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Theres a couple areas of inquiry, all things Jeffrey Epstein and hopefully about the implementation of the First Step Act and where could we go from there. How could you buildyt upon that . Those of the three areas i would like to talk about and altered over to senator feinstein. Thank you very much, mr. Cha. I want to welcome you. Its wonderful for me to see a woman int charge, and so we can celebrate it for a few moments at least. You are responsible for the care and custody of over 180,000 federal inmates, and one of the Justice Departments largest employers with approximately 35,500 employees as of may of this year. As the chairman mentioned, there are two issues i hope we can focus on. One is the first act, which he mentioned, and the second is problems with staffing and conditions within your department. Im going to put most of this in the record, but i think, i think what ill do, mr. Chairman, in the interest of time is just put the statement in the record. Without objection. Senator durbin . Thanks, mr. Chairman. Last year congressin came togetr to pass what i considered to be one of the most important criminal Justice Reform laws in a generation, the First Step Act passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and signed by president trump. We now have an obligation to ensure that this law will be properly implemented. I think chairman graham for holding this hearing at my request but i am disappointed the department of justice refused our bipartisan request to testify today. This is one of the many troubling signs the department of justice is not on board in implementing the First Step Act. The fair since the act of 2010 which i coauthored with senator grassley and senator lee reduced the disparity from 180 and 101 down to one. Relief for individuals in some cases even working to put them back behind bars. I wrote the privation of the first of active reduces the unjust sentences for nonviolent offenders and the position that department of justice is taking is just plain wrong. The department of justice should be working to identify eligible individuals and getta them out, not wasting valuable resources to keep them behind bars. So far at least 1600 people people have been released because of the Retroactive Application of the fair sensing act. There should be more. I would like to recognize to make visitors who are here today. They have benefited. One is benefited from the First Step Act and particular like to recognize why constituent Edward Douglas and his exceptional lawyer who are here today. Thank you for joining us. Could you raise your hands . Thank you. Edward douglas received a life sentence triggered by two minor nonviolent drug convictions. He served 16 years in prison, became one of the first people released under the First Step Act. Given a secondti chance, edward and others who have joined us today are making our criminal Justice System better and more just. Its worth all off our time and effort. It took to pass the first attack. I hope it will inspire allth ofs to search harder for Bipartisan Solutions and the department of justice to change its mind and join us. Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you. Dr. Sawyer joined the bureau in 1976 as a psychologist at the federal correction institute, morgantown. 1980s he was named chief of psychology come psychological services. She said increasingly responsibility since then. She was previously served as director of bureau of prisons make 922003. She was reappointed as director in august of this year. Would you please rise . Yes, sir. Did you solve is for the test what youre about to give to this committeee . Is a truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. Welcome and the floor is yours. Good morning. Good morning chairman graham and Ranking Member feinstein and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today a the mission and operations of the bureau of prisons i think the committee for your work with the bureau over many years. Your support has been integral to our operations for many decades including our years of treatment is population growth, rapid expansion and opening of many new institutions. I also thank you and your colleagues for your groundbreaking justice work for the bipartisan support of the First Step Actow i look for tody to sharing with you our progress and dip them in this critical legislation. Program to assist inmates returning to the community of lawabiding citizens has always been a cornerstone of our mission. We have long held an inmates reentry journey begins the very dayy they arrived in our custod. With the first to act with a to further enriching the offerings to help improve the lives of our inmates thereby help keep our communitiesy safer. I was honored three months ago to be selected by attorney general barr to return to lead the bureau and work alongside the finest correctional professionals and will. I begin my career as a psychology intern at one of our prisons, 110, social wouldnt come before my original appointment as the peers six director in 1992. Position i held until my retirement in 2003. While much has changed in the 16 years that i was outside of the bureau and since i last served as director, the foundation is still quite sound. But we have been challenged significantly by the dramatic growth we experienced, the mincer it with significant budget cuts that follow the tragedy of 9 11 when the the focusen shift came from crime to terrorism and ourth budget suffered severely after that period. Are over 35,000 staff play a Critical Role in the system get the great work our staff deserve a day goes largely unseen by the general public. This inherently dangerous work particularly at a highest security institutions where our most dangerous inmates serve is responsible we take very, very seriously. Unfortunately with experience significant Staff Shortages that make our job even more difficult. In myit first 12 weeks ive plae great emphasis on philly are almost over 3000 vacancies nationwide. Since returning as director ive mobilized the system of overview to identify areas of strength and weakness and app identify three significant berries that need emphasis. One is staffing. One is training, and the third is an ethicist and recommitment to the basics of sound correctional practice. Our system is the largest in the Nation Housing roughly 176,000 inmates across the entire bureau of prisons in this return to the bedrock of sound corrections is critical to ensure our staff nationwide are following the policies and procedures that keep staff, inmates and the public safe. The bureau also continues to face dangers security threats from the introduction of contraband, synthetic drugs, illicit narcotics and contraband cell phones are some of the chief threats. The use of drones to drop contraband onto prison grounds is an ongoing problem that continues to evolve. We have to put contraband detecting technologies continue to leverage new technologies and Cutting Edge Solutions to effectively detect and interdict prison contraband. Our aging infrastructure is another concern. Almost half of our present are over 30 30 years old and some e leavenworth, date back to over eight years old. To our earliest time of corrections. Resin systems are subjected to much heavier than normal wear since there continuously used 24 7 365. In this aging infrastructure affect Institution Security as critical system sustained extensive wear and tear as well as premature deterioration. The implementation of the First Step Act is a priority for the bureau of prisons and im pleased to report that weve made greatat progress. With updated policies and her ilk many the requirements of the act, working closely with the department of justice and independentt review committee on the new risk and Needs Assessment the act requires. We have listened to the important comments from any interested stakeholders from crime victims to a broad array of advocacy groups, the statutory timelines in this actor very formidable but im proud to say the bureau and the department admit key deadlines particularly the release of the new risk and Needs Assessment system and we continue to remain focused on the full and balance implementation of the First Step Act. This concludes my formal statement and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. As indicated in my Opening Statement i wanted to talk about death of mr. Epstein. Do you concur with the opinion that it was a suicide . That was the finding of the koran or. You have any evidence to suggest otherwise . I do not. How could this have happened . Unfortunately the death and all situation is still under investigation of the fbi and Inspector General office and im really not at liberty to discuss specifics of this case. I can discuss issues around institutional operations on a can specifically talked that particular issue. With a case this highprofile highprofile, theres got to be either major malfunction in the system or criminal enterprise at foot to allow this to happen. So are you looking at both, is the fbi looking about . The fbi is abouthe an advocae criminal enterprise yes. Do you have people in custody today of this highprofile nature . Have we done anything to adjust since mr. Epsteins death . We take every inmates life versus late in the bureau of prisons. Highprofile inmate is no more important or significant in terms of our operations than just the average inmate that comes our way. What you mean highprofile . Somebodies on the suicide watch. I would like to explain our suicide system much if i may. I cant talk specific about epstein but we have different tiers of responsibly identifying inmate who inmate who appears to have suicidal thinking. I can in the bureau as a psychologist. I worked with suicidalei inmate. I know how difficult it is to be able to predict who was suicidal and who is not. Once an inmate is a didnt let us potentially suicidal we have suicide watch operation we can place them in. Its a very stark comfort difficult setting where everything is stripped from the room except the mattress. They get a course gown like to wear that cannot be twisted anyways that they get hanged himself from it. They have one mattress and one blanket and they are watched constantly. Theres nothing else in the room. With mr. Epstein on the suicide watch . Yes, he was. However, the average emesis of watches only about 24 hours because it is such a start and depressing situation. Within can move into another tier of observation which is called psychological observation. That happen in this case . I i can speak specifically bt im showing this with you seek and understand our procedures. They can then move to another to which a suicide or psychological observation whetherif get the clothes back, anymore normal by setting, they are watched and scrutinize every moment of the day but that is a much more normal environment do they have roommates . No, they do not went on psychological observation because theyre being watched continuously. Did mr. Epstein have relate . No, we did not. Okay. Go ahead. They move in the psychological observation psychologist sees them were to become and once it is determined the threat of suicide seems to have passed then that in making the return back to open population. Clearly it didnt work here, so we will await the report the victims of mr. Epstein have to have the heart ripped out. They will never see justice. Parole, when did the role almost parole alleviated from the federal system . I became director in etiquette and parole was already gone for new cases. You had the old cases that had to move on songs like the late 80s early 90s. When was parole in a limited . You would have to ask congress. It was somebodys here that make that decision. Do you have any recommendation as to whether or not we should look at reinstituting parole at the federal level . Im encouraged by the first act. What happened when we how would the First Step Act be different than parole. With it would befe significantly different in one respect that husband to comment on isst paroled inmates and incentive to do well. They wanted to get involved the programs can deposit thinks because they saw the benefit at they could earn earlier release from prison for sure. If there hang with the commission was favorable. What First Step Act has done out its offered new incentives for inmates to want to perform welcome to want to a engage in programs because we have a lot of programs of the past many years in the numbers enrolled would have a site were hoping for because a lot of times inmates if they were doing longtime didnt seem real benefit for them so First Step Act helps in that regard and incentivizes inmates to want to improve themselves want to move forward. What system would give the most flexibility in terms of deciding who to release some of you spend the 25 or 30 years on a 40 or 50 year sentence, parole would act differently than the first act . Is that correct . The parole act, parole allows a group of people get into an inmate periodically different points in in the career and our institutions and a look at the progress, how theyve done, how to benefit and whether they appear to be a recidivism do you have any push or view should we reinstate parole at the federal level . I never thought about that but we would be happy to look at the step act and look at let me know. I think that something we should look at. We would be happy to review that and give give you are,. Thanknk you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. On november 17, the New York Times published the story title hazing, humiliation, terror, working while female in the federal prison. Now given the fact, and about this in a letter to mr. Horowitz in november of last year, that the bureau has been on notice since 2010 that it was clear at the time that sufficient steps were not taken to protect female guards. And i requested that the department of justice ig investigate the bureaus failure to adequately address the harassment of female guards. I asked that the ig look into the situation. What is the situation today and what has been done to address this issue . When you have women, and obvious i am a woman and i worked in prison for over 30 years neck of when you have women in prison with allmale inmates and milpas Edition Europe a lotd of knuckleheads n that institution. Just as a woman on a metro car has to be careful here in d. C. That khizr khan to move up against him and try to touch the or you walk down the street and you get catcalls from workers on the site, there are knuckleheads all over the place in terms of the way men treat women. You will find that their institutions also. Let me finish my thought. There will be times when inmates be a very inappropriately to our female staff, at a funeral step you to stand up boldly and address that. The problem with the Sexual Harassment issues that were raised that troubled me greatlyr was when the female staff did not feel that the male staff, male counterparts, were coming to their assistance and their aid. Thats what we dropped the ball in the bureau. We always cant always control the behavior of inmates because they are in institutions. What did have to lose . Is right them a report, they back. The part of this that angered me tremendously was when female staff felt the male staff were not stepping up to help them. So thats where our attention has been with educating all of our staff that we are all colleagues can we all need to be treated professionally. It is never okay to allow anyone to disrespect our other colleagues, and so thats where our action with different types of reports we can write against the inmates and hold the rest of our staff accountable. Today do managers separate a female correctional staff officer from a senior officer who made sexual comments and proposition. Was yes. Whenever we become aware of the situation we do a threat assessment and we determine whether or not those individuals while it is being investigated whether they continue to Work Together in the same environment. If theres any concern then they are separate. So what exactly has been done to remedy that situation . As i said weve increased how many have you separated and what have you done . I dont have the numbers with me but we can get this for you and get them up to you but we have increased thed penalties on the inmates whoho behave that w. With educated our staff in terms of the being Inappropriate Conduct to not support your colleagues. If we find the male or female f members, then we will take action on the scope of the situation investigated and take appropriate action. Well, i would like to see e documentation of what you have done in that regard, and so i request it now. My past i served six years on the california womens abortive terms and parole. We set sentences. We granted paroles and we ran the womens prison. So i i know a little bit about prisons, and i been in a large number, everyone in california as a matter of fact. So i am concerned about this on the federal level. I think its a vague and imprecise, and i would like to know exactly what has happened and what has been done to remedy the situation. And if you could provide that to me, i would be very grateful for it. I share your concern and we would give information. Thank you very much. Youre veryou welcome. Before i ask questions, im not going to ask these groups to stand, but it want to thank people that supporte the first act for coming here for this hearing, cut 50 come to prosit visitor, families against mandatory minimums, and counsel of local prison locals. Before i get to some questions about the firsty step act, i wat to comment because some critics of First Step Act have noted a case of joel francisco, a prisoner inan new jersey who was released as a result of an adjustment in the way crack cocaine sentences are calculated making the sentences closer in length to those imposed for powder cocaine. In october francisco was arrested for firstdegree murder. Question, francisco wouldve gotten out of prison even without the firstever act, is that correct . Eventually, yes, sir. Would you agree the first act will help prevent crimes like this in the future by steering more prisoners away from future criminal conduct . I would hope so. Now, in regard to the First Step Act enforcement, and i want to complement the people at thompson prison where senator durbin and i visited a couple months ago for what i get from them is a real good faith effort to carry out. So my question is, since the First Step Act seeks to reduce recidivism among nonviolent offenders, Congress Passed this along with the intent the bureau of prisons develop a risk and Needs Assessment tool to measure a prisoners risk of recidivism and the determine programs the president should be enrolled in a reduced recidivism. A tool was released in july but the Justice Department has acknowledged that the job is only half done because bureau of prisons tools quote is not include a Needs Assessment component. So question, when can we expect bureau of prisons to comply with the First Step Act requirement to great and implement needs tools Assessment Tools . Weve been working closely with the department both in the development of the Risk Assessment, the Pattern Program that is come out is actually, the space on her own bravo system that was recidivism base. Theyve tweaked it and approved it and that is now the pattern system which is the Risk Assessment. We have a Needs Assessment in the bureau of prisons weve been using for years. Doesnt quite meet the really stringent bar we would like for two for the First Step Act but we are not required to have it completely finished until the end of next year, with the timeframe thats laid out that we will be initiating the Risk Assessment come january 15 which is a requirement of the First Step Act. We will be a Needs Assessment that same time to assess inmates needs a real continuing to tweak our Needs Assessment program to make sure its very, very explicit and precise on evaluating the needs of inmates. Its going to involve psychological evaluation in terms of needs, educational assessment in terms of needs, healthcare needs, all of those identified right now with our existing Needs Assessment but youve set a high bar with this First Step Act propos to achieve it completely so we will continue to tweak and approve a Needs Assessment process throughout the implement it during this first year to get as absolutely accurate and high standards it can possibly be. Inro doing this evidencebasd programming, as a way of reducing recidivism, how will the bureau of prisons ensure that gives opportunities for faithbased groups to provide programming to prisoners . Are faithbased programs over critical to our operations. Most of those, we have religious Services Programs in every institution with multiple faithbased groups represented. We willha be relying on tremendously our volunteers, individuals coming from the community of all the different faith groups to provide for the needs of inmates. We have 11,000ep volunteers that come into ours institutions and the vast majority are faithbased groups. We have a few faithbased groups that have steppeded up with some broader programs they would like to offer in our institutions and we are advising them on how they can enter the program into this evaluation will be done to to do department of justice and outside evaluators to determine which ones to have evidence that they do reduce recidivism, and those that meet the criteria we would love to have been come into our institutions and run the programs. Are faithbased programs a very critical to our overall operation of improving the life of inmates. I will have to submit a lot of questions in writing because of more questions on the subject. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me set the outset im glad youre here, doctor soli. Im glad you came out of retirement to take on this responsibility. I enjoyed a meeting and look to working with you. I also wantt to acknowledge the role played by our colleagues on the committee, said at a corner, senator whitehouse and the First Step Act particularly in the area of prison before. They were of this senator cornyn. The First Step Act aims to improve Public Safety by strengthening the department off prisons to rebuild the image. The First Step Act requires the department of justice to develop a scoring system to assess every inmates risk of recidivism and to identify the programming treatment needs. The scoring system where you start off makes allst the difference in the world. If youre viewed as a high risk inmate, then you have many programs ahead of you before you will be considered for release are particular treatment when it comes to the issue of recidivism. Thats why im particularly sorry the department of justice refused to come to this hearing today. Itens is critical this system te putting together be transparent, accurate and unbiased. But im concern the system the department of justiceal has created falls well short of that mark. I have a post i want to show you. We talked about this in my office. At this moment in our nations history when the clash of race and justice graphically confronts us every single day, the foundation of this scoring system is so start, so sobering and so fundamentally unfair that it cannot stand without challenge. The department of justice itself forecast that the risk Assessment Tool will result in stunning Racial Disparities and classification. In a testament of the tool which is demonstratedss here, over ha, 53 of the africanamerican men in the sample were designated high risk, compared only 29 of white men. 30 of white men are classified as minimum risk compared only 7 of africanamerican men. Part of the problem is the tool doesnt distinguish between a a traffic stop and a murder conviction. It simply measures the risk that someone will be arrested a return to the federal system, andd an arrest is not a new crime. A conviction is a new crime. Whether you are arrested often has many times do with your zip code and skin, then your predisposition towards crime committing another crime. Dr. Sawyer, when you commit that the department of justice risk Assessment Tool will be revised to refine recidivism or narrowly and youll explore other changes need to correct these stunning Racial Disparities . I want to clarify a point that was confusing when we talked the other day. We are not using arrest in terms of initial Risk Assessment that is applied forot each inmate. Were using United States sentencing conviction record and thats only convictions. Whether we use arrest. What your staff know and my step regarding to and the researchers on the company were talking but using arrest onut the backend to evaluate recidivism. That, arrests are only used on the back and this is different in that gets out and is arrested or returns to custody or convicted, then that adds to the validation, appraisal of the risk Assessment Tool. And i wereu concerned about whether ones come on the front end. They will not be utilizing arrest for that. I understand the distinction but is to raise the point on back and evaluation. An arrest is not a conviction and were talking up driving while black, driving while this and that. Lets be very honest and candid about what we face in this country today. The notion that the rest of an africanamerican man after circumstances that weve described here is still too prevalent. With a long way to go. Do you agree. I agree and the recount an arrest arrest as a recidivism on joe smith, it wont affect just missed mr. Verrilli affects the overall numbering. Theyre still a flaw and i agree with you and its the research law in terms of how we count. The province most people in the country to find recidivism based on arrest and conviction. But i assure you we will review this Risk Assessment and check the foundation. Every year and theres an outside group thats going to come in every five years and evaluate the validation and look for exactly things like that and i assure you we will do that. I want a starting place. The starting place, the stark Racial Disparity to be the first thing you promise me look at. If we dont get that right nothing else is right about the system. I agree with you, actually. I just have a few seconds and want to hit this quickly with the second chart. Part of bringing this inmates into position with us less recidivism so that theyon are rehabilitate means putting the service at the front of them they need while theyre incarcerated to make a difference. The department of justice reported out of 222,000 former prisoners, which is at 49 , did not complete anyme kind of programming. 82 rm received no technical or vocational courses. 92 did not participate in unicorn. 57 completed no drug treatment during incarceration. When senator grassley and iio visited thompson present in my state, proud to have, thank you, but isco the second most restrictive federal facility beyond Florence Colorado we asked what you have in place . They are still waiting. Its very early in the game i get it but theres nothing that indicates that against nation of resources to make sure this inmates have a fighting chance to turn their lives around and to be released under circumstances were recidivism doesnt take place. Do you agree we need more resources . I do. I would invite all the members of thiss committee to visit our institutions because you will find everyone other than the super highly secure ones like florence and your new thompson, that we have Vocational Education programs 86 residential drug treatment programs across 122 presents in the bureau of prisons. We have Vocational Training, Education Programs that the problem as an agent is oftentimes inmates choose not to get involved because its no benefit for them and we cannot force by court, law, we cannot force them into a treatment program. My hope is with this newvo First Step Act there is incentivizing therefore the inmates to see some benefit. There were so much and so i might take a jump away from, and i share that concern but we make 80 different parts like. We cant hurt any oneed image at all but weve been cut from 20,000 to 11,000 inmates so i assure you are only limitation on providing programs for this inmates will be resources. As long as with sufficient resources we have never had adequate resource to provide all the programs for all the inmates. Im hoping that will change now since you all support the First Step Act. Im hoping the resources will come along with that to ensure we have these programs available. Our problem at thompsong as you we have t great difficulty hirig a treatment step. Up some requests and advertisements for jobs for the psychologist and psychological Treatment Specialist that we need to run some of the special programs at thompson we not getting takers and will keep plugging at it. Its taken us a while. Dr. Sawyer, can you think of any other incidents in the history of the blp that is caused so muchh crisis from public trust as epstein stepped. As i can speak since 1976 when i joined i dont know dont know prior to that but i would say its probably got the most public attention. Lots of taxes and citizens who never thought the blp and lots of good patriotic hardworking folks there, i t gt that. But in terms of crisis a public trust in general but also in terms of your workforce, this death happen in middle of august, early august, its thanksgiving and unity consulted and you see are not allowed to speak about this incident. I think thats crazy. You distinguish among types of investigations at least force . Im aware of the least three investigation. You have a whole bunch of women who were raped by this guy. This is a sex trafficking ring and the United States. This guy had evidence. You have coconspirators and their victims out there whoap wt to know where the evidence has gone. Can you tell us all a bit more about the different investigations . I know there is at least oneto u directed by main just not to speak about but there are least three investigations. Can you unpack and . There are two investigationti ongoing, when is the fbi in the station and in this Inspector Generals investigation. But theres a third one outside which is what epstein was in your institution to begin with. And that is completely out of my i i get that. Theres a lot here where the doj has failed. Lets be clear is whether a level set. You in your job because of this crisis. You come here today and you said cant testify about but the reason you ares directed as because the last i got fired come right . I can tell you what i dont know. Ive received no information from thet fbi investigation nor no information from Inspector General. Once his entities going to one of our facilities we are forbidden from talking to anybody in the institution. We can sing in a team a look at wherever the might of been a security flaw or something that we are not allowed to talk to anybody in our institutions about anything that happened over the epstein with all due respect you so of application to speak to the girls were raped by this guy today. You may not have to speak whatever particular of the cards that were arrested last night but the fact that there is an ongoing attempt by the United States government to find it if there theres still any evidence about thee coconspirators. You do have an obligation to speak to those girls who were raped today. You may not speak about the specific of the charges against the specifics of the charges against those cards this morning were taken into custody but more broadly you should be able to unpack, at which aint any processes about our cases like this are handled . G its been more than 90 days and you said i think a quote was we treat every inmate the same. We believe in america that every individual has equal dignity but not every inmate has equal value for future criminal investigations. Jeffrey epstein was still to testify in the case. Someone who is already been convicted for maybe on suicide watch, the lots of good reasons did not want that guy to be able to kill himself. This is different because it isnt just about the individual inmate who might kill them self its about the fact that bastard wasnt able too testify against his other coconspirators. So it is wrong as as a managemt matter for youlv to say we could everybody the same year we should be treating people forget to testify against other felons, against other rapist. A lot more priority or your institution, dont they . All of our pretty much all of her inmates that are in any of our facilities are pretrial. They are still yet to testify to be involved to share information on other cases. I dont know what evidence you ask you the. If youre saying was in evidence in his possession at the time, that was confiscated by the at the expert in his brain and in the cams and the case that the American Public will understand appear to not be urgent enough for the department of justice. Its very urgent for the department of justice and saw been confiscated by the fbi and a part of the investigation. Thats why none of that is shared with the director of the bureau of prisons or anyone in the bureau until investigations are completed. Once those are completed i be very happy to come here and talk with anyone if you want to hear everything about what we clean from thosehe investigations untl they have information theres nothing i can tell you. If i do have the information i cannot share anything with your. Then how widespread is a problem of sleeping on the job . There are lots of people in the public to think this seems a very convenient excuse. So tellho us, is it a systemic problem . Do we have a lot of people sleep on the job when they are supposed regarding federal inmates. We have a few and we been monitoring the cameras that are existing in everyone of her institution to determine how well and am effectively our Staff Members are doing the rounds. We have found a couple of other instances and we did meet elite refer to the Inspector Generals office and im encouraging that if people just chose not to do their job were hoping to his Attorneys Office would pick up as cases and prosecute them for us because wend dont want those people in the bureau of prisons. They are dangerous to everybody, the inmates and staff. We are zealously going about trying to determine which of our employees are good employees who do the job, that is the vast majority of prison staff but we do have some i know out there who obviously choose not to follow policy, choose not to do their job and we want them gone. I do not want him in our institutions and im exploring those very, very carefully to identify them and d get them out of our system. If its a training problem, if they did know what theyre supposed to do that our problem. Thats management problem. We have to do a better job of training our staff but if someone is well trained and choose not to do the job, we want them gone. I assure you that. Im out of times i will just give a preview of something i will ask you for the record ethic that. He made made an import statement about drone drops, given as a contraband into your institution. Thats a new and hard problem a problem with which relatively defends but theres an office. Ity for what is your longterm strategy inside the institution about cameras is something i think a lot of us would like your more and i will send you a letter with questions. Because abstains hallway shouldest of and monitored by cameras even if the cards were asleep and we dont have information whether or not the adequate cameras and i think a lot of us would like to understand where Technology Dollars are going. Senator blumenthal is next but you follow up on this. Whether the ig report regarding what happened . There should be. Use after the Inspector General Office Investigate did you come out with the report. If it doesnt ig report i promise you we will get fully briefed by the committee. Senator blumenthal. Thanks, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your service. Thank you. I share the sense of outrage and urgency about this issue, not because of any special caring about mr. Epstein, but he was a source of evidence to hold accountable other criminals who are as culpable, coconspirators and exploiting women, and the suicide deprives them of their day in court and of justice and accountability. And so i would like to suggest, mr. Chairman, that we have an oversight hearing directed this problemat relating to mr. Epstein, and also more broadly about the problems of rubber surveillance and proper oversight. I think it ought to be bipartisan and suggest the testimony today suggest that you are equally troubled about this issue. I would like to ask for your cooperation and your commitment that you willl cooperate in that oversight hearing. Absolutely,a sir. When will the Inspector General report be done . We never knownd that there a keep telling us soon soon soon but i dont know what that means. The taking of the time the need to do a thorough investigation and he never know when that is going to end. I am going to write a letter and hope that others will join in urging the Inspector General to complete this report as expedition as possible but plenty time for him to interview, review documents. The documents that evidently were falsified are not numerous. Were not talking about tons of written documents or testimony. And i think that Inspector General report ought to be due next week. Yes, sir. Im going to be writing to the Inspector General. I hope colleagues will join in that letter. Do you know, have you reviewed the documents that allegedly were falsified . No. Ive not been allowed to see anything. Once the fbi and the ig steps in and we are not allowed to interview people or do anything. Dont anyway bias the interview are biased investigation or effective anyway so ive not seen any of that. Our rates of suicide in prison higher than the general population . Ar but in our system really not. Ourve system, when you type a chill facilities like highrise around the country, the average rate of suicide in the jail facility around thes country is 50 per 100,000 if you look at our numbers in the last year,e had two. Unfortunately one of those was an extraordinarily high profile case and makes everyone and the bureau of prisons with that broad brush of incompetence across our system. We have lost two inmates to suicide energy of facility where the norm was really 100 inmates per 100,000 because the 50 per 1000 inre a regular educatin our rate is 13 per 100,000 if you look at the state systems across the country they run twentysomethingg. Have been specific changes in policy and practice as a result of the epstein of suicide . Policy minimal because our policiesg. Are sound. Our problem is that when we grew so dramatically, when i was director we went from 60,000 inmates to 180. We what from went from 15,000 staff to 30,000. That growth is tremendous. We were getting decent budgets. Once i left we had to grow by 47,000 inmates with only 7000 new staff. That means seven Staff Members for every 1000 inmates but we had had to absorb into the bureau of prisons. And when youre alone we were quite open came new institution with 3000 less positions and weve had you before. Thats a 6000 drop thousand drop in position coverage that we had across the bureau. What happens when youre stretched so thin is staff have to make it work because we cant control a population. We dont control who all comes into our institutions are or wo we get we just have to keep taking them and taking them and taking them, and we grew so big with so few staff that we are stretched to our limits. Im going to interrupt you because the policies were sound. Staff to always follow them because they were stretched too thin. Thank you. On a separate issue, a report by the department of Justice Office of Inspector General inth august of 2016 found by the prisons had Serious Problems and more frequent reports of violence that could cause death of inmates. The report analyzed 14 private prisons and 14 public prisons between 20112014 and found more safety and then more safety and security instances per capita in the private facilities than the bureau of prisons run facility. But a memo in january 2018 by assistant director for correctional programs indicated the use of private prisons would, in fact, be increasing. Do you have plans to increase these private present . We do not have plans to increase but if i may say thats exactly your citation problem is why we won only but both secured inmates in private prisons. We will not print medium and highsecurity inmates because private prisons are not adequate in dealing with very serious offenders. Wewe have always only put low security inmates in our private prisons because they did not oppose the kind of risk highsecurity inmates do. The private prisons were a great boon for us for our lower security inmates when were growing so dramatically. We could not build prisons thats not to take all the inmates coming our way. The private prisons gave us that buffer for the lower security inmates. We are down to only 16,000 out of 177,000 inmates in our private institutions and those numbers keep coming down, and i think there would be a day as long as we dont get another huge increase in population where we will no longer needing private prison. Im going to stop here because my time is expired but i do have a few more questions ill put in the record. One of them concerns and you mentioned faithbased programs, the did not of opportunity to worship for muslim prisoners in the danbury fci is the subject of a lawsuit, and id like to know the explanation for why they been denied that opportunity. Very good, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member. I appreciate the testimony today and i would like to go back and talk a little bit about the faithbased programs that you discussed earlier. Could you talk a little bit about those faithbased programs, and as described earlier are you offering equal time regardless of demand or number of volunteers . Are you equally offering those programs across your inmates. Is yes. Where required by law to do that and went tov cover all potential based followers of all the many different faith groups. With indian sweat lodges, we have imams coming in. We have folks from many of the religious groups most of us in this room have never heard of it we also have to provide for wiccans and atheists with religious freedom restoration act where required to meetus the demands of every faith in in in may comes away with. We try to meet those in a very equitable manner. R. When you have huge numbers of one faith group and one or two and another, i cant tell you they always get exactly the same number of hours a Program Available because the volunteers may not be able to come in a frequently but we can use multiple different faith groups to address our christian inmates or jewish inmates, but we have a limited number apologies you can can bringse it for your native american or your wick is whatever it might be but our goal is to be equitable across the board. Okay, no,r thats good and thats what its supposed to be run. Pposed to do you have limited on the number of volunteers that are coming in for those programs . Is limited may be one time how many can come in at one time because we require our chaplain julie to bed the ones who overe those programs and are careful for security. We may use some extra Correctional Officers to cover those so i would assume would have limits on how many could come in at one particular time, but we are very open to new volunteers and newrs programs al the time. And then as part of the apology process, what would it volunteer have to do . Are their regulations that have to be met for all of those volunteers are asked are the supervised . How does it work . Our security requirements. They have to go through a minimal background check to make sure they are not going to post any security threat. We also require them to a test in writing that they have no animosity toward the government, they are not going to be pushing any ideology that is counter to our country. And then we do not security. Their screen when they come in the institution to make sure theyre not bringing any contraband or any items they should not be bring in others on as a staff member present you the area if not specific in the area where thats a chaplet or a correctional officer to car to make sure nothing untoward is occurring during the program. Thank you for that. And then outside from those that are religiously affiliated, there are other, the First Step Act actually expected that bureau of prisons would expand its internal program offerings. Can you talk a little bit about some of the partnerships that have been developed, this extra partnership with nonprofits and various groups . Can you name a few of those and then was expected to contribute s. Res. The First Step Act . Have a number of majors come in. One ofgr the First Step Act clauses talk to bring in mentors for younger offenders and do with other supper pray for reentry. We have the Veterans Affairs administration comes in to work with our betters. We have 11,000 inmates who are we have a very Good Relationship with the Veterans Affairs. Number one, to help screen to make sure those offenders claimed to be veterans truly are, and then we offer programs. We are three institutions have actual Housing Units that have only veterans in the housing unit andth a band together in a very strong way to support each other. We have come in the Veterans Affairs programs meet quarterly in this institutions to meet with veterans to help them with reentry and issues and those kinds of things. We have a lot of folks in education areas that come in, groups will come in a work either literacy programs with herr image, offer Vocational Training classes, offer support and guidance. We will take in most anyone who is willing to come in that meets our requirements who have something positive to provide to helps uses, and that increase our staff levels. When you know when youre enough staff to provide allll the thins were trying to provide, our volunteers and outside groups become a tremendous resource for us to do whole lot more than we can with the resources we have available. Very good. I appreciate that. And the First Step Act of course this fight light a question whh really to dwell on the fact that with the First Step Act we have a lot of different partners that are collaborating to make that transition from prison much easier for these inmates and allow them to really thrive and you well once they reenter what wech would consider their civiln orfo normal life. Thank you very much. L appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Director sawyer, last month before the house judiciary you testified the opt art all are eligible inmates to go through a Residential Reentry Program because you feel thats a good halfway step back for them, at least 35 of her inmates released and go through the Halfway Houses although based on the chart that senator durbin put out it seems than 5 is a really high percent of your inmates going through Halfway Houses. Be that as it may Halfway Houses you testified to these reenter programs are important. What happens in hawaii recently on september 30, 2019, the only Residential Reentry Center in the entire state of hawaii made up of many islanders as you probably know close outt after providing critical Transitional Services for 29 years. That meant, and it makes a huge impact, reallife impact when the facility like this closes, because a person named robin who leads a nonprofit that trains people into programs wanted to have a person who would be eligible to go through a Residential Reentry Program and who even had a light up by this nonprofit that she ran couldnt do. Its not that this particular closure was as a result of lack of money, because the blp did ask for bids. So clearly, once a a facility e this closes, it is not easy to get another one up and running, but obviously is a really important to people in every state. So when you commit to reopening a Residential Reentry Center in hawaii . Are just as concerned as you are about losing thatbu Halfway House, Reentry Center as a know you are aware and a staff met with your staff recently, the building of the other Halfway House ended up being sold to the city of speedy i understand the circumstances. And they pulled away from its. We advertise three times for t y Halfway House in honolulu and got no takers. Thend problem is the provide has to come it has to be costeffective for them so we cannot commit more numbers of inmates going into thehe Halfway House that we have releasing to the state. Let me finish funny. We now have a program to will and in a month and we believe he will get an acceptable bidder. What weve done is add a couple of things onto, the Halfway House, a home confinement and then a Day Reporting Center which is like home confinement on steroids with a get extra oversight. That will expand the workload were asking for from the Halfway House so it should make it more costeffective because more inmates will be paying for so we are very optimistic because we want that halfwayd house in hawaii. We are very optimistic we will get a bidder on the. That sounds like a yes. Thats as close to guess yei can possibly give you. And your timeline is within the next several months . Yes, soon. Sword like to be come to regular updates from you as to how things are going so that have at least one Residential Center open. The thing that happen with regard to this facility was also congress and the appropriation measure required the blp to notify us we make significant changes involving our closures. Were learned about the closure f the facility from the residence, not from blp. Are you following the requirements to notify . I believe in the case the provider quit on us and so we kind of got the word of the late also. But i will double check that to make sure because it is our response was to make sure youre aware of that. If we drop the ball and that when i do apologize but i will double check. I think you noted you do work with nonprofits and you asked this by one of my colleagues, local and state governments work through the challenging issues such as zoning restrictions, finding a suitable big problems. Its not the person its very difficult for Everyone Wants their inmates close to home before their release but no one wants them in their community so its very difficult. You testified you are very committed to implementing the First Step Act first step legislation of the United States. Thereu was recent article in te Washington Post that the Justice Department under attorney general barr leadership is out of money. The First Step Actct by restricting the number of people eligible to benefit fromrt Early Release underey the law and the article noted current and formal department of justice officials have stated attorney general barr has expressed concerns that it would drive up crime numbers and that the administration would be playing. Is this sentiment something to attorney general expressed to . That is not anything i heard the attorney general say. He has been supportive as has the Deputy Attorney general in implementing this First Step Act so ive never heard those words coming out of the attorney general apparently people who are calling understaffed and other officials have heard that come and so that would be a major concern. May i just add, you were asked questions about what happens to your female employees,rd and ensure that they represent a relatively small percentage of all of the employees that you have within the blp. I would encourage you of course to commit to making sure that the kind of training you provide, particularly to the male staffer did not come to the aid of a female staff, that you do everything you can to change the culture of this kind of behavior stops. I yield. I agree, senator. Thank you. Senatortu kennedy. Thank you, madam chairman, chairwoman. And thank you, director, for being here today. We have a federal correctional facility in louisiana at oakdale louisiana that you are probably familiar with. Were having huge staffing problems, which doesnt make sense in light of my states unemployment rate, which relative to other states is very high. Which might if i contacted your staff, talk about that and see what help we can get . Let me stop you, i want to have a long meeting. Ill give you information. I have a couple of other questions. What is, in your opinion, is justice . Justice . Thats a heavy question. I would assume that people are treated fairly and that fair and equitable consequences occur if one violates the rights of another and we should anticipate and expect that from our system. Well, when somebody i mean, to me, justice is when someone gets what they deserve. The uighurs in china deserve religious liberty and i think its unjust not to give it to th them. In terms of crimen punishment, a wrongful act, do you think we should view that as a sickness to be cured or consequence or wrongful act, the consequence of which deserves punishment . I think the latter is true, but in some in terms of pedophiles and sexual behavior some deemed to be the psychiatric association, at the root of that is a psychiatric and mental eliot had issues its both, but either way the consequences should match the offen offense. Tell me the best procedure, in your judgment, and youve got a lot of experience and i can tell from your testimony today that you know what youre talking about. I think most people would agree that justice sometimes has to be tempered with mercy. In the federal prison system how best do we do that . And who should do it . Senator, as i mentioned earlier, we have no control over who comes into our institutions or when they get out and so coming in and going out. Youre queen for a day. Forget about the current law. Within our institution, we all have the responsibility to treat our to treat our inmates with mercy and compassion because as i said earlier, we believe that an inmates reentry journey excuse me for interrupting, but our time is so limited. Im talking in terms of determining when somebody should get out early. Thats we dont have control over when someone gets out. I know that. Im asking you who should based on your considerable experience. I think the individuals that have been elected or appointed to the top ranks of our whole criminal justice and system of law in this country have the responsibility to make those decisions. Well, we dont. Congress didnt, congress didnt in the First Step Act. We turned it over to you folks and we turned it over to the Justice Department. You gave us authorities. You gave us abilities. Sure. To kind of like to but you exercise the judgment. Well, but, thats right, but that judgment is driven by specific parameters within which you have to work. Theyre very vague. Okay. Im not sure im going to be able to answer this in an acceptable manner to you senator. Let me take one last lick on Jerry Epstein and how can i put this. Christmas ornaments, drywall and Jerry Epstein, name three things that dont hang themselves. Thats what the American People think. Thats what the American People think and they deserve some answers, and i know that youre not in charge of these investigations. Yes, sir. But you talked to the people who are and i need you to take a very respectful message today. Tell the American People what happened and dont rush it so that they dont defer investigation, but you and i both know they can make this a top priority and get it done more quickly than they normally would. They need to do that and id like you to deliver that message. I agree with you, sir, but i have no control i can pass along the message, but the fbi and the Inspector Generals office work on their own time frame, but i will definitely give your message and i want to i have a feeling you know how to be firm. A little bit. Thank you. Thank you, senator. That you, Ranking Member feinstein and many of the ways in which the recently released prisoners didnt have access to the kinds of programs that the first step, we have the services and partnerships that im hoping bop will be expanding will deliver reentry based services, training, treatment or other preparation for reentry into our system and preventing recidivism. And can you tell me what partnerships you may have started with local nonprofits which allow you to deliver the services in a more Cost Effective way or faithbased organizations which could help reduce the costs. I think you mentioned one of your programs in delaware. One of the things for us to be difficult to attain in the bureau of prisons are the Community Programs that are going to welcome inmates back into their communities, with jobs and housing, not that they have to provide them with the housing, but at least allow them in their neighborhoods. The inmate has to want to change and we have to provide opportunity for change and the community has to embrace them. I think a lot of work needs to be on the reentry side and the community where we can get Halfway Houses and we tried to get them. No one wants them near them and programs to assist the inmates when they come back to the community. Those are a critical piece of the operation. Yesterday in wilmington, Second Chance farm had the grand opening and its very close to our nearby prison and its an opportunity to do urban farming for those just released in a supervised setting i think is an i think spiring model. Let me say initially, 75 was given for that. And you may require double that, some outside groups are looking for Something Like 400 million. And im joining moran and shaheen in a letter in april saying we want your active feedback so we can adequately fund and engage with you in delivering these services so the first step back can be effective. As i indicated the only thing thats going to impede our ability to provide what they need are resources. Were hoping for more than 75 million, i know with the markups were under continuing resolution, but i think well probably get 75 million again. The 75 million did not come from congress, we had to eat that out off your budget. I know at the end of the day youre going to be yelling at us because we dont have the programs, the reality is, if we dont have the resources we cant make it happen. The reason we sent the letter to you, to explicitly ask how much you may well need. Let me move to solitary confinement, many concluded that solitary confinement causes serious and longlasting harm and should be used as necessary not as a default sprarn tool. The First Step Act ended solitary confinement in juvenile settings. Given the demonstrated harms, why do we still have 10,000 inmates, about 7 in restrictive housing. Thats a more expensive form. Is it really the last option in terms of discipline . Were working diligently, i swear since i got back here. Youve got inmates in there because theyre bad actors, 30 days in lockup. Only about 3,000 of the 10,000. The remaining ones are in there for protective custody reasons. Theyve chose to lock up because they were afraid on the compound. Theyre in there because weve got so many security groups and theyre going to fight each other and kill each other. Were desperately working for alternatives. Reintegration Housing Units and well start with senator durbins institution. And new ones coming are on line and operational. We have transitional units. And deganging id welcome more on you, with senator durbin, have a solitary confinement reform act. And mr. Chairman, two quick concluding questions. Im cochair of the caucus, you have significant vacancies and Staff Shortages that left to folks i think are not properly trained as Prison Guards that contributed or maybe contributed to so what youve been asked at. How many are using augmentation, pushing people who are normally corrections officer in that role and those serving in guard conditions expected to perform their regular jobs on an ongoing basis and whats the impact on Mental Health and suicide risk for those performing these corrections functions that are very stressful and demanding . I know a lot of interest has been raised in our augmentation process. Its a wonderful thing. We train our staffs as correctional workers first. When i was a psychologist, i didnt have officers in my treatment therapy groups. We dont have officers in the teachers classrooms. We dont have officers where the food Service People are cooking food. We dont have officers Walking Around with plumbers and electricians teaching other inmates. Were all trained to be Correctional Officers first. We have that responsibility. When i came up to the when i became an associate warden and warden, i would have been illprepared to take on responsibilities, but i had sat in the seats of Correctional Officers numerous times during my growth in the bureau. You get insights. Augmentation is very bad when you have to do is too much and thats happening more recently. There are a number of vacancies weve had to augment too often. The staff from the other posts they know how to do the job, you know, theyre trained to do that job, but youre right, the work from their other job is getting limited in terms of what they can accomplish. And so thats when i said earlier, we have put such huge strains on the bureau of prisons trying to accomplish its mission with the dramatic growth weve had, the budget cuts, the staffing shortages, its just been incredible to me that the bureau has been able to function during the last 16 years ive been gone. Its a very high level in most respects, theyve been functioning with severe strain based on our system. Augmenttation is a good thing, dont take it away, but we have to get our staff positions filled so we dont have an augment as much as we do now. Im concerned. Weve lost more Law Enforcement officers to suicide than duty deaths. Im concerned what were doing to provide appropriate support and training and staffing because i think were pushing folks beyond their ability comfortably to perform. Senator lee. Thank you. Thanks so much for being here and thank you for your willingness to serve in a part of government thats not easy. In a part of government thats so essential for the safety of our country. Its often a thank leless task. Absolutely. I want to talk to you a moment about the First Step Act and about its implementation, about what we can do to make sure that its helping to make americans safe. I want to talk for a moment though about the Jeffrey Epstein case. There are a lot of indications, a lot of people who have expressed concern, concerns culminating in the phrase Jeffrey Epstein didnt kill himself. It was initially reported that he had died by suicide, but according to a whole lot of news reports, a private psychologist im sorry, a private pathologist who took a look at the case said that mr. Epstein experienced a number of injuries as he put it quote, extremely unusual in suicide hangings and more familiar with homicidal. Ive seen it. According to reports, security cameras in the hallway watching mr. Epsteins cell just happened to malfunction the night that his life ended. Can you tell me how frequently do Prison Guards do prison guarding security cameras malfunction like this and what are the protocols to check on them and to make sure that that doesnt happen. Senator, we have we are very behind in terms of moneys for improvements for our institutions. As i mentioned earlier in my Opening Statement, our institutions are very old and a lot of the systems are faulty. Just in the last year, we have come up with enough money to redo all of the camera systems and institutions. Its not quite completed, but we did get the funding to upgrade them from analog to digital and we have a lot more cameras in the institutions than they used to be. We had a lot of blind spots, didnt have adequate cameras. M. C. C. Is one of those, its like partway through its whole camera reinstallation so by this time next year, we should have all of our institutions should be completely upgraded in terms of cameras. Okay. So when theyre faulty they do break down sometimes. When you break down, you cant see it. Given that the security cameras malfunctioned that night, how can we be sure that he did kill himself . Sometimes you can see some. Its just the visibility on an old analog camera is grainy and thats usually the problems that occur, you can see whats going on, its just grainy and its harder to identify precisely what youre seeing on old cameras. Some of what was going on in this case . I dont know about this case because i was not allowed to see any of the cameras after it 0 he cu occurred, sir . Why is that . Because the fbi and Inspector Generals office is investigating. Were not allowed to touch anything. Uns a situation occurred the fbi and attorney generals comes in, were not allowed until after. Well know once the investigation. Do you have any idea how long that will be . We keep hearing soon, soon. I dont know how long soon is. One of the concerns i have is that its my understanding at the time of his death he was, you know, high security housing unit, one that was supposed to be checked every 30 minutes and that from what im told, it appears that hours went by, possibly three hours or so went by without anyone checking on him. If that is true, would that have represented a lapse of protocol . A lapse of a lot of things, senator. Protocol policy following lots of very negative things if staff are not doing their rounds and their cell checks as theyre supposed to be doing. Is there a correlation between deaths and these high security Housing Units and the failure to make timely checks on inmates according to bureau of prison protocols . As i indicated average deaths in jail facilities, high facility pretrials, average is 50 per 100,000 inmates. We had two in a jail facility in the past year, two, which suggests in the vast majority were doing things quickly and making checks. In our special housing and other institutions weve had a couple of incidents when we looked at the camera after something untoward occurred, its not always clear the officer was doing exactly what we specifically asked them. In each case we called in the spf gener spf Inspector Generals office and if it appears to be a criminal act occurring we call in the u. S. Attorneys office and fbi and we will prosecute if people are not doing their jobs. Mr. Chairman, my time just expired, one short question, first step back implementation, can i ask that . Ill take that as a yes. I have no objection. Thank you. What efforts has the bureau made to ensure that inmates are receiving incentives under the first step back for the programming that they in which theyre currently participating. The credits are built right into the program and identified in the First Step Act. If you complete xnumber of hours and xnumber of programs, then you get, theres a correlation how many credits youre supposed to be getting toward Early Release. There are some inmates who are not eligible for the first step back. Your violent offenders, sex offenders, some excluded by congress and were trying to build incentives to those individuals, too. They make phone time to call home or may be able to get extra benefit in the trust fund program to be able to purchase some items. Were trying to incentivize all the inmates, its beneficial for us on one hand because it makes for better behavior by the inmates, but the main focus is on ones trying to work out of the prison systems. As long as they get involved and complete the programs, the credits are makes your job easier and public safer, lowering the crime rate. If we could limit eliminate our names, we would be happy. Welcome, director. Welcome. Senator cornyn and i were two authors of the reentry part of the first step back so we obviously have a keen interest in its implementation and its success. I will relate to you at least my experience which is that during the battle for that bill, your organization was something less than a champion for our piece of it. But we ended up passing the bill with huge bipartisan majorities. I will tell you i think the row entry piece was Even Stronger and more bipartisan piece than the sentencing part. I think we sent a big signal that we wanted to get this done. There was a meeting afterwards that senator cornyn with unable to attend, but was able to send a staff person to with mr. Kushner, with the dag, Deputy Attorney general, and people in the white house working on this bill to send a message that we want to see this implemented. So i hope that we were in pretty good shape and certainly your comments today show, i think, real seriousness about it, but im worried that the people within the bureau who may not have been champions of this bill are still, perhaps, trying to interveer with the implementation down in the ranks and the most obvious way is to not ask for additional funding and then blame the lack of additional funding for not having forward. Theres a recent survey down of 280 it,of your inmates as part of developing the new Assessment Tool and the report was that 49 of them had not completed any programs before they were released. 82 had not participated in technical or vocational courses and 57 who needed drug treatment had not received it. So, theres obviously a huge opportunity here to improve on those numbers and you have said in your testimony today, the first step back provides us with the opportunity to add new programs and enhanced and expand existing programs. Im all for that, but in a staff level briefing that bop told us they currently have no plans to expand their program offerings. So, i dont know quite where we are here, but when your testimony says we want to do new programs to implement this new bill that had such bipartisan support. When you see this need in your own survey and then we hear from your staff that youve got no plans to do any new programs. Its a little hard to figure out whats going on here. Senator, im mystified, i know of no staff who says we dont want to increase our programs. If i could get the names because thats not where we are in the bureau of prisons. And i know my staff well enough to know were not saying those things. We may not be increasing them until we get the funding to do it, but were prepared to increase. Those numbers mystify in that senator durbin had, ones never involved in programs. I know we have low security inmates with us such a short period of time that they dont have time to get into programs and white collar and skilled in their business and chose to go the illegal route for a while and they dont need the programs and there are inmates doing life sentences that choose not. Theyre not going to need a job on the outside and dont get involved in Vocational Training. The vast majority of inmates, we have Vocational Training, therapeutic for them to get involved. No question about it, we dont have enough. The only thing thats going to impede us is the resources to offer enough programs so all inmates can be involved. We need to make sure the budget youre requesting alliance with the authorities. It doesnt help us when the administration comes in with a budget that does not support the Additional Resources that we need. Its a set back. We do have appropriators who will pay no attention to particularly bad recommendations and budgets on both sides of the aisle, its a bipartisan phenomenon, but i think its important and with respect to one particular piece of this, the medication assisted treatment, rhode island is probably the National Leader right now if getting medication assisted treatment to prisoners before release. Weve dramatically reduced death by overdose within that population, but we use the whole array of approved medical interventions. Bop, we understand, offers primarily only one drug, which is called vivitrol. Youre trying to expand the Medication Assisted Treatment Program you say. Yes. But only requested additional Million Dollars and no additional staff to expand the availability of medication assisted treatment in fy 2020 budget. So this is the kind of example where its frustrating for us to have you say we really want to do this, it makes sense, we know it works, weve seen the cases out there where it saves lives and improves peoples recidivism when theyre out and then when the rubber really hits the road in the budget that you request, you undercut yourself with a budget request that doesnt accomplish the goals you state you wish to achieve. Senator, part of the limitations on us in terms of the other drugs right now that you would provide to inmates coming into the institution. We dont have the authorities to provide those. Hha and dea has strict restrictions. And im sure your state has gotten those authorities. Were working diligently because for a lot of times its a matter of moving drugs across state lines because our institutions are everywhere and inmates release everywhere and come from everywhere. So were working diligently to get the proper licensing procedures to do it on the front end. Were ensuring the inmates get the medicine. If they come in and review with their doctors and our doctors, we take them downtown where theres a prescriber who can prescribe that medication for us. Part of what we need is theline sure agreement for our own staff. Were having to take the inmate out can Congress Help you in this regard . Pardon me . Can Congress Help new this regard . I thought we were going to have to come up for a modification for the law, but i think were close to the final approval from hhs on the methadone and bumorphine. Ill come and talk to you. Lets make sure theres no Counter Insurgency going on in your organization. If there is and i find it, theyll be working where else. Thanks. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman, excuse me, i want to introduce in the Record Council of prisons local region letter. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, and thank you so much. We appreciate that youre there and easy to see with general barr wanted you to come out of retirement and come back. Jeffrey epstein concerns a lot because we have victims, women, young girls that are never going to see justice fully because of his death and youve mentioned that all of your high profile inmates are treated the same. So i want to pivot to the staff and senator coons had started on some of this and lets look at policies and procedures for staff for handling these high profile or suicidal inmates. Do you have written protocols that are there to be followed as Standard Operating Procedure even if youre augmenting staff. Right. That Everybody Knows this is how its done . Is that in existence . Yes, it is, in all of our special Housing Units or secure units, posted right tt the front entry, officers quarters and every staff member is expect today read that every time they come on post. We also do regular straining with the staff in there. For those augmenting those post orders on a daily basis should require they know whats on the post. So staff would have full awareness of what the expectation is . Yes. Thank you. So then Staff Shortages, staffing shortages and i understand that you are facing those. How is that affecting your ability and then the staffing shortages that you have, what are you all doing to alleviate that . Have you changed recruiting practices . Since ive been back for about three months, thats been my highest priority is getting our positions filled. Prior to that we had actings in the role, good people doing good things. Acting directors dont have the power to make it happen the way a full director can. Ive managed to get extra authorities from the department of justice to get direct hiring, so institutions can directly hire from the street. We do not have that right now and that would advance us greatly. Ive given authority to 20 new staff in our staffing Processing Center in texas. A lot of those are going to be retirees because we can bring them back from retirement, theyre already trained, already skilled. We can bring them back for a year or two and let them go back to retirement. Ive beeen experienced with that. Weve added addition and 10 new staff because we know well have retirements coming in our offices so were doing that and advancing our Recruitment Strategies and weve hired exs exs exsenture, where the young people go looking for those. We have something online, but nothing splashy to have the young people come work for us. Were doing everything we can to try to speed up our recruitment process and hiring process. One of the things thats hurting us that i mentioned that we hired 15,000 employees when i was director in the 10year period. Those are all eligible to retire. Many of them are retiring at the same time were trying to hire new staff. So we hired five new staff and three retire. Hire new staff and four retire. So its marred for its hard for us to catch one. Weve hired a lot. If you have enough through the back, retiring or whatever its difficult to catch up. As youre hiring new staff, what is the length of training theyre given before theyre put on the job. Two hours two hours, two weeks, three weeks of training in Law Enforcement Training Center in glenco, georgia. So thats six weeks. What the ideal and what we used to be able to do is link a probationary employee to an experienced employee so they can shadow them. Unfortunately with our staffing shortages were not able to do that in all of our instances. As we staff, well be able to return to that and then we have annual training every year that every staff has to go through. The things that they need to know and the requirements and incidental training throughout the year and incremental training throughout the year. And one of the most acute issues that you came in facing. To staffing and training. When our budgets got cut dramatically. Whats one of the first things to go, you cut your training budgets. Were having trouble filling positions and were got a lot of new employees, if we cant train them adequately. Theyre on their job and they may not know everything they need to know to do their jobs effectively. Thats what im straining to ive got a question on contraband and ill submit that to you for writing, but the fact that you have people like el chapo or martin shkreli, still running his business out of prison or a drone dropping cell phones. This is something that we need to help you solve and i will submit that for a written response. Yield back. Excellent. Senator cornyn. Dr. Sawyer, let me join my colleagues in thanking you for returning to public service. You talked about the importance of faithbased programming in our prisons, but it seems to me that youre engaged in a faithbased exercise here. Let me remind you like john mccain used to remind us, your reward will not be on earth. [laughter] so several years, maybe 10 years ago now, i remember meeting with a number of pastors in the dallas area, africanamerican pastors and i asked them whats the single bigotest problem you have in your congregation, since young men who are convicted felons who after they leave prison, they cant get a job and they cant find a place to live. It occurred to me if you cant get a job and you cant find a place to live, your choices are extraordinarily limited. And so, looking at some of the work thats done at the state level. Senator white house and i and other colleagues here, almost unanimous, joined together and passed the First Step Act. This is an aspirational goal making sure that people once they leave prison, almost everybody will. Another factoid that people overlook. People leave prison, the question are they better prepared than when they went in . We cant save everybody, but the numbers look encouraging from the state experience. But one of the things i want to ask you about is, in my state, in texas, for example, we not only looked at what happens in prison, but we look at what happened after people got out of prison, and this is a part of i want to make sure we dont drop the ball on congress, i mean. Your responsibilities perhaps in once they leave. Their premise, but we have to make sure there are followon Services Monitoring and assistance to people who continue to need reenforcement and help because if they go back in the same neighborhood or subject to the same old temptations and influences back in your custody. Do you agree its important for congress not to just pat ourselves on the back and say we passed the First Step Act, but also, we need to follow through by providing followon services for this population . I think its excellent, senator. As i mentioned to the senator earlier, we look at it as a three legged stool. We can provide programs for inmates to better themselves. The inmates have to choose to do that. The third stool is the community theyre going back into. And if theres not one that deals with housing issues and jobs, the inmate cannot succeed if they dont have a place to live. Not allowed to do this, not allowed to do that. Its difficult for them to succeed and we see them coming back to us. When they left us optimistic with skills in hand. Education in hand and then they come back because what they found outside was not what they were hoping would be there for them. In the runup to the first we heard from michael mukasey. He said it would be easy to get confused what the ultimate goal was. He encouraged us to keep an eye on the crime rate. If the crime rate was coming down, we were obviously making some progress. If it was going up, well, something obviously was going wrong. Do you agree with that focus . I think thats certainly one of the things you need to look at closely, sir, yes. And finally, dr. Sawyer, senator white house, as you heard, he and i are sort of the odd couple on prison reforms, like senator leahy and i are on freedom of informatio of inform. [inaudible conversations]. Ill leave that for someone else. And we have the reenter act, what were trying to do is provide federal judges the authority, not requiring it, but discretion to issue their o own acknowledge that theyve finished their sentences and demonstrated commitment to a lou abading future. Were looking at the state experience, a third of the states have a Similar Program and im glad, just like the first step back, this seems to enjoy bipartisan support. Many have joined us in the introduction of this bill. Do you see the usefulness of giving federal judges this discretion maybe as an additional indicator to the public that this individual has tried to turn their lives around, taken advantage of the programming and needs to be welcomed back to the community as you point out . Senator, im not familiar with your bill. I look forward to looking at it. Im still catching up with a lot of new stuff thats happened in the last 16 years, im happy to look at it. Anything that improves the process, that makes us all Work Together on doing the right things for offenders that are coming back to the community. I applaud all of your efforts, all of our efforts to make that successful. Thank you, again. Senator tillis. Thank you, mr. Chairman, dr. Sawyer, thank you for being here and your service. How would you describe the morale of folks in bop right now . Its kind of mixed. Ive been trying to get to institutions and talk to staff and management as well as the line staff and its mixed. We have a mixture of staff who are tired because theyre having to work extra hours and work so hard and so long, but the staff that ive interacted with, theyre still the driven, good Quality Bureau of prisons people who really want to do a good job. They know theyre in a profession, they dont get glory. Prison people only get notice when something bad goes wrong. Those are usually in local papers. Dr. Sawyer, would you rate the caliber of the people working out there the vast majority of them good hard working people . The vast majority. Weve got some knuckleheads and we want to screen out knuckleheads, but the vast majority but theyre tired for many years. Im sure some are watching your testimony. I would like maybe as a followup, two charged that senator durbin put forth, i think maybe that would be helpful to look the data and what are the root causes behind it. Is it as stark and as bad as it appears to be or are there other mitigating factors. If it is, its something we need to look at, if there are other mitigating factors, good for the committee. Very good, sir. What is your attrition rate, that of retirements. What kind of attrition are you dealing with outside of the current course. I dont have the numbers with me. But i do know that most of our staff can retire at 50, most retire at 54. Weve added new incentives to try to encourage, Pay Incentives for those who stick around once theyve reached retirement eligibility. To get them to stick around a year longer. Recently, long issues, one is to try to beg our retirees to give us one more year or two or three to stick around longer because we need their experience to tide us over until we get the positions filled. Thank you, im probably going to submit some specific questions for the record around Reentry Centers. We had a center in charlotte, North Carolina that had a stellar record that recently closed. It looked like it was probably a combination of funding as well as a drop in the prisoner reductio reductions. So, in some respects, im going to sound like some of the mechanics youre working three in answer to senator hironos questions. Go ahead. That facility closed on us, we didnt know they were going to close, they defaulted on a contract. A lot of it was financial, maximum number 75 and guaranteed a lower number and they wanted to desperately to get to the 75. We cant control where the inmates are coming from or communities theyre released to. They defaulted on the contract and left us so were now in the process of trying to do statewide contracts so that we have the same deliverier in multiple sites around the state so that if one needs bodies, they can shift around. Thats already in process. Pardon me . A more diverse portfolio. Yes, thank you. That should be coming out very, very soon. Its closing soon. We believe we have the vendors that are going to step up and bid on that. Right now, in charlotte, we have a Halfway House 20 moo and theyre going to those two facilities, but we want to close the last contract and cover the i think Something Else will follow up in questions that has to do with communication, with probation officers. Sometimes they feel like theyre getting a transfer without adequate notice or communication, but well just follow up. Yeah, thats interesting. And some specifics has been reported by my staff. Thank you. I know youre new to the job so this is something that i would just ask you all to look at. I think the First Step Act supported and im supporting additional efforts and senator cornyn and others, i think it would be very helpful. You mentioned you have accenture coming in on the hiring practices. I think it would be helpful for you to go through assessment of the first act, what expectations are imposed on you, what your current funding streams are and where the objectives of the First Step Act could be challenged unless you get additional authorities to or restoreses. Resources. Its one thing to get the likelihood for you coming before the committee and us being happy with the implementation, to what extent does Congress Need to further act to make to facilitate that implement takes and put together a letter of what im looking at and basically an operational assessment of your execution strategy. Thank you for being here and for your years of service. Thank you, senator hawley. Let me continue the theme of staffing issuings. I know bop experienced critical staffing issues in the recent years, including in springfield, missouri in my home state. What measures have bop implemented to avoid staffing shortages, can you give me an update there . If you want to know where the staffing shortages came from, i mentioned earlier our rapid growth, our expansion of institutions, we have had position cuts dramatically over the years, at one year in particular we had open institutions 3,000 less than we had the year before. A couple of years ago, 5,000 positions removed from our numbers, whats happened, a result of the 3,000 vacancies we have right now we have uncertain budget years we projected we would get significant cuts again in budget and staffing and leaders at the time of this organization were wary hiring up too much because we didnt want to rip a whole lot of people when the budgets came out, our budget was cut dramatically. Attrition, staff, we hired 15,000 inmates inmates employees director to 2003 and now theyre eligible to retire and theyre going out the door and we desperately tried to fill up on the front end. Since ive been here and prior to my arrival weve atted lots of incentives, financial incentives, increased staffing numbers at Grand Prairie office that does most of the screening for new hires and increased that by 20 of former retirees who can come in for a short period, a year or two or three, already trained, ready to go, they can start. 10 new staff to get it up, new recruitment going on as the senator mentioned, using accenture to develop a flashy online recruitment package for us to tap the young people. Were approaching, and hiring contractors to help with staffing levels. Were doing everything we can possibly think of. Weve gotten new authorities from the department of justice. One thing bringing me in as the director, the attorney general assured me i would have the full support of the department of justice to get the bureau of prisons on solid ground and theyve delivered on that. New authorities for hiring and everything we possibly can. Hired 2500 new staff in the past year, at the same time we had attributed out other staff. Were hiring new ones and losing others and its hard for us to catch up. We will get there, but its taking us the federal hiring process is extremely long and onerous and it can take six months to a year from the time you recruit someone or identify someone to actually get nem them on board and operation and by the time we train them and get to to work, longer, its a difficult process. Let me ask you specifically about the springfield, missouri, and im worried there, thats the medical center, and can you talk about your medical staff, dental, doctors. I dont have the specific numbers for springfield. I can get them for you and tell you. One of our most difficult areas is health services, doctors, nurses, dental to a certain extend. The medical profession is stretched thin across the country and no one can find as many as they need and thats why a lot of rural entities are losing their medical providers. Theyre competing and we dont pay as much as others pay them. I can get the specific numbers on springfield, sir. Thank you. Let me go back to the numbers you mentioned just a moment ago. The hiring freeze as i understand it, caused bop to lose 5,000 jobs. In your house testimony you said actively seeking 3,000 a delta of 2,000, short of the staffing levels. Tell us how you would adequately staff your facilities in the meantime without resorting 0 augmenttation. The 5,000 positions we lost is separate from 3,000 vacancy. 5,000 they took everything away from us. 3,000 positions we have the positions and theyre just empty. The freeze affected that, the Government Shutdown affected that, uncertain budget years affected that, we were afraid to staff up and turn around and riff them the next year. And thats with our 3,000 position. We have to get those positions filled to meet the requirements. First step act and as i said were doing as many things and we can think of to come up with to get those filled. Its a reach for us to get these on staff quickly enough. One of the other things were looking to is a lot of the online programs, Educational Programs our inmates can be involved in in terms. Though theyre not as staff intensive, we can use other sources to provide the training and education for our he have hadders and not retiring solely on Staff Members to be present to do that. Were looking at everything we possibly can do to get our positions filled up and the programs to the inmates. The only thing thats going to impede us is resources. As long as we can get adequate resources well be fun. Thank you. Senator cruz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Dr. Sawyer, welcome. Thank you, sir. You started in your position at bop nine days after the death of Jeffrey Epstein. What happened with Jeffrey Epstein was an enormous black eye to the bop and to the department of justice. It was disgraceful. Jeffrey epstein was a pedophile. He was a sexual predator who targeted and preyed on young girls and yet, he died in federal custody. He died in federal custody before he had a chance to testify about his crimes, about his wrongdoings, and about the other powerful men who were complicit in that sexual abuse. That was a moment that shocked this country. There were powerful men who wanted Jeffrey Epstein silenced. As i see it, there are two and only two possibilities for what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. Number one, there was gross negligence and a total failure of bop to do its job with a prisoner on suicide watch that led to epsteins committing suicide. Or number two, something far worse happened, that it was not suicide, but rather a homicide carried out by person or persons who wanted epstein silenced. Either one of those is completely unacceptable. Both of those are profound indictments of bop and our federal incarceration system. Now, i understand theres an Inspector General investigation. I understand the department of justice is looking at this, but you came into an agency right after this happened and as far as im concerned, when you came in, that was an agency in crisis. Lets take the more damning of the scenarios. Based on the evidence of which youre aware, is there any indication that Jeffrey Epsteins death was a homicide . Based upon the evidence that i am aware, no, but as ive already told the committee, it is still being investigated by the fbi and the Inspector Generals office. Once they initiate their investigation, we are required to remove ourselves completely from it. Were not allowed to talk to any Staff Members involved. Not allowed to look at any evidence involved. Im not aware of very much regarding the epstein investigation until its completed, but theres no indication from anything i know that it was anything other than a suicide. As i understand it, two Prison Guards were recently indicted for falling asleep when they were supposed to be on watch, for failing to engage in the periodic every 30minute check on suicide watch on Jeffrey Epstein, and then falsifying their records to claim that they had, in fact, done their job when the allegation is now theyre asleep. Is that right . Thats what i heard on the media today. I have gotten no official reporting of that yet at all. Other than those two individuals, has anybody at bop yet been disciplined or terminated for their conduct that led to the Jeffrey Epstein death . Were still waiting for the conclusion of the investigation. Senator. We cant act on any of that until we get evidence of the investigation. I can assure you if theres any misconduct, we dont want people like that working at the prisons. They dont represent the vast majority of 35,000 employees across the bureau of prisons. Most of our staff are high quality people doing the right thing and you are right, this incident was a black eye on the entire bureau of prisons and unfortunately, everyone takes a cingular incident and paints a brush across the organization and assumes its dysfunctional and incompetent. Thats not the case. We have some bad staff. We want rid of those bad staff who dont do their job. We want them gone one way or another either by prosecution or termination, but the good staff are doing extraordinary work out there, every day managing 177,000 inmates. You never hear about those people because theyre doing their job and things are running well. The only time we get notice is when something bad happens. Dr. Sawyer, let me say, given what occurred here, there is reason for a great deal of concern and i understand the sentiments that you want to have the back of your team, and i understand those sentiments entirely, but we have two Prison Guards that have just been indicted for literally falling asleep on the job and then lying about it. And my question to you is, what have you done leading this organization to determine how many other Prison Guards have fallen asleep on the job, have lied about it . How many other video cameras installed to ensure safety and security are inopper inoperative as they were as i understand with epstein. Within couple weeks of my arriving, telling employees we dont know what happened with the epstein case because i dont have the information, but if any Staff Members out there are not doing their rounds effectively in special Housing Units, if theyre not doing their counts effectively and signing documents that says theyre doing things they are not doing, not only is that a dereliction of duty, but its a violation of the law and we will discipline and we will prosecute if necessary. I made that position very clearly to all 36,000 of our employees out there. We, in terms of the camera issue, i mentioned earlier that were right in the midst this past year into next year to replace all of our cameras across all of our institutions, going from analog and digital and increasing cameras at our institutions. In the meantime, we know theyre faulty in some locations, theyre picking up whats happening, but its a grainy analog kind after view which is Never Acceptable in investigations. Were completely replacing our cameras in our institutions and that should be completed sometime into the next coming near and we are making it very clear, our management staff and our Regional Directors have been clear. I sent out a letter to the wardens, telling them specific in regard to their staff they need to be repeatedly telling their staff and reminding them and making sure the post orders and requirements are clear, to our employees what their responsibilities are. If we have a training issue our staff doesnt know how to do something, thats managements fault. We have to train the people. If there are instances where people know and experience and choose not to do their job, then i want them gone, every one of them out of our institutions. Not only do they make the inmates unsafe bye make our employees unsafe. Thank you. Thank you. That will conclude the hearings. Thank you for serving our country yet again and i think youre the right person at the right time. Thank you, senator. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the senate gavelling back in today working on judicial and executive nominations. Today they will have a confirmation vote on Barbara Lagoa to be the u. S. Appeals court judge for the 11th circuit. Lawmakers will also vote to limit debate on Adrian Zuckerman to be u. S. Ambassador to romania. Both votes are expected to happen at 11 30 a. M. Eastern. Youre watching live coverage of the senate on cspan2. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Barry black, will open the senate with prayer. The chaplain let us pray

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