Transcripts For CSPAN3 Bureau 20240705 : vimarsana.com

Subcommittee will come to order without objection declare recess at any time. We welcome everyone to todays hearing on the federal bureau of prisons. I ask our friend florida ms. Lee to lead us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flagr which it stands, one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, ms. Lee. Without objection the gentleman from maryland mr. Ivy will be able to participate for the purpose of questioning the witness if the gentleman yields him time for that purpose, i see no objection. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I thank director peters for coming today and the audience, we appreciate you being here. This hearing is oversight of the bureau of prisons. The federal bureau of prisons is component of the department of justice. Bop to protect society in confining offenders in controlled environments of prisons and communitybased facilities that are safe, humane, cost efficient and properly secured and bop provides selfimprovement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law abiding citizens. At the time of rising crime this is a critically important function. Bop operates 102 institutions throughout the nation. These are operated at 5 different security levels in order to confine offenders in an appropriate manner. As of last week, bop is responsible for the custody and care of more than 158,000 inmates and employees more than 34,000 individuals. Nearly 5 years ago President Trump signed the First Step Act in 2018 to reduce the size of the federal prison population recidivism while maintaining Public Safety. Two sentencing reform and three reauthorization of the Second Chance act of 2007. Bop is charged with much of the implementation of First Step Act. As mentioned earlier we are experiencing nationwide spike in crime and vital that bop gets implementation right. To assign prisoners to evidencebase recidivism programs. The programs include literacy programs, occupational programs, trade School Programs and Substance Use programs. Inmates can receive additional time credits which allows them to be placed in home confine meant or rrc than earlier would have been. Thats why bop needs to make sure they get it right. We cannot allow criminal leaving our prison early unless we can assure they will not reoffend. We are continuing that conversation today however, theres a larger underlying issue persistently plagued bop and the implementation of the First Step Act. Bop consistently grapples low staffing and high atrigs rates intensifying risk in already hazardous profession. Thats 5 decline from the 37,000 employed in 2020. Yet the prison inmate population has not declined, in fact, increased by 3,000 as of last month more than 20 of the 20,446 congressionally authorized correction officer positions remained vacant, more than 2 years ago gao published a study identifying several underlying causes for the staffing challenges. G a, o analysis highlighted that bop had not been proficient in accurately assessing or providing documentations for staffing deficits. Gao identified that bop resort today amplifying the the overtime hours of personnel to mitigate Staffing Shortages as a result accumulative overtime hours surged by 102 between 2015 and 2019. This escalation and overtime imposed significant stress in the bop workforce, consequently these actions amplified the safety vulnerabilities for remaining personnel and inadvertently extend the wait times for inmates to excuse me, access basic services. I know that director peters is is acutely aware of this persistent problem and i look forward from hearing her today on the steps that bop is taking to address the Staffing Shortage and other issues at the bureau. I appreciate you being here director, i look forward hearing from you and i yield back. Ms. Jackson lee, the Ranking Member is absent today and ms. Mcbeth is stepping in in her place and i recognize her as the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement. Thank you, chairman, and regretfully as you expressed Ranking Member jackson lee is unable to attend todays hearing however she tells me that she had a good productive meeting with director peters yesterday and pledges continue support of bop and its mission. In our first year with the federal bureau of prisons director peters have taken noteworthy steps to improve culture and management of the agency and increase accountability and transparency. She has rooted out employee misconduct and and and neglect of inmates, addressing staffing deficits at bop facilities and implementation of First Step Act. As i have said before, ins cars rated americans should not fear death when they enter our federal prison system. Correctional officers should not fear for their safety at work. We as members of congress have a duty to the inmates that are housed in our bops facilities. The communities that they will eventually return to and the nearly 40,000 employees in the bop 40,000 employees in 122bop institutions across the country. That is why i joined with representative Kelly Armstrong along senators dick durbin and mike braun to introduce the federal prison overact following tenmonth investigation into corruption, abuse and misconduct at u. S. Pentrary atlanta where i represent georgia and the entirety of bop. Across the country there are numerous cases involving misconduct of bop employees, ranging from theft of government property, obstruction of justice and sexually abusing prisoners. These cases do not provide a full picture of employee misconduct at bop. According to the agencys annual office of internal Affairs Report investigators overred 14,361 cases alleges misconduct by staggering 17,907 employees. The most recent fiscal year when misconduct allegations were lodged against almost one of every 5bop employees the charge was deemed sustained nearly 30 of the time. The majority received nothing more than a written reprimand or suspension and about one in every 25 cases no action was taken at all. While it is important to identify and hold bad apples responsible. It is doubly important to put in place measure that is will dedefuture employees and discourage coverups. We know that the problem facing bop have existed for quite some time and change will not happen overnight but there are dangerous conditions which still exist today that threaten the safety of inmates and staff and require our immediate attention. Just two months ago whistleblower claimed that staff are covering serious misconduct that includes releasing the wrong inmates physically and verbally abusing inmates and using racial slurs attempting to coverrish mate and misusing restrictive housing such behavior is unacceptable and cannot continue. By adding an additional independent layer of oversight the bipartisan federal prison oversight act would strengthen our federal prison system bolster Public Safety and provide a mechanism for incarcerated individuals and their loved ones to protect their civil and human rights. Last year Sheila Jackson lee visit beaumont, texas. Staff were overworked and underpaid and the staff at hazelton agree. They reported chronic understaff in resulting in massive amounts of mandated overtime as well as reliance on medical staff and counselors to fill in as Correctional Officers. Staff at uspi atlanta and fci experiencing similar staffing issues report that fatigue exhaustion and low morale have reduced staff productivity and led to more sick leave, retirements, resignations and staff leaving to other agencies for better pay. Since Ranking Member jackson lees visit director peters has deployed various strategies to recruit and retain staff by securing and providing retention incentive bonuses at certain facilities and changing the marketing messaging. I am encouraged by conversation that i had with her just recently where she explained that the bops turnover rate has decreased by 20 . Staffing is at 70 for Correctional Officers, the agency is at 90 overall staffing and 1098 out of 200 positions for reentry coordinators have been filled. In addition to staffing challenges increasing number of facilities and supporting infrastructure have reached or exceeded their usable their useful life such as usp atlanta which is one of the oldest bop facilities in the country, so far director peters and her team have identified a 2 billiondollar deficit around the facility that is prioritizes only those repairs and improvements that address risk to life and safety. To be clear, director peters has made great progress during her short term at bop and she should be applauded for that, not only has she taken steps to better care for bop staff, she has also prioritized humanizing conditions for prison population. In our recent conversation director peters shared that bop is collaborating with the National Institute of justice to improve the use of restrictive housing while bop staffers are surveying various states to determine best practices which should please many of us. I am sure that like me, Ranking Member jackson lee would wand to know when we can see a change in bops use of restrictive housing since recent statistics show that bop is utilized in this practice more now than in the press decade. Theres still so much work to be done at bop, an agency that is a critical component of overall safety of the country. The agency has a responsibility to focus on each of the Critical Issues it faces to carry out the ideals of justice and accountability while promoting successful rehabilitation and maintaining the custody and control of incarcerated prisoners and persons in a humane and safe manner, in sum, bop must fully carry out every aspect of its mission and Congress Must ensure bop has the tools and funding that it needs to do so. Thank you for being here today, director peters, i look forward to our discussion and ask mr. Chairman for unanimous consent enter into statement. Without objection. The gentle lady yields back. Without objection all other Opening Statements will be included in the record. I will now introduce todays witness, ms. Peters. Director of federal of prison, sworn by attorney general on august 2nd, 2022. She oversees 122 bureau of prison facilities, 6 Regional Offices, two staff Training Centers and reentry management offices. We welcome our witness today and thank her for appearing and now we will begin by swearing in director if you would please rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury the testimony that youre about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and information and believe so help you god . I do. Let the record reflect that the witness has answered in the affirmative. Again, i want you to know your written testimony has been entered into the record in its entirety accordingly we will ask you to limit your opening remarks to 5 minutes, youll see yellow light and a red light and after that i will kind of waive at you and tap on the thing just to remind you to wrap up but were looking forward hearing from you and with that, ms. Peters, youre recognized for your 5minute Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chair. Good morning chairman biggs, Ranking Member jackson lee is not here, thank you, congressman mcbath and members to have subcommittee. I am honor today appear before you today to discuss the important and impactful work happening at the federal bureau of prisons. Since i was sworn in last august i visited more than 25 of our institutions and these are my best days. It is a privilege to meet our corrections professionals while walking the halls of our institutions, they truly are my inspiration and i am grateful for their dedication. It is with their important work in mind that we engage in Strategic Planning and modernized our mission, our vision guided by the principles of normalcy and humanity and core values that emphasize accountability, integrity, respect, compassion and correctional excellence. We engage in proactive outreach to members of congress, members of the media, advocacy organizations and justice involved individuals while maintaining a very collaborative relationship with our national union. This Strategic Vision along with clear expectations has put us on a course for success. The vast majority of our employees are hard working, ethical corrections professionals who expect that those who are engaged in this conduct be held accountable. We added substantial resources in this last year to office of internal affairs. We collaborated with our Law Enforcement partners to the investigate criminal misconduct and held individuals accountable up to an including termination and prosecution. I have communicated clear expectations that misconduct and retaliation will not be tolerated. I also want to address restrictive housing because despite our efforts over the last few years to drive the numbers down, we have seen them increase. While i am glad to report they have started to decrease in the last couple of months, we have much more work to do. It can increase an individuals future criminality. So we created a shortterm plan and longterm plan. First, we formed a work group comprising of executive team who have traveled across the country to review best practices from other correctional systems around country and around the globe. Longterm we entered into a Historic Partnership with the National Institution of justice and they are going to bring an exterior organization of experts in to provide recommendations the success of reforms will rely on work of correctional professionals and we need more of them. So we have been working diligently on our recruitment and retention crisis. Since the beginning of this year we have seen a 60 increase in new hires and 20 decrease of individuals leaving our organization. We had 86 rates and today we have filled 90 yet we are still not where we need to be and until we solve the problem we must continue to be concerned about Employee Wellness and need to rely on augmentation and overtime. Another major issue is maintenance and repair backlog, healthy facility structures are critical to operations and yet we have 2 billiondollar maintenance and repair backlog which only accounts for the most serious categories, safety and life categories. We are contracting again with an external organization to come in and assess our overall problem. Now inside these structures we are the defacto Mental Health hospital, the largest provider of alcohol and drug treatment and we have nearly 160,000 patients, many of whom come to us with very complex issues and chronic disease. With these complexities we must ensure that we operate holistically as a Healthcare Organization and we have contracted with an external entity to provide on Correctional Health best practices and implementing normalcy and humanity. We remain committed to firststep acts implementation roughly 104,000 individuals are participating today in over 110evidence based programs and productive activities and more than 25,000 have been released through the application of earned time credits. As ive said many times, i believe in accountability oversight and transparency and i know we cannot do this work alone. So mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee im honored to speak with you on behalf of our dedicated employees across the country, this concludes my Opening Statement and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, director, we appreciate that and now i recognize the gentleman from florida mr. Gaetz. I have hardened by your discussions of visits to get firsthand understanding of whats going on there. Sometimes congress have had challenges doing that. Could you give us advice if we wanted to glean those benefits, whats the best way to go about that with your team . Thank you, congressman. If you have your team reach out to our office of legislative affairs we will be happy to make that arrackment. Thank you. Ts. I have been clear that retaliation would not be stood for on my watch. And youre confident that thats being observed throughout the bureau . Im confident the message is delivered and if anyone engages in retaliation we will hold them accountable. Are you familiar with john strand . That name is not familiar to me, no. He was convicted, sentenced at fci miami and i had received word that he had been placed into enhanced confinement and into higher acuity securing as consequence of information that others had put out on his twitter feed. So that something does that ring a bell to you . Congressman, i wouldnt be able to speak to an individuals circumstances regarding their behavior inside our institutions, what i can assure you if an individual is placed in our special Housing Units it would be for conduct that happened inside the institution. So whats a special housing unit . Special using unit is one of our restrictive housing placements that could include segregation, protective custody and with housed individuals that either were at harm to harm themselves or others or had actually engaged in misbehavior inside our institutions. What im word about is mr. Strand gave us testimony about some of his concerns and as you know people give us testimony and we sort through whats right and wrong and what should be acted on and not acted on. Its not gospel, its just testimony but then thereafter people were posting on social media forms about treatment he received tat bureau and i sent a letter to you concerned about that because like you i dont want anybody retaliated against for constitutionally protected speech and thereafter i got a letter back from afore mentioned legislative Affairs Office and mr. Strained was moved to secured and frequent employee contact. September 26, 2023 pending completion of an investigation. I guess my question is when someone is that like akin to what we would normally think about solitary confinement, those words, secure housing unit . We would use the word restrictive housing. Okay. So whats this then . This guy he was never violent towards anyone. Im wondering why the assets that we fund for violent people would be used for this purpose. Congressman, we use that special housing unit for individuals that engage in any sort of misconduct inside our institutions. I dont know what he was found to be guilty of by our hearings administrative process that would warrant his need to go into restrictive housing but i assure you we have administrative processes that people have to go through before those placements actually occur. I get that you cant know the conditions of every single prisoner throughout the bureau. I am worried that throughout our department of justice and what weve been endured that there are some people that are sort of being used as ponds and being mistreated in order to send the message to other people and im grateful that you said here that is not your doctrine, you dont want to see that happen but you also havent been able to share with us an entire confidence that that isnt happening in some cases and im worried that its happening here. Have you heard of matter owen . That name is not familiar. Spoken out, was prominent in the public, was convicted as a consequence and feels as though theres specific bureau of prison retaliation. I dont think any group of people should be retaliated against so i look forward to taking you up on the offer to perhaps go in and do sight visits and see how people are getting treated. I hope i get cooperation. I yield back. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from georgia for 5 minutes. Thank you, madame chair. Director peters i introduced the federal prison oversight act which im sure youre aware of to increase accountability and transparency across our prison system to ensure that the safety of our prisoners is top priority, we need to have an efficient method of identifying the highrisk facilities that require more guidance and more attention. Director peters, you know, what system or metric system does the bop offer to be able to identify these kinds of facilities . Thank you, congresswoman. I think that we have a variety of oversight that help us identify the highrisk facilities including oversight from the Government Accountability office, the office of the Inspector General and also our Program Review division who conducts audits of our institutions including unannounced site visits and we rely on that data including Regional Office that is go in and perform independent reviews in reviewing the adults in custody, interviewing employees and creating an assessment of each one of our institutions so that we can adjust problems early on rather than waiting down the road. Thank you. And in our meeting last week we discussed the national recidivism rate and i was pleased to learn that bop has achieved staffing level reentry coordinators to 99 that i commend you on that with 100 expected very soon. What steps should we as members of Congress Take to support those reentry programs and to reduce recidivism rates further than where they are now . Thank you congresswoman. I think resources are always the issue. I think the our ability to contract with our Residential Reentry Centers is really a Golden Nugget at the federal bureau of prisons because they are in the communities that these individuals are coming back to. They know what resources are there and they are able to drive those wraparound resources as it relates to programming and treatment, education, employment so that they become productive taxpaying citizens once they enter our community. Last Congress Member jackson lee who is not here today, focus on the need to implement the act. She wanted to implement that fully and very thoughtfully. Since then director peters has created policies that have actually corrected bops implementation of First Step Act. Mas continue to complain about the lack of classes and i understand that they are reliable calculator to determine the number of the credits that a prisoner can actually earn during time in prison and shortage Halfway House placements, director peters, tell us how you intend to solving the problem . We have over 104,000 people participating in programs today in over 110 evidencebased programs and productive activities and yet we can do better. As we have now have pivoted out of the pandemic being able to pull people into classrooms was difficult during that time period and now as i visit our institutions and talk to our employees and our wardons, its thrill to talk about the ideas they have around expanding our programs and expanding space inside our institutions thats been really difficult. So they are getting really creative about that as well. I think your expansion of pell grant and the access to those is going to be significant for population and their ability to engage in the higher Level Education after receiving ged. So i think we are on the right track again you talked about overtime and augmentation so recruitment and retention solving that problem is going to solve a lot of other underlying problems at the bureau including our ability to continue that programming so we are not pulling those people that leave those programming or those teachers from their posts. I always welcome oversight. Im going to say that again and again. The only thing i would ask is when you consider additional oversight and legislation that we then receive the appropriate resources so that im not left flatfooted with additional requests and additional oversight or additional requests for information and we dont have the staff and resources to respond in a timely and efficient manner. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, congresswoman mcbath. The chair recognizes gentleman from texas. Thank you for being here. As you neglect in 2018 president Donald J Trump rightfully rolled back obamaera policies related to transgender offender manual. Policy removed a sentence, bop officials to consider transgender inmates gender identity when making decisions regarding prison housing. President trump mandated bop officials use biological sex, now biological sex as initial determination for placement decisions. I believe this was common sense. I think america would agree, ladies should be housed with ladies and men should be housed with men. President biden reissued obama guidelines. Given even further to require prison staff to use a transgenders persons preferred names and pronouns you agree with this . Congressman, we are required to provide medical and Mental Healthcare for all individuals including thats a yes, pretty much a yes. Yes. You stated recognizing that incarcerated women including those in the Lgbtq Community require different resources and support than men. We recognize that we must create environments now, create environments for these bad hombres that respond to realities of womens lives and address issues specific to lived experiences end quote. So can you provide the definition of a woman, what is a woman since you believe theres a difference . In the super majority of housing placements with the federal bureau of prisons we placed individuals based on biological sex. All but 11 individuals at the federal bureau of prisons are placed in housing assignments based on biological sex in their so, okay. I just got convicted of robbing Convenient Stores and all of a sudden i go to court and they convict me and im going to prison and now instead of saying my name is truly nails, im going to say my name is susie nails. Im a woman and i make that claim. At what point in time would that allow me then to release the ball . So congressman in the scenario i suspect that youre talking about producing a false claim. Whatever. How can you deny it . I believe im a woman now. What would happen it would trigger serious evaluation from degreed medical doctors and psychologists who would conduct an evaluation based on your gender identity. Have we released those who have gone through the im sorry. Im a man, i havent had any surgeries up to this point. Maybe i will get them while in prison because im assuming we are paying for those . We have paid for two. You aint changing that . Look at this guy. This is an interesting guy, folks. His name is peter langen, he got long hair. He looks like a bad, bad guy. He is a bad guy. Hes a nazi, exnazi terrorist. Hes a bad hombre and this guy wants to be referred to as dona. Do you require them to say call this, he must be called dona . Congressman, no, in fact, in order to produce a name change hes suing, hes suing you all because he wants to he wants to hes claiming that eighth amendment rights were violated for not being provided gender conforming surgery for the people at home this man is an exnazi bank robber, lawsuit was settled and i would like to know whether the inmates now have the eighth amendment right to sex changes. Are we paying for guys like this who are just sick, we send them to prison, we are restricting their freedom and this guy says he wants to be dona. I understand why he wants to be dona because you want to release this guy into the pan of heifers. Isnt that what a guy would want to do. If im going to prison for ten years and youre restricting my freedom, i guess i would want to go to prison with the ladies are. Wouldnt you suggest and wouldnt that be a good idea and if youre allowing that to take place through this process by talking to these guys, im going to convince you im a woman and enjoy five years in prison. Half of them will probably say dont even release me on patrol im having too much fun here. Im having too much fun. It is disgusting quite honestly what we have done to this to our country. I have real issues, its troubling. You can do better than that. I yield. Thank you, mr. Neils. The chair recognizes thank you for dedication for Public Services and corrections. I suppose that the most likely scenario that presents to the bureau of prisons when an individual comes into the system and is of the lgbtq status or category, that person oftentimes is in the middle of a sex change operation like the january 6th insurrection defendant who broke into the capitol and convicted, is that correct . Correct. I wouldnt be able to speak to an vining person. The case that im talking about, though . Im not familiar with that theres a woman who was a defendant, formerly, well, let me say shes in transition from being a man to a woman led a column of insurrectionists up the stairs at the capital but clearly, you know, she was in the midst of a sex change operation and you treat folks with humanity when they present to the bureau of prisons despite the fact that, you know, over the years director peters actually since the 80s when Ronald Reagan came in with tough on crime, eliminate eliminate rehabilitation focus on punishment and low taxes, Less Government along with bills that, from congress that produced more federal inmates because of dramatic push in new laws, so what weve seen is an explosion of prison inmates, actually inmates actually the prison population almost doubled by 2,000, isnt that correct . It has grown dramatically in the last few decades. It has continued to grow since then while at the same time there have been major costs or major funding reductions for the bureau of prisons, isnt that correct . Well, our budget continues to grow. It is not growing in line with the population. Well, as a matter of fact you have about according to a roll call article, im looking at here congress is poised dated september 12 of 2023, congress is poised to spend less next fiscal year on federal prison infrastructure even as a federal watchdog reported this year that the agency is in dire need and has low balled maintenance funding request for years and according to this article youve got 2 billion in needs but yet funding from this maga republican, republican conference in 2023, their draft commerce science spending bill puts forward 273 million, isnt that correct . Congressman, we have a 2 billiondollar reported problem. I will chair with the committee thats an old number we are hoping to get a better assessment its far more than over the last ten years the average allocation for maintenance and repairs was 100 million a year. And so Staffing Shortages are impacted by reduced federal revenue, isnt that correct . We are recruitment and retention issue i think compounded both by the economy right now and workforce as well as changes on how people view Law Enforcement position. So the same republicans who come up here and criticize you and the bureau of prisons today are the same ones who historically defunded the operation. Let me ask you this director peters, do you believe that the bureau of prisons can benefit from independent oversight . Congressman as ive said believe before, i believe in oversight, i welcome oversight and we made it very clear inside the bureau that when the Government Accountability office shows up for an auditor the, the office of the Inspector General comes in for unannounced audit that we will open our doors and welcome them in. Do you think that would be helpful . Yes, i do. I believe that that oversight is helpful. The office of the Inspector General has begun unannounced audits and visits now that we are out of the pandemic and i think those visits have proved very helpful. Thank you, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Johnson. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from alabama mr. Moore for five minutes. Thank you, madame chairman. Director peters, thank you for being here today. As a christian i know a lot of times we live under im a proponent of that. In alabama we have amazing prison system and one of them specifically where they bring incarcerated individuals over to a College Next Door and they do this certain individuals are picked at and train them in skills so some are certified welders and some are body people and some can do cosmetics, all neat stuff and recidivism rate is much lower coming out than any system in alabama. I encourage you to look at the model for what they do. Being Business Owner people come to me all of the time looking for jobs and if i have an individual that walks in but can lay on the welder, i may not start at is same pay rate with somebody with clean record, so to speak but at the same time i will start him a little lower, maybe depending, like sue neils, the point of the matter is if they have a skill set we can put them in the workforce. They dont go back to the sameole, sameole. They dont go back to the same people that they were running before incarcerated. Im working on legislation now with actually Bipartisan Legislation with member and we are looking at the id. This is not somebody who is illegal. They have to be u. S. Citizens. I have to do remind my friends that. We would appreciate your support and are you aware, we are working to the try to get an id issued by the federal bureau of prison system so when people go for a job, if they have to get housing, we think this is one way to help recidivism. Are you aware of the program and what we are doing . Congressman i am and i have the conversation with congressman. You will be please today know that we piloted an id program and service successful and we are rolling out to institutions beginning at the top of next year everyone leaving our custody will leave with federal bureau of prisons. Where we need your help is states accepting them. Right now we have 15 or 16 states that say theyll accept them at the department of motor vehicles. Any help you can give there will be tremendous, we would be filled with gratitude. To me this is fiscal conservative issue in a sense what are we paying for prisoner now to house them in the federal prisons annually for an individual . On a daily rate i think that average is 122 a day. Got you, got you. So individual to get into the workforce into society, working and producing i think thats a longterm win for the American People certainly for society and communities and so we will be working with you on that issue. I encourage you, what they are doing there, im conservative and hard on crime as anybody but i understand grace as well but there are people that get into the system and sometimes need opportunities, if we can train them and get them with skill set into society we as america will benefit and certainly society will benefit. Thank you for being here today and look forward working with legislation, madame chairman i yield back. Thank you. Mr. Moore, the chair recognizes gentleman from South Carolina mr. Frye for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair. Thank you director for being here. Mediumsecurity federal Correction Institution and houses 1600 inmates in South Carolina. My district. We heard accounts from officers having to work overtime which has led to extreme burnout and low morale. Gao report found that overtime hours worked at the bop was 102 . What is bop doing to correct this. We have done a lot in the last year congressman so im happy to the talk about it. We doubled down on recruitment efforts. We have National Recruitment office that does nothing but recruit for office for the federal bureau of prisons. We prioritize officers and healthcare workers in that and we have seen progress. We have given retention and recruitment bonuses to individuals and that has proven successful and it has allowed us to see a small amount of improvement, 60 increase in those coming to the bureau and 20 decrease in those leaving in the last year but we are not where we need to be yet. And i would imagine that with the forced overtime it is a it is a recruitment issue that you dont have people that are applying. What is the cause of that . What are some of the causes of that . Congressman, i would say as it relates to overtime its a retention issue as well. As i walk the halls of our instituteutions and talk to the employees, thats what i hear, they were exhausted before the pandemic and the pandemic wore them out and increased overtime as well. Its not just the physical and mental wearing, spouses are planning who is picking kids up from day care, who is cooking and we mess that schedule up day in and day out because of that required overtime. Its a problem that we have to solve. Thank you for that. Its the issue of contra brand namely cell phones. The department of corrections director brian stated that contraband, utilized system evolved to identify and disable those devices since july nearly 800 devices have been found in a South Carolina bishopville institution. 800 devices found in prison of a thousand inmates is real alarming. What is the bureau of prisons doing to the address, to combat this issue and are you open to exploring the use of technology or something similar that would have effect . And so we use technology that captures all cellular signals excuse me and we use technology that jams cellular signal, we are piloting both of those. The original feedback is better when we detect but the Jamming Technology also works. We also are able to deploy a mobile cellular assessment literally a van that goes out to parking lot and can tell us how many cell phones are pinging so we can hone our investigative resources based on where the cell phones are inside the institutions. Those are Pilot Programs right now . Those are Pilot Programs. How many facilities use that Pilot Program . We are doing at 4 facilities and the micro jamming we are deploying at 6 facilities. When do you anticipate or what is the goal of the bop in expanding to use at all facilities . It would require sources from congress and we are focusing on high risk, high classified facilities right now but these are issues at our secured lows and our camps and have access at 122 facilities. What do you think the cost of that would be . Congressman i dont know what that would be but i can talk to my team and get back to you. I will shift in my last 25 seconds. One of the things that im looking at is bop pays a range from gl5 to gl8, other agencies like icdp they pay at different rate. Much higher rates, what factors contribute being lower than other agencies and are you open to raising that base pay to help attract and retain individuals at bop . Absolutely. So our officers do not get paid enough. We have trouble keeping them, state corrections will offer higher salaries than what we pay even local sheriffs are able to pay more than what we are able to pay in certain regions so we would welcome any changes to pay structure and support in pay structure and funding. We were able to increase this year by about 2,000, the top salary of our Correctional Officers in hope to recruit a better and larger lot and retain the ones that we do have. Thank you, director. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Frye. The chair recognizes mr. Kylie for 5 minutes. Director peters ive always strongly believed that a wellfunctioning criminal Justice System needs to have appropriate penalties for offenders, well, at the same time having evidencebased tools for rehabilitation in order to facilitate the reentry of prisoners in the society when they are released and to make them productive members of society. And, you know, i come from a state, california, where unfortunately those objectives have not been achieve and lowered penalties across the board while also undercutting the capacity of our criminal Justice System to rehabilitate offenders, for example, effectively legalized drug use and not only led to sort of horrific scenes that we see in places like San Francisco but its also decimated and so people are not able to overcome their addiction. So properly understood i believe that punishment and rehabilitation are not contrasting approaches in the criminal justice but rather they go hand in hand and are both serving the interest of Public Safety and another way in which this has gone array in california something call realignment where serious offenders have been moved to prisons into the county jails which arent really set up to have the sort of rehabilitation programs that are evidencebased on people to turn their lives around. Im always looking for suggestions for my state, for the likes of Governor Newsom who have gotten this so wrong and im looking to other states and i know that the federal government, the federal Correction System has recently undertaken some different approaches to rehabilitation with literacy programs, Occupational Education programs, trade skill programs, substance and disorder programs, so i was hoping you can give us a little sense of how this is working out and where you have seen success . Thank you, congressman. As your previous neighbor to the north, director of oregon, we collaborated closely with the department of corrections on evidencebased programs, normalcy and humanity and federal bureau of prison i think our mission aligns with everything that you just said. Its dual mission. Our job is to ensure Public Safety both inside our institutions but also when they leave our institutions. Im a former victims advocate and i believe strongly that our job is to ensure they dont create new victims on the way out but the second path of our mission is equally as important and thats about providing programming and treatment and education so they have the resources they need and skills they need when they leave to be productive taxpaying citizens. The jewels of the federal bureau of prisons is Reentry Centers in the community where we are able to contract with experts who live in those neighborhoods, live in those communities and continue those services as they safely transition back into our neighborhoods. Would you agree with my assessment since you have some insight on the matter that californias realignment has shifted, you know, offenders into an institutional setting that is not well equipped to provide proper evidencebased rehabilitation . Congress i know enough about it to be familiar with it but im in the expert enough to speak to the benefits or outcomes of that process. Thank you, i yield back. Thank you, congressman. Thank you, mr. Kylie, the chair now recognize it is gentlewoman from missouri ms. Bush for five minutes. That youve done and what you are trying to achieve. I know that it isnt easy coming into change a system that is already so broken but i am deeply concerned by what we hear about is the pervasive incarcerated people and those that have reported wait times for a doctors appointment and retaliation from staff and fear when seeking medical care. Several deaths may have been preventable had proper medical care been provided and this issue is personal for me and my constituents because right now we are facing these issues. The bureau must overhaul its approach to providing medical care for incarcerated of people and set an example for the facilities in st. Louis and around the country because we look to that to be able to go into our local jails to say this is what should be done. This is the example. The other issue i want to address is solitary confinement. Its shameful that a solitary has increased during the biden administration. Despite the president claiming he supported ending it. Director, you have repeatedly recognized the harm of solitary and the need for alternatives. You and i know its devastating harm and worsens the safety for everyone involved. It drives anxiety, depression, psychosis, suicide. And you know this in your background before you took this position. We know that environments that are the exact opposite of solitary involve Program Based intervention with full days of out of cell time and how to actually support Peoples Health and it makes people, makes everyone safer even the staff because we also care about the staff. Instead of taking action on the overwhelming evidence, the proposal of the further studies, can we talk about that . Isnt it true that we dont need another study that an urgent action to replace solitary with proven forms of separation . Congresswoman first i will address your healthcare issue. I want to assure you we want to be the model land as we pivoted out of the pandemic we are looking through the backlog at the preventative healthcare that happened at the bureau of prisons just like in our communities and we have secured a contract with an external group of experts who are going to come in and do a Quality Assurance of our healthcare and help us create that future vision where we can be of the example. As it relates to the restrictive housing, i want to move as fast as you do. I dont want to take the tool away from our Correctional Officers today without replacing it with a tool tomorrow and the training to ensure their safety so we do have a shortterm and longterm plan. You will be pleased to know the shortterm plan first we ensure the recommendations brought to the bureau in the past have been implemented and then our group of experts have traveled around the country to get best practices from other systems and bringing it back. We are actually meeting next week as an executive team we will review those recommendations and get moving on that work and then the partnership is historic. Its the first time the federal bureau of prisons by having an outside entity come in and take a global look at the restrictive housing. You and i share the same values. The better outcome in the community and as you said most importantly a better environment for our people. Thank you looking forward to that and our office will be in contact. I yield back. Thank you, congresswoman busch. I recognize myself for five five minutes. Thank you so much for being with us here today. Id like to pick up where you left off on the subject of special Housing Units. President bidens order titled advancing police and criminal justice practices touched on those special Housing Units and asked that you ensure that type of housing is used rarely, applied with reasonable constrained. I very much appreciate your prior answer indicating how much thought and study were given when and how they are applied but also want to note weve endorsed the continuing use as an essential tool for officer safety. Can you speak to the point about finding an alternative tool that if we are to try to reduce or get closer, the necessity to have an alternative tool for those officers available. Thank you congresswoman. Thats important to me their safety and security is top of mind as i do this work. One of the data points i will take a deeper dive on his those individuals in special housing who are there because they are in protective custody status and either because theyve asked to be in the special housing unit because they dont feel safe or weve made and intelligence determination that they wouldnt be safe in the general population and so thats a large portion of the unit and one of the recommendations i will likely dive into is this notion of creating more safe and humane environments inside the prisons of those individuals in protective custody status feel more comfortable in the general population units and the reintegration units do just that. Help the individuals stepped down from the higher level of restrictive housing in a safe way, save for them and safe for our officers. I think that is a great model to advance the notion and of the ideas. Id also like to touch on new efforts to utilize counsel present at the Incentive Program as part of your overall wellness and Retention Program for Correctional Officers. Can you tell us a little about that, have the changes been implemented and do you have feedback on how the program is going . Its incredibly important to me as you know the data points are tough on Law Enforcement especially in corrections. Weve talked about overtime and augmentation into the impact so we have a lot of work to do but we did change three of the policies this year one of them included requiring the counselors providing that Employee Assistance Program Counseling be certified. That has taken place and its our hope that higher level certification will give more meaningful discussion for those who have the courage to seek it. As we are nearing the end of the hearing time id also like to ask you if theres something you were hoping to share with us today that you havent already touched on and whether theres anything that we in congress can be doing to further support you in your mission. Thank you, congresswoman. The short answer to that is always resources. The conversation we had with colleagues to increase pay for the frontline workers would be incredibly helpful as we try to retain the ones we have and get the ones in the front door that we want. Training, we havent talked about training. One of the things that surprised me when i took this role is the small amount of training that our employees receive on the front end. They get three weeks in the classroom and three weeks on the job. At the data was to suggest the average onboarding in the country is 21 weeks so thats much shorter than that. My dream would be to have a Training Academy where we are able to train these individuals to retirement and everything in between. So i appreciate your support and appreciate the question very much. On the subject of recruitment and retention you mentioned you are working very hard on that and focus in part on recruiting and maintaining by enhancing the bureau of prisons image. Can you tell us in your view what image is the bureau of business portraying and what would you like for it to be . Weve done a lot of work on this issue and we are looking for Public Safety minded individuals who want to come and change hearts and minds, not to the traditional stereo typical view of the correctional professional but we have hardworking professionals who engage in meaningful work keeping the prisons safe. But we ask them to do such complex work. They are not standing in the corner looking over people. They are engaging in conversations and helping them get into that programming and education. For anyone listening to the hearing today the federal bureau of prisons is hiring and looking for the right people to come in and do the heroes work day in and day out. Thank you mr. Chairman. Director, thanks for being here. I apologize for having to step out so i missed much of your testimony. I apologize for that. One of the things we talked about the other day in the conversation was that on behalf of a particular committee we are conducting an investigation where i need to be able to get into interview and meet with an incarcerated individual. The response that we had received was a dissent general practice to facilitate such a visit. So im seeking your commitment today that you will help facilitate for me and my staff to be able to get in and meet with an incarcerated individual pertaining in an investigation. Congressman, at first glance it appears there may have been confusion around the initial request so as i committed to you when we met last week, we are happy to look into this and see what we can figure out. Thank you. I hope its more than see what you can do but that you are going to facilitate the interview. If we can facilitate that visit we will do everything we can to facilitate that visit. I hope we will know what is necessary i hope we have Clear Communication so we know exactly what we need to do and what we can expect. Our staffers will connect. Thank you. Question, does the bureau of prisons have any contracts with state or local governments or outside groups to house prisoners . Be contract with individuals in the communities to run the centers. They provide that to step down service into the community and those Wraparound Services for reentry. Did you have any other relationships . We would have government agreements with others if they needed to house someone they didnt think they could safely house at the state level and we would engage and send them one of ours. I know you talked about contraband. A Study Released by doj and justice found, quote, Detection Technologies such as radio frequency that can locate a cell phone signal or recognize components in multiple locations within a facility show the greatest promise for limiting cell phone contraband. How widely is it limited within and do you have the resources you need to ensure such is available . We would appreciate the additional resources. We currently are piloting two pieces of technology, one that captures all cellular signals and another to actually jams all cellular signals. The feedback im getting from my team is the preference to capture the signals rather than jam them because we can deploy the investigative techniques and hold people accountable. We would love the resources to spread that technology out. We talked about contraband. Whether its drugs or phones or others. I asked how is contraband interning and i would like you to please explain that for us. Thank you. So unfortunately sometimes contraband comes through the front door by employees engaging in misconduct or visiting but as you and i talked about one of the most dangerous place right now is drones. The ability to carry an excessive amount of weight and drop it near the fence line or over the fence line is one of the things we are working to combat every single day. Sometimes its a reoccurrence of the institution and people are able to detect those drones in deploy and activate local Law Enforcement so it is a constant engagement. We have devices at 31 of the high risk institutions. Weve had over 180 drones sightings this year alone and while only a handful of those ultimately allow us to find the drone often we find the contraband but we rely on local Law Enforcement event to help us find the individuals flying the drones. Thank you. My time is expired and i think that we have exhausted. Thank you director for being here and i know we will have further opportunity to talk. I look forward to the continuing communication and with that, we are adjourned. Thank you congressman and thank you to the committee. [inaudible conversations]