then life takes care of itself. It wasn't in the most
crime-ridden part of the city either. So I have to judge you
from where you started.
You have been willing to come forward and tell us where you
are now. But you didn't start with your life story. You could
have said first, let me tell you about having no daddy and how
my mama had to raise me by herself and growing up in Southeast.
I had to bring that out of you because I want that on the
record, too.
You have been invited here as visible evidence of how
society benefits from putting a little resources into you now
that were not put into your early lives by your own families,
perhaps, and certainly not until you got through the criminal
justice system.
Now, Mr. Parker, you are a tax-paying resident of the
District of Columbia. Mr. Green, if you stay in that program
where you are learning a trade and getting your GED, I look
forward to your being a tax-payer. We are looking increasingly
in the employment sector for people who have been through it
and for whom a job means everything. That is why you will find
that there will be people looking for you when this Great
Recession is over.
I appreciate that when we came looking for you, you were
willing to step forward so that we would know what these
services mean. You gave me ammunition to go before the
Appropriations Committee to make sure that there are more of
those services available to the District of Columbia, to CSOSA,
to the U.S. Parole Commission, to the Public Defender Service,
and to those who work in partnership with them. Thank you very
much for coming forward.
Thank you to all our witnesses. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] 54385.076