Thank you, senator. From my perspective, having joined as a correctional officer in 1988 and around that time the bureaus population was a little more than 60,000. I think historically when you book at the bureau of prisons and go back from 1940 to 1980, the bureaus population pretty much remained flat for many, many years in excess of 20,000. So in 1980, which is the primary target for this discussion, we, as an agency, we had approximately 24,000 inmates in the federal system. We had less than 9,000 employees, 41 institutions and able to operate the entour bur en tour bureau of prisons for 330 million. So when you look at the increase from 1980 to 2013, we were at more than 800 as far as the growth of the population. And our staffing didnt keep pace with that growth. And with our mission, where we are tasked with anyone and everyone who is convicted and turned over to the department of justice and placed in the care of the bureau of prisons, we have a job to do, a significant job. An
Customers a day. Host you will have to leave it there. We appreciate your time. We will now bring you to the Senate Homeland security and Government Affairs committee. They are looking at the bureau of oversight. And the challenges facing the federal prison system. You can see the chairman, ron johnson, who will be gathering there shortly. Senator johnson good morning. This hearing will come to order. I am looking forward to this. I was telling the witnesses, i have read all of the testimony, and i generally do that to the best of my ability, sometimes the testimony can be a little dry and will put me to sleep when im reading later at night. In this case, not whatsoever. The testimony was fascinating partly because i am new to the issue. I will keep my Opening Statement brief. I know senator booker wants to make an Opening Statement and he is been involved longer than i have. Being a business guy i am dated driven data driven. The data on this with a high level incarceration rates are
One as well. Mr. Dillard i feel like the work is on the offenders themselves. When i met a lifer who rated difference in my life, throughout my prison sentence i realized how the older inmates tried to encourage the younger ones. I still feel like you cannot leave formerly incarcerated citizens out of the equation. Mr. Ofer i will give two quick examples. There are states that have reduced the risk of solitary confinement without the risk to staff and to inmates. In colorado, 2011 placed 7 of its incarcerated population in solitary confinement. In 2011, colorado place solitary confinement at 7 . Today, its about 1 . We have seen a dramatic decrease in the use of solitary by banning the use of solitary against people with Mental Illness. The second example is bail reform. What weve done in new jersey and what other states are looking at we had 10,000 people sit in jail awaiting their trial because they cannot afford a few thousand dollars in bail. We have completely revamped that system
Man cannot do it all, his staff needs to be on board, is inspirational. I want to make a note on some of the senator carper i would like to listen to you for the rest of the morning, but i would like for you to hold it right there then we will come back to you in the second round. One of the things that attracted to me to a program was the guy who developed that and implemented it in delaware was from ohio state. It came out of columbus, ohio. It worked pretty well. Mr. Dillard, same question. One great example. Piper has given us one, give us one as well. Mr. Dillard i feel like the work is on the offenders themselves. When i met a lifer who rated difference in my life, throughout my prison sentence i realized how the older inmates tried to encourage the younger ones. I still feel like you cannot leave formerly incarcerated citizens out of the equation. Mr. Ofer i will give two quick examples. There are states that have reduced the risk of solitary confinement without the risk to staf
Example, out of trenton, where an in mate by the name of sean washington in 2013 he was a clerk at the library and he wanted to leave the library to go bring some legal papers to one of the other inmates but a corrections officer said you cannot leave and the facts are disputed but the worst facts, the facts that the state claims, is that mr. Washington then said mother fer, dont tell me what to do. What was his punishment . 90 days in solitary confinement. That is a real example we see all across the nation. So just for time. So we know that people are being sent to solitary for many Different Reasons and some of them have to do with administrative issues and the like. Right. Does it work in terms of somehow effecting the behavior of prison str any is there any productive value in the bureau of prisons. Im going to push back on the language they use and some people are sent to solitary for administrative reasons and that is a loaded term because the bureau of prisons commonly call sol