[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 112 (Friday, July 13, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1520]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DEMOCRATIC HOUR ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 12, 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, while our national crime rates have 
fallen over the last decade, we have seen an unprecedented explosion in 
our prison and jail populations. Over two million prisoners are now 
held in Federal and State prisons and local jails. Each year, 
approximately 650,000 people return to their communities following a 
prison or jail sentence, resulting in more than 6.7 million Americans 
under some form of criminal justice supervision. In large part, these 
people are casualties in our war against drugs.
  The weight of the drive to incarcerate has fallen disproportionately 
on the African-American community. Although drug use and sale cuts 
across racial and socioeconomic lines, law enforcement strategies have 
targeted street-level drug dealers and users from low-income, 
predominately minority, urban areas. As a result, the arrest rates per 
100,000 for drug offenses are 6 times higher for blacks than for 
whites. The rate of imprisonment for black men is more than eight-times 
that of white men; and over the last 10 years, the incarceration rate 
of black men has increased at 10 times that of white men.
  This disproportionate rate of incarceration has created havoc in our 
communities. One of the most significant costs of these policies is the 
impact on children, the weakened ties among family members. According 
to the 2001 national data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 
3,500,000 parents were supervised by the correctional system. Prior to 
incarceration, 64 percent of female prisoners and 44 percent of male 
prisoners in State facilities lived with their children. Obviously, the 
long-term generational effects of a social structure in which 
imprisonment is the norm and law-abiding role models are absent are 
difficult to measure, but undoubtedly exist.
  The social and criminal justice policy decisions generated by the 
drug war have also resulted in massive collateral damage negatively 
limiting critically important access to housing, employment, public 
benefits, education, and political participation.
  A vast infrastructure of barriers, often legislatively mandated, 
combine to erect seemingly insurmountable roadblocks at every turn, 
creating a host of proscriptions blanketed under a ``one shoe fits 
all'' regime. For example, in some States, it is impossible for an ex-
felon to get a barber's license, an extreme prohibition when cutting 
hair is a skill that can be acquired in prison.
  There is a pressing need to provide the more than 650,000 men and 
women who re-enter our communities from prison each year with the 
education and training necessary to obtain and hold onto steady jobs, 
undergo drug treatment, and get medical and mental health services. For 
that very reason, I have been active in supporting and introducing re-
entry legislation for well over a decade.
  As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I was pleased to join my 
colleague Danny Davis in this Congress in supporting the Second Chance 
Act. The Committee passed this legislation on March 28th and we await 
action on the floor. This bipartisan legislation is a critical step in 
expanding the foundation for comprehensive re-entry programs at the 
Federal, State and local level.
  The bill focuses on development and support of programs that provide 
alternatives to incarceration, expand the availability of substance 
abuse treatment, strengthen families and expand comprehensive re-entry 
services. The bill is a product of multi-year bipartisan negotiations 
and enjoys support from across the political spectrum.
  The statistics underlying the needs of our prison population are 
staggering. As detailed by many researchers, these deficiencies include 
limited education, few job skills or experience, substance and alcohol 
dependency, and other health problems, including mental health. 
Evidence from the Department of Justice indicates that the needs of the 
prison population are not being met under the current system. If we 
allow them to return to communities with few economic opportunities, 
where their family and friends are often involved in crime and 
substance abuse, we can only expect to extend the cycle of recidivism.
  For example, 57 percent of federal and 70 percent of State inmates 
used drugs regularly before prison, with some estimates of involvement 
with drugs or alcohol around the time of the offense as high as 84 
percent. Further, over one-third of all jail inmates have some physical 
or mental disability and 25 percent of jail inmates have been treated 
at some time for a mental or emotional problem.
  In the face of these statistics, I believe that we can be cautiously 
optimistic in the support of re-entry programming through the Second 
Chance Act. Researchers at the Washington State Institute for Public 
Policy have determined that programs employing ``best practices'' have 
yielded up to 20 percent declines in re-arrest rates. Spread across the 
thousands of arrests each year, these practices could yield a 
significant decline in recidivism, with a commensurate reduction in 
community and victim costs.
  Family-centered programs are one of the hallmarks of this 
legislation. Family-based treatment programs, for example, have proven 
results for serving the special population of female offenders and 
substance abusers with children. An evaluation by the Substance Abuse 
and Mental Health Services Administration of family-based treatment for 
substance abusing mothers and children found that at six months post 
treatment, 60 percent of the mothers remain alcohol and drug free, and 
drug related offenses declined from 28 to 7 percent.
  As we move toward passage of the bill, I hope that we are not caught 
in the trap of attempting to solve this problem on the cheap or over-
reacting to misinformation. In past Congresses, there have been 
objections to the cost of this bill and past re-entry initiatives.
  I must point out that Section 101, the demonstration projects at the 
heart of the legislation, works out to less that $200 for each of the 
more than 650,000 people released into the community each year. 
Moreover, there are no perks--Blackberries or cosmetic surgery--for ex-
offenders. This bill is a truly modest measure when balanced against 
the more than $60 billion each year spent on incarceration.
  If we are going to continue to send more and more people to prison 
with longer and longer sentences, we should do as much as we reasonably 
can to assure that when they do return they don't go back to prison due 
to new crimes. The primary reason for doing so is not to benefit 
offenders, although it does--the primary reason for doing so is because 
it better assures that all of us and other members of the public will 
not be victims of crime due to recidivism.

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