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
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
Mr. Dillard thank you for your observation. Trauma informed care is truly something that is needed if we are going to be preventive. I can use myself as an example of someone who had traumas at the age of 1213 years old. When i was diagnosed, i had been severely depressed most of my life. One reason i self medicated was Illegal Drugs had i been diagnosed, maybe i could have been given legal drugs and avoided the criminal Justice System. The fact is, we never look at the cause, we just look at the effect. Many, many, many of these women and men who ive encountered have tremendous traumas. We are working as a Pure Organization to help them work through that. To avoid Walking Around as hurting people because we know hurt people hurt people. If we do not address those early on, further down the road after recidivism, we are still going to be paying a much higher cost. Mr. Ofer i will give a perspective informed by the fact that i spend a lot of my time in newark, new jersey. A city that is
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