Justice home began in 2013 and as part of the program in cooperation with judges and prosecutors, women who are facing prison or jail for a felony are given a chance to remain at home with their families to be held accountable in the community and to get the help and support that they need to do better, and that is exactly what happens. 88 of justice home graduate remain arrest free after they complete the program. And justice are also realizes massive fiscal savings. Its the total cost of tax payer to incarcerated women in york its just too much of a going to foster care is over 130,000 a year. It costs less than 20,000 a year to support a woman to a Better Future via justice home. And it gets much better results. Again, looking to the states for innovation, we see two new primary care legislation adopted in massachusetts and tennessee. And these new measures require judges in the states to consider, in fact, when theyre in sentencing a person who is aa primary caregiver of minor children, and to impose Accountability Measures that are appropriate for the offense that will not harm those children. And its worth pointing out that massachusetts and tennessee have very different political landscapes. But everybody can see the value of this kind of reform, regardless of their political party. The primary caretaker policies should be adopted within the federal system so that federal judges are required to make the same considerations at sensing. So i look for to todays important test testament of wod girls pathways into prison, but harsh conditions we must survive, and the steps that are necessary for safe and successful return to the community. But i implore the members of this committee and all Public Officials to prioritize policy changes that will reduce the number of women and girls ever going into a correctional facility. Thank you. Because those of the changes that will make us safer. Ms. Kajstura. Thank you chairwoman bass and Ranking Member ratcliffe is your microphone on . It says talk. Thank you chairwoman bass, Ranking Member ratcliffe members for finding opportunity to share some data on womens incarceration, not on because this is an issue thats been overlooked for far too long but also because womens expenses in the criminal Justice System serve to highlight the faults of the entire system. The u. S. Incarcerates women fis rate in the world. So theres a lot of data to dig through it as i outlined the basics i would like you to all people in fact, in mind. When women are incarcerated one in four women have not been convicted. That figure given seats we as incarceration are too much. Since the 70s women state prison population of going faster than their male counterparts. There are nearly ten times as many women state presents them as 40 years ago despite this dramatic growth, womens march ration remains an afterthought. In most states women have not benefited from recent efforts as much as men have. There are many complex and interconnected reasons why the u. S. Is incarcerating women at everincreasing rates. Here are a couple of examples. States to continue to widen the net of, justice involvement by criminalizing womens responses to genderbased abuse and discrimination. Weve heard about the expansion of drug conspiracy laws that lead to even minor or peripheral roles of women receiving very harsh sentences, even more harsh than those in charge of the operation. But in terms of gender abuse, you have policy changes led to mandatory dual arrests. Just simply for fighting back against domestic violence. And once caught in the net that are fewer diffusion programs about the win. Wyoming, for example, there was a boot camp that allowed me to purchase in a sixmonth program instead of having to serve a lengthy sense. But no Summer Program is available in the state for women. They faced youth incarceration for firsttime offenses while their male counterparts can quickly return to the community. Once women are incarcerated they faced more and harsher display sanctions for similar behavior when compared to men. This disciplinary action harms womens ability to earn time off and decreases chances of parole. But tentacles of mass incarceration of a long reach. Women in concert in jails and prisons account for for a small percentage of women under some form of correctional parole. Probation accounts of majority of women and correctional control and is often billed as an alternative to incarceration. Compliance with probation terms is particularly difficult for them. Often sets us up to fail. For example, probation comes with mandatory monthly fees which women are in the worst position to afford, and failing to pay these fees alone is often a violation of probation. Childcare duties for the complicated compliance because probation privates often include travel to mandatory meetings or havent yet advanced having to get permission for an emergency doctors visit. And ongoing struggle for Mental Health and Substance Abuse disorders which affect women in jails are more than men require Additional Support rather than being viewed as punishment, rather than being punished as a failure of probation. And even as incarceration rates drop, womens incarceration continues to grow getting hard data is the obvious next up for policy change. You would think doing how many people are, how many women are locked up and where and why would be easy. After all, this is a population that is literally counted multiple times a day but theres lack of data. I set out to get a complete picture of womens incarceration in my report on womens mass incarceration, the whole pie, and had we together data scattered across government reports and surveys. For example, the last statistics on incarcerated women, it was 1999, 20 years ago. Since then data on a car should women has been available piecemeal scattered throughout the chill population. When our statistical agencies were blindfolded, policymakers are, too. Having accurate timely data is an important part of indie as incarceration of women and, quite frankly, there is such as room for improvement in so many areas that we can wage for Data Collection to catch up on we take, since action today. Thank you. Ms. Onwuka. Good morning. Thank you, chairman bass, thank you, Ranking Member ratcliffe. I work with independent womens forum and where an Educational Organization committed to increasing the number of limited value free markets and personal liberty. We advance policies that enhance peoples freedoms and choices and opportunities. My focus specifically, my work focuses on expanding opportunity for women. This subject is something thats really important to us. It doesnt isnt this a great time for opportunity. We know we have record low unemployment rates, over 1800 new businesses were started by women each day in 20172018. Firms owned by black or women of color have triple digit growth over the past decade. Yet, a criminal background loss locked too many women out of opportunity work is a critical component to Successful Transition from the criminal Justice System back into society. Im encouraged by the historic bipartisan First Step Act was passed and signed into law last year. It laid the foundation but we know theres more to do for women. Conversations like today remind us that the left and the right are committed to helping every american achieve the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Organizations across the philosophical spectrum are engaged in criminal justice efforts and for different reasons. We could all agree committed a crime and thank her debt to society should not preclude a woman from the pursuit of a Better Future. Its not just her future but the future of her children, our family, her community that event under Successful Transition back into society. And it all starts with so many women were in the criminal Justice System. You heard the statistics, they are staggering. Whats interesting is we saw the replacement of judicial discretion with onesizefitsall fencing mandates landing a lot of lowlevel nonviolent offenders in federal prison for longer time than otherwise it mightve been given. Particularly because their alternatives to serving time. That nettled impacted women and their families, and as a result you have more are likely to assert as a primary caregiver to children prior to entering prison at plans to return upon release but we know children who spent involved in the Justice System face a host of challenges and difficulties. Incarceration also forces families deeper into poverty and debt. The burden falls on family members, society, and yes, taxpayers. The family bond especially with the children often becomes a motivating factor for women not to return to crime. Effective criminal justice requires respect for the dignity of all people and the successful means towards rehabilitation. Now, while serving time women face special challenges. Some of the panelists have talked about this, from General Health and wellness to ongoing gynecological care and prenatal care if they are pregnant. They are required separate facilities for showering and using the toilet. Serving a criminal sentence vote should not mean that female inmates serve in dehumanizing, unsanitary, unsafe, or unhealthy conditions. Some level of privacy from male guards is a reasonable expectation and can protect your prisoners come many of whom have excellent Sexual Violence. Incarcerated pregnant women are the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the Justice System really considers the special needs of this population rarely. Thankfully the shaklee women is a practice that has been ended by law because of the risk it poses to moms and babies. And now as a mother of a seven month old baby boy, this is especially close to my heart. Ongoing physical Mental Health care should not be forgotten. When its time for women to return from present that at the moment to begin thinking about what shes going to do afterwards. We know womens recidivism rates are similarly troubling to those of men, about one quarter of women released from prison have an arrest for a new crime within six months. Wanted within your and twothirds i just after so training Technical Education opportunities including those types of Faith Committee commit assets in the rehabilitation reentry process. The evidence of these programs work. The First Step Act encourage Rehabilitation Program that offers incentives to inmates differences right and recidivism reduction programs. And a Strong Economy is an ally in providing women opportunities but where government puts up roadblocks to opportunities, government needs to remove them. Weve seen occupational licenses have been a tremendous hindrance for women who simply want to work. Thats a place where we can start and embracing state take action there. The criminal Justice System is an area where we all believe smart reforms can help women who want to be productive members of society. So i look forward to todays discussion. Thank you. I want to thank all of the witnesses for your testimony today, and we will now proceed under the fiveminute rule with questions. Ill begin recognizing myself for five minutes. Ms. Schenk, i do not understand why you worry indicted. You said that you indicted, it sounded like, years after your Partner Abuse you passed away. You were originally could you please go through the sequence again and explain why you were indicted . Absolute. It tends to be a little confusing sometimes. He, the person i was dating, was murdered like a mansion in 20022. I was initially charged with conspiracy in 2002. I received a letter from i return three months after the initial charge state my case had been dismissed. And your conspiracy was . Drugrelated conspiracy after a crime. So you conspired to sell the drugs even though you are locked in the house against her will . I live in the home. Okay, go ahead. Like i said i moved on with my life and id gotten married, have children, then in 2007 they knocked on my door and come with an indictment and charge me with conspiracy. But not only did i get conspiracy but it also received, i received four felonies. I was charged charged with possession did intend to destroy cocaine, crack and marijuana along with conspiracy charges, based on the fact i live in over you indicted five years after the drug dealer died and five years after you were originally arrested . Yes. Thats tracy. But after you were released i wanted to know what happened with your children. Who took care of your children while you were incarcerated. With their father. And after you got out did you get custody of your children . Absolutely. Three weeks after i got out, i went down with her dad and, i have joint custody of my daughters now. Hes a wonderful man, a wonderful father. He never kept the children from me. Very helpful in keeping my relationship how much time did you serve . Nine years. How old are your children . Audit is 15, eight is 13 and and the lease is 11. From what years when you win and they were held . Four, two, and six weeks old. There now 13, 11 and nine. Were you able to stay in touch with them . Didnt you say for while you are close to them but then you transferred away. Was yesterday initially i was in illinois, and i was able to see them in my first three years for about every six weeks was able to maintain some type of connection with them but the present had closed for women and i was transferred with 40 other women to florida. Did anybody take into consideration the fact that you would not be able to get in touch with your family . There was no consideration for anybody. There were two wanted 40 women scattered all across the country. Illinois was the closest prison for all the women there, so women ended up in california, texas, florida. One thing that is said about women who are incarcerated different for men is that women dont receive visits. Women visit me in prison. Men dont visit him in prison and he wanted to know ms. Schenk and ms. Kerman, was that your experience . Is that what you saw when you in prison or is it that i could . Absolutely. You would get visits and they would be very sparse as far as people there visiting their families. You get a lot of grandmothers bringing kids, caregivers how often did you see women whose children were in foster care while they were speedy often. I would talk to a lot of women. I was there for nine years i spoke to many women over the years who would lose their children to custody of the children, speedy parental rights be terminated . Yes. What was your experience . Did you see women receive visits . Did you know women who lost their children . Did you know women whose children were in foster care . Thank you chairwoman bass. I feel that the relationship between mothers and children is the single most important factor of incarceration of women. I was not a mother when i was incarcerated. I am now. I think about that all the time. I thought about all the time when i locked up. I was very, very lucky to i was serving time in connecticut and i was a resident of new york city, so for many people it was easy to visit me. Since then the fso in danbury has been repurposed and his of women who were incarcerated there have also been transferred far away from their families. What would happen is you would see women, my bunk mates never received a visit the entire time we were together. She had two children but then there were certain families that were fortunate enough to be able to be up in the visiting room. Im going but im Somebody Just wondered if anybody could comment on women at this all became pregnant while they were incarcerated . There was a woman in florida who became pregnant by an officer while i was incarcerated, and that is something that doesnt get talked about often enough, but the safety of women with officers who are there. Thank you. Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank the chair. Ms. Onwuka, you highlighted in your testimony the importance of dignity for women in prison, and i agree with you. This certainly should not be a partisan issue. We should all be willing to address in the spirit of bipartisanship, i think we can, the needs of women, girls in the criminal Justice System. Some of those issues as you pointed out were addressed in the First Step Act, which President Trump signed into law late last year. But you make it also that there are still areas for more to be done at the federal level to provide dignity for women inmates. Can you elaborate on those additional areas for improvement . And specific im interested whether you know any states that are taken action in the specific areas . And then if time is permitting i would like to get the perspective of ms. Schenk and ms. Kerman, given your experiences. Thank you. So actually the comments of ms. Schenk just now touches on one of those, the male Prison Guards area. I think its risen for women to have some expectation of privacy, particularly when youre changing, addressing, showering, and we know female prisoners are vulnerable and a lot of them have unfortunately experienced Sexual Violence in the past. When you have a situation where perhaps a correctional officer enters into a female self and shes changing, she may protest, may have some privacy . And a verbal altercation could ensue, this could be triggering for that women behind bars and it could lead to a place that she doesnt want to go and you dont want to have her being. I think the american, there are a couple of conservative organizations and progressive organizations that of come together to talk about why during incarceration its original that mail cart card sd be present when a prisoner stripsearched. They should be supervising women were in showers and other sensitive areas. Even the idea of forced an appropriate inspections come these things i think counterproductive to rehabilitating a woman behind bars. I think theres an area for understanding what is it, what happens when male guards are present, what a potential guidelines or guardrails that should be put in place between men and women in sensitive areas that we understand that are other places where make sense to have that happen. Another area that is concerning for pregnant women, we did talk about the shackling of women being ended, but the continued care for women without a baby afterwards is really important. Some recently suggest that correctional Facilities Team to fail to find a physician requesting the care for pregnant women, and the places women at come Womens Health and the health of the child at risk. Even after a woman whos had a baby, i know very many women without children understand there is an emotional toll thats taken. When youre denied medical care all you dont have adequate medical care, even Mental Health care that may be needed postpartum, i think those are areas where you both need guidance from obstetricians and gynecological, experts on what kind of care is needed and how federal prisons can provide that. And then in terms of states like louisiana, states having implement some of these at the state level. Texas is another great place that is implement some changes in terms of federal prisons. So happy to provide Additional Research at another time. Thank you. Ms. Schenk and ms. Kerman anything you want to add to that come in perspective you want to provide on of those issues of dignity for women, as we could focus on here . Absolutely. The guard situation so that talk about because my children are usually in the room when i go to speak. But it is very prevalent, the garden inmate relationship that happen in prison. I never felt safe changing. Guards know your routine. I know everyone to single you out they will. And it is very common for an officer, you know, to single somebody out speedy would yield for a minute . When you sigar to preserve relationships, are these consensual or are you describing rape . Well, when you put in perspective the somebody who is over you was in charge of you, they are consensual to the extent where yes, the inmates are there but there also vulnerable. These are women who are, these other caregivers, people that are over them, authority over them. While there are consensual relationships that im aware of, there is to me there is a level of not being power, and they wield that power. I never had a relationship with an officer, but i can tell you that officers would know when i would shout and it would walk by my router to put into my room when i was getting dressed frequently. It happened at every prison i was at. I was at three different places and this is just my story. You could talk to anyone of those women and they will tell you it was very common to know that this officer was in a relationship with the inmate, or it was just something that happened all the time. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Ms. Kerman, your time in custody, you observe other women who are pregnant, i assume. You observed women were pregnant gave birth while incarcerated . And can you describe what you observed . Thank you, mr. Nadler. Ill never forget the first day in prison for a variety of reasons, one of the things that i i remember so clearly after the processed in by Correctional Officers and transformed, it was february i was being escorted up to the unit where i would live, the building that would house me, and there were a group of women standing outside the building and it was a woman who was very visibly pregnant. I learned she was eight months pregnant. And i remember just been so confused when i saw her. I was literally like this must be a mistake. It never occurred to me that there would be pregnant women in prison, and i am still deeply confused by that. I am deeply troubled by the fact that so many women into prison and, of course, they theyve ge through an entire judicial process prior to incarceration, and that our choice as a society is to force them to go through the pregnancy and childbirth while under custody in the setting as ms. Onwuka has pointed out, that is not appropriate for pregnant people. That particular young woman that i saw went into labor shortly thereafter come just a few weeks later. She went into labor. She was the first person id ever seen in labor. She labored for about 12 hours there in the prison. Occasionally checked on by staff but larger assisted by the other women. And Hospital Unit . Vitally, after about 12 hours they took out to the local hospital which is where she gave birth, and she was then immediately returned to the prison postpartum, you know, in recovery from having given birth but also incredibly drawn, sad, you know, devastated because she had been separate from infant. And all of the biology that we know tells us that babies and mothers need to be together for months, you know, for years really. But certainly that young lady who was serving an 18 month sentence for a lowlevel drug offense could estate in the community to give birth. She was from rural maine and it was very lucky that her family was able to take the baby, and he was very lucky that they were occasionally able to make the eight hour drive down for her to see the baby, who was also very lucky that she was going home soon. Because not everyone is that fortunate. The most important thing from my point of view that we think about pregnancy, you know, reproductive rights and freedom and motherhood when we think about women in the criminal Justice System. Let me ask that the video clip from orange is the new black which is let me quickly explain that this depicts the return of a prisoner immediately after giving birth. How long after giving birth was she returned to the prison . The next day, we had a regular uncomplicated birth, so as soon as she was medically able she was brought. In the few seconds i have left, ms. Shank, i believe the minimum sentencing to those harmful to society. Can you tell me about sentencing reform or any particular reforms you would suggest in particular to women . Thats a big question. You mean alternatives to sentencing . Is that what youre asking . Well, alternatives to mandatory sentencing, whatever you i think that we need to give discretion back to the judges and they need to be able to do their job. I think if theyre allowed to if we take away mandatory minimum sentencing and sentence on an individual basis it would be more productive and wouldnt have just an overload of people in prison, cut and dried, this is the category you feel in, you go left, you go right. I think it needs to be individual. I think you need to base everybodys story different and i think it needs to be the judge needs to be allowed to make that decision. Thank you very much. My time is expired. Thank you very much, madam chair. Ms. Luca, ill begin with you as i could. You mentioned programs connected to the faith community. Could you kind of expound upon that, what have been your interactions or experience relative to faithbased programs in prisons, womens prisons or men for that matter . Sure, thank you so much. Thank you. I think a critical aspect of rehabilitation for many people behind bars has been faith, and the ability for those people to be connected to justice and restoration of, you know, a personal sense of their faith and guiding beliefs. Im part of that as youve seen some pretty successful programs that are faithbased that have been very helpful in achieving that and just looking through my notes here. So, prison programs that ive seen very effective. The first one that comes to mind is were out of order, but in general, youve seen prisoners who participate in job training and Educational Programs are more likely to avoid reincarceration afterwards. The pep program, prison entrepreneurship program, an Organization Going in there and providing prisoners were the skills at that they need particularly arn entrepreneurship. I like entrepreneurship. Its one of the areas where individuals who have a criminal record for example could start their own shop, hang their own shingle. I mentioned the statistic, 1821 women businesses were started each day 2007 to 2018 because they were able to open the businesses they wanted to do. Pep is an example of a program that works at a state level and can be scaled nationally. When it comes to other faithbased programs that reduce recidivism, i think theres some other programs out there. Prison fellowship is another great one. National christian nonprofit again in texas, one of the great laufg pads for some of these programs. And ill give you statistics from their success. According to a study by the Texas Council only 8 returned to prison from the program they provided compared to 20 eligible, but elected not to participate. I think those are two examples entrepreneurship that could be helpful. Thank you very much. The next question ill ask any of the Panel Members who might like to comment until i run out of time. Most, most prisoners, men or women, are going to get out some day and even those that have, you know, some form of homicide, often times, are going to get out and those that get job skills at the federal level we have prison industries. I used to work with, in the city of cincinnati when i was on city council and county commissioner, programs that encourage people to work and we had two for one programs for every day youre out doing something on a work crew you got two days off your sentence, for example. And relative to trying to get a skill that when the person gets out that they could put actually into use, also making your time in prison, perhaps pass more quickly, if thats possible, do you have any examples or programs that you think may have worked where you were at or an example where it doesnt work . Miss shank . One of the things that is very rarely offered in the federal system, in the prisons i was at were any kind of programs whatsoever. Theres the lack of program that we should be talking about. Each place that i was at, there was one program that would have been like a computer program. I was able to do that. That was the only program i was able to do and i did in coleman, florida, get my cdl. Have i drove in a big rig since . No, its something oriented more towards men. Theyre the lack of programs and also the programming that you do, theres a list that you have to get on to get to be able to get into this class. Now for me having a 15year sentence, every class that i applied for, anybody who comes in after me in the door, gets put if they have a shorter sentence they get ahead of me on the list. So guess how many programs i was able to do . Hardly any because i would be moved back down the list because somebody with two years about to get out would do, whether its reentry programs, any other programs, theres not enough programming in the system. Thank you very much. Cindy is correct, the federal bureau of prisons is particularly egregious in terms of very limited Rehabilitative Programming or sort of programming. She draws a good comparison or a good point that many of the programs, the limited programs available are completely designed for men. You know, and pointing out the pep program in texas unfortunately thats only available to men and women are not able to participate in texas. Theres an Amazing Program called inmates to entrepreneurs based in north carolina, works with women, incarcerated women and women who have returned to the community. Should know that in our state of ohio at ohio reformatory of women which is a state facility, theres a tremendous program called tapestry, its a Recovery Program for women faith based component. It operates, a network of graduates, 800 women who have returned to the community. Of course the point thank you so much for holding this hearing and to the Ranking Member. Its clear that as we look at this set of facts, emotions, passion, at that theres much work to do to build on what we have done in this committee, Prison Reform first step. Sentencing reduction, much work as relates to women and this testimony has given us sort of the launching pad to be able to do so. We hope to introduce soon the end racial profiling which certainly overlaps some of the reasons why women of color, and i know that the idea of conspiracy on drugs is something that occurs with the man and the woman that he is in on the conspiracy charge, we see that all the time. We have to address that and i look forward to specifically looking at those issues pt let me say one of my constituents, dr. Rowe, was not incarcerated, but wearing a jumper coming from west indies, africanamerican women and forced to put blanket on to come from caribbean where people come for fun and play, and permeates through lbgtq and that legislation. I want to focus if i could, on this, the africanamerican women are twice the rate of white women and Hispanic Women. My time is short. Can you give a quick reason i want to ask others, miss shank, quick reasons why you see that happening. Thank you for your work. No problem. I think its important for this subcommittee to focus on the fact, and through our testimony weve focused on it and i want to say it out loud. One of the reasons that women are ending up incarcerated is because they are traumatized and theyve experienced trauma, whether its physical abuse, sexual abuse, witnessing violence in their communities, as well as they are caught in a cycle of poverty. And so until we address those concerns, inle we have real gender responsive programming that addresses the trauma that women have experienced, and men, but today were talking about women, were kind of spinning our wheels at this. You think that women of color are caught up in the elements, as well as anglo women and others . Absolutely, absolutely. And i need to move. I just wanted to get that basic understanding of the reason. Thank you so very much. Miss shank. I have legislation moving through the congress and unfortunately stuck in the United States senate that deals with the birth of babies while incarcerated. You have given me the, as they say, the launch to add the children aspect, but its to allow the mother to keep the baby. And in some instances theyre incarcerated and theyre able to keep them while incarcerated and keep them for six months and there are options in the community for low offenses. We want to look at that. I want you to comment, if you will, how powerful if that scene where the woman would be coming back with her baby to a certain safe place, clean, orderly, baby nursery type, where those mothers could stay while theyre incarcerated. I could barely watch that scene because it is very real. I had to turn away because it made me cry. It means everything if a mother could stay with her child. I donten that coming back to a nursery type situation without your child is going to do any good. Right, right, im saying you come with the baby. You have to come with the baby. Absolutely. You have to be with the baby. Thats what im saying. Sorry, that has to be able to happen. That is necessary not only for the mothers sanity and wellbeing, but for the child as well. You have to remember, im an adult and i accepted the consequences of my sentencing, but my children were the innocent victims in this and thats who we have to focus on. Theres Nothing Available for children. Even when i put my daughters in play therapy, they had to go to grief counseling. That was the therapy that they went to. May i add that were now, with your testimony, believe that we should now look at that piece. Absolutely. That helps mothers be together with their children. Frequent visits, other were thinking of how we actually do that. Frequent visits. Put a face on it. Frequent visits and also the type of visit. You could allow like more of a play type situation, instead of having your children having to sit in a chair and not be able to get up or something other than playing on a cement slab with no toys, really very limited things youre playing with. I created costumes with my children out of toilet paper with my children when they came at halloween. The mother will do anything to make their children happy. If theres nothing to do that, our resources are limited and you have to be able to offer them something to bring that child some form of happiness and connection with that child. That should be a part of ments it should be a part of the visit, yeah, it should be part of rehabilitation, strengthening those family bonds. Its what keeps them together. Thank you very much. Well, i want to thank you, madam chair. This has been a very interesting committee. So thank you for doing the hearing and i want to say to miss shank, thank you for sharing your story. Its im glad that you, after what, nine years, got clemency and youre getting your life back together and all of you, thank you for sharing your stories. I do have a question and im not sure who to ask of it, but in arizona im from arizona and we worked on sentencing reform and i think this is a bipartisan issue, quite frankly, both conservative groups and nonconservative groups or i dont know if you call it liberal or whatever, agree on this issue that theres a problem. But when we try to do this in arizona, the prosecutors push back, saying no, this is not first time drug offenders that are in the arizona prisons, at least. And the prisons actually showed us the statistics of who was in the prisons and it was you had to be basically a drug dealer, not just a drug user, at least in arizona, or it had to be a Violent Crime. So i guess, miss mccurdy, you might be the right person to answer, is this the case also in federal prison . I mean, do you have first time drug offenders . Who is in the prison . So not only do you have a number of first time, particularly with women, first time drug offenders, in the frl system you are charged with trafficking or possession with impote impotenttent intent to distribute. You dont necessarily have had to dealt drugs, you have to have dealt in a conspiracy and that role is very little as you heard cindy talk about. You could live with your partner, and you can i can about up the phone in the house where you live with your partner thats enough to indicate you in the conspiracy. Take the money to the bank. Youre not involved in the trade itself, but you have the peripheral roles and thats enough to get you involved in the conspiracy and the problem on the federal level is that the focus is not on your role, the focus is on the weight of the drugs. And so, if the conspiracy is large, and the weight of the drugs is large, and you dont have information to trade with the prosecutor to cooperate, you could not get your sentence reduced beyond the mandatory minimum and often times women, because theyre not involved in trade, they end up taking the entire weight of the drug trade, which in some instances gets them life without parole sentences. Thats very interesting. The other thing about the witnesses, child care, if if you get out and you have to go to mandatory meetings. I know in arizona we offer free or reduced child care to low income working women. Theres usually a waiting list because theres a certain amount of funds. Is this something that i would assume would help in that situation . cause i imagine it would be difficult, especially if youre a single parent. So thats definitely a step in the right direction. But one of the other problems on a probation is youre restricted to the hours youre allowed to leave the house, for example. If you have to do an emergency pickup of your kid, you cant, often times reach your parole probation officer in time, or the same thing for an Emergency Hospital visits, youre torn between your care giving duties and knowing that, you know, youre going to get sent back to prison if you take your kid to the emergency room. Thank you. And i only have 32 seconds left and i have so many questions so maybe ill follow up with all of you, but one thing that we did in our state, too, we reformed our occupational licensing because i imagine if you have a criminal history it might be difficult to get a regular job and so, i would assume a lot of women could be selfemployed and so, what are your thoughts on that . I dont know how to pronounce your name, miss onuka. Thank you. Microphone. Your state is a great example of states leading the charge in occupational licensing reform. For those unfamiliar, an occupational license is a permission slip for the government for you to get into vocation, everything from hair braiding to being a florist and there are lots of certifications and hurdles, frankly, that can be costly, particularly if youre low income, you dont have a lot of money, youre taking care of children and time it takes to get certifications and a lot of them have nothing to do with any sort of health or actual trade itself, its just a way to limit competition. So arizona is a great state, i think there are other states reforming and i would absolutely encourage other states to look at particularly those industries where women are trying to get into those vo cases. Those are entry level jobs and they can be a primary source of a very good income. And madam, chair, i know my time is up, but i wanted to share with the members that in our arizona prisons at least, its called Correctional Industries and there we put women to work. Ive toured it. In fact, you might, if you call a call center you might be talking to a woman prisoner in arizona because they are actually contracted out and theyre doing Call Center Work for different companies. So, its a good way for people to get trained and i support that. And i would like to work with you and other members. I think there are pieces of this that we can work on in a bipartisan basis as long as we dont put in poison pills and that type of things, i think we can work on it together. Thank you. Thank you representative demmings. Thank you so much, madam chair and thank you Ranking Member, both of you for your opening comments this morning that i think so adequately set the stage for todays hearing and thank you to each of you. I served as a Law Enforcement officer for a lot of years and our mission was to protect victims, but our purpose was never to create more victims, and i think that its so important that we understand the individual circumstances and victimization and other characteristics that women who are incarcerated face, like being victims of domestic violence, substantial abuse, Mental Illness, being poor or low income, all of those are challenges that if we are going to improve how we do business, weve got to factor those things in. 80 of the women who are incarcerated are parents and miss shank, youre absolutely correct. You know, i was a daddys girl. I loved my father, but you cant even put into words what it means to be with your mother. And the special role that a woman plays, a mother plays in every household. So thank you so much for being here today and helping us. And then, you know, we havent even talked much about once youre released and coming back into society, and the challenges of that. Miss shanks, so id like to start with you. If you could just talk. I know you said you talked about the separation from your husband, but eventually you were able to remarry and all and thats great because you talk about once you were released some of the challenges that you faced coming back into society. Yeah, we were not we did not reconcile. Were divorced, but we have a great relationship. Were coparenting our daughters and were doing that together. When youre released and you know, one of the challenges that i faced was i did get a job. I was fortunate enough to get a job 29 days out of prison and just received my sixth promotion last week. Congratulations. Thank you. Thats determination and thats being a mother having a lot of catching up to do. One of the things that was hard my Halfway House was in kalamazoo, hour and a half from my hometown and come three to four times a week, between 8 00 and 3 00, which are my work hours to come in for whatever they wanted me to come in for, just checkups, checking in, meetings, or you know, drops. Whatever random thing they wanted and if i didnt then that was a violation of my probation and then if i lose my job, which my job just hired me out and plus im a felon and theyre looking at me like there i could have easily lost my job, but again, thats a violation of my probation. They make things very difficult. I had posed the question, thankfully, i had a vehicle. I asked the person at the Halfway House what would i do if i didnt have a car she said youd take the bus. Thats like four hours, yeah, but they expect you to keep your you know, they expect you follow all of the rules which i understand, but they make things very difficult and that was very challenging for me early on. Luckily, im off of that home confinement and off that probation actually im still on probation, still on for five years, but dont have to do my checkins anymore. Thank you very much. Miss kerman, would you have anything to add to that . This is about policy. Incarceration of women is more about policy and not about crimes. Could you elaborate more on that as well, please . I woke up on the day of my release. I was in a federal jail facility in chicago, not the prison facility in danbury. No one in the stilt would confirm that i was in fact going to be released, but i was quite alert, and i watched Martha Stewart get released from federal prison the same day on the news and finally, ours later, a correctional officer said come on, back out, kerman and took me down to receiving and dispersement. We dont have any womens clothes here are the smallest set of mens clothes we have. Here is a wind breaker. It was chicago in the winter. Here is 28 and this is a gratuity. I said thank you. And opened up the alleyway door and was like, see ya. I was lucky because my fiance was waiting at the front door to take me home to new york which is 800 miles away. If that were not true my entire life almost surely would have been completely different because i had safe and stable housing. I was able to start work a week after my release from prison. Its i cant overstate how important that work piece is. I was treated very differently by my federal supervising office, my probation office. Both of us were in the federal system. You know, i of course was subject to drug testing and to checkins and so on and so forth, but they did not treat me with a heavy hand like they did cindy. And i think we have to look very hard at what drives disparity in the system. Its race, its class, its unacceptable, its illegal. That brings me back to your question about policy, and the fact that criminalology experts all over the country will point out the fact that its policy decisions that drivein cars raticars drive incarceration and our policy rise in this country does not map to crime rates. We began to incarcerate people at a very high rate as crime rates were actually beginning to decline and crime rates continue to go up and up and up even as we now enjoy historically low crime rates. Some of the lowest. Thank you so much. My five minutes or six goes very, very quickly. Thank you very much madam chair. Representative klein. Thank you, i want to thank the witnesses to be here for being here today. I want to talk about bail reform, despite the trial, retention, increased by 31 , make up about two third of the jail population and over 60 of women who are incarcerated have not been convicted of a crime and held in custody pretrial and has a unique impact because of twothirds of the women who could not meet bail twothirds were of mothers of minor children. At the time of the survey im quoting over 150,000 children had a parent in jail because they could not afford their bail bond. That means children are impacted by pretrial detention in startling numbers and this problem is most often caused by the pretrial incarceration of sole provider mothers. We need to address this program. As a former prosecutor when youre presented with a potential bond situation in court you have certain factors at least in virginia to consider, whether the person that the defendant is a flight risk, whether they are a risk to the community, if released, or whether theyre and the severity of the offense with which they have been charged is also something to consider. There are also the issues about secured bond versus an unsecured bond and then we in virginia have Pretrial Services which can be administered not in lieu of bond, but often they are a great way to help in the process, to avoid having to keep someone incarcerated. So let me ask anyone who would like to comment on that. What steps can we take to help address this problem . Well, i think part of the reason so some of these problems are very systemic. Some of the impacts that these bail bonds and the economic sanctions the criminal Justice System have on women are greater than men because women tend to not make as much as men and Hispanic Women more than white women. Getting ready of a moneybased bond, i get that. Lets go a little deeper. Secure versus unsecured. Pretrial versus bond. Can you speak to those specifics as to whether one might be more advantageous than another when it comes to reducing the impact on children in this situation . Im not sure about the way those distinctions would make a difference. Maybe somebody else could speak. Anybody else . I was received bail and was able to pay my bail with the help of my family and that literally made all the difference in my life. The people who afford bail get Better Outcomes in their cases for a variety of reasons, but including the fact that they are not desperate to plead guilty and take pleas which they should not take. 90 of all criminals take a plea. I can observe from my time in the federal jail that women who were on pretrial status were desperate. They were desperate about what was going on with their families and uncertainty about what was happening with their own lives. Many there was a woman incarcerated there for two years. What about encouragement of home monitoring . Is that something that could enable, maybe during my six year stint on pretrial, probation in new york city, my case was called in chicago. You were six years on pretrial. I spent nine years under correctional control and spend only one incarcerated. Wow. So six years of pretrial. I went through several so probation officers were supervising, but you know, it was a pretty straight forward process. I turned up once a month. I was tested for drugs. I reported my, you know, all the same things that we require of probation basically. I was not a mother so i think that a mother is even list after flight risk or you know, we have a greater consideration as a society to make sure that a mother is able to be in the community. Certainly the federal system is set up to do something other than rely on bail or pretrial incarceration in the jut come of its sentences. I must reflect on the fact that youre a former prosecutor, the responsibility of this really lies squarely within the prosecutor who is in prosecutorial function. Recommendation. With supervision. Women are a great example of the best possible candidates for pretrial treatment that does not involve incarceration. Thank you, i yield back. Representative macbeth. Thank you, madam chair, thank you to each of you for being here today to share your expertise and personal experience. Its critical that we hear from you. In recent years, i represent georgias 6th congressional district. In recent years georgia took on the challenge of Justice Reform. Under governor nadal deal, a republican, reducing recidivism, easy for me to say, and saving georgia taxpayers billions of dollars. Unfortunately the reforms may not be doing enough for women. Women are now the Fastest Growing population in georgias Justice System, sadly to say. We have to do more to make sure that women are more than an afterthought as we work to improve our criminal Justice System. Specialized courts have been a major pillar of georgias criminal Justice Reform efforts and helped to reduce the incarceration of nonviolent individuals. How can we work to ensure that specialized courts are ensuring the needs of women . So, the specialized courts are definitely one answer to some of the problems in the system, but the thing that i want to caution us about specialized courts is that often times people are required to plea guilty before they get access to a Specialized Drug court or a Mental Health court and particularly with drug courts, when youre dealing with people who have Substance Abuse problems and because of their problems can fall off the wagon and ultimately have already pled guilty, we have to really be careful about the way we use our drug courts so that were not funneling people in the system or basically being able to create a system where they are where they will ultimately fail because they cant adhere to the conditions of drug courts. So my recommendation is that particularly for drug courts that we not require people to plea guilty at the time they enter and that theyre able to at least try to get through the diversion aspect of the drug court before ultimately a plea or a decision about their actual charge is resolved. We should actually say that the percentages of women who are actually having to plead guilty has gone up within recent years . Yes. Thank you for that. Ms please forgive me in i mispronounce your name, do you have anything to add . Id love to hear from you. No, nothing to add. Just id like to underline that the guilty plea aspect of diversion courts is, i think the effects of it cannot be underestimated. When any mistake than leads somebody back into the kind of mainstream courts with a guilty plea, whether or not they were, in fact, guilty is often times like any plea bargains, if youre facing a very high sentence possibility, your force into pleaing just to get out of jail, just to get out of prison. Thank you. Another component of criminal Justice Reform in georgia is the Rehabilitative Program including drug and Mental Health treatment and programs that improve peoples employment prospects upon release. Again, these investments in people save money by keeping people from committing crimes again. Ms. Mccurdy, what obstacles do women face in assessing these programs . Im sure there are lots of obstacles theyre having to overcome. Particularly in the federal programs, theres not enough programming, as cindy has said. And even when there is programming, staff and women in prison dont even know about it. Particularly, for example, theres a Trauma Program called fit in the federal prison system. Only one facility actually according to the office of Inspector General report, offers the program. Again, this is around trauma response programming. Not many people knew about it. Theres another program and thats a program that is supposed to help mothers stay with their children after, while theyre incarcerated and only 37 of the people in the federal prison participated in it and many did not know about it and werent told about it from the bureau of prisons and there were plenty of slots that were available for women to participate in it. We have to get the information out. Thank you. Representative steuby. Thank you, madam chair. I hail from florida where i spent some time in the state legislature and we did, especially on the senate side, attempted to do an incredible amount of criminal Justice Reform before i left and they were still working on it while ive been up here, but one. Things that we never focused on was the female side of Prison Reform and criminal Justice Reform. All the focus was kind of what you guys are talking about, was just in general mostly on the male side of the equation so i appreciate all of you being here today and kind of bringing in issue to the forefront. I just would love to get your recommendations. Mrs. Shank, in your testimony you talk about women in prison with you and wanting them to have a Second Chance. Help me understand what that would look like . After a certain amount of time of Good Behavior do we then bring them up for like a probation type hearing . Like what, in your mind, is that Second Chance that we on the federal side could look at doing in circumstances like that . Well, like right now with the First Step Act, their initiative with the programming. That to me is very important for allowing women, first, lets get some programs in there and allow them to get the help that they need and lets allow them to get education and then putting the incentives to give them help with time off or maybe just, there is no parole or anything like that, in the federal system. Do you 87 of your time. Release, they just need relief of anything we could do to help shorten their senences, whether it be programming or a bill that we passed, just recalculate the wait and the calculation and what that means to sentencing. We just need to allow the women a chance to breathe to give them the Second Chance. Theres women i was incarcerated with who were serving, 20, 30year sentences. For me, the prosecutor asked for 89 years for me. Ive received my mandatory minimum sentence so lets get rid of the mandatory minimum sentences. That to me was very important. Thats some of the things we worked on before, getting rid of the mandatory, youre talking rehabilitation type programs in the system. Ms. Kerman you talked about the home Justice Program in new york. Is that something you would like to see at the federal level, some type at the federal level. Is that lacking . Is there anything like that in the federal level . Theres nothing remotely like that in the federal system. That gives it to the judges and prosecutors and felony cases, they may elect to allow the woman to stay in the community. Go through the measures and wraparound help. Some women are different. Some women need job education, some need Mental Health care or substantial abuse. Everyone is different, but the results are fantastic. It saves the taxpayers money and it saves those families the drama r trauma of being torn apart by incarceration. I have to return to that question of trauma because we know that it actually lies at the heart of most womens involvement in the criminal Justice System. 80 to 90 of women in the system have been victims of sexual assault, other physical assault or really significant trauma prior to their incarceration. The overlapping instances of Substance Use disorder and Mental Health problems are directly related. If people in the Community Get the trauma response that is necessary in a timely fashion, we would see and its true of men as well, but its disproportionately true of women, we would see Something Different in the criminal Justice System and that experience of trauma, you know, cindys history of being a victim of Domestic Abuse should have been considered at sentencing. And youve previously testified before the Senate Judiciary committee, is that correct. Correct. And Homeland Security on issues of Prison Reform. That was in 2014 and 2015. So since that time, what progress, if any, has been made in Prison Reform at the federal level . I think that we have seen lots of lots of innovations at the state level. Weve seen very little progress in the federal government other than the passage of the federal legislations recently. I must make the point that both the federal bureau of prisons and in fact, all correctional systems operate with limited oversight in many cases and limited accountability when, in fact, problems are found within correctional systems or individual prisons. No prison has ever been closed because it was badly run. Thank you. My name has expired. Representative deutsche. Im sorry, youre fine. I want today say id be happy to, would on these issues moving forward with the committee. We did a lot of this in florida and i certainly think that their testimony is very impactful on the issues so thank you. Thank you. Representative deutsche . Thank you, madam chair and thank you to the witnesses being here. Thanks for your helpful and really powerful testimony you drafted an article entitled womens mass incarceration, 2018, it dramatically captures the current state of women and girls in our nations criminal Justice System. Some of the statistics in there and some of the statistics weve heard already today over 219,000 women and girls incarcerated in the u. S. We talked about the 700 increase since 1980. The growth rate of incarcerated women outpaces men. 67 of women in jails have not been convicted after crime and 80 of the women, 80 of the women held in jails are mothers. So in january of this year, the american journal of Health Prison nz 22 states, studied a total of 1,396 pregnant women who were held in prison, but accessibility to adequate medical care is atrocious. This is a devastating impact on women and i would just flag one incident in my own district on the morning of april 10th there was an incident pompano beach, florida, which i represent, id like to submit a letter from the Broward County detailing the incident. Thank you, madam chair. Tammy jackson a 34yearold woman, pregnant with a many with a Mental Illness complained to jail officers at 3 a. M. That she was experiencing contractions. Jail officials moved the woman to an empty cell. After more than four years 7 22 a. M. Spoke with a physician. The physician stated he would check on her when he arrived. Then they waited and finally a deputy observed the woman crying and squatting and heard a baby in the cell. And she was standing with the baby in her arms and wrapped the baby in a towel the nurse described the situation as a pregnant female had a spontaneous delivery. Well, it shouldnt have happened like that, obviously, thats not how anyone should be treated in america, however shocking as it may be, its not an isolated occurrence. In fact, a few days earlier another woman almost gave birth alone in the same facility, fortunately, the officials got her to the hospital where she gave birth to the baby. Ill just ask i think ill ask miss mccurdy, what kind of data should jails be collecting on incarceration on pregnant women. And first of all, i find it that they called it a spontaneous birth. They had nine months notice 45 of women enter jail pregnant. 45 of women enter jail pregnant so at the point that their pregnancy is acknowledged, medical attention should start at that point. Just as if women are were not in jail or prisons, they need the continuous medical attention that women prenatal attention that women need on the outside as well. And so we cant wait till they get to the point where they are about to have birth to give them prenatal care. We have to do it from the day they enter jails and really, more importantly, we need to stop putting pregnant women in jail. There are too many alternatives that we could turn to before we are put to the before the last option is to put a pregnant woman in jail. I appreciate that. I agree. Its just to put a few things in the record. That study also points out that theres no federal agency thats responsible for collecting incarceration data that also collects pregnancy data. I assume, let me just confirm that pregnancy data of incarcerated women should be collected by the bureau of justice statistics, correct . Ments krebl. Correct. And the lack of Data Collected on pregnant women is obviously our prison and jail system has not adopted to the increasing women and girls and women in the system. And that the quality should dip dramatically. Should a National Standard be for the care that pregnant women receive while incarcerated . Absolutely. And again, that National Standard should start with keeping women out of jails and prisons that are pregnant. Thank you very much. I yield back. Representative richmond. Thank you madam chair, and thank you for this hearing. As i hear from the with its today, it appears that a number of things that i take out of it. One of which is, the power and the really the amount of abuse that can happen in prosecutorial discretion, and that is a question for, i think, this committee and policy makers to determine how much power that prosecutors are going to have. It was a prosecutor, miss shanks, that made the decision to come back after five years and charge you with a crime. And too often, prosecutors look at women as leverage to go after something else, or Collateral Damage towards some other fight. And i think that we need to make sure that were holding our prosecutors accountable so that if youre rich and affluent, you get different treatment than if youre poor and uneducated and i think that thats something that we cannot that we have to highlight. The other part i heard is programming. And one of the things that i find to be the climax of foolishness in our correctional system in america is we encourage people when we lock them up to better themselves and then when we get out, we have barriers to them getting licenses in those very professions we train them in. So in many states you have a catchall phrase to get a license, called good moral character. Well, we invested money and welcome formerly incarcerated people to train them. So what sense does it make for them us to bar them from entering the professions theyre trained in or is that counterproductive. I would note that everybody seemed to say yes. Yes. Yes. The other thing is the family connection. One of you all said it, i wrote an article a long time ago that said, you know, i was talking about a father then, that the father may be in jail, but the family is doing the time. Well, certainly when a mother is in jail, the family is doing the time. If the First Step Act we said that we have an incarcerate people within 500 driving miles of the home. But i think that the conversation today gives real agreed dense to women. That number needs to be reduced in half when you think of the importance and the difficulty and the fact that women less likely to be visited in jail. The other thing i heard was gender responsive correctional approaches as guided by womencentered research and data and i think that that is very, very important and i want to thank you all for your recommendations. So miss kerman, let me ask you a question. You talked about justice home, do that apply to Violent Crimes or just nonViolent Crimes . I think that thats at the discretion of the prosecutors and the judges. Certainly the woman, you know, i serve on the board of the womens prison association, which is one of the Community Agencies that does the ongoing work with participants and we would certainly take anybody regardless of their crime of conviction. That program does give a possibility at record expungement, depending on what the crime is and depending on the persons completion of the program and of course, depreng on the discretion of the judge and prosecutor. I think that its a very artificial line, often, that when we make the distinction between crimes we characterize and violent and crimes that we characterize as nonviolent. Anyone who is intimate with the court system and the way that charges are brought knows that those terms are not let me just cut you off because i did criminal defense and im not talking about the nuance between weight and not weight and whether its violent. Im talking of crimes of violence where theres a victim. Let me move on to something i dont think i heard, and that is housing at the end of incarceration is one of the biggest factors in recidivism. So the question becomes, all of these artificial barriers to Public Housing to public Educational Assistance once youve been formally incarcerated. How do we tackle those barriers . And the last thing is seen with crack cocaine, if a child in Public Housing was convicted of having crack or drugs, then the mother gets evicted from Public Housing. Now with opioids we do not see prosecutors and housing authorities push to evict ipo parents. So just a note that we ought to treat them the same way, but how important is housing in this whole equation, stable housing when you get out . Safe and stable housing is not only important for womens return to the community. A lack of safe and stable housing is a determining factor in why many women end up in the system in the first place. Not having a place to live. Womens lack of safety leads to their potential to commit crimes as well. So as far as those many, you know, policybased barriers to people gaining access to safe and stable housing, we should drop them. Those are not, you know, things that we have to do, those are things that we choose to do. And we should choose to tear down each and every barrier to full citizenship that people like me and cindy face. Thank you. We deserve our citizenship in full. Thank you. Representative jeffries. Thank you, chairwoman for convening this hearing and for your tremendous leadership in this area. I want to thank all of our witnesses for your presence here today and for compelling information that you are providing. Mrs. Shank, i think you said in your fm that you believe that the years and miles of separation caused by incarceration are in part designed to break the bond between families, is that right . That is absolutely correct. I feel that 1,000 percent. Being that i was we were limited to 300 minutes a month on phone calls, which we have to pay for ourselves. And i had three daughters. Theyre fighting over the phone and imagine a child when they hear that beep. My kids would panic and hear the beep before the phone would hang up. Mommy, dont hang up, please dont hang up. And the phone just to drop, its devastated and it happened every single time. I mean, its set up to keep you apart and they try and tell you that were here and were going to, you know, we want you to strengthen your family ties and theyre offering things that they dont offer anything. They move you a thousand miles away which i saw my daughters once a year. I had limited phone calls. They were too little to email, write letters. You know, we would do the best i can. I would always write them and try anything i could to keep them to remember me, but it was very hard and very challenging. You were released from prison, i believe, in march of 2017 after serving nine years, is that right . Correct. And you know, based on your experiences and congratulate you on the success youve had subsequent to your release. What do you think we as members of congress can any about in terms of how to both address the trauma that occurs based on the family separation, and how to help facilitate the family unit coming together after ones release . I mean, these a really good question because theres just nothing, nothing in play. I guess it would stem from the time that youre separated to how during that time of incarceration whether its some type of family, you know, family day they would offer it, some of the prisons once a year, maybe encouraging that more. Just the type of visits that you have, even being able the little visits i did have were very cold and the environment was very cold, it wasnt a comforting environment. I think that plays a big toll. A big part of it, but when you could many come home, its up to you ultimately, but if there was therapy, Family Therapy that could be offered. I think thats very helpful. If you offered it to people, i know for me, i am in therapy and my children are in therapy. Thats something that we had to be proactive about as individuals. But i know that many people dont have the luxury of that. Maybe to offer that at a broader would be very helpful. Thank you, and miss owuka. Did i pronounce that. Yes. You pointed out too many women are locked out of the economic recovery as a result of their criminal background and that obviously has consequences and implications for being able to put the family unit back together and to robustly pursue the American Dream after a period of incarceration, could you offer some thoughts as to, now, the impact of incarceration and the pay forward in terms of how to make sure that we are really creating the ability for people upon paying their debt to society to follow the American Dream and succeed economically . Absolutely. Thank you. I spent a lot of time talking about the amount of opportunity you have available today in this economy and how, because of that criminal record youre seeing people locked out. What is interesting, were start to go see a shift now because of the tight jobs market. Because its harder to find qualified or people to fill positions and we have 7. 1 million Unfilled Positions right now in the economy. I think na employers are starting to look at people they would not have considered before and that includes people who have a criminal background, a criminal record. I think thats a great thing for women and great for anyone who is coming out of the correctional system. But again, that doesnt mean that everybodys going to do that at the state level, weve seen the Movement Towards ban the box. For those unfamiliar, the idea that employers do not ask whether you have a criminal background, a way of giving someone a chance based on merits of that experience and their background before writing them off because they have a criminal record. I hesitate to say should be a federal policy or mandated because it could happen and intended consequence, particularly against people of color and particularly against men of color but there is an opportunity for voluntary private Sector Companies to say im going to weigh someones applications based on a. I talked about it and several people talk about location. We seen the Trump Administration talking about apprenticeships. Its an idea i think people have forgotten or written off just to bluecollar industry. Recently the Trump Administration released a regulatory change that would expand apprenticeships to whitecollar opportunities. What you think is an interesting place because there will be people of a criminal record or dont to a fouryear college, who dont have a bunch of abcs behind the names but dont want to get the want to get into great middle class lifestyle. My time has expired but thank you very much for your testimony. Mr. Cissna link. I want to thank chairwoman bass for convening this important hearing, and for your extraordinary and longstanding leadership on these issues. Thank you so much to our witnesses for really powerful testimony. I want to focus for a moment on this whole idea of family impact. One of the things people need to understand, one of my most haunting memories was doing a school visit and see if fifthgrade boy clearly distracted kind of not paying attention, asking if hes he iy and him every quite waste saying my mom went to jail last night. The notion he was expected to study and Pay Attention and behavior, and so understanding that in many ways children of incarcerated parents are victims as much as others, and are blameless in the suffer the consequences. Im intrigued by this idea of both presentence and post sentence whether or not we ought to require sentencing judges and judges making determinations with respect to release to consider the impact on family, not just allow them to blitzing understand the reality of incarcerated, this is particularly the case where women are most often the primary caregiver and special relationship between a mother and her children, whether we ought to do that both in pretrial and in sentencing requiring those understand the sending judge of the judge making bail discrimination the full impact of your decision not just the defendant at the family who are blameless in this. I wonder if you agree, ms. Shank and ms. Kerman, that that makes sense . And actually make sense and that should be highly consider. It actually makes sense and again massachusetts and tennessee outside that requirement into law as a judges in the states will be required to do just that. They are required to consider it . The governor of tennessee just signed the legislation i believe last week for the week before and it was in last years on the best prime reform bill in massachusetts. The nittygritty, the transformation of the prosecutorial function end of the bench in terms of how prosecutors and judges understand what is when you make changes like that i may also have to implement training and education both of the court and the prosecutors. The second thing is theres been discussion about the separation family is right to the placement of a defendant, a person in custody. Is there any good policy you can think of, for anyone, that we shouldnt simply require the bureau of prisons to place the defendant and a facility closest to their home, period . Consistent with security needs but if theres a facility close to your home that meets security, that be the resumption and have to argue if, in fact, they dont follow that, they have to get some reason . 200 miles, 250 miles is still a very Long Distance to expect anyone to travel. Why not just have the resumption be you would be closest to your family. If youre a a poor family in new hampshire, the bronx, connecticut might as well be mars for some people. I will have a little bit of time. Do you agree that make sense . I have so degree that makes sense that local supervision can get complicated and theres very little oversight. The requirement for the federal government to the oversee local Law Enforcement which i would support would be a necessity. The final thing i want to ask you about, ms. Grimmett and ms. Shank, we have a very robust Reentry Initiative in which defendants before their return to the Community Meet with the reentry counsel that has housing expert in Health Care Experts in Mental Health to be sure in place comprehensive plan for the successful reentry. Its really reduce Extraordinary Results because we seen so much evidence about people who are released without that support system who come back if it is a place to live, they get involved with drugs again. Im wondering what your experience in the federal system or similar experience that was well planed before you release so you would be successful, and if not, do you think some subml like that makes sense . Absolutely a model like that makes sense. There is really no programming, no reentry, very limited you dont even have access to information developed for your drivers license. They give you zero, no Information Available to you in the federal system. They do not prepare you whatsoever. They just do not. You are released upon, when they release you they are done with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair, and a place to beer and i think all of you for your report and testimony on all of these issues. In my limited time i want is you and uncouple things my background before came to congress this term i was a state rep in pennsylvania and i was on the Judiciary Committee there constantly fighting you mandatory minimums. I appreciate very much ms. Shank, the way he spoke about the discretion should be with the judges. Some of the sentences might be that long under discretion of the judge based on the facts and law in front of her or him. But if we could made i will start with you, ms. Mccurdy. Also interested in the notion of addiction, Substance Abuse disorder, and its impact on this. In montgomery county, just me of this year maybe you saw this case, a woman was convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison as a result of distributing heroin, sharing heroin and a k. C. Bathroom with her friend who was 20 years old that they and i dont get me wrong, this is an extraordinarily serious case with victims all around. The woman was sentenced to 21 years in prison as a result of a mandatory minimum for leaving a sin, love the woman to go on to overdose and i, not overly First Responders but also enhanced because it was within 1000 feet of a school. Can you speak to the notion of addiction, Substance Abuse disorders, these women, addicts of heroin, and how that translates into incarceration . That is part of both property and drug crime that you see women being incarcerated for. And again with women a lot of times because of their addiction, and they are not getting treatment necessary once they go to jail or prison. And we have, and a lot of times they are selfmedicating because of the trauma they have experienced before coming into contact with the criminal Justice System. It becomes a cycle. If we dont treat the trauma, we dont treat the Substance Abuse that is responding to the trauma that is selfmedication from the trauma, then we just keep going around and around in circles. I appreciate that. I also had the chance as state representative to visit the prison in pennsylvania, and all womens prison between addiction, Mental Health disorders and the connection between conspiracy and life sentences is an extraordinary powerful and sacrifice at the same time. Can we talk about the issue, and maybe you both could tell me your experience with other women in prison where they suffered life sentences, what we could be doing better in terms of life sentences, particularly as it occurs with women. I mean, i think initially, sentencing so much life is wrong. We need to allow a person, i understand punishment and crime but the punishment needs to fit the criteria i dont think we should wash our hands at people. We should allow somebody to okay, lets punish them for their crime, let fit the crime but then lets help them to not come not let this happen again. What is the actual problem rex is a psychological . Is it Mental Health . Is a drug addiction . Do they need education . When you do not just lock people up. We need to not bury them alive. We need to help them. So many women described the just dont want to die there. They dont want this to be the end of their story. Interesting used the words wash our hands of people. I also was in the prison with pope francis in philadelphia where he used the gospel about washing the feet of your visitor. Washing the feet of those who have traveled like dusty, dirty road. Because we all go down padua. Maybe, ms. Kerman, you can speak to the issue of hope when to say this is not your whole story, and know that we are all broken people like you. When i think about the point that you raised, i think if a student in ohio. I have lifers in both the mens and womens facilities where i teach. I have a young woman in my womens writing class it was sentenced when she was 16, and the propensity for us to put you into the old system in this country is significant. I dont system. When of the decade between 50 and 25 is a decade were Brain Development is not complete, judgment, that decisions are rife. We all make bad decisions during that time. In our lives, not all of us are held accountable in the same way. I look at, i have three students who are sentenced as children to adult life sentences, and each all three of them are remarkably intelligent, thoughtful, humane people now, and very different people now than when they committed their crimes. I believe passionately that everyone deserves a Second Chance and sometimes a third chance, but deserves to be measured not only for the worst act but also for their best acts and the best things are capable. That does not mean that victims do not deserve a central role in reforms to our criminal Justice System. What weve seen in places like california and other places in this country is that victims and survivors of crime are increasingly advocating for the barrier of reforms at other parts of the community are also calling for. I want to put on the record if i may that i have of our governor granting clemency to commuting some sentences of lifers. Its very important that he do that but our federal government seek greater criminal Justice Reform. Thank you chairwoman bass for holding such an important hearing. The issue of women that are stuck in this unjust criminal Justice System is becoming a greater issue in this country, and its really part of the conversation. I thank you, ms. Shank, and other women who may be present here today, ms. Kerman, for lifting at their voices, for your courage in sharing your stories. Its the only way were going to bring attention to the issue so thank you for being here today. The fact is that most women are charged with lowerlevel offenses and have less extensive criminal history than their male counterparts, and in 2017 women of color were particularly impacted by our laws where 40 of federal women offenders are hispanic and 21 are black. Of these women upwards of 8590 have a history of domestic or sexual abuse. 60 of the women that are right now in prison have children 18 years or younger. I wanted to start with ms. Mccurdy pick in the past 40 past 40 years we seen the state prison population of women has grown up to buy 834 , and why do you think we that such a drastic increase of women who are now in the prison system . Because of the war on drugs is one of the major reasons. Both in the federal and state system we have focused so much of our attention, for example, in the federal system 45 are there for drug offenses. Almost half of the people that are in federal custody are there for drug offenses. Some of them are women, but what you are seeing is the result of the focus on the war on drugs. And why so many women and men are in prison, even though many of them really need treatment and dont need incarceration. Our money would be better spent if we really focused on treating their Substance Abuse because a lot of it is Substance Abuse, whether they were charged with trafficking organization, versus spending on the federal level 36,000 a year per person to incarcerate people. We could do, we could spend, i think hyper talked about 20,000 per year for drug treatment, have been less the net. The Economic Cost is huge but the human cost is in 2016 2e imprisonment rate of africanamerican women was twice the rate of the imprisonment for white women. Hispanic women were imprisoned 1. 4 times more than white women. Ms. Mccurdy, why are women of color more likely to be imprisoned at twice the rate than white women . And what solutions d. C. In solving this gap . As i talked about before i think one is we have to develop alternatives to incarceration. We have to also in terms of women that are in prison, we have to be very responsive to their health needs, their Mental Health needs, physical health needs, gynecological needs. We also have to train correction staff, for example, when women end up in prison to make sure they are being responsive, gender responsive to womens needs. Because as i think piper said earlier, the prison systems were built on the fact mostly men would be ended. A lot of the policies reflect that now and they have not caught up to the fact that we have so many women that are in those prison systems. And so policies have to be responsive to ginger needs. And those are some of the major things gender. We talked about the federal level, that is been addressed a certain extent but we havent talked about soda confinement. Pregnant women are often held in solitary confinement while they are pregnant and postpartum. We have to ban the policies that allow women that are pregnant to be held in solitary confinement. Its very dangerous. Thank you, ms. Mccurdy. As a mother its just, its been tough to hear your testimony this morning. Its tough enough to see this administration is following family separation policies and theyre doing the same in the criminal Justice System and is just heartbreaking. A question for ms. Kerman. You testified that policy not crime drive incarceration, and i seen that in the policies of the administration has taken as well. Can you explain a little bit what you mean by that . Share. Your drawing attention to Racial Disparities in the system is reflection of policies. I live in ohio. You might have two young men committing exact same offense, but by policy and procedure one of those young men might be heavily policed if you live in a poor neighborhood, and once those young men might not be policed at all if you lose in a Fraternity House at osu. Those disparities come those of policy choices and those things drive disparity and drives some of those problems. We talk a lot about the factor in driving incarceration and the visibility or lack of treatment. I have to draw our attention back to this policy of mandatory minimum sentencing. If harsh punishment related to drug offenses worked, then we would not the where we are with addiction and drug abuse in this country. Ohio has one of the highest overdose rates in the country. We incarcerate a huge number of lowlevel drug offenders. It does not result in less addiction and less Substance Abuse. Theres a certain point in time, decades in, when we have to s, regardless of what our putative instincts are, that the policies and approach weve used as networking in terms of the Public Health and safety concerns which can serve as the most. Thats a good example of that policy driving incarceration even as it fails to solve the problems that we whatsapp in the community. Thank thank you, ms. Kerman. Im out of time. Thank you, madam chair. One policy we have in state and federal both is we have private prisons. Id like to know your opinions on that as a factor in driving prison population in studies that show jurisdictions without private prisons and with private prisons and the rate of incarceration and the length of sentences. Who wants to jump in . I think private prisons definitely help keep mass incarceration in place because they provide space to hold people and they take oftentimes kind of the easiest cases, you could say, and charge the government the most to take care of people and do really poor job of it because they have absolutely no government oversight. But the private aspect of incarceration extends far past prisons, and this is important because particularly important women in incarceration because about half of women are incarcerated in jails rather than prisons, and jails use a lot of private contractors that make it hard and difficult we were talking about family separation. In jails even though you are ostensibly closer to home, oftentimes its hard to keep in touch because the phone call rates are much higher. Theres some county jails in michigan where its 1. 50 a minute to talk on the phone. Jails are more likely to have letter band. So literally vanished letters from home. Your kids are relegated to a postcard size thats public. You cant put it in an envelope to communicate with your family. And visits are often turned into video visits. So a Company Comes in and charges 20 for a visit, and your family still has to drive to the jail that they cant see. They are put in in a separate m with a video monitor. So yes, theres a lot of private companies benefiting from mass incarceration and making things worse within the criminal Justice System. If i can just say that privatize prisons, its like a self fulfilling prophecy. Oftentimes if the bed is empty the bed is fine. The state will do everything they can to not defined to fill these beds so psychic self filling prophecy. No one wins. Except the people making my. Tennis is one of first states, home directions of america. I was a state senator for 24 years and fought being in the system because they would lobby for lobby sentences and different ways of release and i made a lot of money as well. Its unfortunate. That shouldnt happen. Has anybody done any studies on the cost to society of having a mother, particularly babies, distinguish forefather and what cost that has to society at large . Ms. Mccurdy . I dont know about financial, but i know the cost to children is that they often develop depression, anxiety, and in the end that end up in the criminal and juvenile Justice System. And so thats the human cost of being separated from their mothers because they dont have the guides is that they need in the early stages and again traumatized by the separation from their mother i can tell you for my own personal study, which was we had to make incomes when we were married, a family, and we have actually purchased our first home. We bought property to build a first home. When it was initially indicted and when it went away to prison we went to a Single Family income where my then husband adam had a ticket of a job because he couldnt take care of it next week old baby with the hours so at a loss of income and affinity can depend on this date state for medical insurance for the children. You lose. I have a bill called fresh start act which at that for some time with the democratic leadership year. We mightve just a movie. It would provide a pathway for expungement in federal crimes seven years without any penalties and youve anon fight crime, you can record expunged. How would that help women, prisoners and family reunification . Expungement would be a huge benefit and a good example of a spark policy change. I am much, much more fortunate than most formerly incarcerated people in this country, but i still cannot escort my sons field trips under ohio state law because i have felony conviction. Despite my could conducts its by release in 2005. I would say expungement under appropriate guidelines with whatever you consider putting into the legislation would be a huge benefit and there are an estimated 70 Million People in this country with some kind of a criminal record, so this is not a fringe issue. This is something that impacts an enormous number of americans. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you very much. And i want to come before we conclude, really thank todays witnesses. I think this was a very, very powerful hearing and one of the things im so encouraged by from this hearing is come this is a very bipartisan hearing, bipartisan hearing on the witnesses and also from the questions and comments of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I do want to make a few points in concluding. I think its clear in statistics with backup that women are arrested, not 100 , but a High Percentage of women are arrested and incarcerated because of the relationships with men. The conspiracy laws that especially were used a lot during the war on drugs were used to arrest women, to use women as leverage as the female partner of a drug dealer to get at the men, that made with the assumption he would rescue her. What happens is that he abandoned her. He cut her loose and she often takes the wrap and sometimes serves more time than the man she was being leveraged for. A small percentage of women are arrested for Violent Crime, but even then a lot of times the Violent Crime is related to abuse. Its related to responding to someone who is abusing her, especially women who are arrested for murder. So this gives us an opportunity to really examine gender specific criminal Justice Reform. A comment on pregnancy. When a woman delivers and a separate from her child like was shown in the clip, its not just a matter that she said. Its massive physiological changes that happened during an especially after pregnancy. Theres a massive decrease in hormones that was happening to that women, when women go into postpartum depression, it is physiological as well as psychological. So we can only imagine what happens to women are put in solitary confinement during pregnancy or after delivery. It puts them at risk for suicide. So im glad to see that there is interest and support on the issue from both sides of the aisle. And conversation weve had with each other during this hearing, i believe that this could be the first step toward developing comprehensive legislation that addresses criminal Justice Reform that is also gender specific. Thank you very much, and the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] former defense secretary jim mattis recounts his military career and offers his thoughts on leadership in a discussion about his book callsign chaos. Live coverage from George Washington university this evening at 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2 online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. What is your vision in 2020 . Studentcam 2020 is asking students what issue do you most want to see the president ial candidates addressed during the campaign. Studentcam is cspans nationwide video documentary competition for middle and high school students, with 100,000 in total cash prizes prize is e including a 5000 grand prize. Students are asked to produce a short video documentary, include cspan video and reflect differing points of view. Information to help you get started is on our website, studentcam. Org. Next from oklahoma rated talk show hosts england debates democratic strategist ted trimpa on electing the u. S. President , the Electoral College versus the popular vote. Held at the annual steamboat conference in colorado, this is about one hour good morning. Talk about the Electoral College and the National Popular vote interstate compact. Im hadley heath manning, thank you for the introduction. Im proud to be a senior fellow, and that should explain my shoes. These are the Tony Blankley shoes that are not just, to spoil anything for tonight but there typically awarded to new blankley fellows. I enjoy today with a couple of distinguished panelists here ive got ted trimpa immediately to my left, although maybe a lot further to my left, well find out. Probably. He is the principal and ceo of trimpa group which is progressive Public Policy advocacy and strategy firm. The atlantic has called in colorados answer to karl rove i found another interesting tidbit from the denver post, its is one of the most important lives in colorado politics youve probably never heard of. Well, that was in the denver post ten years ago. I imagine more people have heard of you now. Previous to his work at trimpa group he had a a decade of Government Relations and Political Consulting expense using to Government Relations group at brownstein. Got a start in politics working for you senator nancy casaubon. He has a j. D. And a ba from university of denver so join in welcoming ted trimpa. [applause] and we also are joined today by trent england whose executive Vice President of the clomid council of Public Affairs. Hes also the brown distinguished fellow at that organization and prior to working in Oklahoma City at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs he was executive Vice President at Freedom Foundation in washington state, and ceo there for some time. Once upon a time he worke a