[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 29648-29656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lincoln Davis of Tennessee). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Mrs. Jones) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material thereon on the subject of my 
Special Order tonight, which is the Second Chance Act.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Black 
Caucus and our Chair, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, I'm pleased to anchor 
this Congressional Black Caucus message hour today.
  Let me commend all of the original cosponsors on this piece of 
legislation; the lead sponsor, Danny Davis, who's joining me this 
evening in this Special Order; cosponsors Stephanie Tubbs Jones, John 
Conyers, Elijah Cummings, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bobby Scott, Hank 
Johnson, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, and the list goes on. The majority 
of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus are signatories to 
this very, very important piece of legislation.
  The purpose of the Second Chance Act is to reduce recidivism, 
increase public safety, and help States and communities to better 
address the growing population of prisoners returning to communities. 
The bill will focus on four areas: jobs, housing, substance abuse, 
mental health treatment and families.
  Nearly two-thirds of released State prisoners are expected to be 
arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of their 
release. Such high recidivism rates translate into thousands of new 
crimes each year and wasted taxpayer dollars, which can be averted 
through improved prisoner re-entry efforts.
  The Second Chance Act of 2007 allocates $360 million towards a 
variety of re-entry programs. One of the main components of the bill is 
the funding of demonstration projects that will provide ex-offenders 
with a coordinated continuum of housing, education, health, employment, 
and mentoring services. This broad array of services will provide 
stability and make the transition for ex-offenders easier, in turn, 
reducing recidivism.
  I sat here this evening, Mr. Speaker, and enjoyed the speeches by 
many of my colleagues talking about National Bible Month. I am so 
pleased that they chose that subject matter, and I hope that the many 
Members that spoke this evening about the Bible and where it 
specifically says ``when I was in prison you visited me,'' they will 
remember that their good talk and great conversation about the Bible 
apply to ex-offenders and that they will support the Second Chance Act.
  It gives me great pleasure at this time to yield to my colleague and 
good friend, Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and the 
convener of this Special Order. Let me thank the chairwoman of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, recognize that 43 members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, 42 Members in the House, represent a basic 
conscience that has to craft for America the next steps.
  I want to thank my good friend, Congressman Danny Davis. He has been 
persistent in recognizing that there has to be a second chance. And I'm 
glad to join my colleague and my champion, my fellow champion of human 
rights, Barbara Lee.
  Let me also thank Congressman John Conyers, the chairman of the House 
Judiciary Committee; the subcommittee Chair, Bobby Scott. We worked 
very hard on this legislation as it was crafted by the authors and the 
staff to make sure this legislation started to move.
  Congresswoman Tubbs Jones, I'm very glad that you raised the question 
of National Bible Week. As I listened to my colleagues give extremely 
personal stories of their life, let me say, as someone who represents 
an inner-city district and has spent much of her political life as much 
as her personal life

[[Page 29649]]

in churches, as a Seventh-day Adventist, we are committed to the 
teachings of the Old and New Testament.
  But in many different faith communities, I recognize that the Bible 
is one vessel, one language that speaks to the language of the Good 
Samaritan. Many other religious documents speak to it, but it speaks 
about taking care of our fellow brothers and sisters. And it's a story 
that I love, on the road to Jericho, on the road that addresses the 
question of helping others. That is what the Second Chance bill is all 
about.
  And I just want to cite that it is designed to reduce recidivism, 
increase public safety, and help State and local governments better 
address the growing population of ex-offenders returning to their 
communities. I see them every day in my community.
  The bill focuses on 4 areas: Development and support of programs that 
provide alternatives to incarceration, expansion of the availability of 
substance abuse treatment, strengthening families, and the expansion of 
comprehensive re-entry services. And we held a series of hearings.
  But as we talked about National Bible Week upcoming, this is a 
wonderful partnership between faith organizations for people to show 
their faith and helping people restore their lives.
  I come from the State of Texas. In Texas, there are now 101,916 
adults on parole, and there are 430,312 adults on probation; almost a 
congressional district.
  At the same time you, we have a number of individuals by race. We see 
that out of that in Texas there are 40,000, almost, African Americans 
who are on parole and some 25,000 Hispanics. This speaks to the crisis 
nature of what we are facing.
  And so I rise today to plead with my colleagues that one, the Second 
Chance bill must move through this House. In the Senate we understand 
that we are now prepared possibly for a final conclusion for this to 
get to the President's desk.
  But I speak from the heart when I talk about the importance of the 
second chance. Unfortunately, Jena Six and that situation, it has 
become a symbol for not giving young people a second chance. For the 
altercation that occurred, a school yard fight, it resulted in an 
indictment that resulted in adult time.
  In the State of Texas, we are notorious for what we do for our young 
people; therefore, creating adults who will ultimately be incarcerated, 
and those will be on parole. And so, it is important that we understand 
the crucialness, if you will, of this particular bill.
  Let me just cite headlines that I'd like to submit for the Record, 
because it relates to the criminal justice system in the State of Texas 
that really is upside down and, frankly, needs a complete overhaul, 
because what it says is more youth are tried as adults in Harris County 
than any other county, and really probably any other State. So we're 
beginning to move youth into the process of needing a second chance.
  And what I'm suggesting, Mr. Speaker, is that more and more the young 
people are going into the criminal justice system, and there is a 
definite need for a second chance, because when these individuals come 
out, they are still young. They're still able to be saved. But we have 
nothing but an empty hole, a pit that they fall back into and they wind 
up being on the sea of recidivism.
  And it says here that 67.5 percent of the prisoners were arrested for 
a new offense, almost exclusively a felony or a serious misdemeanor. 
This is what happens.
  And so, more youth are tried as adults in Harris County. It means 
that, rather than having justice, we're concerned about ``just us,'' 
and so the criminal justice system has no sympathy.
  In addition, we find that the youngest inmates, this is in Texas 
again, my county, tend to serve longer terms in juvenile prison, making 
them the kind of targets, or not targets, but kind of recipients, or 
those who would need the second chance, because they are laying the 
groundwork for going into the adult system.
  I will include these articles for the Record that I'm now speaking 
to.

           [From the Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2002]

                Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994

          (By Patrick A. Langan, Ph.D., David J. Levin, Ph.D.)

       This study of the rearrest, reconviction, and 
     reincarceration of prisoners tracked 272,111 former inmates 
     for 3 years after their release in 1994. The 272,111--
     representing two-thirds of all prisoners released in the 
     United States that year--were discharged from prisons in 15 
     States:
       Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, 
     Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, 
     Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia.


                      Four measures of recidivism

       The study uses four measures of recidivism: rearrest, 
     reconviction, resentence to prison, and return to prison with 
     or without a new sentence. Except where expressly stated 
     otherwise, all four study measures of recidivism--refer to 
     the 3-year period following the prisoner's release in 1994; 
     include both ``in-State'' and ``out-of-State'' recidivism.
       ``In-State'' recidivism refers to new offenses committed 
     within the State that released the prisoner. ``Out-of-State'' 
     recidivism refers to new offenses in States other than the 
     one where the prisoner served time.

                                                                                         CBC FOUNDATION
                                                                          [Second Chance and Probation/Parole Analysis]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    State                             Representatives                          Adults on parole (2005)                                 Adults on probation (2005)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
California..................................  Lee, Waters, Watson...........                                                   111,743                                                   388,260
Texas.......................................  Green, Jackson-Lee, Johnson...                                                   101,916                                                   430,312
Pennsylvania................................  Fattah........................                                                    75,732                                                   167,561
New York....................................  Clarke, Meeks, Rangel, Towns..                                                    53,533                                                   119,025
Illinois....................................  Davis, Jackson Jr., Obama,                                                        34,576                                                   143,136
                                               Rush.
Louisiana...................................  Jefferson.....................                                                    24,072                                                    38,308
Georgia.....................................  Bishop, Johnson, Lewis, Scott.                                                    22,851                                                   422,848
Michigan....................................  Conyers, Kilpatrick...........                                                    19,978                                                   178,609
Ohio........................................  Tubbs Jones...................                                                    19,512                                                   239,036
Missouri....................................  Clay, Cleaver.................                                                    18,374                                                    53,614
Wisconsin...................................  Moore.........................                                                    15,505                                                    55,175
Maryland....................................  Cummings, Wynn................                                                    14,271                                                    75,593
New Jersey..................................  Payne.........................                                                    13,874                                                   139,610
Indiana.....................................  Carson........................                                                     7,295                                                   121,014
Alabama.....................................  Davis.........................                                                     7,252                                                    38,995
Florida.....................................  Brown, Hastings, Meek.........                                                     4,785                                                   277,831
Virginia....................................  Scott.........................                                                     4,499                                                    45,589
Minnesota...................................  Ellison.......................                                                     3,966                                                   117,073
South Carolina..............................  Clyburn.......................                                                     3,155                                                    39,349
North Carolina..............................  Butterfield, Watt.............                                                     3,101                                                   111,626
Mississippi.................................  Thompson......................                                                     1,970                                                   23,864
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
District of Columbia, Holmes Norton, Data Unavailable.
Virgin Islands, Christian-Christensen, Data Unavailable.


[[Page 29650]]


 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                                      Native
                                        Parole                    Black/                   American                 Hawaiian/                 Unknown or
               State                 population,     White       African    Hispanic or    Indian/       Asian        Other     Two or more      not
                                      2/31/2005                  American      Latino      Alaskan                   Pacific       races       reported
                                                                                            Native                   islander
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Jersey.........................       13,874        2,906        6,679        2,563           19           25           53            0        1,629
New York...........................       53,533        8,770       24,467       18,739          225          312            0            0        1,020
Pennsylvania a.....................       75,678       39,517       28,271        6,022           62          295            3           56        1,452
Illinois b.........................       34,576       10,124       20,386        3,923           30           90           **           **           23
Michigan...........................       19,978        9,170       10,209          309          132           38            0            0          120
Minnesota..........................        3,966        2,350          996          319          201            0            0            0          100
Missouri...........................       18,374       12,246        5,665          356           55           37            0            0           15
Ohio b.............................       19,512        9,717        9,580          156           39           20            0            0            0
Wisconsin a........................       15,505        6,983        6,712        1,209          432          122           **           **           47
Alabama b..........................        7,252        2,503        4,670           32            2            8            0            2           35
Florida............................        4,785        1,940        2,725          105            5            0            0           **           10
Georgia............................       22,851        7,979       14,872           **           **           **           **           **            0
Louisiana..........................       24,072        8,519       15,432            4            4            2           **           **          111
Maryland...........................       14,271        3,617       10,602           **           13           17           **           **           22
Mississippi........................        1,970          847        1,104           11            4            2            0            0            2
North Carolina.....................        3,101        1,096        1,801          126           50            9            1           **           18
South Carolina.....................        3,155        1,029        2,081           20            8            1            0           **           16
Texas..............................      101,916       34,561       39,718       26,920           70          163            0            0          484
Virginia b.........................        4,499        2,144        2,243            0            2            0            0            0          110
California.........................      111,743       34,535       27,825       44,135          897        1,018          193            0        3,140
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Not known.
aSee Explanatory notes for more detail.
bSome or all detailed data are estimated for race.

  And then, of course, there is this short of years but long in lockup. 
This is a statement that talks about 13-year-olds who have 5 years, 6 
years, 7 years, not because they are sentenced to that amount, but 
because they go into the juvenile system for 2 months, and because the 
handlers, the custodians, the jailers pile on more time, more time.
  So what point am I making?
  The point that I'm making is that we are assured that, with the 
ongoing cycle of young people going into the criminal justice system, 
that they then go into the adult system, and then we have this giant 
sinking hole.
  The second chance is to save youngsters and adults from themselves, 
and to provide this safety net that provides jobs and training and also 
a social system that allows them to not be part of almost 70 percent 
recidivism.
  Let me quickly just say that I was very pleased to have an amendment 
included into this legislation that particularly focused on some 
additional needs that we would have and that this bill also takes into 
account mental health concerns. This bill is a must.
  My voice is gone, but my strength and my desire is here. If we are 
biblically grounded in this country, if we believe that there is value 
to religion and faith in the Bible and the Koran and many other 
documents that exude faith, then we should emphasize the charity of the 
Good Samaritan. That finds its way into the Jewish faith, the Christian 
faith and Muslim faith and any faith that is here. There is the concept 
of the Good Samaritan. That's what the Second Chance bill is.
  And as I close, let me indicate that I am still working on this 
criminal justice system. It is a broken system. I believe that if you 
do the crime, you should pay the time. But where is the mercy on what 
the time is and how you rehabilitate people? That's why I'm offering 
legislation, the Good Time Early Release Bill that we hope will see 
hearings that will allow nonviolent prisoners to be released on their 
own recognizance and to allow them to get into this system. It is not a 
parole. It is good time early release, because these are Federal 
prisoners who are in the Federal system who are not subjected to parole 
and a limited probation.
  So I'm looking forward to that location tagging this legislation, 
because if this passes, then those who will be released will have the 
safety net that is so very important.
  It dismays me, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones, to see our young people, as 
you've been a prosecutor and I've been a judge, you've been a judge, to 
see them go into this system with no hope. I wish they were not in the 
system at all. But as they go into the system and then they become 
institutionalized as adults, then we need to have the second chance 
legislation that owns on up to the fact that we are, in fact, our 
brothers' and sisters' keepers, we are Good Samaritans, and we must 
find a way to save the lives of those who have paid their time and have 
come out to help their families.
  With that, I ask us to really get this moving, and I thank you for 
your leadership.
  I thank Congresswoman Lee for her yielding and Congressman Davis and 
all those that we've worked with for moving this bill forward.
  Mr. Speaker, let me thank my dear friend, Mr. Danny Davis of 
Illinois, for organizing this special order on the very important 
subject addressing the prison warehousing crisis in this country. H.R. 
1593, The Second Chance Act, a bill of which I am an original co-
sponsor, addresses the very serious concerns about the compromised 
state of warehousing prisoners.
  Earlier this year the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and 
Homeland Security, of which I am a member, held hearings to address the 
state of certain conditions within the United States prison system. In 
one of those hearings, my colleagues and I considered the merits of The 
Second Chance Act, and my amendment which I offered in the last 
Congress was included in the base bill this year.
  The Second Chance Act is designed to reduce recidivism, increase 
public safety, and help state and local governments better address the 
growing population of ex-offenders returning their communities. The 
bill focuses on four areas: development and support of programs that 
provide alternatives to incarceration, expansion of the availability of 
substance abuse treatment, strengthening families and the expansion of 
comprehensive re-entry services. The Subcommittee has held a series of 
hearings on issues relating to re-entry of prisoners and this 
legislation dating back to the 108th Congress. Our most recent hearing, 
on March 20, 2007, focused on re-entry best practices and the 
continuing need for Federal support of re-entry program development.
  Nearly two-thirds of released state prisoners are expected to be re-
arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years of their 
release. Such high recidivism rates translate into thousands of new 
crimes each year and wasted taxpayer dollars, which can be averted 
through improved prisoner reentry efforts.
  The ``Second Chance Act of 2007'' allocates $36o million towards a 
variety of reentry programs. One of the main components of the bill is 
the funding of demonstration projects that would provide ex-offenders 
with a coordinated continuum of housing, education, health, employment, 
and mentoring services. This broad array of services would provide 
stability and make the transition for ex-offenders easier, in turn 
reducing recidivism.
  Another reason why I strongly support this legislation is because it 
includes a provision contained in an amendment I offered during the 
Judiciary Committee markup of this bill in the 109th Congress. That 
amendment, incorporated in H.R. 1593 as Section 243 of the bill, 
requires that the:

       Attorney General shall collect data and develop best 
     practices of State corrections departments and child 
     protection agencies relating to the communication and 
     coordination between such State departments and agencies to 
     ensure the safety and support of children of incarcerated 
     parents (including those in foster care and kinship care), 
     and the support of parent-child relationships between 
     incarcerated (and formerly incarcerated) parents and their 
     children, as appropriate to the health and well-being of the 
     children.


[[Page 29651]]


  I also sponsored H.R. 261, the Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent 
Offender Relief Act of 2007 which I introduced earlier this year. H.R. 
261 directs the Bureau of Prisons, pursuant to a good time policy, to 
release a prisoner who has served one half or more of his or her term 
of imprisonment if that prisoner: (1) Has attained age 45; (2) has 
never been convicted of a crime of violence; and (3) has not engaged in 
any violation, involving violent conduct, of institutional disciplinary 
regulations.
  H.R. 261, would address the problem of warehousing in the Nation's 
Federal correction facilities non-violent offenders over the age of 45 
who have served more than half of their sentences and pose no future 
danger to society. As I stated during the markup of H.R. 1593, the 
Second Chance Act of 2007, I strongly believe that in affording older 
offenders a second chance to turn around their lives and contribute to 
society, that ex-offenders not be too old to take full advantage of a 
second chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of their families, 
friends, and communities. I believe setting an eligibility age of 45 
rather than 6o will better achieve the goal we all share.
  I am also concerned about the rehabilitation and treatment of 
juvenile offenders in my home state of Texas as it appears that the 
administrators of TYC have neglected their duties. The April 10, 2007 
``Dallas Morning News'', reported that ``two former Texas Youth 
Commission administrators were indicted on charges that they sexually 
abused teenage inmates at the state juvenile prison in Pyote''. The 
same article also cited the 2005 investigative report by Texas Rangers' 
Sgt. Burzynski which found that the two indicted TYC administrators, 
Brookins and Hernandez, had repeatedly molested inmates in the Pyote 
prison. The report is cited as saying that Mr. Brookins, who during 
some periods was the top official, had shown sex toys and pornography 
in his office, while Mr. Hernandez molested inmates in classrooms and 
closets.
  I hope that all of my colleagues would join me in supporting the 
Second Chance Act as well as my bill H.R. 261, the Federal Prison 
Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act of 2007. It is time to make a 
change.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Prisoner re-entry is not a democratic issue. It's 
not a Republican issue. It is a commonsense issue. The facts are clear. 
Meaningful re-entry programs significantly diminish the chances that 
ex-offenders will return to prison.
  It gives me great pleasure at this time to yield to my colleague and 
good friend, another leader on this issue, the Congresswoman from the 
great State of California, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
  Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you Congresswoman Tubbs 
Jones for once again organizing these very important message hours. 
Again, your experience as a judge, as a prosecutor, as a mother of a 
young African American brilliant young man understands very clearly why 
this legislation is so important.

                              {time}  2100

  You have seen lives shattered and you have done your best in so many 
ways to make sure that efforts such as the Second Chance Act gets 
passed. So thank you again for your leadership and for everything that 
you are doing.
  And to Congressman Danny Davis, let me just say I am so excited that 
finally we will get a chance to vote on this very important bill. You 
have been the lone voice in the wilderness and have been working on 
this for so many years. We all must begin to recognize the unique needs 
of those formerly incarcerated individuals on the path to reentry, and 
I can think of no one who has led in this effort such as yourself, 
Congressman Davis. So thank you again and congratulations.
  Today our prisons and our jails are filled to the roof, mostly with 
nonviolent drug offenders at enormous cost to the taxpayers. The 
politics of locking people up, very easy. Though not enough lawmakers 
have given really much thought to the hard part, and that is the fact 
that more than 95 percent, 95 percent of those who are locked up will 
return at some point home with little or no preparation to succeed and 
no support to keep them out of jail.
  The reality is recidivism rates continue to rise, with nearly 70 
percent of those released from incarceration returning to prison within 
3 years. Without arming them with the necessary tools for survival, we 
are condemning them to repeat their past mistakes. This does nothing to 
reduce crime, nor does it do anything to provide for safer communities.
  Today we can truly change the landscape of reentry programs. We must 
make rehabilitation a reality, not just an abstract proposal. By 
providing all formerly incarcerated individuals with greater access to 
education, jobs, health care, drug treatment, we will reduce recidivism 
rates across the board.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact is, and just let me say with regard to my 
district alone, over 14,000 formerly incarcerated persons return to my 
congressional district every year. In my home State of California, over 
500,000 adults, 500,000 adults are on parole or probation, primarily 
African American and Latino men. Moreover, California spends about 
$7,200, just a drop in the bucket, every year on each student but pays 
over $25,000 a year for each prisoner. Governor Schwarzenegger has 
increased the prison budget by more than $5 billion. That's more than 
$1 billion a year since he took office. This is not the way to go. And 
in California, unfortunately, and we have worked very hard to do this 
and still haven't quite made it, rehabilitation is still not a part of 
California's prison reform effort.
  So what we are doing here by helping with the Second Chance Act and 
getting this passed provides for comprehensive reentry programs that 
are really critical not only to my State but to the entire country.
  Up to 60 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals are unemployed 
a year after release, and up to 30 percent go directly to homeless 
shelters upon their release. The incidents of drug use among ex-
offenders is over 80 percent. Now, that's twice the rate of the United 
States population. It is more than clear that something needs to be 
done.
  Following the lead of our colleague from Illinois, Congressman Davis, 
just this past weekend, and I wanted to mention this because 
Congressman Davis was with at our first record remedy Clean Slate 
Summit 3 years ago to help those who qualify to legally clean up their 
record so that they can gain access to employment, education, housing, 
and civic opportunities. Since this first clinic in April of 2005, and 
I believe Congressman Clyburn was there and Congressman Watt and they 
witnessed this, there were 900 to 1,000 individuals, primarily African 
American men, who came to learn about how to clear up their records.
  Well, I am very proud to say that now we have cleared approximately 
3,600 records. We worked to coordinate these efforts of community 
groups like the East Bay Community Law Center and All of Us Or None of 
Us, which is a phenomenal organization, headed by Dorsey Nunn, whom 
Congressman Davis knows, who has chapters all over the country, and 
they are certainly leading the way in our community. Also with great 
elected leaders like Mayor Dellums and Assembly member Sandre Swanson, 
Supervisor Carson, many of our judges and the District Attorney's 
office.
  And it is only through this very comprehensive and cooperative 
approach that we can successfully assist those who are so often 
completely cut off from their communities. And this is only a small 
example of what we can do within a very narrowly defined law. But it is 
truly all about us or none of us.
  We have a vested interest, a vested interest, in making sure that 
people reenter our communities successfully. Help with cleaning their 
records provides an opportunity for formerly incarcerated individuals 
to get a job, to go back to school, or to find a place to live. This 
bill is so important to all of these efforts.
  Also I want to thank Congressman Davis and Congresswoman Tubbs Jones 
for helping us deal with this one issue that, again, is so important 
but oftentimes goes below the radar, and that is allowing ex-offenders 
who have paid their debt to society to be allowed access to food 
stamps. Many don't even know that there is a lifetime ban, lifetime 
ban, on applying for food stamps for those who have been convicted of 
drug felonies. We say let them eat. I mean, you know, let them eat. Two 
hundred dollars, and you are turned

[[Page 29652]]

out into a community with nothing and can't even get food stamps. This 
is a shame and disgrace.
  Again, so many examples of laws that need to be changed, that need to 
be changed. But this moment we have now to help pass a bill to help 
formerly incarcerated individuals receive this second chance is so, so 
important.
  Let me remind us of what Booker T. Washington once said. He said: 
``Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has 
reached in life but by the obstacles which he or she has overcome.'' We 
must end this cycle of injustice that is perpetrated by a system that 
continues to punish people long after they have paid their debts to 
society. No one condones criminal activity; but I tell you once one 
serves their time, they should be able to feed their family and move on 
with their lives.
  In closing, like Congresswomen Tubbs Jones and Jackson-Lee indicated, 
as I listened to those speaking tonight in honor of National Bible Week 
and as one who deeply believes in the wisdom and direction of the 
Bible, to love one another, I do hope that these statements which we 
heard tonight weren't just a bunch of rhetoric. I hope that all of 
those lifting up the teachings of the Bible tonight vote for this bill, 
H.R. 1593, and all of the legislation sponsored by members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, which continues to be the conscience of the 
Congress. Our bills, many bills that we see come to this floor truly 
reflect the command of the Bible to take care of the least of these. So 
tonight and this week we have a chance to do just that.
  And I want to thank Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick, our great Chair 
of the Congressional Black Caucus for making sure that we come to the 
floor and have this opportunity to let the country know what the 
Congressional Black Caucus stands for and what we are doing for the 
least of these.
  Thank you Congresswoman Tubbs Jones again for yielding.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the 
Congressional Black Caucus on this incredibly important message hour. I 
wandered in and we should all be here. This is tremendous.
  And, Representative Davis, thanks for your leadership, along with 
your colleagues in doing this. This is tremendous to listen to you. And 
you are the conscience of America, let alone the Congress. You are 
doing a great job.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Thank you.
  Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I have been waiting 30 years for 
Congress to enact meaningful reentry legislation, as I have been deeply 
involved in prison reentry programs since my days as a municipal court 
judge, common plea judge, and county prosecutor in Cleveland. While 
prosecutor, I helped to establish the Pretrial Diversion program, as 
well as the Municipal Drug Court program. And I am so happy to be able 
to say that it's my understanding that the drug court program in 
Cleveland is going to move from the municipal court to expand to the 
common pleas court so it is county-wide. Both programs, I'm proud to 
say, still exist and continue to help ex-offenders move on with their 
lives and become productive citizens.
  The State of Ohio has one of the largest populations of ex-offenders 
reentering the community, with about 24,000 ex-offenders returning to 
their respective communities annually. Of those ex-offenders, about 
6,000 will return to Cuyahoga County, my county, and almost 5,000 will 
reenter in the City of Cleveland. Statewide about 40 percent of ex-
offenders will return to prison. In Cuyahoga County about 41 percent 
will return. Such high recidivism rates translate into thousands of new 
crimes each year and wasted taxpayer dollars.
  Today I am proud to stand with my colleague Danny Davis as an 
original cosponsor of the Second Chance Act of 2007. This legislation 
is forward-thinking. It provides opportunities for all the Members of 
Congress who sincerely believe in helping their brother or their sister 
in times of need to support this legislation.
  It gives me great pleasure to yield to the lead sponsor of the Second 
Chance Act, Danny Davis of Illinois, and say to him, Danny, thank you 
for your leadership on this issue. I'm proud to join with you around 
the work that we have been doing on behalf of ex-offenders across the 
Nation.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding.
  First of all, I want to commend our leader of the Congressional Black 
Caucus, the gentlewoman from Detroit, Michigan, who engages us in such 
a way that we are able to do a number of different things as she 
provides opportunity for different individuals to display leadership. 
And so having Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones convene each Monday 
a Special Order, an hour, where the Congressional Black Caucus members 
come and discuss issues, I tell you it is a pleasure for me to be here 
with my Delta sister from Cleveland, Ohio, a distinguished jurist, 
having been a defense attorney, a judge, a prosecutor, legislator, who 
understands this issue from every angle, any way that you look at it. 
Individuals who are being defended, individuals who have gone into the 
system, having to pass judgment, in a sense, and having to bring 
charges. It is just a pleasure to be here and to commend you because 
you do this every week, every Monday night. I mean, I was struggling to 
get here because my plane had some difficulty, but I am so delighted 
that I made it.
  And to have the opportunity to work with individuals like 
Representative Barbara Lee, listening to Barbara with all of the things 
that are going on in the Oakland community, the neighborhood, it almost 
makes you dizzy.

                              {time}  2115

  But the interesting thing about it is that you know that it's real 
because you get the opportunity to see it. I mean, just imagine that 
number of individuals that you all have helped clear their records so 
that they can get a job, so that they can go to work, so that they can 
have a chance. And to know that that's only one of the issues, because 
you're leading internationally in creating awareness about the AIDS 
pandemic, generating resources and money, bringing to the forefront 
health issues that people kind of forget about.
  Barbara, it is just a pleasure and an honor to have the opportunity 
to serve in the same body with you at the same time and to be inspired 
and motivated by the work that you do and by the spirit that you have 
and the energy. I mean, Members of the caucus trying to keep up with 
you and Sheila Jackson-Lee, with your energy levels, I mean, it's 
almost impossible. You can't do it. And so, you know, you just do the 
best that you can and follow along and follow suit. Because it has been 
a combination of all this work that has raised this issue to the point 
where I'm holding in my hand 17 pages of paper that the Chicago Tribune 
did last week on this issue, beginning last Sunday with a front page 
story, and then following through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And 
the first story was three pages.
  You know, the Chicago Tribune is a big newspaper, and they 
highlighted the work of the North Lawndale Employment Network that has 
a project where they're teaching ex-offenders how to make honey and how 
to tend to bees. And they've actually developed a business. And these 
individuals are able now to actually go to work every day, earn a 
living. Some of them have already been able to max out of that program, 
go into other areas and get jobs, as people have seen what they do. And 
so, we are making progress.
  But even so, the progress that we're making is awfully small compared 
to what is needed. And I thought it was just so important what you said 
about Booker Washington in terms of looking at where people have been 
and where they've come from. And so when we look at the history of this 
country and we recognize the travail, the difficulty that some 
population groups have had, that African Americans have experienced, 
and now we're trying to make sure that these individuals who have

[[Page 29653]]

fallen off the path, who have succumbed in some ways to the 
difficulties of living in a tough environment, who are trying to find 
their way back, every day I come into contact with a story of somebody 
who is on the way up, on the way back, who found a way to get 
themselves a job.
  I agree with all of my colleagues who have talked about this being 
National Bible Week. And I was thinking, as I listened, that we all get 
awards and we all get plaques and we all get things given to us. And 
the greatest thing that I have ever had given to me was something 
called the Gutenburg Award, which came from the Chicago Bible Society, 
which is a group of theologians and Bible scholars who analyze work. 
And on the basis of one's work and whether or not the work that they're 
doing is in keeping with the principles of the Bible, they give awards.
  And so, when we talk about redemption and the need to redeem, there 
are more than 650,000 individuals who come out of jail and prison every 
year in the United States of America and they need to be redeemed. And 
so, if you want to be redeemed, you don't have to just go down by the 
Jordan Stream, you can go to some of the community programs that exist. 
You can help make sure that we provide resources so that those 
individuals who come home from jail and prison have some place to go, 
so that they have somebody to help them. Because if they get help, the 
chances of them recidivating are much less than if they don't.
  The statistics show that 67 percent of the individuals who don't get 
help are more than likely going to do what we call ``re-offend'' within 
a 3-year period of time. More than 50 percent of them will be 
reincarcerated. But the recidivism rate goes down contingent upon the 
amount of help that they get. Some programs has it down as low as 18-20 
percent. Well, that's just doing a great job. And I would hope that 
before the week is over, and we're expecting certainly before we 
adjourn, that the United States Congress is going to see the wisdom of 
reclaiming lives, of helping put people back on the employment rolls so 
that they can pay taxes.
  You know, I would much rather help a person pay taxes. There is an 
old saying that if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day, but if 
you teach him how to fish, he can eat for a lifetime. And so, if we 
help the individuals learn how to re-enter and function, then they're 
going to help further develop our Nation.
  So, I just thank you so much for your leadership and the great work 
that you've done on this issue and how you tie in the Ways and Means 
functions with the needs of these individuals. And we talk about, you 
know, people can't get food stamps.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. And if the gentlemen would yield, that 
legislation prohibits offenders who have drug convictions from getting 
student loans. So if they wanted to go back to school and change their 
lives, we've got legislation that prohibits them from having the 
opportunity to go back to college.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Well, there are so many barriers, when you sit 
and look at it, and you wonder, for example, the person who wants to go 
to college can't get a Pell Grant. And many of the individuals who are 
incarcerated are young individuals who got caught up maybe in a place 
where they were smoking cocaine or they may have gotten picked up and 
had some controlled substance on them. And now they're out of school, 
they can't get a Pell Grant. And fortunately, we're beginning to 
seriously look at that. And fortunately the Supreme Court is looking 
seriously at the sentencing disparities that have existed relative to 
the difference between the sentences that you get for a conviction of 
having crack cocaine versus powder cocaine.
  And I think what we're really saying is that these issues have to be 
brought to the forefront, and that's why these Special Orders are so 
important. I've always been told that awareness brings about 
dissatisfaction, and that the more people learn about the way things 
are, the more dissatisfied they become. And then if you can take that 
dissatisfaction and organize it into some action, now you've got a 
chance for some movement.
  And therefore, we want to thank all of those many groups who have 
been in support of the Second Chance Act, all of that coalition, The 
Working Group, individuals who work with criminal justice issues, 
individuals who work with drug courts, individuals who know that there 
is a better way and a different way, we just have to see that road.
  And, you know, the Bible has just so many great experiences. You 
know, I remember the story of Paul, you know, Saul of Tarsus on his way 
to persecute the Christians, but something turned him around. He met 
something and somebody along the road. And from being a prosecutor, he 
became the greatest advocate for Christianity that we have known, other 
than Jesus the Christ himself.
  And so, we hope that there are people who will change their opinions 
about what to do with individuals who have fallen off the path. And 
again, it's just a real pleasure to be here with you and to share this 
time.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Thank you, Congressman Davis. I want to close 
this hour with just a few comments.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Let me do this before you do. I would like to 
have this document included in the Record, because I think they are 
such a great indication of how mass media is beginning to understand 
the issue and beginning to recognize it as a problem. And I would like 
to include in the Record this document from the Chicago Tribune.

               [From the Chicago Tribune, Oct. 28, 2007]

                             The Beekeepers

                          (By Louise Kiernan)

       The men opened the hive and bees swirled up into the sky 
     like sparks from a fire.
       Bees flew through the weedy yard and past the chain-link 
     fence. They flew into the alley, where a woman braced herself 
     against the hood of a police car.
       Bees flew toward the gas station, where the calls of 
     hustlers selling drugs sliced the air. And beyond where the 
     men could see them, bees scattered into the vacant lots and 
     back-yard gardens, parks and parking lots of Chicago's West 
     Side, searching, as always, for nectar.
       This sunny morning in September 2006 was warm, but a bite 
     to the breeze signaled fall. A boy walked by, dressed in a 
     white shirt and navy pants. School had opened today. It was 
     time for a new start, time for what the people who work at 
     the non-profit agency on this corner in East Garfield Park 
     had decided to call Sweet Beginnings.
       The three men standing at the hive were learning how to 
     become beekeepers. None had any experience at this job or, 
     for that matter, much significant work history at all.
       Tony Smith, a pug of a man with a broad face, moved with 
     the graceful, contained gestures of someone accustomed to 
     negotiating small spaces. At 30, he had spent half his life 
     in prison.
       Hovering uneasily behind him was Shelby Gallion, a 22-year-
     old former drug dealer. In an oversized T-shirt and jeans 
     that blurred the outlines of his body, his expression 
     unreadable, Shelby looked a little out of focus, as if he 
     might eventually drift out of sight. He lived in a halfway 
     house, still on parole.
       Gerald Whitehead, the oldest member of the trio at 49, had 
     been released from jail just a week before, after being 
     cleared of a heroin-possession charge, the most recent 
     stumble in the struggle to turn his life around after decades 
     of violence and addiction. Gerald seemed intimidating, with 
     his heavy-lidded eyes and thrust-out chin, but when he 
     smiled, his face cracked open wide and bright.
       The three men and 17 hives in this yard were the makings of 
     a small experiment, an attempt to address one of the most 
     stubborn and destructive problems in Chicago and other cities 
     around the country: what to do with the hundreds of thousands 
     of people released each year from prison.
       Over the last three decades, harsher penalties for drug 
     crimes and stricter sentencing laws have helped fuel 
     explosive growth in the nation's prison population and, 
     inevitably, in the number of inmates returning to society. In 
     Chicago alone, roughly 20,000 ex-offenders come home each 
     year.
       Most end up in neighborhoods like this one, where 
     unemployment is high, opportunity scant and the temptation of 
     drugs and crime rarely more than a corner away. They don't 
     stay long. More than half the state's prisoners find 
     themselves back behind bars within three years of their 
     release.
       Finding work can reduce someone's chances of returning to 
     prison. Although getting a job with a criminal record is 
     difficult, checking the conviction box on an application 
     poses only one hurdle. Many former inmates face other 
     problems, from poor education and little understanding of 
     workplace rules to drug addiction or a lack of stable

[[Page 29654]]

     housing. And behaviors that help people thrive on the job--
     teamwork, communication--are often the opposite of those that 
     ensure survival in prison.
       For five years, the North Lawndale Employment Network, or 
     NLEN, had helped ex-offenders find employment. With Sweet 
     Beginnings, the agency decided to create its own jobs, in its 
     own neighborhood, where people could learn how to work and 
     build an employment history before they moved on. The idea 
     attracted the attention of major philanthropies and 
     companies, among them the MacArthur Foundation, Boeing Co. 
     and Ben & Jerry's, each of which donated expertise or money 
     to the effort.
       Now, what may have once seemed like little more than a 
     quirky venture--using former prisoners to produce honey in 
     the ghetto--stood on the verge of transforming itself into a 
     high-profile business.
       Whether it would succeed depended in part upon the three 
     men in the yard. The men measured success in starker terms. 
     Failing, they feared, meant going back to the streets, going 
     back to prison or getting killed.
       During the coming year, through the bees' final foraging in 
     fall, the threat of winter, promise of spring and richness of 
     summer, the men and the enterprise of Sweet Beginnings would 
     attempt nothing less than their own reinvention.
       This morning's lesson was about survival. John Hansen, the 
     beekeeper training the workers, showed them how to tilt the 
     hives to get a sense of how much honey they contained. A 
     heavy hive meant the bees had stored enough to make it 
     through the winter. A lighter hive would need help.
       The hives, with their unevenly stacked wooden boxes, called 
     supers, looked like tipsy filing cabinets scattered among the 
     clumps of goldenrod, Queen Anne's lace and clover.
       The men moved among them, gently leaning each hive back and 
     opening the lid to peer inside.
       An elderly woman stopped at the fence. ``What ya'll got in 
     there? Bees?'' she asked.
       ``Yep,'' John answered, still bent over a hive.
       ``Oh, Lord, think I better get back.''
       After a minute or two, Shelby disappeared inside the 
     building. John continued to make his way around the yard, 
     Gerald and Tony in tow.
       ``Look at that,'' John cried out at Hive No. 2, lifting a 
     frame thick with honey, each cell a stud of gold. At Hive No. 
     6, bees crowded the entrance, but the supers felt 
     suspiciously light.
       When they finished, John delivered his verdict.
       ``I think,'' he said, ``we can bring them through the 
     winter.''

                             Second Chances

     ``To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,--
     One clover, and a bee,
     And revery.''--Emily Dickinson

       In this pocket of the West Side, the past may fade or burn 
     or erode almost to dust, but it persists. It holds on.
       Like the Star of David that adorns the front of the 
     Independence Boulevard Seventh Day Adventist Church, a 
     remnant from the time when Chicago's Jews lived and worshiped 
     in the neighborhood. Or the cracked patches of concrete in 
     the overgrown lot at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., where Martin Luther 
     King Jr. lived for a short time in a rundown apartment to 
     protest the way Chicago's blacks were housed.
       Or, in the conference room at the North Lawndale Employment 
     Network, the blotch of greenish ink on Tony Smith's right 
     forearm, visible as he took notes in a narrow, slanting 
     script. It had been a tattoo of a cobra until he removed what 
     he could with lemon juice and a sewing needle.
       The cobra is a symbol of the Mickey Cobras street gang, as 
     is the ``MC'' inked on Tony's left shoulder. Police records 
     say Tony belonged to this gang. He won't say much about that 
     or anything else in his past.
       What he will say is this: ``I was a naive, snotty-nosed 
     street kid who didn't care about himself or other people.''
       His first arrest came at age 9, for disorderly conduct. By 
     the time he turned 13 he had been convicted in an attempted 
     murder and was, according to a police officer who knew him, 
     one of the most violent and feared gang members in the 
     Cabrini-Green public housing complex. He marked his 16th 
     birthday awaiting trial for beating three men with a gun and 
     torturing two of them with a heated ice-chopper. That crime 
     earned Tony a 30-year prison sentence.
       He emerged almost 15 years later, having never used a cell 
     phone or filled out a job application. When he talked about 
     what he wanted to see for the first time with his own eyes, 
     he named--after Navy Pier and Millennium Park--a Jet Ski.
       Across the conference table, Shelby idly twirled one of the 
     braids near his ear. Shelby's past was his shoes. The 
     butterscotch Timberland boots imprinted with tiny hexagons or 
     the candy-bright Bathing Ape sneakers. New shoes, like his 
     new watch and new cell phone, the leather ``Scarface'' cell 
     phone case--all accessories of the lifestyle he said he 
     wanted to leave behind.
       He began selling drugs about the time he started high 
     school, and by his senior year, the money and all it bought 
     had easily trumped education. Then came two stints in prison 
     and, during the second one, nights spent lying on his cot, 
     wondering what would become of his two young daughters.
       That was why he had come to Sweet Beginnings. But he still 
     thought about the old life. It took him a week at the agency 
     to earn what he could have made in a matter of hours on the 
     street.
       And Gerald, standing at the kitchen window, staring out at 
     the hives?
       Gerald's past was the hovel of a building across the alley, 
     where he had snorted $10 bags of heroin. And his 
     grandmother's house three blocks away, where he had stayed as 
     a child and sexually assaulted a young woman as an adult. The 
     bar around the corner where he once got shot on his birthday. 
     His past was the man crossing the street he knew from 
     Narcotics Anonymous and the cap-shadowed teenager who walked 
     in the door of the North Lawndale Employment Network and 
     addressed him as ``Brother Bone.''
       Gerald's past was everywhere.
       His earliest memory was of being bitten by a dog. He bit 
     the dog back.
       Gerald wasn't sure whether he remembered this incident 
     because it happened or remembered it because he was told it 
     happened. It didn't matter. He became that story: the boy who 
     would bite back.
       He grew up with two older brothers and 10 younger sisters, 
     a mother who worked as a live-in nurse and a father who was, 
     as he put it, ``kind of missing in action.''
       Gerald struggled in school. He never learned how to read or 
     write well. The other children made fun of him. By 6th grade, 
     he had basically stopped going.
       ``I started out making a career,'' he said. ``Whatever I 
     could steal to make a hustle.''
       At the same time, he joined the Unknown Vice Lords. In the 
     gang, he could force respect from all the people who had once 
     belittled him. He moved up to become an ``elite,'' a top-
     ranking gang member and close associate of onetime Vice Lords 
     kingpin Willie Lloyd.
       From the age of 20, Gerald bounced in and out of prison, 
     spending more time inside than out: armed robbery, home 
     invasion, criminal sexual assault, burglary, aggravated 
     battery, drug possession.
       He was 43 before he decided he couldn't do the time 
     anymore. He has his conversion story. One night in prison, he 
     broke down. Was this all his life would ever be? Had God put 
     him here for nothing more? He wanted to die.
       Then, in his cell, he sensed the spirit of his late 
     grandmother, who always gave him a meal when he was hungry 
     and a bed when he was homeless, and he felt at peace.
       He could try to change.
       It proved difficult. He lost a job working in maintenance 
     at a nursing home after a background check revealed his 
     criminal record, he said. There was an arrest for domestic 
     battery. He was using drugs too, crack and then heroin. He 
     became a dope fiend, a hype.
       That went on for years, until his mother persuaded him to 
     check into a residential drug treatment program, where he 
     stayed for five months. Not long after he got out, in the 
     spring of 2006, he stopped by the fence at NLEN on his way to 
     sell loose cigarettes at the gas station nearby. He knew the 
     agency; the month before, he had gone through its four-week 
     job-training program for ex-offenders.
       A couple of men were setting up hives. Gerald asked if he 
     could watch. Then he asked if he could help. He stepped into 
     the yard and began handling the hives, as though, one of the 
     men observed, he had been beekeeping all his life.
       At first, Gerald worked for free. He did whatever needed to 
     be done: fixing the lawn mower, pulling weeds, picking up the 
     trash that blew in from the alley. It was somewhere to go 
     every day. Soon, the agency began to pay him, $7.25 an hour.
       Every day was a fight. Stay straight, go to work. Failing 
     would be as easy as stumbling off the curb into the street.
       ``It's a wrassle trying to do good,'' Gerald said one 
     afternoon. ``You always got evil whispering in your ear.''
       He felt comfortable around the bees. He liked them. If you 
     didn't know bees, he thought, they might scare you. But once 
     you knew them, you came to respect them.
       Gerald understood bees.
       Finding sweetness
       The building that housed the North Lawndale Employment 
     Network, near the corner of West Flournoy Street and South 
     Independence Boulevard, had once been a duplex and still felt 
     like someone's home.
       Walk in and you might find a worker bouncing a toddler on 
     her knee while she interviewed the child's mother or an old 
     woman grumbling about delays on the Pulaski bus.
       Most days, the center hummed with people who came for one 
     of the agency's job-training programs, a computer class or to 
     get help writing a resume. Amid the bustle, the Sweet 
     Beginnings employees set up beekeeping class at whatever 
     table happened to be free and began to learn about bees.
       They learned there are three types of honeybees: the worker 
     bee, which is female; the drone, which is male; and the queen 
     bee, which mates with the drones and lays the colony's eggs.
       They learned that a worker bee lives for about six weeks. 
     They learned that it takes

[[Page 29655]]

     the nectar from 5 million flowers to make 1 pint of honey. 
     They learned that pollen mixed with nectar is called bee 
     bread.
       During these lessons, Tony took notes on a yellow legal 
     pad. Gerald tilted his chair back or leaned forward, head 
     propped on his arms, always restless. Shelby occasionally 
     cleaned his nails with a public transit card.
       Their teacher, John Hansen, was 76 and white and jangled 
     the change in his pocket. He had begun keeping bees 31 years 
     before, after he saw a sign someone had posted on a bulletin 
     board at the suburban publishing company where he worked, 
     offering to sell two hives. He went on to become president of 
     the Illinois State Beekeepers Association, and in his 
     retirement, he still kept bees, sold honey and ran a small 
     business managing hives and removing bees from people's 
     homes.
       Of everything John taught the men about bees, they found 
     nothing as interesting or amusing as what they learned about 
     drones.
       When drones hatch, the worker bees help them out of their 
     brood cells while the worker bees must emerge on their own. 
     Drones that mate with the queen on what is euphemistically 
     called the ``nuptial flight'' die because the act rips their 
     sexual organs from their bodies. When winter approaches, 
     worker bees drive the drones from the hive, to certain death.
       One morning, Tony walked in with his heavily underlined 
     copy of ``Beekeeping in the Midwest,'' the book they were 
     assigned to read.
       ``It said male drones are like human males,'' Tony told 
     John. ``They don't do no work. I kid you not, that's what 
     they said.'' The book doesn't compare men and bees; that was 
     Tony's analysis.
       In the beginning, the men's hands-on instruction mostly 
     involved learning how to care for the hives and prepare them 
     for winter. While they worked, they used a smoker, a metal 
     can with attached bellows, to blow smoke into the hives to 
     distract the bees. The smoke causes the bees to act as though 
     their hive is on fire, and they eat honey to fortify 
     themselves to flee, ignoring intruders.
       Honey bees usually sting only if they feel threatened. Tony 
     had never been stung, so John plucked a bee from a hive and 
     stung him with it to make sure he wasn't allergic to the 
     venom. Gerald hardly seemed to notice stings or care beyond 
     issuing the occasional epithet. Shelby seemed the most leery, 
     often hanging back while the others worked. But when Tony 
     asked if the bees scared him, Shelby denied it.
       In the early fall, the men learned how to extract honey, to 
     harvest it from the frames where bees build the combs.
       Because the Sweet Beginnings hives didn't contain enough 
     honey to spare, John brought in eight frames from his own 
     apiary. The frames, stacked in the kitchen of the resource 
     center, looked a little like wood-frame screens, except that, 
     instead of wire grids, the panels held hundreds of hexagons 
     filled with honey.
       As the men crowded around a large metal tank, a lone bee 
     banged against the kitchen window.
       ``Do we have to actually do it?'' Tony asked.
       ``Yeah, you guys are going to do it,'' John replied.
       To extract honey, a beekeeper uses a knife to cut open the 
     wax caps that seal the individual cells of honey in the 
     frame. Then, the frames are placed in an extractor, which 
     spins them to release the honey. The honey drips down the 
     walls of the extractor and exits through a tap.
       Slowly and delicately, Shelby slid the knife against the 
     frame. Wax curled off in strips. A slight scent, sweet and 
     floral, filled the kitchen.
       ``Just swipe it,'' Tony advised.
       ``Let it ride even and flat,'' Gerald said.
       ``You're doing fine,'' John said. ``Just watch your 
     fingers.''
       Tony and Gerald each took a turn. The knife, as it drew 
     across the wax, made the thick, wet smack of a cartoon kiss. 
     Sunlight warmed the honey in the frames to the color of 
     amber, glowing against the black shadow of the blade.
       ``That honey look good, don't it?'' Tony asked.
       As the extractor spun, the air began to smell sweeter and 
     sweeter. Thin streams ran down the inside of the tank. 
     Minutes passed. A nickel-sized dollop of honey pooled on the 
     filter atop the white bucket under the tap.
       ``There's the first drop,'' John said.
       While the extractor whirred, the men went outside to check 
     on the bees. Brenda Palms Barber, the exuberant black woman 
     who served as the North Lawndale Employment Network's chief 
     executive officer, joined them.
       ``I want to see how the babies are doing,'' she called out, 
     standing at the hives, perfectly at ease in her gray suit 
     while the others wore jackets with netted hoods.
       More than two years before, Brenda had come up with the 
     idea for Sweet Beginnings when she decided that the 
     employment network needed to do more than help people find 
     jobs; it needed to create them.
       She considered a landscaping business or delivery service 
     but worried that customers might be reluctant to allow ex-
     offenders in their homes. A friend suggested a honey co-op.
       Brenda knew nothing about honey, but the idea intrigued 
     her. She liked it even better when she learned that some 
     people consider urban honey more flavorful than its rural 
     counterpart because the bees can gather nectar from more 
     varied flowers within a shorter distance. Imagine creating 
     sweetness out of the asphalt and hardship of the West Side.
       The agency launched Sweet Beginnings in the spring of 2004 
     with a grant from the Illinois Department of Corrections. Two 
     years later, after parting ways with the original group of 
     beekeepers working with the agency, the program started over 
     with fresh bees and a new idea.
       The bees came from Wisconsin, picked up and delivered by 
     NLEN's chief operating officer, who had to roll down the 
     windows of his Jeep Cherokee on the way back because the 
     30,000 bees generated so much heat and noise.
       The new idea came from a business plan created by 
     volunteers at Boeing, the chairwoman of the board of Ben & 
     Jerry's and others. It called for Sweet Beginnings to shift 
     its focus from selling honey to selling honey-based products 
     such as lotion and lip balm. They hoped the move would 
     increase profits and, with the expansion into manufacturing, 
     packaging and marketing, the job prospects of its workers.
       When Brenda and the beekeepers returned to the kitchen, 
     about 4 inches of honey stood in the 5-gallon bucket.
       She passed out plastic spoons and everyone dipped in to 
     taste.
       ``Yum,'' she said. ``It's really, really good.''
       She continued to talk, in a stream of words as smooth and 
     unbroken as the honey pouring into the bucket. She talked 
     about biscuits and business competition and hosting a honey 
     cook-off and social purpose and making lip balm.
       When she was almost done, she said, ``That's some of the 
     stuff we're thinking.'' Then she paused and said something 
     else, slowly, as if the idea had just struck her.
       ``Our demographic,'' she said, ``is the opposite of the 
     people working on it.''

                            Under suspicion

       ``There is a Thief Amongst Us!'' the signs announced.
       ``IS IT YOU!''
       One sign was posted above the sink in the kitchen of the 
     resource center. Another was taped to the bathroom door. More 
     hung on the walls next to inspirational quotes from Eleanor 
     Roosevelt and Gail Sheehy.
       The signs went up in late September, after someone stole 
     the agency's digital camera from a cabinet in the downstairs 
     conference room. It was only the second theft in the two 
     years since NLEN had moved into the building, and it hurt.
       The agency prided itself on being the kind of place where 
     visitors wandered back to the kitchen to help themselves to 
     coffee and bought candy for school fundraisers by dropping a 
     dollar on a desktop.
       No doors barred the offices; no cameras peered down from 
     the ceilings. The clients who came here already felt as 
     though the world treated them like criminals; the people who 
     helped them didn't want to do the same.
       That trust disappeared with the discovery of a dented 
     cabinet door.
       Brenda felt betrayed. She didn't like thieves. She could 
     find a job for a murderer before she could find one for a 
     thief. Stealing was a crime of opportunity, and every time a 
     thief saw something to steal, he had to decide not to steal 
     it.
       If the signs shouted the crime, other conversations in the 
     building occurred in whispers.
       Who would know the camera was kept in the basement 
     conference room, in the cabinet with the VCR? The beekeepers, 
     who watched videos for their classes. And Gerald? Well, he 
     had been an addict, and everyone knows that hypes steal.

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. I want to highlight, if I might, just a couple of 
programs in the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, that have been 
successful in community re-entry.
  I have served on the board of the Community Re-Entry Program under 
the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries for some 25 years. I remember with 
great glee Rev. Dick Searing, who has gone on to shine down upon us as 
we continue his work, as well as Charles See, who is the executive 
director, and a lot of the members that were on the board. We were 
able, through Community Re-Entry, to do a number of things, and one of 
those was to develop care teams, and the care teams were made of ex-
offenders. And we developed these care teams such that at one point in 
time they were literally serving as caretakers or workers for senior 
citizens staying in public housing.
  One of the senior citizens actually said that she viewed the, we 
called them ``care team members,'' and they wore red jackets, and she 
stated how she felt about them. And she said, ``They're not criminals. 
They're just

[[Page 29656]]

like my sons. And they've been taking care of me.''
  The care teams were paid employees of Community Re-Entry. They 
received a full-time benefit package, including vacation, health 
insurance and pension that was fully vested after 1 year. The 
recidivism rate for our care team members was less than 5 percent.
  We also had a program under Community Re-Entry called Friend to 
Friend. The Friend to Friend program recruited, trained and coordinated 
volunteers to visit men and women in prison. Male volunteers are 
matched with men at Lorain Correctional and Grafton Prison located in 
Lorain County Ohio, and females were matched with women at the Pre-
Release Center in Cleveland. The purpose of the program is to reduce 
socialization of people who are incarcerated and help them prepare for 
re-entry into the community. Because one of the dilemmas is that 
sometimes the penal institution is so far away from the family 
background, that they have a family home that they have no way of going 
to visit. Also, it is said that an inmate in prison is more likely to 
successfully re-enter if he has a support base around him when he or 
she returns home.
  Another wonderful program that we had was we started a catering 
service that was run by ex-offenders who prepared boxed lunches, and we 
were able to serve many of the downtown businesses who did box lunches. 
We also had a painting company, and we were able to paint many of the 
different houses across the county.
  What I would really just want to say in concluding this is that this 
is a unique opportunity for this Congress to step up and support a 
program that truly has been successful across the country. Community 
entry means that we will say to ex-offenders in this Nation, if you 
have done your time, then you have paid your commitment to the United 
States, the State of Ohio, whatever State you come from, and we now 
want to help you come back to be a productive citizen in the United 
States of America; paying taxes, raising families, paying child 
support, and really helping to make our community a better place.
  I am so pleased to have an opportunity, and I said, I've been waiting 
30 years for the Federal Congress to come back and do what they need to 
do with regard to community re-entry.
  I thank all of my colleagues and friends for the opportunity. And I'm 
going to say it one more time, if we are truly going to celebrate the 
Bible, and my grandfather was a minister, I'm a student of the Bible, 
and I can name Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and go 
down the list, but I will say to you, the best thing that we can do is 
to take care of one another.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in 
strong support of the Second Chance Act, and I thank Mr. Davis for 
introducing this important piece of legislation.
  In America we have more than 2 million people in prison. Of these, 
over 600,000 are released each year. Very few of these individuals are 
prepared to return to their communities or receive support services to 
ease their transition.
  These ex-offenders face serious impediments in obtaining employment, 
and often have serious mental or physical ailments that remain 
unaddressed. Today, approximately half of all black men are jobless. 
Amongst ex-offenders this number is even higher.
  There is a revolving door of ex-offenders into many of our 
neighborhoods. With few opportunities, two-thirds of all ex-offenders 
are arrested for new crimes within a few years of their release. We 
must give these individuals the opportunity to become productive 
citizens.
  The Second Chance Act will go a long way towards this goal by 
providing transitional assistance to ex-offenders reentering their 
communities. By focusing on the major impediments that face ex-
offenders, the Second Chance Act seeks to reduce recidivism and give 
those reentering society a new opportunity to turn their lives around. 
This legislation addresses the need for jobs, housing, and substance 
abuse/mental health treatment, and it works to reunite families and 
provide the appropriate training and rehabilitation for these 
individuals.
  This bill will increase public safety and give millions of ex-
offenders a chance to be positive productive citizens. I strongly urge 
my colleagues' support.

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