[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 137 (Friday, October 27, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1959-E1961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 THE OFFENDER REENTRY AND COMMUNITY SAFETY ACT OF 2000 OCTOBER 26, 2000

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HENRY J. HYDE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 26, 2000

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, today in communities all around this country, 
prisoners are being released back into their communities without job 
skills, substance abuse or mental health services, or assistance in 
obtaining housing and employment. In fact, the Department of Justice 
reports that historically, two thirds of released prisoners are 
rearrested for new crimes within three years.
  During this year alone, a record number of over 585,000 inmates will 
be released from jail or prison and return to local communities. A 
safety threat is posed by this volume of returns and has been worsened 
by a declining ability by states and communities to supervise the 
returning offenders. This is partly due to policy shifts toward more 
determinate sentencing, which allow for the offenders to serve longer 
sentences than in the past, yet without supervisory conditions upon 
release. Thirteen states have abolished parole systems, thereby 
providing very little, if any, supervision of released inmates.
  Mr. Speaker, today I have introduced ``The Offender Reentry and 
Community Safety Act of 2000.'' This legislation will help ensure that 
released offenders enter into a lawful, productive life when they 
return to their communities. Under this legislation, programs will be 
created to assist certain offenders who have served their prison 
sentences, but who pose the greatest risk to the community. This is 
because they lack the skills necessary to successfully reintegrate into 
society, such as finding housing and employment, in addition to 
managing substance abuse, medical and mental health problems.
  These programs will use technology and traditional methods of 
structured supervision and services, along with a system of immediate 
sanctions for violations of an offender's plan. It is my belief that 
these programs will give the necessary tools to the returning offenders 
so that they can help themselves lead lawful and productive lives.
  I want to thank the Attorney General and the Department of Justice 
for the assistance and hard work in this area. I know this is a 
priority of the Attorney General, and I look forward to working with 
her to help process this legislation next Congress. I am also 
submitting for the Record a section-by-section analysis that the 
Department of Justice has prepared on this legislation.

                      Section-by-Section Analysis

                              Introduction

       This legislative proposal is divided into two titles: title 
     I would create demonstration reentry programs for federal 
     offenders, and title II would establish reentry programs for 
     sate and local prisoners. The programs are designed to assist 
     high-risk, high-need offenders who have served their prison 
     sentences, but who pose the greatest risk of reoffending upon 
     release because they lack the education, job skills, stable 
     family or living arrangements, and the substance abuse 
     treatment and other mental and medical health services they 
     need to successfully reintegrate into society. Both titles 
     include provisions requiring that the funded programs be 
     rigorously evaluated and the results widely disseminated, so 
     that reentry programs can be modified as needed, to ensure 
     that recidivism is reduced and public safety enhanced.
       The Reentry Problem. American crime policies over the past 
     two decades have resulted in record numbers of offenders 
     being incarcerated. Some 1.25 million offenders are now 
     living in prisons, and another 600,000 offenders are 
     incarcerated in local jails. Although many offenders are 
     serving longer sentences than they would have a decade ago, 
     once they complete their terms, they return to the community. 
     A record number of approximately 585,400 inmates will return 
     to communities this year. Historically, two-thirds of 
     returning prisoners have been rearrested for new crimes 
     within three years.
       The safety threat posed by this volume of returns has been 
     exacerbated by reductions in the abilities of states and 
     communities to supervise returning offenders. Parole systems 
     have been abolished in thirteen states. Moreover, policy 
     shifts toward more determinate sentencing have reduced the 
     authority to impose supervisory conditions upon existing 
     offenders. Consequently, an estimated 100,000 inmates will 
     receive no supervision in the community. State systems have

[[Page E1960]]

     also reduced the numbers of transitional support programs 
     aimed at facilitating the return to productive community life 
     styles. Recent studies indicate that many returning prisoners 
     receive no help in finding employment upon release. Most 
     offenders have low literacy and other basic educational 
     skills that can impede successful reentry.
       At least 55 percent of offenders are fathers of minor 
     children, and therefore face a number of issues related to 
     child support and other family responsibilities during 
     incarceration and after release. Substance abuse and mental 
     health problems add to concerns over community safety. 
     Approximately 70 percent of state prisoners and 57 percent of 
     federal prisoners have a history of drug abuse. Research by 
     NIJ indicates that between 60 and 75 percent of inmates with 
     heroin or cocaine problems return to drugs within three 
     months when untreated. An estimated 187,000 state and federal 
     prison inmates have self-reported mental health problems. 
     Mentally ill inmates are more likely than other offenders to 
     have committed a violent offense and be violent recidivists. 
     Few states connect mental health treatment in prisons with 
     treatment in the return community. Finally, offenders with 
     contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are
       Current policies to reduce public safety risks are cost 
     prohibitive and often ineffective. Efforts to enforce 
     offender accountability for release conditions have led to 
     record returns to prison for revocations. These practices 
     have added significantly to state correctional costs. 
     Revocations comprised 17 percent of prison admissions in 
     1980; they have risen to 36 percent in 1998.
       Juvenile offenders represent a serious part of the reentry 
     issue throughout the country. Juveniles were involved in 17 
     percent of all violent crimes and 35 percent of all property 
     crime arrests in 1997. In 1997, 369 juveniles were in custody 
     for every 100,000 in the population. Between 1987 and 1996, 
     the volume of adjudicated cases resulting in court-ordered 
     residential placements rose 51 percent. The steady increase 
     of youth exiting residential placement has resulted in an 
     increased strain on the juvenile justice aftercare system due 
     to increased case loads for parole officers and the inability 
     to provide the appropriate level of required supervision. 
     Without structured aftercare supervision and services, youth 
     are likely to relapse and recidivate and return to 
     confinement in either juvenile or adult correctional 
     facilities.


            Title I. Federal Reentry Demonstrations Projects

       Innovative strategies and emerging technologies present new 
     opportunities to improve the federal and District of Columbia 
     reentry systems. This legislation creates five demonstration 
     projects--four in the federal system and one in the District 
     of Columbia--that utilize these strategies and technologies. 
     The projects share many core components, including a more 
     seamless reentry system, reentry officials who are more 
     directly involved with the offender and who can swiftly 
     impose intermediate sanctions if the offender does not follow 
     the designated reentry plan, and the combination of enhanced 
     service delivery and enhanced monitoring. The different 
     projects are targeted at different prisoner populations and 
     each has some unique features. The promise of the legislation 
     is to establish the demonstration projects and then to 
     rigorously evaluate them to determine which measures and 
     strategies most successfully reintegrate prisoners into the 
     community as well as which measures and strategies can be 
     promoted nationally to address the growing national problem 
     of released prisoners.
       Section 101. Federal Reentry Center Demonstration--Section 
     101 establishes the Federal Reentry Center Demonstration 
     Project, which is targeted at high-need and medium-to-high-
     risk federal offenders, and revolves around Reentry Centers. 
     These Centers will be enhanced community corrections 
     facilities, or ``halfway houses,'' where for most federal 
     prisoners, reintegration into the community begins. Reentry 
     Centers will be dynamic facilities where ongoing reentry 
     planning and evaluation will be conducted by a team of 
     corrections and supervision authorities, where services are 
     intensively provided, and where immediate and certain 
     sanctions are imposed when a prisoner deviates from his or 
     her reentry plan.
       Some of the core components of the demonstration project 
     include (1) Reentry Review Teams--consisting of 
     representatives of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. 
     Probation System and staff of the relevant halfway house--
     that will rigorously manage a more seamless reentry of 
     offenders into the community; (2) a system of graduated 
     levels of supervision within the Reentry Center to promote 
     community safety by providing sanctions for minor violations 
     of an offenders' reentry plan and incentives for completing 
     stages of the program; (3) the use of local, community-based 
     citizen volunteers to advise and mentor offenders; and (4) as 
     indicated and appropriate, regular drug testing, substance 
     abuse treatment and aftercare, mental and medical health 
     treatment and aftercare, vocational and educational programs, 
     life skills instruction, conflict resolution skills training, 
     assistance obtaining suitable housing, and other programming 
     to promote effective reintegration into the community.
       The Reentry Center project will last three years and will 
     take place in an appropriate number of federal judicial 
     districts selected by the Attorney General in consultation 
     with the Judicial Conference of the United States. The 
     Attorney General will also have the authority to include in 
     the demonstration project offenders who participate in the 
     Enhanced In-Prison Vocational Assessment and Training 
     Demonstration project established by section 105 of this Act.
       Section 102. Federal High-Risk Offender Reentry 
     Demonstration--Section 102 establishes the Federal High-Risk 
     Offender Demonstration project. The project is targeted at 
     high-need/high-risk federal offenders--those who have already 
     violated the terms of their initial release--and utilizes a 
     variety of elements, including emerging technologies, to both 
     monitor these offenders and insure delivery of appropriate 
     services and programs that promote effective reentry into the 
     community. These technologies are rapidly developing and 
     will, as they develop further, provide increasingly effective 
     ways to manage offeners' reentry.
       The core elements of the project include (1) the use of 
     halfway house and home confinement that together with the 
     technology will form a system of graduated levels of 
     supervision; (2) as indicated and appropriate, monitoring 
     technologies; regular drug testing, substance abuse treatment 
     and aftercare, mental and medical health treatment and 
     aftercare, vocational and education programs, life skill 
     instruction, conflict resolution skill training, assistance 
     obtaining suitable housing, and other programming to promote 
     effective reintegration into the community.
       The project will last three years and will take place in an 
     appropriate number of federal judicial districts selected by 
     the Judicial Conference of the United States in consultation 
     with the Attorney General.
       Section 103. District of Columbia Intensive Supervision, 
     Tracking, and Reentry Training Demonstration--Section 103 
     establishes the District of Columbia Intensive Supervision, 
     Tracking and Reentry Training (DC iSTART) Demonstration 
     project. The DC iSTART project is targeted at high-risk 
     District of Columbia offenders--those who might not
       The core elements of the DC iSTART project include: (1) 
     Reentry Review teams; (2) the use of halfway houses and home 
     confinement for high need/high-risk parolees to form a system 
     of graduated levels of supervision for those who otherwise 
     would be released directly into the community; and (3) as 
     indicated and appropriate, regular drug testing, substance 
     abuse treatment and aftercare, mental and medical health 
     treatment and aftercare, vocational and educational programs, 
     life skills instruction, conflict resolution skills training, 
     assistance obtaining suitable housing, and other programming 
     to promote effective reintegration into the community. The 
     project will last three years.
       Section 104. Federal Intensive Supervision, Tracking, and 
     Reentry Training Demonstration--Section 104 establishes the 
     Federal Intensive Supervision, Tracking and Reentry Training 
     (FED iSTART) Demonstration project. The FED iSTART project is 
     targeted at high-risk federal offenders--those who might not 
     otherwise be released through a halfway house--and utilizes 
     intensive supervision by federal probation officers with 
     significantly reduced caseloads. The core elements of the FED 
     iSTART project are (1) supervision by probation officers with 
     significantly reduced caseloads, (2) fully funded monitoring 
     and reentry services, to be provided as indicated and 
     appropriate, including regular drug testing, substance abuse 
     treatment and aftercare, mental and medical health treatment 
     and aftercare, vocational and educational programs, life 
     skill instruction, conflict resolution skill training, 
     assistance obtaining suitable housing, and other programming 
     to promote effective reintegration into the community. The 
     project will last three years.
       Section 105. Federal Enhanced In-Prison Vocational 
     Assessment and Training Demonstration--Section 105 
     establishes the Federal Enhanced In-Prison Vocational 
     Assessment and Training Demonstration project. The project 
     will provide in-prison assessment of prisoners' vocational 
     needs and aptitudes, enhanced work skills development, 
     enhanced release readiness programming, and other components 
     as appropriate to prepare federal prisoners for release and 
     reentry into the community. The project will last three 
     years.
       Section 106. Research and Reports To Congress--As indicated 
     above, the promise of this legislation is not simply to 
     develop the demonstration projects, but also to insure that 
     the projects are rigorously evaluated to determine which 
     measures and strategies most successfully reintegrate federal 
     prisoners into the community and which should be promoted 
     nationally to address the growing national problem of 
     released prisoners. Section 106 directs the Attorney General, 
     the Director of the Administrative Office of the United 
     States Courts, and the Executive Director of the institute 
     for criminal research authorized by the National Capital 
     Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement

[[Page E1961]]

     Act to evaluate the various demonstration projects
       Section 107. Authorization of Appropriations--Section 107 
     authorizes appropriations, to remain available until 
     expended, to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Federal 
     Judiciary, and the Court Services and Offender Supervision 
     Agency of the District of Columbia for fiscal years 2001 
     through 2005.


                 Title II. State Reentry Grant Programs

       Section 201. This section amends the Omnibus Crime Control 
     and Safe Streets Act of 1968 by adding four new sections 
     (2601, 2602, 2603, and 2604) that make grants available to 
     state and local governments to create special programs to 
     help state prisoners successfully reenter their communities.
       Section 2601. Adult Offender State and Local Reentry 
     Partnerships. Section 2601 establishes the Adult Offender 
     State and Local Reentry Partnership Grant Program for the 
     purpose of encouraging states, territories, and Indian tribes 
     to partner with units of local government and other non-
     profit organizations to establish adult offender reentry 
     demonstration projects. The grants shall be for amounts up to 
     $1,000,000, and may be expended for the following purposes: 
     implementing graduated sanctions and incentives, monitoring 
     released prisoners, and providing, as appropriate, drug and 
     alcohol abuse testing and treatment, mental and medical 
     health services, victim impact educational classes, 
     employment training, conflict resolution skills training, and 
     other social services.
       Section 2601 requires applicants to submit an application 
     that describes a long-term strategy and detailed 
     implementation plan, identifies the agencies that will be 
     coordinated by the project, certifies that there has been 
     appropriate consultation with all affected agencies, and 
     describes the outcome measures that will be used to evaluate 
     the program. The grant recipient must contribute a percentage 
     of matching funds to the project and submit an annual report 
     to the Attorney General describing the activities carried out 
     under the grant. Section 2601 authorizes $40,000,000 for this 
     program in fiscal year 2001, and such sums as are necessary 
     in fiscal years 2002 through 2005.
       Section 2602. State and Local Reentry Courts. Section 2602 
     creates the State and Local Reentry Court Grant Program for 
     the purpose of encouraging state agencies, municipalities, 
     public agencies, nonprofit organizations and tribes to make 
     agreements with courts to establish ``reentry courts.'' The 
     grants shall be for amounts up to $500,000, and may be 
     expended to monitor returning offenders, establish graduated 
     sanctions and incentives, test and treat returning offenders 
     for drug and alcohol abuse, and provide reentering offenders 
     with mental and medical health services, victim impact 
     educational classes, employment training, conflict resolution 
     skills training, and other social services.
       Section 2602 requires applicants to submit an application 
     that describes a long-term strategy and detailed 
     implementation plan, identifies the agencies that will be 
     coordinated by the project, certifies that there has been 
     appropriate consultation with all affected agencies, and 
     describes the outcome measures that will be used to evaluate 
     the program. The grant recipient must contribute a percentage 
     of matching funds to the project and submit an annual report 
     to the Attorney General describing the activities carried out 
     under the grant. Section 2602 authorizes $10,000,000 for this 
     program in fiscal year 2001, and such sums as are necessary 
     in fiscal years 2002 through 2005.
       Section 2603. Juvenile Offender State and Local Reentry 
     Programs. Section 2603 establishes the Juvenile Offender 
     State and Local Reentry Grant Program for the purpose of 
     encouraging states to partner with units of local government 
     and other non-profit organizations to establish juvenile 
     offender reentry projects. The grants shall be for amounts up 
     to $250,000, and may be expended for the following purposes: 
     implementing graduated sanctions and incentives, monitoring 
     released prisoners, and providing them with drug and alcohol 
     abuse testing and treatment, mental and medical health 
     services, victim impact educational classes, employment 
     training, conflict resolution skills training, and other 
     social services.
       Section 2603 requires applicants to submit an application 
     that describes a long-term strategy and detailed 
     implementation plan, identifies the agencies that will be 
     coordinated by the project, certifies that there has been 
     appropriate consultation with all affected agencies, and 
     describes the outcome measures that will be used to evaluate 
     the program. The grant recipient must contribute a percentage 
     of matching funds to the project and submit an annual report 
     to the Attorney General describing the activities carried out 
     under the grant. Section 2603 authorizes $5,000,000 for this 
     program in fiscal year 2001, and such sums as are necessary 
     in fiscal years 2002 through 2005.
       Section 2604. State Reentry Program Research, Development, 
     and Evaluation. Section 2604 establishes the State Reentry 
     Research, Development, and Evaluation Grant Program to 
     conduct research on issues pertinent to reentry programs, 
     develop and test new reentry approaches, evaluate the 
     projects authorized in sections 2601, 2602, and 2603 of this 
     title, and disseminate this information to the field. Section 
     2604 authorizes $5,000,000 for this program in fiscal year 
     2001, and such sums as are necessary in fiscal years 2002 
     through 2005.

     

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