For some reason we seem to think that for admin seg, someone will sell 23 hours a day. Who defines that . Its probably some court case that mandates that and why isnt it 20 hours a day or 18 hours a day. They work their way down to 10. Thats one thing we will be doing. Its been automatic that someone on death row will stay in administrative segregation until they are put to death. Some are found innocent and released and we will change our policy on that and giving them the opportunity to get outside of yourself. Where we will end up is a small handful of all that we are talking about. For those in administrative segregation, that doesnt mean we give up on them, but i sat there for over 20 hours. This was no way to treat an american. No way they should be treating someone like this and internationally its not a way to be treating someone. This is receiving the right amount of tension at the right time and its time to move this forward. Thank you. Thanks. I might say to those gathered here, the roll call just started and my colleagues will leave to vote. We may need a short recess and they will be back quickly to resume. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you for having us here to address this important issue. I spent 13 months in the federal system. If you are familiar with orange is the new black, you know i was never held in an isolation unit. The longest amount of time i was placed alone was four hours and i was ready to climb the walls of that small room by the end of that. I am here today to talk specifically about the impact of solitary confinement on women in american prisons, jails and Detention Centers. Women are the Fastest Growing segment of the criminal Justice System and their families and communities are increasingly affected by what happens behind bars. At least 63 of women in prison are there for a nonviolent offense, however some of the factors that contribute to womens incarceration can land them in solitary confinement. In my first hours of incarcerations, warnings of the shoe came from both prisoners and staff very quickly and very minor infractions could send you to the shoe. They can keep you there as long as they want under whatever conditions they choose. Unlike the normal hivelike communities of prison, 24hour lockdown leaves you in a 6 by 8 cell for weeks or months or even years. This is unproductive for the outside communities to which 97 of all prisoners return. Several factors make womens experience in incarceration different from mens. Women are much more likely than men to suffer from Mental Illness. That makes being put into solitary confinement much more likely and much more damaging. Like the majority of prisoners had a history of Mental Illness and 75 do. She spent the first year of her sixyear sentence in solitary confinement. You have the full written statement and will share some of her words with you. I spent 3 4 of my time in a bunk in the fetal position rocking back and forth for comfort. I tried meditating to no avail. I can separate with mind. I cried a lot, not for me, but my kissed. I laughed inappropriately. I got angry at myself, angry at those who abused me and led me to a life of addiction. I felt ashamed because i felt i deserved it. I felt sore i was born. I felt sorry for all the hurt i caused, but most of all i felt sorry that there wasnt a rope to kill myself because every day was worse than the last. Solitary is miss misused as a threat to intimidate and silence women who are being sexually, b abused by staff. A woman who had done a lot of time told me about a friend of hers who was sexually abused by a guard. She told me they had her in the shoe for months during the sis investigation. They shot her full of psych drugs. She blew up like a balloon. When they let her out, she was a zombie. They do not play here. There examples of solitary confinement being used to hide horrific systemic sexual abuse under their watch. The terrible threat of isolation makes women afraid to report abuse and serves as a powerful disincentive to ask for help or justice. Finally solitary has a devastating effect on families and children of women prisoners. For health and safety, pregnant women should never be placed in solitary and yet this is allowed in prisons throughout the u. S. Most women in prison are mothers. A childs need to see and hold his or her mother is one of the most basic human needs and visitation for prisoners in solitary is extremely limited and often all visitation is revoked. Isolation should only be used when a prisoner is a threat to her own safety or that of others, not when pregnant or suffering Mental Illness or for reporting abuse. I urge that the federal bureau of prisoners in assessment of solitary confinement take action to limit on wilt and visit as many institutions as possible. They should include confidential discussions for those who are in those facilities. My home state of new york announced significant reforms including prohibition of placing pregnant women in solitary and the bureau of prisons and other states should embrace those comprehensive reforms. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and to help the subcommittee dress this very sig th 95 cant issue. I hope it can help the longterm oversight and reform. I reviewed the testimony of all the members of this panel and it is extraordinary. I dont want to miss it. We will take a recess so if you can hang around, this committee will stand in recess for ten minutes. This hearing will resume. Please proceed. Good afternoon chairman and Ranking Members of the committee. Thank you for revisiting this pressing issue. Changing the culture and the prisons will change the culture and the cities and the states. The use of solitary confinement is not only immoral, but a missed opportunity to break the cycle of crime. This approach does not increase safety and is contrary to justice fellowship goals for the criminal Justice System. Accountability and restoration. Teaching people to be good citizens rather than good prisoners is a charge entrusted to the officers by the taxpayers. Skilled wardens understand that they become responsible and productive members is paramount to the safety of our communities whether inside or outside. Part of creating safe communities includes removing prisoners who violate norms by placing themselves or others at risk. It needs to be temporary and what is asked can be available to them and achievable. The fellowships saw his power and cried criminal when he left president nixons council to be a federal prison. Upon his release from prison, his work actually started in 1979. That is where the justice fellowship was founded and im grateful to you, mr. Chairman and for your support as has been mentioned for the cosponsoring of the smarter sentencing act. I believe that we would applaud your work in that area. Solitary confinement in theory is for the worst of the worst of the prisoners. Case and point is in illinois where a study was conducted and found 85 were sent to disciplinary segregation for a minor rule violation and prisoners to these circumstances do not have their cases individually reviewed and looked at from oversight. There was an analogy over Police Officers and when they are struck or other things, but the Justice System does a greater job on the outside of the walls of having accountability and individual review than segregation had historically. When it comes to the discussion about Mental Illness, our families suffering from those that are too often punished rather than treated, i would like to share the story of a man named kevin that i am privileged to know in michigan who is diagnosed at 11 years old. At 14 he was pressured bys pier group to holding up a pizzeria with a toy gun. He wound up in adult prison and spent nearly a year in segregation. He described the experience as an panic attack and felt as though he was stuck in an elevator that he needed to escape from and he tried to commit suicide as an escape, but instead of helping kevin, they increased this punishment because that was all they were trained and knowledgeable to do. Too often our jails have been our countrys mental institutions and i believe supporting these goals is the fact that they spoke of earlier that will help provide resources to the states and as well as to the state officials when they are encountering and dealing with people who are suffering from the Mental Health issues. With the strategies from justice fellow suspects perspective from those that reduced the use of segregation. That is first to use Mission Housing to target the need of prisoners with developmental delays and those at risk of sexual victimization. Second to use alternative responses to the disruptions outside of segregation. The third is to increase the training on methods that promote positive social behavior within the bureau of prisons. Jurisdictions strategies not only tracked the reductions in the use of force and prisoners and the number of prison grievances, but i want to acknowledge the aca and other organizations have taken a progressive stance on inviting external reviews with the bureaus of prisons. I believe that that comes with no expiration date. And they give up the watch. I will hope this is not the end of the discussion today. These can be continued including the work with the newly authorized task force and prison reform. Thank you very much. Its not the end. This is round two. I dont know how many more will be. Mr. Levin, you are making me nervous. We keep inviting you to these hearings and i keep agreeing with you more and more. I hope you will at least highlight a few things you know we disagree on. Thank you very much for coming. The floor is yours. Thank you for your leadership on this. We are conservative think tank i will note you did find something you disagree with the chair on. We are a conservative think tank and to make the government less intrusive, we have to shine the light in the darkest of places in the most restrictive areas of government control. Solitary confinement. I am pleased to be here today. One of the issues is ending the practice of releasing inmates from solitary confinement. With over 1300 such releases from solitary confinement from texas state prisons n. Washington state, the study was done on the super max that found inmate release from solitary confinement were less likely to commit a new offense and more likely not to commit a new offense as compared to inmates with similar defense profiles that were not released. Mississippi noted earlier that they have done down from 1300 inmates to today only 300. That saved them over 6 million because its less than half the cost. Violence in prisons has dropped 70 . In maine, they have gone from 139 to between 35 and 45 today in just the bast towel of years. What i want to note is that the corrections commissioner noted that the downsiding led to substantial reductions in the use of force and use of restraints and inmates cutting themselves up. Its totally eliminated. They reduced the duration. Those that used to go there for drug, may may still go, but if they test clean, they can graduate. If someone success kept for more than 72 hours that, is reviewed by the commission. I want to note that one of the keys in texas to reducing that has been the disassociation program. Inmates can earn their way out by exemplary behavior and denouncing gang membership. Using sanctions and incentives is a way to provide for incentives that lead inmates to. Inmates may have a longer curfew. Those that misbehave may be denied prims like making phone calls and for example, access to the mailroom. No two things with concern to sanctions. There is a 24hour time out, but again we have to make sure we are not overusing sot tear confinement for long periods. One of the strongest for a certain time, we will tell you regarding the white house and other members that are supporting the legislation particularly for the defenders. We can make sure folks have an incentive for Good Behavior in prison and by the way, a study has shown 36 fewer new offenses as opposed to discharge without supervision. I want to go over the recommendations that we would urge you to do in addition ending the release from solitary confinement. Those include eliminating rules and improving training and deescalation techniques and training in mental retardation and Mental Illness and using the parallel universe model for positive behavior and self improvement and a matrix. Unfortunately those who are being punished for discipline violations and we know the smaller Housing Communities were the better Staffing Ratio can address that issue. I will tell you if we can address the overcrowding, that helps. When you have inmates with inadequate ratio, that makes it more difficult to diffuse the placement. I want to thank the committee for their work on this and i believe we are on the path to solutions that will increase the order in prisons or make the public safe for when they are discharged. Thanks to the panel and special thanks to them for speaking openly about their incarceration. They i read your testimony three times. It is that compelling. We will give you a few empties to summarize and answer questions. Ranking members and committee, thank you for inviting me to speak about 15 years in solitary confinement on death row in angola. Im here because in 2012, i became the 141st innocent death exxonry since the u. S. Supreme court reinstated Capital Punishment in 1976. Before i was exonerated and released, i was subjected to solitary for 23 hours a day for 15 years between the ages of 23 and 38. This experience was all the more painful and cruel because i had not committed crimes for which i was sentenced to die. In my written statement, i described the torture. The heat and cold are often unbearable and normal physical and mental activity and the contact are superior. As harmful as the conditions are, it is made all the worse because its a hopeless existence. Humans cannot survive without food and water. They cannot survive without sleep and they also cannot survive without hope. Years on end, solitary on death row will drain that hope from anyone because in solitary there is nothing to live for. I know this because i lot of my hope. After realizing what my existence would be like until i was executed or exonerated, i was on the verge of committing suicide by state. Giving up legal rights and allowing the state to carry out death. Something that would be done a few weeks after signing the necessary paperwork. My lawyer talked me out of that saying i would be exonerated and released some day. Thats why i was able to regain my hope and able to continue my legal fight. I was one of the fortunate on death row because i had lawyers and supporters, but the state effectively kills most men in solitary years before they inject them with lethal drugs. I can see now reason to subject anyone to this type of existence no matter how certain they are that we are guilty of a horrible crime and among the worst of the worst. Even if we want to punish them severely, we should refrain from this treatment because its the humane and moral thing to do. My prshs fagz teaches that we should be humane in caring for all people. What does it say as a nation that even before the law allows the state to kill them bit by bit by subjecting them to solitary confinement. I do not condone what those have done, but i dont condone what they have done when we put them on solitary when we treat them as subhuman. They should be better than that. I would like to believe that the vast majority of the people would be appalled that they knew what they are doing to inmates and understood that we are torturing them for reasons that have little in anything to do with protecting other inmates or Prison Guards from them. Its torture, pure and simple. No matter what else we want to call it. I would like to think we can agree that our constitution prohibits it. I thank the subcommittee for educating the public about it and i am pleased to have any questions you may ask. In the Opening Statement, it talked about the inmate that i met who said i got an extra 50 years because they said i would kill him and i did. It was stunning. Coldblooded statement. Did you run into similar circumstances in other inmates who were that dangerous . There was there was one. He volunteered for execution. Thats why he dropped his appeal. He stated that if he got out, he would do it again. Whats the right thing to do with that kind of person based on what you have seen in your i dont know how to describe it. Incredible life experience. I have also come in contact with individuals who are on death row. They make no attempt to profess their innocence. They would just prefer life as opposed to death. Someone who would make a Statement Like that to kill man . Is put in the cell with them, just leave them in the cell by themselves. You let them out at appropriate times. You dont just lock them in a hole and forget about them. If i or you were to do that, you would go to prison for that. Its inhumane. Thank you. Mr. Kerrman, i know you may raise the question about incarcerated women. You lived that. You know the vulnerabilities they have. I think about other categories and those who have been held for immigration offenses which were technical violations. They are not crimes per se, but a violation of law, but its not a question of a Violent Crime or anything like that. The vulnerability they had because of language and culture and threat of deportation. What can you tell us about those women and what they face . They are held in confinement and potentially subjected to solitary confinement for a variety of reasons. Thats a horrifying thought. Too often solitary confinement is used not to control people who are truly dangerous to themselves or others, but as a tool of control. Within an institution when other management tools whether it be a Detention Center or prison or a jail would be far more humane and more effective. Was there recourse at danbury in terms of persons or office that you could contact as an inmate if you saw or felt you were being threatened by a guard, for example . Your best chance if you felt that you were under threat and in danger from either a staffer or frankly from another prisoner would be if you had had contact with the outside world. Different prisoners have different degrees of contact with the outside world. A prisoner like myself who is middle class with a lot of access, money on my phone account and so on and so forth has a better cha