Credibility and accountability and will tip to do so. Do you have another question. Im going to make a quick note on that. And see if dan agrees. Afghanistan is going from a fairly corrupt patronage system to a system which will be professional, transparent and noncorrupt. That is a long hard road to travel. And if president ghani moves too fast he will break his politics. And he will cause so many groups to be disgruntled with him and organize against him. So we have to be patient and recognize that this kind of transition is very difficult. Hes got to be on that road he has to be convincing of the afghan people, but we have to give him a little slack. Because if he moves too fast and breaks his politics and we lose the government, then we lose the possibility of moving to a professional, transparent and nonrupt system and go back to the old afghanistan and that is not good for anybody. Sorry. And i absolutely concur with that. And i guess finally the last question on reconciliation and the role of women. I wouldnt say that anyone is necessarily optimistic either. But nor are they pessimistic. It is truly a matter of just evaluating as much information as we can get and trying to seize most importantly this potential window of opportunity. It is this alinement of factors that is currently there right now that we should be able to take advantage of should we be able to do. So it is continuing to try to build a conducive facilitateive, hospitable environment for a reconciliation process should that become available and the way to do that is to continue to work with the Afghan Government and work with the pakistanis and work with others in the region and see what is spawned from trek two initiatives and see what might be achieved. But clearly, i mean, the commitment to women is not only something that obviously most unites our political left and right and congressional support in terms of wanting to safeguard the remarkable gains that have been made for women over the course of the last 14 years and which unites the key donors but truly something that this government and National Unit espouses because it knows it is the right thing and because it believes as passionately in it as we do. We see we saw that from president ghanis inaugural address and he talked about his wife and reconciliation for the first time and all of the subsequent time hes talked about reconciliation and his actions. The fact that he delivered on a commitm to appoint four women ministers and the fact there is the first women justice of the Supreme Court that was nominated and not confirmed but will take the opportunity to key to announce women tor key positions and to slowly again, cognizant of where we started this process, the fact that it is subject to poverty and instability and lack of institutions and lack of capacity and that every single step here is a calculation between what the policy goals are in the vision of how to get there and what is politically feasible as well. But i have no doubt that that commitment is shared by president ghani for to the advancement and continuing to safeguard the gains that women have made, by president ghani, and dr. Abdullah and by the entire government and with regards to specifically to reconciliation theyve said this is one of their key red lines and we have said consistently since the beginning of the administration and i remember secretary clinton announcing the same three red lines for the outcome of any process, particularly the embracing of the afghanistan constitution including the rights for women. Thank you. Were out of time. I would just like to thank all of you again for coming. I would like to say thank you to steve for giving ten days to visit the region. [ applause ] last but not least, particular thanks to ambassador feldman for his Public Service and in particular for his years at the special Representatives Office for afghanistan, pakistan and trying to bring peace to afghanistan and pakistan. And i have to say as somebody working on the region for a long time i feel more hopeful now that we are inching in that direction than i have in a long time. So thank you all. And thank you, dan. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you. [ proceedings adjourned ] and a reminder if you missed any of this event you can watch it at a Video Library at cspan. Org. And elsewhere in washington today, a short drive up the road from the institute of peace president obama at American University taking sharp aim at critics the Iran Nuclear Deal saying many of those who back the invasion of iraq now want to reject the accord and put the middle east on a likely path toward another war. This is from the washington post. Speaking to lawmakers opposing the deal mr. Obama said it would miss more than the chance to curb the nuclear program, it would cause the reputation on the United States and internet diplomacy. Well watch it tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan and watch it in the Video Library. And tonight a look at austin texas, we visit history sites across the nation to hear from local historians, authors and Civic Leaders every other weekend on cspan book tv and cspan 3s American History tv. And this month were featuring the citys tour each day at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Sunday night on q a former emergency manager of detroit kevin orr speaks about the Financial Issues and the job overseeing the largest municipal bankruptcy in u. S. History. If detroit had taken the 1. 5 billion that it borrowed in 2005 and 2006 when the stock market went down to 6,700 and just invested in a index fund, dow jones, s p it is trading at 18,000, three times what it was. They would have tripled their money, they could have paid the pensions in full and got back in declaration of the 13th check, giving pensioners a 13th check at the end of the year in addition to the 12 they are due. So it could have fixed itself if there was a sober management Going Forward, just like any organization, the United States as well, if you have strong and focused leadership you can resolve the problems but it takes a lot of effort. On sunday night on cspans q a. A panel of advocates and a panel of Justice Department officials testified before the Senate HomelandSecurity Committee on the effectiveness of the federal prison system. The first panel which included piper kerman author of orange is the new black, my year in a womens prison discuss their experiences in and out of the system and the work they are doing now to assist those still incarcerated or in the reentry process. This is 2 1 2 hours. Let me just say im really looking forward to this one. I was telling the witnesses i have read all of the testimony and generally do that as best to my ability. Sometimes the testimony provided before this committee can be a little dry. And as im reading it late at night, it will put me to sleep. Not so in this case whatsoever. I think the testimony was fascinating. Partly because i am somewhat new to this issue. Im going to keep my Opening Statements brief because i know senator booker would like to make an Opening Statement and im happy to have him do so since he has been involved in this issue a whole lot longer than i have. And i just want to make a few comments. Being a business guy, im data driven. The statistics on the bureau of prisons and the high levels of incarceration rates are stark. In 1980 for example, there were 25,000 people in the federal prison system. Today there are 209,000. That is 736 increase as our population has only increased 40 . In total, back in 1980, there are about 500,000 people in prison. Today there is 2. 3 million. We in america, have the highest level of incarceration in the world. In 2014 or 2013, 716 people per 100,000 population, the next closest country was rwanda with 492. Canada is 118. So i guess my primary comment is when you look at those stark statistics and you see and i appreciate that jerome dealer is here from wisconsin. Met with him earlier and part of a group called nehemiah project, a group of individuals some of them ex offender, spends some time in jail, trying to help other people reenter society. I remember during that meeting jerome how many times did i wince, as i was being told the story about how unbelievably difficult we make former offenders and people in jail to reenter society. So the purpose of the hearing is to lay out the realities and understand that what the bureau of prisons is dealing with is an incredibly difficult and complex problem. And i do have to mention that the testimony by Charles Samuels the current director is also powerful. And he lays out a little bit of the problem in terms of the dual mission of the bureau of prisons. Let me quick read from his testimony. The dual fold mission is to protect society by confining offenders in prisons and Community Based facilities that are safe human and cost efficient and appropriately secure. And to make sure offend rerz participating in programs that are law abiding when they return to our communities. That is a tough task. And i wish i could look at the statistics and say we are nailing that one and we have this problem solves but we dont. Were a long ways from it. The testimony will be in the federal system we only have a 14 recidivism rate, where state and locals it is over 60 . I guess we can look at that we are doing Something Better on the federal level than state and local but that is a long way from a successful result and im sure yule agree with me on that. And im not going to steal ms. Ker mans thunder from his testimony but at the end i want everybody to Pay Attention from the quote she will provide from mr. Thomas mott osborne because it lays out the issue and the question we should be asked as a civilized society. So with that ill turn it over to my Ranking Member senator tom carper. I want to thank senator booker for encouraging us to hold this important hearing. We thank you for coming as witnesses. My day job, was i was governor of delaware for eight years and very involved in the National Governors association. In delaware we dont have sheriffs jails, we dont have county jails or city jails, we have the state correctional system. We have one for adults ab one for juveniles and one for juveniles. In my second term as governor, general mccaffrey came, and he was the nations drug czar and he wanted to come and visit in wilmington at the prison because we are doing a good job in terms of reducing recidivism by half, from 75 to maybe 40 . And he wanted to find out how were doing with it and he brought with him abc camera crew as well. And ill never forget before he went into the prison and looked at the program to see how it worked, we met with about 50 inmates. And we met in a room much smaller than this room and all of their white garb and general mccaffrey and myself and been to many of the high schools and middle school, grade schools churches and other ball games and i had some idea of who some of them were and they didnt know who i was. And said to the guys, before we got started on the program part of the tour, i said, most of them, maybe 19, 20, 21, 22 years old. I said how did you end up getting here. What happened in your lives or didnt happen in your lives that led you here. About five or six guys spoke up before we took our tour and they all told stories that were verym6 similar. Very similar. I was born before i was born when my mom was young. I never knew my dad. I ended up in kindergarten other kids could read. They knew the letters and the numbers and i couldnt. I got into the first grade and i started falling behind. And the second grade and the third grade and fourth grade and falling further behind. And about the fourth grade, one guy said i realize if i act up in class and be a real nuisance, the teacher would stop calling on me. So he would put his head down and just stay out of trouble and he said eventually they would be put out in the hall by the fifth or sixth grade. And finally when i was in the seventh or eighth grade i was suspended from school and for a while i liked that. Because i was no longer embarrassed by how little i knew. And when i was in the ninth grade, i got expelled. And i found myself on the outside and everybody wants to be popular. Guys want to be popular. If you are a good athlete, you can be popular in school. If you could be good with the girls, you could be popular in school. I was nob of those. The only way to feel good about myself was to take drugs or kmu alcohol and when i did that, i felt good about myself. He said didnt have the ability to pay for those things. I ended up in a life of crime and i ended up in this prison. Every one of them told the same story. The same story. And the fella who was the commissioner of the corrections at the time, fella named stan taylor wonderful guy who used to say to me, 95 , 98 of the people incarcerated in our state are going to end up being released and come back into our society and we can send them back into society as better People Better patients or better parents or better criminals. And he said it is our choice. And it is a choice of the inmate themselves. So were big on root causes in this committee and im big on root causes in this committee. And if we take young men, young women, not so young men and women and do something about their addictions, while they are in cars rated that is helpful. If we do something about the lack of education that is helpful. If we do something about the lack of work skills or the ability to get up in the morning and know they have a job to go to, that is helpful. All of the above. All of the above. And the state laboratories of democracy, we can learn from them and from one another. Today were going to learn from you. And i thank you very much. And thank you for suggesting we be here. Lets have a good hearing. Thank you. Thank you senator carper. Ill ask for unanimous consent to enter my written statement into the record and with that senator booker. I want to start by expressing my gratitude to the Ranking Member and the chairman for having this hearing. It has been probably the best experience ive had in the United States soebts since i senate since i began about 18, 19 months ago to find such bipartisan willingness to deal with justice in our country. It is extraordinary from my hour meeting with chairman grassley today to sit with you today chairman to see this bipartisan willingness to confront the wrongs in our country that surround criminal justice and a determination to do something about it. Let me just interject before you go on. And we talked about this earlier, i was going to do a field hearing in milwaukee on high levels of incarceration. We didnt do it on that subject because this is so complex, and it was difficult to design the hearing so it wont be inflammatory. So again, i appreciate you working with me so we hold this one first here. But again this is first in a series. When what we end up having a hearing is School Choice and this is the beginning of the spectrum in terms of not providing a proper education and it ends up leading to this end result in terms of prison. But again, i appreciate your willingness to work with me on this and im hoping at some point in time we can move this discussion into different areas that this is pretty relevant one of them would be in milwaukee. Thank you. Im grateful to you. And weve had countless conversations about criminal Justice Reform and your eagerness, willingness, sincere desire to do something about it has been really encouraging to me in my early months in the senate and im thankful for that and this opportunity to be here today. It is a movement in our country to do something about it when you have a president of the United States, being the first president to do so we see that as part of our culture. As a christian, it says in the bible, matthew 25, when i was hungry you gave me something to eat, when i was thirsty, you gave me something to drink and when i was in prison, you came to visit me. This criminal Justice System is not about fear and retribution and guided by principals of justice, fairness and ultimately redemption. To me that is the american way. But unfortunately weve gone in a way that so far cuts against our common values and our ideals. This age of mass incarceration on a whole is violating our core principals in so many areas. To have us as we proclaim to be the land of freedom and liberty but to have one out of every four imprisoned people on the planet earth here in the United States of america even though we only have 4 to 5 that runs contrary to our core ideals to do this at such a massive expense to the taxpayer egregious expenditure where we spend a quarter of a trillion dollars of a year incarcerating human beings many of whom do not need to be incarcerated at the length they are. When we see our infrastructure crumbling and we had the resources between 1990 and 2005 to build a prison in this country every ten days runs against our principal values as a nation. When we see pour people poor People Ground up into a system but for the fact they dont have the resources for a liberation that we have a modern day debtors prison that runs contrary to our common values. We now are at a point in our country where we have literally almost one out of three americans between 75 and 100 million americans have an arrest record. If we go back to the revolutionary times and tell them there was a government in this land that would be seizing the liberty of almost one out of every three people, we would definitely have sparked that revolutionary spirit and now is a time that we need a revolution when it comes to issues of crime and punishment. And the chairman was clear i think it is important to state this is a narrow hearing about one specific aspect to begin a process of looking at reforms but if you look just at the bureau of prisons, the federal bureau has expanded 800