Dragging fun club because the Public Perception is that is what we are. And if i can stress one thing, and i saw mr. Samuels trying to stress it, and i would also. At one time early in my Law Enforcement career i may have had that same impression, but i have to tell you that overall i have never seen a more dedicated professional group of men and women at risk their lives and do it because they want to have a Safer Community and put themselves at great risk to do that. That aside, like any large bureaucracy envy tend to be the largest in any state or close to it, you end up with problems. It is how we react to those problems. That is why right now when i really appreciate what he have done by calling this hearing in miami participate because i can tell you that i dont know of any state in the nation that is not taking a hard look at their administrative segregation policy. You have really brought to the forefront. We all understand that as professionals the movement is this is not the right way we should be treating people. We get that. Will we ask for his help in finding some solutions because there are some that are too dangerous that they cannot be let out. I have to stress, than as a small number. Thank you. In your written testimony you stated that while the goal of your reforms is to decrease the number of offenders house in administrative segregation, there will be a need for a prison within a prison. Some vendors will need to be isolated to provide a secure environment for both staff and offenders. It strikes me that a great many people would think that solitary confinement, particularly for an extended amount of time is not an appropriate punishment for relatively minor infractions, but it could well be a necessary tool for those violent inmates and may pose a real threat to the safety of other inmates or guards. These are the members of this panel has interacted with the criminaljustice system in different capacities. As carmen in mr. Thibodaux as inmates. Mr. Brouwer administering. Mr. Dear roche administering and helping bring hope and redemption to those incarcerated mr. Levin studying in the important justice issues. The question that i would ask of all five of you is in your judgment based upon the different experiences you have had, is there an appropriate role for solitary confinement . Is there a need for it . And in what circumstances it at all . And i would welcome the views of all five witnesses. In my mind right now, yes. But in a limited sense. That is because i have said that there are some diseases for which there are no cures. That does not mean that we dont keep trying to find the cure for the disease. What i have been told by my clinicians is that we have four to five in our system that if they are let out of administrative segregation they will kill someone. They lay their responsibility on me, and i get that. But i also understand that in all other areas that there is so much room for improvements. Lets figure that group out. Lets take care of on the other members sitting in administrative segregation that at this point i think there are many other alternatives other than keeping them there. I would yes. That is an actual question. What first of all say we have to distinguish 24 hours 72 hours to the fuse the situation. In texas longterm the average time in solitary is four years. Some served as long as 24 years. The other issue in texas is thousands are placed in solitary confinement solely for being suspected gang members upon immediately entering prison. I think it is critical that and i question the extent to which we are doing and in texas. We have gone down by over 1,000 in the last couple of years since the server bringing this up with a legislature. There is an ongoing independent study that the legislature approved last session. But one of the issues you brought up, commissioner, that is important is if you have somebody in solitary, having them be able to earn an hour more, programming and set so that they can get out or gradually work their way toward more interaction. Then said that is a great idea. I think generally speaking the more you can create positive incentives and graduated sanctions for inmates to address this issue, that is going to be able to make sure that the people in longterm solitary confinement to be those that have done harm to other inmates or staff for a may statements indicating that they intend to do that. Ian, the short term can be used to diffuse. But even that there is diaz collation training, things, just making sure there is another overcrowding. Proper ratios to diffuse a lot of the attention of leads to violence behind bars. There is a study, senator, i was done in minnesota for a fee based dorm that we have run there for more than ten years. There is a 10year study of their single inmate that went through that program. Every prisoner the went through there, the worst of the worst. At the same time we found that there was no deviation between the technical violations of the people that went through that program and the general population in minnesota which had a 37 percent recidivism rate in other words from a human beings are still going to be human beings even if they move away from a criminal lifestyle. So i do think that directors comments about technical violations that we should take to heart, that is the same type of behavior i see in my kids, the same type of behavior see in the workplace. Guess what, when we study it and find a bunch of people the mood with a criminal activity they will get it wrong on the technical side of how they get through the day. We need to take that seriously. When i started my statement, if you want to change the culture on the outside in our cities and their states we have got to change the culture on the inside, and ill was so impressed and encouraged to hear people talking it was going out, mr. Chairman, and the director, his willingness to go see people doing it right because theyre our prisons where the population of people in the prisons have made a decision that they dont want to live in a bad downward spiraling culture. When the of the award is change that culture and use very sparingly the use of segregation were people knowing that they can return back to a positive and improving culture when they straighten there act out, that is where it is best used on temporary, is with the invitation of working your way back because these Corrections Officers do have the responsibility the same as the people the serve and a Fire Department for. They have a difficult job. The we have to empower the improved we have to have professions. And theyre using this power how is it being the doubt and to what end, what the outcome, what metric . We can do up far better job than we ours three you will love the will to eliminate. I dont believe the solitary confinement as a rehabilitated value, and therefore i think that it should not be used other than for the most serious security concerns bow. What i have seen most often is disciplinary. This year that women do not go and attack ads say but some do spend years and years in solitary confinement. I can only emphasize that there is nothing rehabilitative about being locked into a tiny box for 23 hours a day. So correctional system should take seriously their responsibility to rehabilitate and to direct the tremendous amount of taxpayer dollars of they consume toward that goal. In my 15 years in angola it got to apply where we were all being taken to the are one of the time. When i got there they were taking us one tear at a time, but an incident takes place and everyone suffers the consequences, not just the person who commits the incident. And that is a really big minus in the system because it tells everyone else that, well, it does not matter if i am a model inmate because i wouldnt punish someone does something wrong anyway. Why should i bother. The solitary confinement is being used for the worst of the worst is assured because safety is the Biggest Issue in prison. Lets face it. Really eerie not everyone in prison is innocent. So if it is going to be used know your limitations. You know, dont just lock someone up penicillin forget about them. Theres still a human being somewhere. They may have mentally shoes. They may have the emotional issues. But if you identify that and and find a way around it then you can deal with it in a humane way does not have to be put on a jump suit and shower shoes and walk them locked in the self. The one thing i wanted more of when i was in the cell was time out of the cell. Sadly that is not the reality. But if you want to have solitary confinement use it in the most limited capacity possible. Thank you very much. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to thank all of you for coming in testifying in shedding light of this issue. And i particularly wanted thank mr. Thibodaux because your testimony was very you have been there. As we say in hawaii, ma law for sharing your terrible experiences. I am concerned about reports that women are confined in solitary for reporting abuse including sexual abuse by the Bureau Prison staff and especially as i have been working with senator gillibrand and others to address the issue of Sexual Assault on the military which is under the institution where survivors of Sexual Assault can also be at the mercy of their supervisors in the chain of command to to the power dynamic and possible threats of retaliation that can exist in both of these environments. So want to thank you for your testimony. And i do know that mr. Ramus, you noted that 97 percent of our prisoners do get released into the community. So we need to Pay Attention to what is happening with them because, as you say, they should come out better, not worse than when they were imprisoned. I think that is a sentiment that all of us would share. Ms. Piper kerman, you heard the responses to my questions about what happens in the instance of the power especially with regard to women and sexual abuse. Now, having heard their responses do you think that the bureau of prisons is doing enough. No. I believe that in every womans prison or jail that sexual abuse of women and girls by staff as a problem. Kentucky are prison in alabama, those abuses have been revealed to be systemic. And very sinister. A staff member who was under suspicion for sexually abusing prisoners would be removed from direct contact with the prisoner or prisoners that he was accused. But there would be there on the property. A person is innocent well proven guilty, i believe that. The effect they your abuser may not be far away from you, may be in view. So you might in fact see them all the time. The fear of solitary confinement in isolation, i cannot overemphasize how powerful an incentive that is. Tivoli and happens. They do not happen quickly. On a very practical levels you will lose your housing, your present job, youre house of privileges. All of these things conspired to really, really silence women. How much they can trust the people to him they are supposed to report abuse there are disincentives. The best Case Scenario is further the male prisoners and all prisoners debt increased access to the upside world. Most inclined to trust, not necessarily someone inside the institution. Access to council is a tremendously important issue the vast majority are indigent. And so their access to council before locked up as poor. Access to counsel while locked up is negligible. So those other things i will make the biggest difference. That would make the difference, not just in their ability to access justice while incarcerated but also to be rehabilitated. A small metaphor for the total isolation of incarceration. Only put people to the margins and makes it harder for them to return to the community. I dont want to confine my questions. But for the rest of the panel that may be one of the oas that we can shed light. I am not seeing this as symptomatic of everything is going on. Its a problem. Would you agree that providing more access to the house side rule is one way that we can prevent some of the uses of power from occurring within the system . Yes. And also an ombudsman, as scandal a schedule of sexual abuses, one of the things we did not state which is not a chain of command of any prison warden and actually reported directly to the commission, Texas Youth Commission at that time, the members appointed by the governor, not even a paid director. When you have an ombudsman not an incentive to manage a particular prison unit in these reports are abuses can go to an individual can then independently look into that. Certainly not everyone was accurate, but some of the mark. L. A. When it is not kept totally within the unit there is more accountability and independence and examine that. Of the rest of you agree . I would say very much so. We find that at prison the more that the prison lets folks and from the outside the less problems exist. It is an inverse relationship. I think that it will continue. And i know that the gravity further state or federal officials to my site firsthand when i was speaker of the house in michigan. We have a mentally ill men in may found dead in the selloff. He will do investigation. We have people. I think we need independent voices. People need immediate access, not a month later to a phone call about something that has happened in their life. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My time is up. Thank you, senator. Want to thank everyone who has testified here today. We have over 130 statements that have been submitted for the record. Well not read the names of all the groups. I think each and every one. It will be made part of the record without objection. As my staff to look. I am a part of that right. The degree of civilization in society can be judged by entering its prisons. And that is why this hearing in this testimony is so important. We have our charge to deal with issues involved in the constitution, civil rights, and human rights. I think all three of those elements come together and we are talking about today. There are some things that struck me as more or less complex. The results would be disastrous. We dont want to see children in solitary confinement or segregation. Perhaps in the most extreme cases, but otherwise no. No the vulnerability of women in incarceration and even more so in segregation, and reserve linoleum back to Mental Illness on the behavior of prisoners. The problems that we run into once put in solitary confinement if you get a chance to read mr. To those testimony do with. He goes there in graphic detail elements of segregation or solitary confinement which should not be acceptable under any circumstance, under any circumstance where the food you are given is barely edible, there is virtually no medical care given to those who are in this situation, where was struck by the sentence or use it for 15 years youre never seen a nice guy or stars. Is one of those grouping realizations when you think about what you have been through the limited access the you had to keep your body fed, limit access you had to outside visitors coming even as you said, you made a conscious tries to you did not want your son to see you there during that circumstance. All of these things suggest you know which goes beyond incarceration. It is it crosses the line in terms of what we should do to any human being. That is what this comes to. Thank you all for being here. This is not the last of these hearings until the problem is resolved. I dont know that it will ever be totally resolved the we are moving in the right half right path. Says that we are starting to move and the right direction. I commend the states. I think senator crews will join me in saying many states have shown a real willingness to take this issue on even more than we have and it is important that we continue that and we learn from them in the process. So we will leave the record open get some written questions. If you could respond in return we would appreciate it very much. Thank you for being here. This meeting stand adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] coming up on cspan2 insurance executives and Health Care Policy analyst discuss the Affordable Care act. White house economic adviser reviews the president s Budget Proposal and attorney general eric holder talks was civilrights. A couple of hearings here covering tomorrow. First, a hearing on Sexual Assault in the military. Live coverage of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee of personnel beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. You can turn the conversation. And a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on alzheimers disease and its effect on the economy. Live coverage at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Well we are told of as students and as a nation in terms of popular imagination is that there are all types of sitins and marches and demonstrations that occur, but theyre really done by these famous iconic people. Basically rosa parks is just was so tired that she refused to get up from the bus and sparked the bus boycott and basically a young preacher who even the president referred to during the election as this year and a preacher from georgia, darter Martin Luther king jr. He leaves the masses of africanamericans from racial oppression. This notion that rose a cent and martin could do this stuff in jessica run and barack could fly, they sound good, but theyre really simplify and much more complicated history. That complicated history involves so many africanamericans, women and men who proactively dismantle racial segregation, including rosa parks who was an activist. She did not just refuse to give up her seat by accident. It was a concerted and strategic effort to try to transform democratic institutions. University history professor and author of dark days, bright nights specializing in a subfield of effort, and what he calls black power studies. His latest, in bookstores march march 4th. Someday you will take your questions live for three hours starting at noon eastern on a cspan2 book tv. And a meeting of the National Association of business Economics Health insurance executive dan baron said the repeal of the Affordable Care act individual mandate would be a bad deal. He and a panel of Health Policy analysts discuss the future of the Health Care Law in this hourlong event. The chair of the Health Economics roundtable. I am