Mr. Dillard thank you for your observation. Trauma informed care is truly something that is needed if we are going to be preventive. I can use myself as an example of someone who had traumas at the age of 1213 years old. When i was diagnosed, i had been severely depressed most of my life. One reason i self medicated was Illegal Drugs had i been diagnosed, maybe i could have been given legal drugs and avoided the criminal Justice System. The fact is, we never look at the cause, we just look at the effect. Many, many, many of these women and men who ive encountered have tremendous traumas. We are working as a Pure Organization to help them work through that. To avoid Walking Around as hurting people because we know hurt people hurt people. If we do not address those early on, further down the road after recidivism, we are still going to be paying a much higher cost. Mr. Ofer i will give a perspective informed by the fact that i spend a lot of my time in newark, new jersey. A city that is plagued by poverty. In certain communities, there is violence. What i see in newark and a lot of urban areas across new jersey and across the country, the only Agency Available in that municipality to address social needs the agency primarily available is the Police Department. To me, that is the root cause of the problem. You have wellmeaning police officers, wellmeaning city officials that literally have no one else to go to if there is minor misbehavior happening on the street that is minor. I will criticize divergent programs. While they are certainly better than sending someone directly to jail or prison, my reaction is this person should not have been in the criminal Justice System in the first place. We need to build up the resources of municipalities and states to have other agencies to go to when they are interacting with people with Mental Illness or drug addiction problems. The stigmatization of that label is something you will carry the rest of your life. It will prevent you from getting Student Loans, from getting a job. It is with a great deal of care that we should ever take that next step because we are in fact relegating that person to a certain quality of life for the rest of their life. Especially given the age of the internet where we can find out anything about anyone. I wanted to make a broader point that we are here to talk about what we are going to do about high incarceration rates. We cannot look at this problem without looking at the broad scope of Services Provided and how we can work more effectively for prevention. Senator ayotte i want to thank all of you for being here. Like my colleague we were both attorneys general in our states. One of the things i have worked on as an ag was Reentry Programs. Im a strong supporter of the Second Chance act in supporting its real authorization. I saw it from attorney general context where even people who were incarcerated for serious crimes, we did not give them any path for success Going Forward because they came out, they had a Substance Abuse problem, the underlying issue was never dealt with, no job, no place to live put your self in those shoes then i dare say that all of us would not be able to put it back together. I saw that your focus is really on Reentry Programs. We saw it in our state get some momentum and then fizzle. I wanted to get your thoughts on reentry type programs and what more we could do to make them more effective to try to end this cycle and get people on to productive lives. Mr. Dillard reentry is a crucial point. If there is planning done and individuals are given different options. I know the federal system, six months in a Halfway House is something i went through that was beneficial to me. I was able to obtain employment and save some money. To be able to rent a room when i was done with my federal time. What i am saying today is young men are coming out of our state and county systems homeless. 17, 18 years old who cant live with their mother because they have been told you cannot go there because subsidies are connected to their housing and they are couch surfing with those who are not doing so well for the antisocials that had an influence in them being placed in the criminal Justice System. In the very first place. Housing initiatives are huge. We are working on solutions in the region im working in, nonprofits and statebased organizations are engaging with us in providing housing and an affordable rate. Preparation is huge. Individuals have to identify certain things while in custody in order to have a paradigm shift that this cannot be an option. I had a client tell me that committing a new crime was not his first option. It was not his first choice, but it was his very last option. I know the troubling times he was in, sleeping on park benches, could not go to the shelter for various reasons. He committed a new crime. It was not his first choice, his very last option. The reentry process along with all the barriers, mentoring or connections with organizations that hire formerly incarcerated we are ambassadors. I look at us as being those who can help them through those trying times and pivot points of reentry. Mr. Ofer this is an oversight hearing on the bureau of prisons and the independent reviews that i keep referencing to look at this question of the bureau of prisons practices on Reentry Programming. Here is its finding in one sentence. There is no formal bureauwide Reentry Program. Inmates have limited access to Reentry Programming. The bureau does not do a good job in Reentry Programming. 2000 people a year in the federal bureau of prisons go from solitary back to Community Many of them dont know the exact number because the bureau does not track it come are sent directly from solitary back to communities. That is a terrible practice that needs to stop immediately. There needs to be a focus on Reentry Programming in the federal bureau of prisons. Senator ayotte thank you. I wanted to ask you, one of the things we are saying i saw this when i was ag as well. We are seeing on a devastating scale in our state, opioid and heroin addiction. Ive been working on legislation call to the comprehensive Addiction Recovery act. Im hoping we will take this issue up here i hope the Second Chance act there was some discussion you had about this idea of alternatives. What would you do as you think about this issue . How many people did you encounter that had addiction issues that were underlying why they were in prison . I fully agree we cannot arrest our way out of this. This is a Public Health crisis. Ms. Kerman thank you. Whats happening in New Hampshire is also happening in ohio and all over this country in terms of huge spikes in deaths from heroin. It is heartbreaking. Ms. Kerman it is devastating. It is fundamentally a Public Health question first and foremost. The intersections with the criminal Justice System should be secondary as we continue to see crime rates very low. Violent crime rates very low. People who sell drugs are breaking the law. Remembering that intervening in that addiction cycle is the most important thing and cannot be a couple with a jail cell. We see a lot of people trying lots of different things. I am not a doctor or an expert in addiction, but we see safe harbors in places like massachusetts. They have tried innovative approaches to getting folks the medical health they need and having that be the primary concern rather than incarceration. When we look at states like new york, new jersey, california, the states that have reduced their prison populations the most and have simultaneously continued to enjoy huge declines one of the things we have seen is a hugetates decline in prosecutions incarceration of people for lowlevel drug offenses. A recognition that those that public disorder is a reflection of the health problem. That is the way to tackle it. Senator baldwin. Senator baldwin thank you. First of all, i want to thank our panelists what a tremendous opportunity for us to hear from you and interact with you. I wanted to join the thanks for holding this hearing. Also to the Ranking Member as you said in the outset, this is a very big and very complex issue. I hope we will have additional opportunity im glad that you are recognizing this committees role in that discussion and i hope we can keep that up. Theres a number of things i wanted to touch on. I heard the Ranking Member talking about upholding the models in states that are working. I love to brag about my state, but in this case, im just going to share some of the statistics about Racial Disparities in the incarcerated population in our state. In wisconsin, africanamericans constitute 6 of the state population. 35 of those incarcerated in state prisons are africanamerican. According to a recent study from the university of wisconsin in milwaukee, 13 of wisconsins africanamerican men of working age were behind bars. Almost double the National Average of 6. 7 . The figures were particularly shocking and dismal for Milwaukee County were 50 of africanamerican men in their 30s had served time in prison. 45 of the inmates at our federal correctional facility are africanamerican and 9. 3 are hispanic. I hope as we continue to work on this complex issue that that will be on our minds. I just wanted to mention i previously i was never attorney general. I practiced law in a small general Practice Firm at the very beginning of my career. Mostly general practice. A couple of times, took misdemeanor public defender cases. I was becoming involved in county politics, statelevel legislative office at this time when i felt like i saw the precursors of what we are seeing now being debated. I had the honor of serving as chairwoman of the Corrections Committee in the state legislature for one term. I took our committee to prisons for tours, visits, conversations with people who work there, people who were inmates there. We had legislative hearings in the prisons, we went to the intake facility one of the minimumsecurity prisons, medium security prisons, womens prisons and visited work release facilities. The legislature was talking about should we allow private prisons to be built and run in wisconsin. Should we contract with other states to deal with our overflow issues and have them house are wisconsin prisoners . The counties were doing the same thing because some of the jails of the county level were overflowing. The substantive criminal justice debate at the time, three strikes youre out, limitation of elimination of parole. New crimes being created. There was a love debate about the elimination of prisonbased vocational programs, mandatory minimums were a big topic. There was a lot of debate. You could see all of this in the future. Now that feature has come and it is not going to be overnight that we figure out what missteps we had and how we deal with this in a saner way. I have a couple of questions im hoping you will be willing to submit some answers in writing. You mentioned that women are the fastestgrowing prison population right now. I remember years ago when i was visiting the womens prison in wisconsin, and seemed to me there were gender differences in how they dealt with certain issues. We talked a lot about solitary confinement. Is there a gender difference in how these issues are dealt with in womens prisons . For example i remember being , concerned about over medication of women to deal with behavioral issues as opposed to placement in solitary confinement. This is something we should still be looking at. Ms. Kerman we should absolutely be looking at these of solitary confinement in mens and womens prisons. I echo the testimony that solitary confinement is often used not for the most serious infractions like an assault but rather for very low level infractions. Women are overwhelmingly likely to be incarcerated for a nonViolent Crime and are very unlikely to use violence while they are incarcerated. Womens distilleries facilities do not struggle with violence. Solitary confinement is overwhelmingly used as a punitive measure. Female prisoners are disproportionately likely to suffer from Mental Illness. One of the tragic things that solitary confinement is that mentally ill people have a more difficult time following the rules of a prison. You ceasefire sanctions spiraling sanctions which land them in solitary confinement. A regularly healthy person placed in solitary confinement for 10 days, after 10 days will start to significantly terry deteriorate. Let alone a mentally will person. Mentally ill person. Let me ask a quick question about reentry. Access to vocational and educational programming. You can feel free to elaborate afterthefact in writing. I know i have such limited time. I recall the restriction of any sort of public funds for individualized Financial Aid assistance to those in state prisons because that was something i was looking at closely. I believe that has continued over time and we have additional restrictions once a person is back in the community, they want to seek additional vocational or Higher Education generally. It makes it possible for Financial Aid. You talked about people emerging burdened with debt not related to Higher Education. Tell me about the options for people to secure Post High School education upon release. Mr. Dillard ive seen more opportunities opening up for individuals post release. At one time, there was Student Loans im happy to hear that the pell grant is going on within the federal system. Im so happy to hear that because individuals prior to 1994 came out with Associates Degrees and went on to achieve bachelors and masters. The fact is, 98 of those who get a bachelors or higher degree never returned to prison. That is something we cannot ignore. We should support as far as Higher Education within the system. We do have a second panel. We could keep going on. This has been fascinating. I want to thank this panel we talked before hand, the purpose of every hearing is to define the problem and alter reality so we commit youve accomplished that goal bigtime. We have sold with fear of solitary confinement it might be good to pick one of those articles and hold another hearing. I was just going to get there. This is just a first of a series of hearings. We have a Mission Statement for this committee. Pretty simple to enhance the economic and National Security of america. This issue touches both. We have tried to find the areas of agreement. Weve seen that there is a great deal of bipartisan agreement that what we are going just does not work, not because of a lack of effort by our next panel of witnesses i encourage you and your organization to continue to press for this and work with those of us who want to solve this problem your points on solitary confinement are dead on and we need to fix that. Mr. Dillard, god bless you for having turned your life around and taking your circumstance and offering that to your fellow man to help other people find redemption. And ms. Kerman, your unintended celebrity, you have done an excellent job of raising these issues ive spoken to my staff i like your answer to the question in terms of what are alternatives. From my standpoint, a rigorous dose of community reparation, those types of programs, Community Service is the appropriate for people who have committed crimes we do need punishment and deterrence, but you just might heal in those programs and find that far more effective way of dealing with these issues than locking somebody up and seeing the results of women not working. I want to thank everybody here on this panel. I want to continue to work with you and numbers of the committee on bipartisan basis this is a first of a series of very important hearings. Thank you very much. I will call for the next panel. If you have time, i would love to have you stay and listen to our next panel as well. But you do not need to feel obligated to. Our first witness will be samuel mr. Charles samuel junior. 21,as appointed on december 2011. He oversaw all inmate management and program functions. He was also responsible for initiating reentry initiatives. Samuels i thank you for your time. I am pleased to discuss the operations of the federal bureau. Rison. I am also pleased to speak on behalf of of the employees. By applyingociety standards of facilities that are safe, humane, and secure. We provide programs to help them become lawabiding citizens. Simply stated, we protect society and reduce crime. We face challenges. The bureau does not control the number of people that come into the system or the length of stay. We are required to maintain safety, security, and effective Reentry Programs. We house people convicted of a variety of offenses. Many have extensive histories of violence. Drug offenders make up almost half of our population. House many, we offenders guilty convicted of international terrorism. The bureau is the Largest Agency in the country with 122 federal prisons, 178 communitybased facilities. The nations war,