i will ask every other member to allow us to hear the witnesses so that they all are able to get their testimony in before we have to leave to go and vote. so without objection, all opening statements will be placed into the record at this time. we have a very distinguished panel this morning. and i will begin by swearing in our witnesses before introducing them. will you all please rise and raise your right hand? do you solemnly swear that the testimony you give to this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? let the record show that all of the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. i will give an abbreviated introduction for all of the witnesses so that we can hear them and get to as many questions as possible. the first witness is kenneth blanco who is the acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division in the department of justice. the second witness is mr. mark van ic who is a board advisory member for the illinois chapter of the midwest gang investigators association. the third witness is captain chris martz from the los angeles county sheriff's department. and our fourth witness is dr. gary slet kin who is the founder of cure violence, based in chicago. we will now proceed under the five minute rule. and mr. blanco, you are first. >> thank you, good morning mr. chairman and sensenbrenner, members of the sub committee. it is a pleasure to appear before you this morning to discuss the department of justice's efforts to combat gang violence. violent crime is on it the rise in many parts of america. gang violence increasing the headlines, news cycles every day. in ilts frequency and effect in the communities and get caught in the crossfire. there are 1.4 million members of 33,000 gangs operating across the country. all of whom use violence to boost their illegal money making activities, protect their territories, enhance their status and fulfill their missions. too many of our citizens live in fear of these violent criminals. all americans deserve to be free from violence and safe in their homes, schools, jobs, and neighborhoods. this is why it is a top priority of the department of justice under the leadership of the attorney general sessions to reduce violent crime in america, including gang related violence. reducing crime requires that we balance strong law enforcement with effective prevention measures. we must take the violent offenders off the street and thwart gangs efforts to recruit vulnerable youth. to achieve the first of these aims the department relies on law enforcement agents, including the gang section, the narcotic and dangerous drug section, the u.s. attorney's offices, as well as law enforcement agencies like the atf, fbi, dea and us marshall service, and other law enforcement partners such as u.s. immigration and customs en forment homeland security services, investigative h.s. i and tribal law enforcement partners. federal prosecutors lead investigations and prosecutions of criminal gangs of region alan national and international such as aryan brotherhood of texas, gangster and ns 13, to name just a few. prosecutors and investigators have prioritized violent crime and most violent offenders in their districts and individuals are prosecuted fully and sentenced fully under applicable state and guidelines and significant penalties under the law. many gangs distribute dangerous and illegal drugs to generate income to support their illegal activities. and with drug distribution comes violence. thus, when appropriate federal prosecutors also seek to charge gang members and foreign king opinions who supply them with drug offenses. none of these prosecutions and investigations would be possible without the daily sacrifice of the dedicated law enforcement officers who investigate these criminals. specialized task forces comprised of federal, state, local, tan tribal law enforcement officers, such as fbi community shield, and those funded by the organized crime and drug enforcement task program are hard at work in the areas with the highest concentration of drug and gang violence. law enforcement efforts to arrest have significant impact on the quality of life in hour communities. but enforcement alone will not end gang membership and gang violence. we must also support gang intervention and gang prevention programs. many such programs are funded by the department's grant making components, including the office of justice programs, ojp, and the office of policing services, cops. for example, ojp office of juvenile prevention and bureau of justice assistance jointly fund the national gang center which provides comprehensive resources, training, and strategic tools to those in the field of law enforcement and criminal justice. as well as to the community organizations to prevent gang violence, reduce gang involvement, and suppress gang related crime. these are just but a few examples of the department's continued commitment to supporting our federal, state, local and tribal enforcement partners in ending the gang violence in our communities. thank you. and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much, mr. blanco. i forgot to ask this. nans consent that all of the witnesses written statement be placed in the record in full? mr. van ic? >> good morning. and thank you, mr. chairman and members of the sub committee for inviting me today to talk. it is an honor and privilege to be here today. i serve on the board. the association was formed in 1987 and is an organization with over 2000 members representing 12 states throughout the midwest. it is a collaborative association whose mission is to develop and recommend strategies to prevent gang crime, administer training, as assist educated ors regarding gangs in their communities. last 17 years i have been employed as police officer in midwest with investigating street gangs with state and local level. street gangs today are different than the gangs of 10, 20, even 30 years ago. presently street gangs are more violent, more technologically savvy and glorified. they have increased prominence over drug addicts in their day-to-day operations. everything has glorified the wrap lifestyle. african-american gangs factual lieization has become the norm without a strict hierarchy. presently gangs have faxctions into the hundreds. in chicago, they have hybrid gangs. hybrid gang consists of younger gang members of different racial and ethnic groups and gang members that were or are from different gangs. these hybrid gangs have no hierarchy or no symbolic association with more than one gang. the hispanic gangs have a strict hierarchy. still committed to the codes, and loyalty to their gang. the hispanic gangs still abide which the national alliances from the late 1970s. they prey on individuals that cannot help them selves by getting them addicted to a drug. gang members have become the fentanyl in the streets. just a quarter can kill you almost instantly. cart fentanyl is more strong than morphine and 100 times more stronger than fentanyl. they are more tech savvy than ever before. they reach a larger customer base than selling at a street corner. any time i can go ton the internet and interact with a gang member to purchase any type of gang i wish. i have personally investigated these types of crimes and chilling to the extent of varieties and amounts that are available to be purchased as well as weapons. the cause of gang violence stems from several factors such as fighting over selling drugs, comments made on social media, wrap song lyrics, and hispanics fighting officer territories. they have violence in their communities than higher levels. in today's world innocent bystanders are being shot and killed more than ever. a family is targeting the gang member themselves. in areas like the state of illinois, county of cook, when an individual is shot and either a victim or witness makes a positive identification of that offender, victim does not wish to prosecute, the offender is not charged with the offense. in fact often not charged with any crime. the other thing for law enforcement is overworked on the merits of the case rather than what is believe a judge or jury will view on. biggest obstacles is getting witnesses to cooperate in any investigation. law enforcement does not have the immediate resources available to relocate or provide assistance to them. without assistance how can we expect witnesses to come forward and place their lives and families in harms way. there are technological advances that can help police officers. animation when fired leaves a fingerprint mark and firearms requiring samples from all fully automatic firearms would provide law enforcement with new leads that would allow them to proliferation of this to street members. thank you you for inviting me for testifying today. law enforcement can be not be the sole answer. it is only part of the answer to reducing. prosecutes and judges must be held accountable as well as law enforcement with the rising gang violence. government and social and economic programs and community involvement are all essential to reducing gang violence. not one entity can solve it alone or take credit. it must be coordinated effort on all parties. i look forward to answering your questions that you might have about gangs and look forward to working with members of the sub committee to ensure the success in reducing gang violence. thank you. >> thank you. captain marks? >> on behalf of the major county sheriffs of america, los angeles koun tim sheriff jim mcdonnell and all the partners that involve this task force, thank you for inviting me to testify this morning on street gang members and sex trafficking. it combines the resources of local state and federal law enforcement with the authority of the los angeles district attorney and u.s. attorney's office with truly victim centered approach. the combination of resources include the los angeles county department of children and family services, los angeles county probation department, california department of corrections, and nonprofit, the coalition against slavery and trafficking, are all colocated in the same office, literally sitting next to each other. our colocation center brings together systems of discipline to address the victims needs through a victim centered trauma informed approach. the task force employs a strategy that crosses jurisdictional boundaries to identify sex trafficking while pursuing traffickers and buyers. they have pursued and succeeded in this. however the street gangs operated their enterprises within a territory. their willingness was limited to violence against arrival gangs and property crimes. for the past several years they have moved beyond the boundaries and travel through the state in teams or as crews as they are known to do robberies. los angeles gangs began utilizing the flocking tactic. in flocking criminal straight members from a single gang or multiple gangs, and sometimes even rival gangs join together and travel throughout the southland and commit residential burglaries by forcing into a house by overwhelming numbers and in less than a minute or two commit the crime. now criminal gang members are doing the sex trafficking market. gang members have realized the luck tive opportunities throughout los angeles county the majority of cases we handle as the traffickers are gang member or affiliate of a gang. the crime of trafficking commercially sexually exploited children pre strents ta relatively low risk of arrest for the gang member in sex trafficking. previous such as illegal narcotics place the possessor in immediate threat of arrest with such contraband. to add to that complexity of this issue commercially sexually exploited victim does not want to cooperate with officers. the fact that narcotics can only be sold once. and as we all know sex trafficking victims can be sold multiple times a day. in los angeles county and throughout california, gang members operate sex trafficking victims both independently and for the benefit of the gng and frequently the gang members will travel to any community to recruit sex trafficking victims and they will also travel to any community to sell their trafficking victims either online, on the street, or in a motel, without fear or reit will yags of violating another gangs territory. however, in certain places in los angeles, they require them to pay a tax to work in that area. this is a common means of gaining money for benefit of a gang and has been employed against small businesses. the tax for sex workers has not been uniformly adopted tlou out california. street gang members possess vulnerable populations online, at schools, or in public places. these vulnerable people, typically young girls have often suffered abuse and neglect throughout that you are lives. the predatory senses of a gang member easily identify this population. and their gang membership is used to glorify the lifestyle and the acts of prostitution as a power full recruitment tool. the gang member then expertly manipulates the vulnerable child using his affiliation to demonstrate his willingness and ability as a criminal to be a capable of kmieting violence to protect themselves. once they do that they have control over them through psychological abuse and atmosphere of dependency. i want to thank the sub committee and staff for affording me to testify before you today. >> thank you, doctor martz. doctor slep kin. >> chairman, and distinguished members, thank you for you the opportunity to testify. i'm dr. gary slep kin. i'm a physician and founder of cure violence. cure violence is an ngo rated 12th in the world among the top 500 ngo and rated first to reducing violence. i previously worked for the world health organization where i learned the tools of working on epidemics. ep dem nicks mostly in africa. i returned to the uchlt s in 1995 and worked on violence in in country. we discovered that new research is not what we thought. it's an epidemic problem like other health epidemics but not being managed that way. we also learned that new met adds that can help that can have a big impact. these are being greatly under utilized. main thing about violence is to see the people in groups doing this process, which can be reversed. we have to shake some of our old ideas. dozens of studies show that violence is predictable required through brain mechanisms and pathways that cause copying and following what peers do. the the, definitive evidence of this is in the evidence report of 2013. this spreads among individuals in families and groups and recruitment happens in this way. the violence in u.s. and latin america is following all patterns like all diseases. we took advantage of this in 2000 when we tried health methods in a pilot in the park which was the most at the time. we got 67 percent drop in killings in the first year and it was almost immediate. do it again. we had four more replications with 4 percent drop in killings. since then there have been several independent in the works and spread to 25 cities in the u.s. as well as latin america. these results are obtained by health workers similar to those used for other epidemics. health departments supervised this work. and in new york baltimore and kansas city the health department. in honduras it's a local partnership. and in el salvador partnership with save the children. the results are usually 25 to 50 percent drops in killings. but 70 to 100 percent are seen when there is enough workers. approximately 40 to 70% has been seen in chicago. 30 to 50% drops in baltimore. 50% in mexico. and 88% in san pedro or on did your us. it also can be fast with results shown within the first month multiple times. several communities have also gone to zero for a year to two years. some of these communities include cherry hill in baltimore, in yonkers in new york. this is what you aim for in epidemic control. when i was working at cholera epidemic, we were aiming to get rid of it. like for ebola. there are many accomplishments in public health with these measures in which many diseases and prompts are no longer with us. a few last things. chicago has gone up and down in relation to the public health work. there is a 20 page report on this on our website. the ups and downs in chicago have mostly been related to the ups and downs in the state of illinois budget which as you know was without a budget for the last two years. when pure violence lost 13 or 14 sites in march of 2015, there was exactly the turning point in chicago when the violence began to go up. one site that remained has continued to go down. last, the stream of unoccupied children and others from latin america are fleeing violence. we are getting big reductions in latin america with this method. and can help a lot there as well as in our cities. this solution public health methods is entirely non political and free of prior c controversy solution which has been used by prior administrations. i suggest we change this. it is reversible health problems solves a lot of our problems and could save tens of billions of dollars. law enforcement now is being asked to do way too much. it is also being blamed too much. and we can help. thank you. >> thank you very much, dr. sletkin. the chair will revert to what he did during his previous chairman ship f and that is recognize members under the five minute rule in the order in which they appeared alternately between the majority and minority parties. i would ask members to keep their questioning to five minutes. and in case the bell rings early, i will withhold my questions to see if we have time after all the other members ask questions. so the gentleman from texas mr. poe is recognized for five minutes. >> i thank you you all for being here. in my other life i was a prosecutor and a criminal court judge for 22 years. so i want to address my questions to specifically the scour age of human trafficking that captain marks, you mentioned, and mr. bat ic, you mentioned as well. the average age, i understand is for traffic victim is 13. it's a female. is that correct, mr. marks? >> that's published in many articles and studies. however, what we see the task force generally the age we encounter is 15, 16, 17. >> okay. and as you said, trafficking is human sex trafficking victims is lucrative because the victims, unfortunately, are abused and used multiple times a day, some cases 20, 25 times a day. the risk of apprehension is less. and until recently the punishment has been less for capturing the traffickers. the new legislation that congress has passed now not only goes after the trafficker, but goes after the buyer who ought to be in jail, the consumer, and helps rescue victims of crime and restores them back to some dignity. explain to me so it's very clear to anyone, but start with captain marks, how prevalent is human sex trafficking in the gang culture? >> well, in preparation for today's testimony, yesterday i asked one of my crime analysts to scour through different sites and pull up ads that i could use as talking points. one of the ads she pulled up was a gang member as a peopimp who looking for girls to recruit. within an hour of conversation with under cover deputy sheriff we had made agreement posing as under age girl to meet him and go to work for him and we had arrested him a couple hours after meeting him. so it's frighteningly prevalent. literally the more we look, the more we fine. every time we go online and advertise as either under age girl, we get all kinds of reactions and interactions from people wanting to be sex traffickers for those girls. >> mr. ban ic, do you want to comment on that. >> i couldn't agree more. with the internet it's becoming easier for these gang members to reach out and connect with any female that could be from the suburbs or even in their own neighborhood. it's just as simple as going on your cell phone, which everybody has now, and placing an ad. >> to your knowledge, have you seen ads placed on back pages that have been used to further the criminal conduct of human sex trafficking? >> yes. back page facebook, craig's list, all of those are utilized. >> and my question really is, help me understand how prevalent this problem is. i know i've heard that anecdotely it's easy to recruit and get these girls into sex slavery. but how prevalent is it? >> it's basically an every day occurrence. you'll have a younger female that has no means, no ways about providing for themselves. it's an every day occurrence in these high crime gang areas, and they look for options, and a lot of times the option is getting into the sex trafficking, and their connection is a gang member. >> foreign gangs, not operating in the united states, m.s. 13 is perfect example. in the immigrant community how prevalent is this sex trafficking of immigrants that have come into the united states? >> captain marks? >> yes, sir. so the commercial sexual exploitation of children is boys ic a problem for us with gang members. the girls they are recruiting are homegrown. they are american citizens. where we see foreign victims is generally when we get into elicit massage businesses. but to answer your question it's a homegrown problem. the road these victims take once they become a sex slave victim is usually a lifetime of abuse. so they are very vulnerable population. >> thank you. i yield back. >> from texas, jackson lee. >> let me thank mr. cohners for their commitment to this work that i have generated over the past period that i've had the privilege of serving as ranking member of this committee. let me thank mr. sensenbrenner for his years of dedication to these issues and look forward to driving solutions. my level of frustration is high because it is long overdue for holistic criminal justice reform, captain, in helping tu and all of the witnesses you. and let me thank you all of the witnesses. mr. plblanco, very quickly, we e seeking to authorize a juvenile block grant which as you know is a tool for working with juvenile which we are trying to emphasize best practices. would that be helpful to you new ideas, best practices in using that block grant reauthorization? >> madam congress person, i'm not familiar with that block grant. but i can tell you that i know that the attorney general is interested in using all kinds of ideas in order to better the community and protect our citizens and victims. but i can't specifically answer that. >> no problem. we'll take that as a yes. thank you very much. let me ask the good doctor, thank you so very much, and for the other witnesses i'm going to allow my colleagues to point he hadly ask you questions, but i'm going to thank you. dr., i'm frustrated, you have given me an opportunity to focus in on several questions. first i'd like to lay the ground work. mr. blanco said that juveniles are used, being used as pauwns s carrying out gang leaders. i think you indicated that violence goes from brain to brain. from 12-year-old to 13-year-old back to 14 and on. focus on the reality of us using your program and the potential of it sthaving major impact. first point is have you been embraced by the department of justice as a tool that cob usul used as across the country? is your mic on? >> yes. we've been funded by the department of justice. we've been regulately highlighted. >> are you now funded? >> yes shl, through a partnershn the victims of crime. >> and where are you using that funding? >> multiple cities. i think it's about 20 cities. and also been asked to present at their next forum. >> so would you be kind enough to provide us, i'm not sure if it's in your testimony, list of cities and results of those cities? >> yes. samples of it is in the written testimony. and more can be provided. >> and if we were to expand your opportunities through funding, you could expand to other cities and you could present results? >> yeah, absolutely. and we would be reporting to the committee as well whatever funders there would be. i just want to add this is additive to law enforcement. there is nothing except synergy here. and this is why we've been able to get the good results. >> give me an example. why don't you articulate, even though it's in your statement, what you did in chicago. because chicago images, there is nothing good happening in chicago. give me the hachlt bcs. >> the way that it works is primarily by hiring interrupters and outreach workers. these are now categories of workers. they have kred tabcredibility as and trust with the population. what they have a shooting today, we have access to them and cool them down. they are highly selected and trained. they know how to cool someone down. buy sometime. t and then shift their thinking so they feel okay. >> give me an example of a worker. don't give a name but pull them out, age, race. >> the workers are a little bit older than those who are doing the shooting, as it turns out. and frequently they come from the same lifestyle and the same background so that's why they have the credibility and trust. and this is the way we work in public health. we use sex workers, former sex workers to reach sex workers, and mom's to reach mom's. et cetera. so they are the people that have this access of trust and therefore they are not at risk themselves. >> are they african-american? if they are from the community. >> and you've seen the results statistics of crime going down? >> yes. >> violence? >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> time is expired. time mr. rutter field. >> thank you for being here this morning to discuss issues that are certainly affecting every major city in the united states. and i would like to start with you and mr. van ick. i want to kind of shift to prosecution. can you discuss a little bit the challenges that we are facing and the typical gang prosecution under rico? >> certainly, sir. as you know, that's one of our most important tools on the federal level to attack these gangs, both international and domestic. some of the challenges are the challenges that were just mentioned earlier. that is the safety of these victims and safety of witnesses and putting those individuals in places where we can utilize them and that they feel safe. so that probably are the majority of what our challenges is. i think that using the rico statute as well as other statutes, let's not forget our narcotic as well, in many situations if we don't have a witness or victim that can come forward we use other crimes we know we can prosecute them and get them for the crimes. so those as far as i can see, and maybe my law enforcement co colleagues can say differently, but it is effective tool to attack these gangs. >> thank you. captain marks, or mr. vanick first, if you would, i'm particularly interested in the difficulties that maybe created by now the gangs have moved into this music nexus. does that impact on proving the improving the criminal enterprise? >> it certainly helps. it is not the nail in the coffin. but definitely helps with listening to lyrics, how they are talking, usually lots of tips and clues involved in those songs. and then those basically kind of expand out from that and investigate those types of crimes and see if we can connect them to what would be pa rico statute. >> anything you'd like to add on rico prosecutions? >> yes. one of our partners on the grant is u.s. attorney's office. they sit on our task force. the challenge we have with sex trafficking, they are great tools against gangs, but a lot of times those are long drawn out investigations. generally sex trafficking investigations start out very small. one victim. one pimp. then after time it turns into 11, 13 victims. and we can't allow that conduct to continue or compelled to making an arrest right away to get that criminal off the street. which prohibits us from pursuing a ricoh act where we need that to grow over a longer period of time. >> and mr. vanick, the challenge we have with flipping, can you talk a little more about that and how that may be impacting ricoh prosecutions as well? >> sure. thank you. when you are trying to get someone to cooperate in a murder investigation or a rick coinvestigation where they are going to be putting themselves basically out there for you, it is difficult to put yourself, you have to put yourselves in their shoes. they are still living in that area. they are still having friends. their whole world will be eventually turned upside down. to provide them with the safety and understanding that we will and guarantee that we will take care of them throughout the process because recostatutes and investigations they take a long time, that with protecting them and their families, we'll give them a sense of ease and eventually make more people come forward. >> but are these flipping -- i understand the safety piece mr. blanco mentioned earlier and that's a huge issue that has to be addressed. but there are those who are flipping, being bought off, basically, by rival gangs, whoever they may be testifying against. what about that issue? >> that happens a lot. >> can we prosecute for that? do we need additional legislation to help fight that or identify that? >> i would say, yes, any additional legislation on that to help that cause would be greatly appreciated. those are investigated. but at times, again, you need witnesses. you would need some sort of probably audio video evidence of actual threats being assailed where that person is actually -- it's usually one on one type of thing. but now and now more and more with social media, they are being documented. >> thank you very much. my time has run out. mr. chairman. >> time has expired. gentleman from california, miss bass. >> thank you very much mr. chair tan for holding this hearing today. i was excited to hear about this hearing because to me it signaled what i hoped is an indication that we actually will look back at history over the lack couple of decades and consider doing something differently. because what we have done over the last 30 years is we've come up with so many laws, gang enhancements, to incarcerate a lot of people, and i don't think we spent much time looking at the root causes why they people get involved in gangs. and maybe that's a hearing we could do in the future of the i come from los angeles. i'm very proud of our city and county. i'm very glad that captain marks is here today. i think that, i'm going to ask you a couple of questions, because i want you to highlight the involvement that the sheriff's department has with the communities. and each of you mention that it can't be solved alone by law enforcement. and we've relied too much on that. we've locked people up, they come home, and what we don't realize is then we have communities that have an over concentration of people who go in and out of prison, which actually kind of continues the cycle of violence. and also if we want to save money, that's not exactly the way to do it. and so i'm hoping that this is it an indication that we will actually look back at the last 20 or 30 years, see what we've learned, and try to do something different. i also want to put you on notice, captain marks, and you can tell the sheriff this, that i've invited my colleague over there on the other side of the aisle, steve, i've invited him to los angeles because i want him to see how we have gone about the work in l.a. differently. now someone mentioned gang intervention, workers, i think you mentioned that, and that's something that we have used in los angeles. and i know that captain knows, that can play both ways. i mean we know there are great examples of that but it's not a pan see a because sometimes the people are still involved in the life. but we've been able to make a difference. so i spent 14 years working in the south central at the height of the crack cocaine crip and blood crisis. and we were able to make a difference there. the situation has improved. we still have our problems. it's now into sex trafficking it wasn't something we were dealing with 25 years ago. but captain marks i do want you to mention the whole campaign that was done in los angeles at the county that no child is considered a prostitute. that you guys are not arresting. you are detank and referring to services in terms of the victims. so i wanted you to speak to that. >> thank you. ma'am. yes, that is correct. the sheriff jim mcdonnell and county board of supervisors adopted no such thing as a child prostitute where we don't refer to them as suspects, we treat them as the victims they are. furthermore the board of supervisors have been very supportive. we developed a county wide that provides law enforcement sexually children, that provide services for those crucial 72 hours to break the bond and get them the help they need and back on the right track. >> thank you very much. the program i started at the south central at the height of the crisis was actually funded by the federal government. they gave us a five year grant. now the organization is now 26 years old because we developed other resources and moved on. but it was completely based on the model of yours that you mentioned. sometimes we think that the communities are lohopeless anth in the towel and arrest everybody and let them out and the cycle continues. so you were talking about chicago. and chicago is one of those areas that i think we checked the box as being hopeless. and i want to know if you could talk a little more about what you think we can do in congress to expand the model you are talking about and make improvements. we had 1,000 homicides in l.a. at the height of the crisis. and we are no where near that now. >> thank you, congress women. first, i think the number one thing to do is to add to whatever it is that you are doing to fund for intervention. it can be into the justice budget. they have been able to work with us and our partners. and also in health budgets. and very small amount would multiply itself many, many times in terms of life saved. i want to add that the chief of l.a. copresented at the major chiefs meeting and said this was the thing that caused reduction. this by many other law enforcement interventions not making a change over multiple years in l.a. and i want to add that i understand this need, this desire for the prosecutions and punishment. it is not actually affecting the people who are doing it. the people who are doing it do not think that they are going to be prosecuted. they do not think they are going to be caught. they need to be talked to by intervention workers who will then help them shift their thinking. their being led by their peers. and we could put peers in there in order to reduce the problem itself. >> time has expired. the gentleman from ohio, mr. chabet. >> thank you very much. and i want to apologize nfor no being here earlier, we had another committee going on. and i want to thank miss basque to visit her district and we intend to do that. and perhaps back in my district i represent most of the city of cincinnati, and we have our problems as well, and we would like to learn from your success, and perhaps i can particular it back. i'm looking forward to that. and we have traveled to iraq together before and, so miss basque i consider a good friend as well as a colleague on this committee. just a couple quick questions. first of all, it's my understanding that incarcerated gang members are using contraband cell phones in prisons, various prisons, to conduct all sorts of illicit activities outside the prison walls, not just gang members, adult criminals are doing this as well, including drug trafficking, murder, witness intimidation, on and on. and there has been some cutting edge technological improvements, and beacon wave is one of those technologies. and i would just, i'm not sure, i'll just open it up, whoever would like to take that. could you discuss that? and if someone else has asked that question, i apologize. but anybody want to take that on? >> happy to take it, congressman, gentlemen, contraband cell phones, all kinds of items being smuggled into prisons and jails, enables these in jail gangs but also the gangs they deal with outside of the jail. not only dangerous to the people on the street, but also dangerous to the guards that are inside the prisons as well. it is a problem that we are, would going with. we are working with state and local partners to make sure we have the ability to reduce that. on many of the wire taps that i read, at least federally, when we see that there is a cell phone that's being used in a prison or area where there are inmates, we make sure that we notify our state and local authorities and work with it that way. but it is a significant problem that we are working on. >> thank you. i was involved in actually introduced a bill called girls couldn't, mark co-rubio, introduced in the stat and became law. so girls couldn't get birth certificates and couldn't get painters so they were targeted because they couldn't identify who these girls were, they were sold off by families, whole range of pretty horrific stuff. and i knew that the gangs here in the united states have been involved in sex trafficking and especially young girls. do you know if gangs, are they targeting any -- is this occurring where women are brought into the country targeted because of their lack of birth certificate or government documentation? does anyone know if that's something that's occurring? >> yes, sir. so the criminal street gangs in the united states are targeting homegrown girls. so we have a huge vulnerable population out there that have been victims of abuse or neglect their entire lives. they are experts in targeting those girls. so all of the victims they are exploiting are domestic females. >> thank you. my final question. i have one minute here. i was in guatemala and honduras last year, and we had a real problem on southern border where un accompanied young people were coming in flowing over our borders. and what i was told down there is one of the principal problems a lot of these young people were fleeing the gangs back in their communities and parents were sending them to try to get them away from this. and i've heard, you know, a number of news articles, where certain cities where we have seen gangs targeting kids, very aggressively to try to bring them in, and intimidating them if they don't get into the gangs. would someone like to comment on that? i see, mr. blanco, you nodding. >> that, as you've mentioned, congressman, that nails it on the head. you'll see many of these international gangs, for example, m.s. 13, targeting their very own people, because they are vulnerable, not only vulnerable in their countries like guatemala, but whether they are here they are vulnerable because they have family members back in those countries. so not only intimidate the young women here but family members back there. it is a vicious cycle. we are, would go hard with our local law enforcement to see what kind of measures we can do to help them. >> thank you. >> the time is expired. mr. lou is not here. the chair yields five minutes. mr. blanco, as you may know, i'm the principal household author of the cara act which was designed to have comprehensive response to opioid that was signed last year and signed by president obama. fentanyl has been a mushrooming problem handedly. have you been seeing street gangs distributing fentanyl fene are they getting it from? >> mr. chairman, yes. and they're getting it from many different sources. sometimes they're getting it from rival gangs because it's about making money. sometimes they have it overseas. so they have a distribution network. but, chairman, i think you noticed the other day too, we did a health care take down. clinics, they get them from thereto. as you mentioned earlier, it's deadly. and it's killed so many of our young people. not only young people, parents. it's across the board. >> mr. vannic, you have mentioned the process of flipping, which is extortion pure and simple. where it is very difficult to get people to testify -- i was going to say prostitution, but i'll say prosecution. now, is there a way to lock in their testimony through a grand jury, which makes it less likely to be flipped and have prosecutors been able to prove that flipping has occurred, which is a form of obstruction of justice? >> on the federal level i would say it's a lot easier and they take their grand jury very, very seriously. on a state level i can say even locking them into a statement, when it comes to the trial they flip. perjury charges on the state level are few and far between. before that i know as investigators we would love to see that happen. it's something that happens routinely on a state level. >> i have a number of questions for the doctor. you give a number of interesting scenarios and very comforting success levels for what you have been doing. i guess the problem that we have is there's been an erosion of responsibility in our society. and if you treat gang violence as a public health problem, murdering someone to me seems a lot different than vomiting uncontrollably when you have the flu. so stopping the murders has got to require an increased realization of personal responsibility. and what a murder actually consists of and that's ending a human life and having untold grief of loved ones and family members. does your program emphasize personal responsibility swelds all other things you have testified to? >> yes, mr. chairman. and this is part of the conversation with the individuals that intervention workers have -- and there's no objection to what is required if a violent act has occurred, what law enforcement needs to do. what we're saying is that these workers can talk to someone when they're thinking about possibly doing someone. and after talking to them then, allows them the time to cool down, to feel validated, whatever they need to just cool down. because they're usually upset actually not about some of the things discussed here, but they're really doing murders about a girlfriend or about money owed to them or about disrespect or something like that. we're able to cool them down and say, listen, this doesn't make sense and the event doesn't happen and retaliation doesn't happen and the communities get safer. >> in the time i have left, i have two quick questions. you have public/private partnerships or you rely exclusively on money you get from the justice department? >> oh, no, the funds per city and per country are variable. in new york city the funds are supplied by the city and the state. chicago it's been the state. and the inter-american development bank, usaid, the world bank, others have funded the international work. and so it's been foundations. i should say also the justice department funded the independent evaluation of chicago's work. >> okay, one last question. your program in milwaukee, because we've got a crime problem there? >> we're not working with milwaukee right now, but we've had discussions with them. we've been asked to work with them. >> who in milwaukee have you been been talking to? >> my staff knows better. >> okay, let me know about that. i will ask if she wishes a second round. if so, she'll be recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i'm delighted. i thank you for your courtesies. are you in houston? >> no. >> so let me publicly extend an invitation for cure violence to visit and have us pursue the opportunity. >> i'd be happy to. >> i thank you very much. let me first of all thank our colleagues that were here chairman spaz and mr. lou who had to step out. i want to pursue the line of questioning. i thank you for your commitment. this goes through a series of dollars that law enforcement can use in their work, and it's been very effective. so i'm not sure your area make yourself familiar with it because we have modified it to include cyber bullying, prel vention. so let me ask you you've resources to help you in your work to juveniles, would that help you with your work with the federal government? >> yes, it would. we're in desperate need to get on social media and messaging about the dangerers on the nrlt net and how kids are being exploited. >> well, i want to work very hard to get those resources with your member because i believe your work should be both promoted and celebrated. please explain the contagion effect as it pertains behavioral transfer from brain to brain. and how do we reverse the impact,ie drama, ptsd and depression. and if i could add, as you intervene and you stop the dear brother mostly from going after x, y, z, does that dear brother cool off, circle around and catch x, y, z the next day? >> there are critical neurons in our brain that pick up what other people do. this is the same for all of us. secondly dope mean pathways and peer pathways allow us to unconsciously copy what others are doing. moms do what other moms are doing. none of us are smoking. the norms have changed, and now we can get to a person who is about to do -- use a gun and say wait a second, what are you thinking and give him a different expectations. so added onto these processes, which are described in this book, are the effects of trauma that you mentioned. the trauma causes people to be hyperreactive and thinking everything is against them. all of these things are reversible. in the short-term we cool someone down. they're on hot. they're amygdala is on hot. we cool them down and let them listen to someone. and then we reframe this so they feel they're still positive to be able to do this. and your last question, we will stay with that person from six months to two years so he will not circle back. so the long-term effect on that person is a stick so he does not relapse, he and his friends are managed so they will no longer do this. >> you made a very important point earlier in your testimony saying people don't think about i'm going to court, i'm going to trial, i'm going to be incarcerated. >> furthest thing from their mind. >> so do you think the leadership we have from the justice department -- let me just be generic. leadership that would want to emphasize mandatory minimums, taking away discretion so a judge, a prosecutor may say this is juvenile -- it may be obviously a very unfortunate crime, but the prosecutor may see another option. do you think that kind of intervention is important because then you have the opportunity to deal with some of these healing factors you're talking about. and a lot of it is brain to brain or emilating something else. do you think this discretion is important? >> we're health people. i think the punishment has really been overemphasized, and it scientifically is really not what is causing the driving of behavior or the changing of behavior. so we really have to re-educate ourselves on how behavior is actually formed or how behavior is actually changed. we see a rap sheet actually as a set of untreated moments that should have been managed in a different way to prevent these additional courses. and there's plenty of data now that shows that people, even the highest risk people, can be changed. >> i thank the gentleman for his testimony. >> without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses and additional materials for the railroad. and without objection, the hearing is adjourned. thank you all. >> thank you, mr. chairman. join us saturday when president trump will deliver remarks at the commissioning of the gerald are ford in norfolk, virginia. our live coverage begins saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. join us on c-span 3 sunday for an american history tv live special, the 1967 detroit riots, 50th anniversary. heather anne thompson at the universe of michigan and free press editorial manager henderson. former detroit police chief and former free press panelist, an american history tv special, the 1967 detroit riots, 50th anniversary, live sunday at noon eastern on c-span 3. sunday on q and a. >> when we look at president obama's domestic legacy i think there are two things that are very important that will have long lasting good consequences for the united states that can be summarized in four words, his two nominees to the supreme court. >> mr. garo talks about his book "rising star, the making of barack obama," which covers president obama's life up to winning his presidency. >> i think the interesting thing here is there were scores and scores of people in illinois who were known years earlier who were deep lael disappointed with the trajectory of the obama presidency and disappointed in two ways. number one, disappointed that bu rock forgot many of the people, most of the people who were essential to his political rise. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's public cable television companies and brought to you today wii your cable or satellite provider. now it's a look at the future of the work force. the ceo's of the markell foundation and

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