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LESSONS FROM THE STATES: 

RESPONSIBLE PRISON REFORM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, 

HOMELAND SECURITY, AND INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 15, 2014 

Serial No. 113–108 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

JASON T. SMITH, Missouri 

[Vacant] 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, HOMELAND SECURITY, AND INVESTIGATIONS

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin, Chairman 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas, Vice-Chairman 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

CAROLINE LYNCH, Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

JULY 15, 2014 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations ................................................ 1 

The Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations ................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Cam Ward, Chair, Prison Reform Task Force, Alabama State 

Senate 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9 

The Honorable John E. Wetzel, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 21 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 23 

The Honorable Jerry Madden, former Chairman, Texas House Corrections 

Committee, Senior Fellow for Right on Crime 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 29 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31 

Nancy G. La Vigne, Ph.D., Director, Justice Policy Center, The Urban Institute 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 39 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 41 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations ...... 4 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 4 

Material submitted by the Honorable Jason Chaffetz, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Utah, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary 62 

H.R. 2656, the ‘‘Public Safety Enhancement Act,’’ submitted by the Honorable 

Jason Chaffetz, a Representative in Congress from the State of Utah, 

and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................... 69 

Material submitted by the Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations ...... 116 

OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD BUT NOT REPRINTED

Submission from The Urban Institute titled ‘‘Stemming the Tide: Strategies to Reduce the Growth and Cut the Cost of the Federal Prison System.’’ This material 

is available at the Subcommittee and can also be accessed at: 

http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412932-stemming-the-tide.pdf 

(1) 

LESSONS FROM THE STATES: 

RESPONSIBLE PRISON REFORM 

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, HOMELAND SECURITY, AND INVESTIGATIONS

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Coble, 

Forbes, Chaffetz, Gowdy, Labrador, Scott, Conyers, Bass, and Richmond. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Sarah Allen, Counsel; Alicia Church, 

Clerk; and (Minority) Ron LeGrand, Counsel. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Subcommittee will come to order, and, 

without objection, the Chair will be authorized to declare recesses 

of the Subcommittee at any time. Hearing none, so ordered. The 

Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes for an opening statement. 

Since the 1980’s, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has experienced 

a dramatic growth in its prison population. The number of inmates 

under the BOP’s jurisdiction has increased from approximately 

25,000 in fiscal 1980 to over 216,000 today. Since 1980, the Federal 

prison population has increased on average by approximately 5,900 

inmates each year. 

The increasing number of Federal inmates contributes to overcrowding in the Federal prison system. Overall, the Federal prison 

system was 36 percent over its capacity in 2013. The problem, however, is particularly acute in high and medium security male facilities which operate at 52 percent and 45 percent, respectively, over 

rated capacity. The inmate-to-staff ratio has increased from 4.1 inmates per staff member in 2000 to 4.8 inmates per staff member 

last year. 

This overcrowding leads to inmate misconduct and creates safety 

issues for both inmates and corrections officers. To increase available bed space, wardens have resorted to double-bunking and converting shared recreational space to house inmates, among other 

things. The overcrowding also affects the availability of rehabilitation programs for inmates, including substance abuse treatment. 
2 

There should not be waiting lists for these key programs that help 

address recidivism. 

BOP’s budget has similarly grown dramatically in recent years. Today, with an appropriation of more than $6.8 billion, the Federal 

prison system accounts for 25 percent of the Justice Department’s 

budget. The cost to house each inmate has increased over time, 

going from $21,000 in fiscal year 2000 to $29,000 in fiscal 2013. 

This means that the cost of running Federal prisons will continue 

to increase quite dramatically even if no inmates, no new inmates, 

are added to the system. 

The Federal Government is not alone in facing an overburdened 

correctional system. The States have struggled with similar issues 

in recent years. While the number of prison inmates across the 

country has been slowly decreasing since 2008, as of 2012 there 

were still over 2 million people incarcerated in prisons or jails nationwide, and the cost of incarceration has increased in the States. 

In 2012 alone, the States collectively spent more than $51 billion 

on corrections. 

Each of the States faces unique challenges that drive prison costs 

and overcrowding, but it is commonly accepted that high rates of 

recidivism greatly contribute to these problems on both the State 

and Federal levels. A number of States and localities have taken 

innovative approaches to managing prison growth and recidivism 

through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, a program done in 

conjunction with the Justice Department and several nonprofit 

partners. Through this initiative, participating States and localities 

conduct a comprehensive analysis of the jurisdiction’s criminal justice data to identify drivers of corrections, populations and costs, 

and help to adopt appropriate policy changes to address prison 

growth, recidivism, and cost controls without comprising public 

safety. 

The participating States are at various stages of the process, and 

broad reform cannot clearly happen overnight. However, a January 

2014 report on the Justice Reinvestment Initiative found that the 

savings from implementing the initiative could save participating 

States as much as $4.6 billion over 10 years by helping to ensure 

that fewer inmates endlessly cycle in and out of prison. This is encouraging news. 

Today we have before us a distinguished panel of witnesses to 

share how different States are tackling prison reform responsively 

and effectively, and hopefully how some of these reforms might be 

translated into the Federal system, and we are honored to have all 

of you here today. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize for his opening statement the 

Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, we have too many people in jails and prisons in 

America today. The Pew Center on States estimates that for any 

incarceration rate over 350 locked up today for every 100,000 in 

population, the crime reduction value begins to diminish because at 

that point you certainly have all of the dangerous people locked up. 

Pew’s research also tells us any rate above 500 locked up today for 

every 100,000 population, the rate becomes counterproductive, 
3 

meaning that it generates more crime than it stops. That is because unnecessarily locking up people wastes money that could be 

put to better use, families are disrupted, making the next generation more likely to commit crimes, and too many people are suffering from the collateral consequences of felony convictions, making their legal job prospects dim. 

Most countries lock up between 50 and 200 per 100,000, but as 

a result of emotionally appealing tough-on-crime slogans and sound 

bites, the United States incarceration rate not only exceeds 500 per 

100,000, it leads the world at over 700 per 100,000 in jails and 

prison today. Research shows over 500 is counterproductive, and 

we are at 700 per 100,000, and some minority populations are 

locked up in the thousands. 

Furthermore, our correctional institutions fail to correct. More 

than 4 out of 10 adult American offenders are right back in prison 

within 3 years of their release. So it has become apparent to many 

policymakers that the status quo is not sustainable because of the 

crime policy, but certainly because of the expense. And as you 

pointed out, Mr. Chairman, we are wasting billions of dollars. 

This waste is particularly egregious because we know that alternatives can reduce crime and save money. These alternatives include so-called back-end solutions, appropriately dealing with people who have committed crimes, and front-end solutions, evidencebased prevention and early intervention programs which can avoid 

crime being committed in the first place. 

The back-end solutions include drug courts and alternatives to 

incarceration, such as home monitoring, which are less expensive 

than incarceration and more effective in reducing recidivism; and 

in sentencing, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and 

other excessively long sentences. Mandatory minimums have been 

studied and shown not only to waste money, but also do nothing 

to reduce crime. And rehabilitation programs, such as drug treatment, education, job readiness in prisons, all have been proven to 

effectively reduce crime and most save more money than they cost. 

At today’s hearing we will focus on what can be done on the back 

end, that is after a person is convicted, but we should also not ignore the cost-effective initiatives that get young people out of what 

the Children’s Defense Fund calls the cradle-to-prison pipeline and 

into a cradle-to-college-and-career pipeline with comprehensive, evidence-based, locally tailored strategies which significantly reduce 

crime and save money. 

So I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, all of whom 

have made significant progress in solving the problem, not only by 

reducing crime, but also saving money, and then reinvesting that 

money into initiatives that will reduce crime even more and save 

even more money. 

I also look forward, Mr. Chairman, to working with you in dealing with cost-effective, evidence-based strategies that can, in fact, 

reduce crime and save money. And I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Let me introduce our witnesses. Before doing that, without objection all Members’ opening statements will be placed in the record 

at this point. 
4 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sensenbrenner follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations 

Since the 1980s, the federal Bureau of Prisons has experienced a dramatic growth 

in its prison population. The number of inmates under BOP’s jurisdiction has increased from approximately 25,000 in fiscal year 1980 to over 216,000 today. Since 

1980, the federal prison population has increased, on average, by approximately 

5,900 inmates each year. 

The increasing number of federal inmates contributes to overcrowding in the federal prison system. Overall, the federal prison system was 36 percent over its capacity in 2013. The problem, however, is particularly acute in high- and medium-security male facilities, which operate at 52 percent and 45 percent, respectively, over 

rated capacity. The inmate-to-staff ratio has also increased from 4.1 inmates per 

staff member in 2000 to 4.8 inmates per staff member in 2013. 

This overcrowding leads to inmate misconduct, and creates safety issues for both 

inmates and corrections officers. To increase available bed space, wardens have resorted to double bunking and converting shared recreational space to house inmates, 

among other things. Overcrowding also affects the availability of rehabilitation programs for inmates, including substance abuse treatment. There should not be waiting lists for these key programs that help to address recidivism. 

BOP’s budget has similarly grown dramatically in recent years. Today, with an appropriation of more than $6.8 billion, the federal prison system accounts for 25 

percent of the Justice Department’s budget. The cost to house each inmate has also 

increased over time, going from $21,000 in fiscal year 2000 to $29,000 in fiscal year 

2013. This means that the cost of running the federal prisons will continue to increase quite dramatically even if no new inmates are added to the system. 

The federal government is not alone in facing an overburdened correctional system. The states have struggled with similar issues in recent years. While the number of prison inmates across the country has been slowly decreasing since 2008, as 

of 2012, there were still over 2 million people incarcerated in prisons and jails nationwide. And the costs of incarceration have increased in the states—in 2012 alone, 

the states collectively spent more than $51 billion on corrections. 

Each of the states faces unique challenges that drive prison costs and overcrowding, but it is commonly accepted that high rates of recidivism greatly contribute to these problems on both the state and federal levels. 

A number of states and localities have taken innovative approaches to managing 

prison growth and recidivism through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, a program done in conjunction with the Justice Department and several non-profit partners. Through this initiative, participating states and localities conduct a comprehensive analysis of the jurisdiction’s criminal justice data, identify drivers of corrections populations and costs, and help to adopt appropriate policy changes to address prison growth, recidivism, and cost controls without compromising public safety. 

The participating states are at varying stages of the process and broad reform 

clearly cannot happen overnight. However, a January 2014 report on the Justice Reinvestment Initiative found that the savings from implementing the initiative could 

save the participating states as much as $4.6 billion over ten years by helping to 

ensure that fewer inmates endlessly cycle in and out of prison. This is encouraging 

news. 

Today we have before us a distinguished panel of witnesses to share how different 

states are tackling prison reform responsibly and effectively, and hopefully how 

some of these reforms might be translated to the federal system. We are honored 

to have you all here today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 

Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner. I am very pleased to be here today to discuss the important issue of prison reform. With more than 2 million people and 

growing in prison in the United States, and state and federal budgets straining to 

support their corrections systems, this is a topic that deserves close review. 
5 

So much of the recent attention to the U.S. prison population has focused on sentencing practices, particularly for drug crimes. This focus, however, completely ignores a critical piece of the puzzle—what happens in our prisons and upon release 

to help stop the endless cycle of criminality that is a significant contributing factor 

toward our prison overcrowding.’’ 

In April of this year, the U.S. Justice Department released shocking numbers on 

the rate of recidivism in this country. According to a study on prisoners in 30 states, 

more than two-thirds of released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within 

three years of release, and more than 75 percent were rearrested within five years. 

The study also found that more than half of these prisoners were arrested within 

one year of leaving prison, and that just one-sixth of the released prisoners were 

responsible for nearly half the 1.2 million arrests in the study’s five-year period. 

These shocking numbers send the message loud and clear—our prison systems, 

including post-release supervision, are not succeeding at the critical task of rehabilitating offenders. 

So often, we in Congress think that the best way to effectuate change is for the 

federal government to impose its will on the States. I disagree with that approach— 

particularly on the issue of prison reform. When it comes to reforming prison systems responsibly and effectively, the states are acting as true ‘‘laboratories of democracy.’’ Through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative and other efforts, a number 

of states are using data-driven analyses to find ways to reduce recidivism and manage their prison populations in a more cost-effective manner, without compromising 

public safety. 

I commend the three states represented here today for their efforts in this area, 

as well as the many others that are engaged in meaningful prison reform, and look 

forward to hearing about whether the lessons they have learned might be applied 

at the federal level. 

Thank you and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The first witness is the Honorable Cam 

Ward, who is an Alabama State senator, first elected in 2010. In 

his first term as State senator, he was appointed as Chair of the 

Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Ward chairs the Joint Legislative 

Prison Committee and is chairman of the Alabama Prison Reform 

Task Force created in 2014 during its legislative session to study 

prison overcrowding. Mr. Ward also served two terms in the Alabama House of Representatives. He was previously appointed deputy attorney general for the State of Alabama, worked as an assistant secretary of state, where he dealt with election laws and corporate filings, and was also a district director for Congressman 

Spencer Bachus, who is a Member of the Subcommittee. He received his bachelor’s degree from Troy University and his juris doctorate from the Cumberland School of Law. 

The Honorable John E. Wetzel is the secretary of corrections for 

the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Since his appointment in 

2010, Mr. Wetzel has presided over the first population reduction 

in Pennsylvania in over four decades. Additionally, he has overseen 

the restructuring of the community corrections system, the mental 

health system, and a reengineering of internal processes to yield a 

more efficient system of program delivery. 

He began his career in Lebanon County as a correction officer, 

treatment supervisor, and training academy director. He also 

served a 9-year tenure as warden of the Franklin County jail. 

Under his leadership, Franklin County saw a 20 percent reduction 

in its population while the crime rate declined. He was then appointed to the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons as the board’s correction expert. He is a member of Harvard’s Executive Session on 

Community Corrections, which is a joint project of Harvard’s John 

F. Kennedy School of Government and the National Institute of 
6 

Justice. He received his bachelor of arts from Bloomsburg University and has done master’s level coursework in applied psychology 

at Penn State University. 

Mr. Jerry Madden has served 10 terms in the Texas legislature 

where he has served as chairman of the Committee on Corrections, 

as well as a member of the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee. He headed Texas’ 2007 criminal justice system reforms legislative initiative, which sought to divert individuals from prison 

through mental health and substance abuse treatment programs, 

provide more opportunities in prison for rehabilitation, and properly utilize probation and parole mechanisms to avoid greater costs 

if new prisons were built. 

In 2010, he was appointed to serve on the Texas State Council 

for Interstate Adult Offender Supervision and was named co-chair 

of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Sentencing and 

Corrections Work Group. After completing his legislative career in 

2013, Mr. Madden was named a senior fellow for the Right on 

Crime at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he serves 

today. He received his bachelor’s degree from the West Point Academy and his master of science degree from the University of Texas 

at Dallas. 

Dr. Nancy C. La Vigne, and I probably mispronounced it. 

Ms. LA VIGNE. It is La Vigne. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. La Vigne. Okay. Is director of the Justice 

Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where she oversees a research portfolio of projects spanning a wide variety of crime, justice, and public safety topics. Before being appointed as director, 

Dr. La Vigne served as a senior research associate at the Urban 

Institute directing research on prisoner reentry, crime prevention, 

and the evaluation of criminal justice technologies. 

Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Dr. La Vigne was the founding director at the Crime Mapping Research Center at the National 

Institute of Justice. She later served as special assistant to the assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs within 

DOJ. She has also held positions as research director for the Texas 

Sentencing Commission, research fellow at the Police Executive Research Forum, and consultant to the National Council on Crime 

and Delinquency. Dr. La Vigne received her bachelor’s degree from 

Smith College, her master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public 

Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and her doctorate 

from the State University of New Jersey. 

We ask that all of you limit your comments to 5 minutes. I think 

you know what the red, yellow, and green lights mean. And without objection, all of your written statements will be placed in the 

record prior to your testimony. 

Senator Ward, you are first. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CAM WARD, CHAIR, 

PRISON REFORM TASK FORCE, ALABAMA STATE SENATE 

Mr. WARD. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you 

for giving me the opportunity to address you today on a very serious issue that is facing Alabama. My comments come from a 

unique position that my State would be what you would call a 

failed correction system. However, these challenges have forced us 
7 

to take advantage of many opportunities that we know are proven 

and available to us if we have the political will and courage to take 

them on. 

We have the highest incarceration in the United States today. At 

192 percent, our prison system is more overcrowded than almost 

any other country in the world. But we also have the eighth highest crime rate. That tells us one thing: Locking them up and throwing away the key is not a solution to our problem. 

In order to reach a capacity of 137 percent overcrowding, we would have to spend nearly $600 million to build our way out of 

this problem. That would be over half of our entire general fund 

for the State of Alabama. Not only is that not feasible, that is fiscally irresponsible and morally unacceptable. Today in Alabama we 

spend $42.50 a day per inmate that we put in incarceration. In 

order to reach the same level of our neighbors of Florida and Georgia, we would have increase spending per inmate by 20 percent. 

Due to the recession and other fiscal restraints, that is just not feasible either. 

So what do we do? In my 12 years of public service, I can tell 

you, I have rarely seen an issue that generates more bipartisan 

support than this particular issue does. Faced with this problem, 

a bipartisan effort was initiated this past spring, launched with the 

Justice Reinvestment Initiative in Alabama. 

This spring, the legislature created the Alabama Prison Task 

Force, and the leaders of all three branches of government came together—which is rare by the way—to support this 25-member coalition to bring about new changes in Alabama’s prison system. Governor Bentley named me chairman of this group, and immediately 

we went about creating a diverse organization that both includes 

prosecutors, victims rights advocates, as well as inmates’ rights advocates. 

This group has started working, and right away we have seen 

what other States have done that can make a true difference in 

Alabama. Recent States that have taken on the Justice Reform Initiative have seen a drop by nearly 8 percent of their prison population with almost no crime increases. 

Over the years, Alabama, like many States, have passed enhanced sentences for different crimes. We have limited parole for 

nonviolent offenders and refused to amend or update our Habitual 

Offender Act. This has created the problem we are in today. We 

have stuck our head in the sand and act like it didn’t exist when 

every day it was right there in front of us. We no longer have that 

opportunity. 

However, there is a road map forward that shows what we can 

do to fix this problem. There has been proven success stories, and 

there are several examples of what we can do. For example, our 

disjointed sentencing guidelines have varied greatly between circuits and counties. The Sentencing Commission, created very similar to what you have on the Federal level in Alabama in 2000, has 

come up with a model for presumptive guidelines that will now 

make sure there is more uniformity in how sentencing is carried 

out. We have had more data-sharing opportunities between the 

various criminal justice organizations in Alabama to show which 

criminals or which offenders should be put in for a longer period 
8 

of time, which should be released earlier, and which may be qualified for alternative sentencing programs. 

At the end of the day, though, as I tell my colleagues every day, 

money is not going to be the solution alone. There has to be alternative sentencing programs available for the people of Alabama. 

Community corrections, which helps reduce recidivism and increase 

the productivity of an inmate once they leave the custody of the 

State system, drug courts, mental health courts, and now veterans 

courts offer us an opportunity to not only reduce recidivism, but do 

it for a third of the cost. 

Community corrections in Alabama exist in 48 counties. My goal 

would be to expand that to all 67 counties, make it a uniform process. Currently, today 3,700 inmates who would be prison-bound are 

currently in community correction programs. What is the difference? In community corrections, we spend $11.50 a day. To put 

someone in prison, as I mentioned before, is $42.50 a day. Community corrections is the way forward. Using that program has shown 

to reduce recidivism greatly. 

Finally, while no one likes to talk about prison education, it is 

a must. We must have more prison education programs. While this 

is not politically popular due to the cost, it is shown to reduce recidivism rates by 43 percent in Alabama. We must invest more in 

these programs. 

Finally, drug courts and mental health courts are the key to success. Over 56 percent of all inmates have some sort of mental 

health disorder, and of those, 75 percent have some sort of substance abuse addiction. We have to fix those problems. This is not 

a politically popular issue, but it is one that Republicans and 

Democrats should stand together alike and try our best to fix. 

I look forward to your questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ward follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Secretary Wetzel. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN E. WETZEL, 

SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS 

Mr. WETZEL. Thank you. Thank you for the invite, Mr. Chairman 

and Members, and thank you for allowing me to come and talk a 

little bit about what Pennsylvania has done over the past 31⁄2 years 

to really improve our correction system and criminal justice system 

as a whole. 

The first thing I would absolutely encourage, and I believe is an 

imperative as we talk about this issue, to really start at what we 

have common ground on. And I think what we can all agree on, it 

doesn’t matter what room I am in, and, you know, in this business 

of politics, there is rarely anything that we can all agree on, but 

the one thing that we can all agree on is what we want out of our 

correction system. And what we want is that when someone comes 

in the front end of the system, when they get out of the back end 

of the system they are at least not worse. I mean, it is just that 

simple. 

So if you start with that, and you start with what I would call 

the prime directive, and the prime directive is every decision we 

make will be a decision that research indicates is likely to have the 

best outcome, and if you sprinkle that throughout the whole system, starting at the front end, then you can’t go wrong. And in this 

environment where in Pennsylvania our budget is $2 billion, we 

are the third line item in the State general fund spending, and I 

know that because I hear it every place I go, right, so if we are 

going to spend that much money, let’s make sure we spend it well. 

And so when you start at the front end of the system, and I know 

the focus of this discussion is what we can do in the back end, but 

you can’t talk about the back end without talking about the front 

end. And if you are not assessing risk when an individual first 

comes in the system, I don’t know how you make a decision, I don’t 

know how you reach that goal of having better outcomes. 

So when we talk a lot about risk assessment, think of it in context of diagnosis. Right? So if I went to a doctor and said I am not 

sure what is going on and told him my symptoms and he said, oh, 

you have cancer, I would say, well, hold on, you are going to do 

some tests, right? That is what you should be saying to me. Hold 

on. What do you mean this person has to get sent to a State prison 

or Federal prison. You are going to do some tests. Right? You are 

going to see if that decision is the decision most likely to get the 

best outcome, which is someone would be less likely to commit 

crime. 

And so that risk assessment or diagnosis needs to also understand what the root cause of the crime is. And if it is addiction, 

provide programming for addiction, because you can put an addict 

in prison for 10 years, they are going to come out the back end an 

addict if you don’t address that. So that is not a good return on investment from that approach. Or if they are mentally ill and we 

don’t address the mental illness, that is not a good return on investment because they are going to commit another crime. And 

again, keep in mind outcomes. 
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So what can we do on the back end? And really when you focus 

on the back end, think of it in context of what barriers remain for 

the individual to be successful when they get out. And so what we 

did is we looked at, first of all, really simple things. Like in 2008 

we released 20,000 offenders and we released 300 offenders with an 

ID. Now, what can you do without an ID in this country today? Not 

much, right? And when you talk about does it make sense to buy 

an offender an ID, they were spending an extra 2 weeks in a halfway house because they didn’t have an ID, at $70 a day. 

So we put an initiative forward. Last year we released 9,000 inmates, up from 300, with IDs, but it is 9,000 out of 20,000. So we 

are not bragging too much because we should be closer to 20,000 

out of 20,000. But it is just those simple things. 

So what are other barriers? The other big thing we did, and probably the most impactful thing we did, is we performance contract 

our halfway house. So we had a study done in 2009 by University 

of Cincinnati, and they found that 95 percent of our programs were 

failing. In other words, if I were to release an offender directly on 

the street, they would be likely have a lower recidivism rate than 

if we put them through a halfway house. And for these great outcomes, we were spending $110 million. 

So we gutted the whole system, we rebid all the contracts, and 

we put performance measures in the contracts. So earlier on in our 

administration, we did a baseline recidivism study, and we used 

that baseline to say to the providers at halfway house services, listen, when we send offenders through your center, we want you to 

do A, B, C, and D. But that is all well and good. When they come 

out, they better have a lower recidivism rate or at least not a higher one. If they have a lower recidivism rate, you get a 1 percent 

increase at the end of the year. If you keep it within one standard 

deviation above or below the baseline recidivism rate, you continue 

in good standing. If it is increased, you get one 6-month warning, 

then we fire you. And if it is a state-run center, we close you. 

So the theme here is it is okay to expect outcomes. And, frankly, 

for the investment we are doing, we should expect outcomes from 

our system. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wetzel follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Secretary. 

Representative Madden. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JERRY MADDEN, FORMER 

CHAIRMAN, TEXAS HOUSE CORRECTIONS COMMITTEE, SENIOR FELLOW FOR RIGHT ON CRIME 

Mr. MADDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members. My name is 

Jerry Madden. I served 20 years in the Texas legislature. I am not 

a lawyer, never was on a corrections or criminal justice committee, 

and never had a bill on correction matters until early in my 13th 

year when our conservative speaker, Tom Craddick, called me into 

his office in January 2005 and told me, you are going to be chairman of corrections. 

Of course I thanked him, as in my mind I am thinking, oh, God, 

why me? What did I do to deserve this? Then I asked him the second most important question in my life. I asked him, Mr. Speaker, 

what do you want me to do? And he gave me the eight words that 

changed my life. He said, don’t build new prisons, they cost too 

much. Mission, guys, mission. 

These are the words that led to Texas’ reform. I am an engineer 

and West Point grad and I worked through the problem like a military engineer would work through it. First started by trying to find 

out who in the Texas legislature knew anything about corrections. 

There were not very many. I know that would surprise all of you 

here. You wouldn’t have them either. But my friends directed me 

to the dean of the Texas Senate and the criminal justice chairman, 

a Democrat named John Whitmire. I went to him with my charge. 

And in about a 2-hour meeting we meshed perfectly. 

Now, I knew John, but I never had worked on legislation with 

him. But it was a bipartisan beginning of our team. We looked at 

the projections of expanded prison population and determined first 

we did not want to violate prior court directives on overcrowding. 

So we had two choices: either to let people out early or to slow the 

rate of people coming in. Guess which would not fly in tough-oncrime Texas? 

So we went after and looked at how do you break the cycle of 

people coming into prison. We always put public safety first, but 

we had people telling us that with added resources there were 

many convicted individuals we could safely keep in our community. 

We tried a bill in 2005 to work on probation and passed it 

through the legislature, but it was vetoed by the governor. Best 

thing that ever happened to us. Forced us to go back and rework 

our efforts, to bring in a lot more people to look at probation and 

the reasons for the veto. We looked at programs that were available in Texas prison, on parole, on probation in the courts, and in 

our juvenile system. We brought in statistical help to tell us, if we 

changed our supplemental programs, what would happen to our recidivism rate. 

In late 2006, our Legislative Budget Board came out with a prediction that we would have 17,700 more prisoners in Texas by the 

year 2012 and we would need to build three prisons in the 2007- 

2008 biennium, costing over $530 million. Our plan was ready at 

that time and would keep our prison population stable, according 

to our data, and would cost less than half of the new prisons. We 
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went to the governor and legislative leaders with our plan and 

were given the go-ahead. 

This is what we did. We added substance abuse treatment beds 

in prison on parole and probation. We added intermediate sanction 

beds for parole and probation. We expanded specialty courts, put 

more funding for mental health treatment for the prisoners. We 

also brought back 1,800 prisoners that we had sent out to the county jails. All of these ideas and others were accepted. 

And what are our results? Crime rates have continued to drop 

to levels not seen since the 1960’s. Arrest rates in Texas are down. 

Three prisons and six juvenile facilities are permanently closed. 

Significantly fewer people are on felony probation. The parole rates 

in Texas rose from 24 percent the years we started to 36 percent 

last year, and the parole revocations dropped from almost 11,000 

a year in 2005 to less than 5,900 last year. 

Our prison population is the same as it was in 2007, and LBB 

last week predicted we would not need to build new prisons until 

2019. Our juvenile populations have fallen from over 4,500 to 

under 1,300. Our State savings are over $2.2 billion as of today and 

growing. 

An equally important offspring of our efforts is at the national 

level where the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2010 created 

Right on Crime, the national conservative voice for criminal justice 

reform. These and steps by organizations like CSG, Pew, NCSL, 

and ALEC have taken our work as an example for reforms 

throughout the State. 

I have been asked to give some guidance from Texas on what 

would help the Federal prisons in correction reform. Our system is 

the State system that is closest in size to your Federal system. We 

did our work in a bipartisan manner in an area where even at the 

Federal level today there is hope reform ideas can be bipartisan. 

We have the examples of the States that have now done reforms 

in this manner. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Kentucky, Alaska, South 

Dakota, Idaho, and Texas legislatures passed their major reform 

packages with overwhelming support from both parties. 

In each of the States there are think tanks, organizations, and 

individuals with a great deal of knowledge and numerous ideas 

about what can be done. In Washington there are even more people 

who would be willing to work together for positive reform. You already have legislators from both parties and both chambers presenting legislation that can be used for improvements, and most of 

them are based off the ideas we started in Texas. 

Also, there are now evidence-based practices to give direction to 

policymakers about programs that work and those that do not. Evidence-based practices should be required for all of those. We have 

several recommendations Right on Crime made. I will leave them 

there in the documentations that we have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Madden follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Representative. 

Doctor. 

TESTIMONY OF NANCY G. LA VIGNE, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, 

JUSTICE POLICY CENTER, THE URBAN INSTITUTE 

Ms. LA VIGNE. Hi. Good morning. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak with you today and to testify alongside these 

gentlemen who have really demonstrated what engaging in responsible prison reform on the ground means and also engaging in evidence-based practice. You are kind of living what the Urban Institute promotes through its own research on what works. So I thank 

you for that. 

Since you have heard about the successes in the States already 

I don’t want to belabor the point too much, but I would like to refer 

you to this publication that the Chairman referenced in his opening 

remarks, and that is a report the Urban Institute did assessing the 

Justice Reinvestment Initiative looking at 17 States. It documents 

the sweeping reforms that the States have engaged in and the projected impact of those reforms. 

That report was released earlier this year, but a few months 

prior to that the Urban Institute released a report called ‘‘Stemming the Tide.’’ In this report we looked at the growth in the Federal system, the drivers of the growth in that system, and a variety 

of policy changes and the impacts that those changes would have, 

both on population and cost. So what I would like to do today is 

to describe that a bit and then talk about lessons learned from the 

States and how it can be applied to the Federal system. 

As we know, the Federal system mirrors the experiences of the 

States in terms of growth in many ways, although arguably more 

so compared to many States experiencing a nearly eightfold increase since 1980. That growth has caused severe overcrowding, between 30 to 50 percent, depending on the facility, much higher for 

the high-security facilities across the BOP. 

BOP’s budget has been increasing alongside that population 

growth. It is crowding out other important public safety priorities. 

The BOP budget has grown at twice the rate of the DOJ budget 

over time, and yet those budget increases aren’t sufficient to maintain staffing. Inmate-to-staff ratios have increased 20 percent since 

2000. All of this creates a scenario where you have serious overcrowding that poses a threat to public safety. It poses a threat to 

safety on the inside, the safety and security of the staff and the inmates who reside there. 

But it is also a threat to public safety on the outside because 

when facilities are crowded you can’t offer the programming and 

treatment necessary to prevent recidivism, so if you can’t prevent 

recidivism you are causing more victimization in the community. 

In this report we document the drivers of the growth in the Federal system. It is basically simple math, more people going into 

prison, staying for longer periods of time. By far drug offenders are 

the biggest fear of the growth in the system, and this is the population that would yield the biggest impact on any efforts to reduce 

or slow that growth. 

Many solutions have been tested and proven by the States. They 

are documented here, and we have heard from the prior witnesses 
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about them. States have slowed prison growth. They have reduced 

overcrowding. They have saved taxpayers money in the process. 

And according to a recent Pew Charitable Trust report, these 

States have experienced declines in the crime rate alongside the 

States that have not engaged in reform. 

So what lessons are transferable to the Federal system? I think 

it is first important to note that there are differences in the system. 

The Federal system has a different population, much less violent 

on average than most State prison populations. It is also the case 

that the Federal prison isn’t driven by supervision violators, as we 

see a lot in the States. 

And yet there are reforms that are transferable, and these are 

both front-end reforms, as we call them, and back-end reforms. By 

front-end reforms, I am referring to changes in sentencing policies, 

who goes to prison, how long is their sentence length. And by backend, I am talking about earned credit mechanisms that encourage 

program participation and good behavior. And I don’t have to tell 

this Committee much about those reforms because many of you 

have signed on to legislation that promotes those reforms on the 

Federal level, the Smarter Sentencing Act, the Justice Safety Valve 

Act, the Public Safety Enhancement Act. These acts are looking at 

both front-end and back-end changes, including reducing mandatory minimums, expanding the safety valve, expanding judicial discretion in a number of ways, and incentivizing inmates to participate in programs and treatments that they can benefit from. 

It is also important to acknowledge that there is another kind of 

front end, and that is embodied in evidence-based practice that 

looks at the importance of prevention, education, and employment 

even prior to someone entering the system to encourage them to 

avoid that altogether. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. La Vigne follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Doctor. 

The Chair will withhold his questions till the end. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Coble, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is good to have you all with us today. 

Senator Ward, Alabama has just passed a statute authorizing 

the Alabama Prison Reform Task Force at an earlier stage in the 

Justice Reinvestment Initiative process with other States. Are 

there certain States that you are looking for to serve as leaders in 

this model, and what reforms do you think have been most effective in those States? 

Mr. WARD. Congressman, I would say, first and foremost, I look 

to my friend Representative Madden down here from Texas. I think 

they are the model probably for reforms across the country. As I 

have said before, there is really no silver bullet answer to the question of what is going to solve the prison problem. I think that the 

answer comes about in many facets. Most importantly, as I said before, one, your community corrections program; two, drug courts; 

and, three, mental health courts. All those provide tools not only 

for the front end, before incarceration has to occur, but also on the 

back end, and reduces recidivism rate and is also cheaper on the 

taxpayers. 

I think the more that we utilize those programs, the less you are 

going to have a turnaround of someone coming back into the system, and that is the key for everyone. If you can reduce recidivism, 

in the long run you will reduce your prison population. I think 

Texas has been a model reform for that. Most recently other States 

have also adopted it, prison ministry work in Georgia. We have 

seen also a new pardon and parole data-sharing process in Mississippi which has been very successful. Also, community correction 

incentives, where incentives are given to community correction programs that show a higher reduction in recidivism rates. Then the 

financial reward for those programs are rewarded through the 

budget process, as they are doing in Arkansas. 

So there are a large number of options out there. However, I 

would have to point to Texas being the model for the rest of the 

country, and it is due to the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Senator. 

Each of you I think mentioned the enormous cost involved. If 

these reform programs result as hoped would be the case, it seems 

to me that savings could be realized. Am I missing the mark when 

I say that? 

Mr. WARD. Not at all. 

Mr. MADDEN. Not at all. 

Mr. COBLE. I mean, recidivism and overcrowding are two issues 

that continue to plague us, and they are obviously related. 

Doctor, does the BOP currently perform a risk assessment of its 

inmates for purposes of administering recidivism-reducing programs or determining the likelihood to re-offend. 

Ms. LA VIGNE. My understanding is that the BOP does use risk 

in these assessments for some purposes. I don’t know the details 

of how they are used to guide who gets what types of programs or 

treatment. 
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Mr. COBLE. Anybody else want to weigh in on that? 

Mr. MADDEN. I was just going to weigh in on your previous question about States that are examples, though. 

Mr. COBLE. Fire away. 

Mr. MADDEN. I will follow on that because North Carolina did 

some wonderful work also in their things, and they are an example 

that I use nationally when talking to States about what they did 

in their technology aspects for their probation and parole divisions. 

They really have done some creative work there that has caused 

a reduction in their prison populations also. 

Mr. COBLE. On that, your favorable note to my home State is appreciated. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MADDEN. I was honored, as a matter of fact, to be there 

when the governor and the speaker and your senate pro tem leader 

decided to go ahead and start that. I was actually in the room with 

them at that time, about five of us. 

Mr. COBLE. And I will convey that when I go back home. Thank 

you, sir. Thank you all for being here. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, one of the themes we have heard from all of the 

witnesses is a reliance on research and data rather than slogans 

and sound bites. 

Senator Ward, can you say a word about the applied research 

service and what they do for you? 

Mr. WARD. Yeah, absolutely. The problem with corrections traditionally has been the policymakers, you and I. We take it upon ourselves what sounds good, as you said, the policy sound bites. Can 

I lock them up and throw away the key because it fits on a bumper 

sticker, and guess what, it win elections. And that is unfortunate, 

and that is how we got in the circumstances we are in today. 

Applied research in short takes a data-driven approach to corrections. It determines this particular offender, what classification 

should they be classified in with regard to their sentencing guidelines? Are they perhaps eligible for, due to their background, due 

to their education level, due to the circumstances of their act, are 

they eligible perhaps for community corrections instead of incarceration? 

The data-sharing actually goes on throughout all the correctional 

facilities in Alabama. Therefore, it is a broad-based view of each individual inmate to determine what level of incarceration is maybe 

more appropriate and is an alternative sentencing program possibly better for this inmate. That is how it works in Alabama, and 

I think that is a big part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative as 

well, and that is what they try to promote, is instead of policy or 

a debate by your heart, it is more about data driven through your 

head as to what is more logical. 

Mr. SCOTT. And you and Mr. Wetzel talked about the triage 

going in, assessing people. How does that work if you are saddled 

with mandatory minimums and no parole? 

Mr. WARD. And I have to tell you, I think the notion of—that is 

one of the problems how we got where we are—the no parole, particularly for the nonviolent offenders. You have to look at a change 
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in your parole policies. In Alabama, for example, we have 53,000 

offenders currently under the supervision of our Boards of Pardon 

and Parole today. That is actually 200 offenders per individual 

caseworker. The national average is 75 offenders per caseworker. 

The no-parole notion for nonviolent offenders particularly, it just 

doesn’t work. In my opinion, that is one part of the broken system 

we are in today. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now, what effect does overcrowding have on the effectiveness of job training and education programs in the prison? 

Mr. WARD. It has a huge impact because what has happened is, 

as society has looked around and States are having shortfalls in all 

their budgets, what has happened is, as we have had to cut back 

on K through 12, it is very hard to go back home and sell politically, well, but we have got to invest more in prison education. The 

overcrowding problem, what it has created is, you have so many inmates that you actually don’t have, one, the physical plant facilities 

to provide the education, skill opportunities they need. But, two, it 

has created a situation where you are spending so much money on 

the actual incarceration, the feeding, and the health care, that the 

education component is being left aside, and that, in my opinion, 

is what leads to a higher recidivism rate as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Ms. La Vigne, you had mentioned reinvesting the savings in 

some of these programs. One of the problems and challenges is the 

people saving the money aren’t the people making the investment. 

And so you make the investment and then somebody else saves the 

money. How do you recapture the savings in that scenario? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. That is a tremendous challenge, I think, that the 

States are experiencing, and many of them are handling that by actually engaging in what we call up-front reinvestment, so that at 

the point of passing legislation where they know that their projections show that the policy changes will yield meaningful reductions 

in populations and thus yield savings, at that very same time they 

will say, let’s right now use those anticipated savings and dedicate 

them to activities like treatment, diversion programs, more supervision, et cetera. 

Mr. SCOTT. You mentioned front end, kind of dual front end, one, 

front end after conviction but also the very early primary prevention and early intervention. How do you recapture those savings? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. So capturing savings from very, very early prevention efforts is very difficult to do, and it is not usually something we discuss when we talk about justice reinvestment because 

justice reinvestment is largely about averting growth or reducing 

the prison population, yielding savings that way. I am not aware 

of people who have actually looked at early prevention programs 

and looked at how cost beneficial they are, but we at the Urban Institute have looked at various recidivism reduction programs and 

have found that several of them are, indeed, cost beneficial. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I Thank the Chairman. 

And thank you all for being here. It is a very important topic. 

It is something that literally affects millions of people and yet 
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doesn’t always rise to the tier one level that it should. I believe it 

is one of the core things that government should and has to be involved with. So your expertise and your participation here today, 

we certainly do appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record 

two articles. One is by Mr. Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan, ‘‘An 

Opening for Bipartisanship on Prison Reform,’’ as well as a Salt 

Lake Tribune op-ed, ‘‘A Better Way Than Filling Jails with Nonviolent Offenders,’’ by Kirk Jowers, that was published on July 13. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Madden, I would like you to talk a little bit 

about—and then Mr. Wetzel if we could—about risk assessments. 

Do they really work? I mean, you have somebody who has come 

into prison. Can you very quickly go through this assessment process? How does it work? What is your experience with it? And how 

do we make the most of it? 

Mr. MADDEN. They actually work—they can work very well if you 

use the right ones. There are a lot of risk assessment tools that are 

out there. I always say to everybody, I am not sponsoring any one 

risk assessment tool because there are a whole a lot of different 

ones, but to come down at least on one that you are consistent with 

in your State and use that, and it is a great tool. 

Now, that is the one thing. There were two things that now happen in justice reinvestment actions throughout the States that we 

really didn’t put in, in Texas, to start with because we were two 

legislators that were wandering, so to speak, in the dark. We didn’t 

have the Pew people. We didn’t have the Council of State Governments like all these guys had. We were just us doing what we 

thought was the best thing in the criminal justice system. 

We did not do the risk assessment thing, and it has been put in 

later, in later legislative sessions than what we started in 2007, 

but it is one of the two things that I tell the States that they all 

need to have and they all need to do, is have a risk assessment 

tool. They really do work. And you should use it as often in the 

cycle as is really fiscally responsible. You should do it when a person is first arrested, when they go before the judge the first time, 

when they go to probation, et cetera, et cetera, and in the prison 

system, too. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I want to get to Mr. Wetzel, please. 

Mr. MADDEN. I was going to say in the prison system in particular, you could do it when they first come, and you should do it 

in subsequent periods of time while they are there. And there is 

two things on risk assessment—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Hold that thought for a second. I do want to follow up with you, but I am going to run out of time if I don’t allow 

Mr. Wetzel to jump in. 

Mr. MADDEN. I understand. 

Mr. WETZEL. Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes the notion of risk assessment, people act like it is a new thing, but I am pretty sure 

an 18-year old young man pays higher car insurance than my 82- 

year-old mom who drives a VW bug, right? Why? Actuary risk assessment. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You got an 82-year-old mother who drives a VW 

bug, really? 

Mr. WETZEL. I do. I do. Slowly. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. With you in it? I would like to see that. All right. 

Keep going. 

Mr. WETZEL. So risk assessment has been around forever. Applying it to this and having an understanding of who comes in your 

system, every system does that. Every system does something 

when someone comes in. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. All right. But what works and what doesn’t work? 

Mr. WETZEL. What works is actuarial risk assessment, so it is research-based, and it identifies both the risks that the individual 
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presents and also their needs. And then the rub, though, is that 

you have programming that addresses those needs, especially the 

criminogenic needs that are able to be impacted, like addiction, 

criminal thinking, those kinds of things. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I have introduced, and many of the 

Members here on this panel have helped cosponsor a bill, H.R. 

2656, the ‘‘Public Safety Enhancement Act of 2013.’’ I do think it 

is time for Congress to take a much more proactive role in pushing 

the Bureau of Prisons in this direction. I appreciate panel members 

on both sides of this aisle in helping that. Perhaps as a follow-up, 

if you all could look at this legislation and help us get your feedback, we would certainly appreciate it. 

[The bill, H.R. 2656, follows:] 
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Mr. MADDEN. I already have, obviously, with Senator Cornyn as 

a sponsor, has also talked a little about what we did in Texas. Let 

me analyze one thing on the risk assessment since you have got 30 

seconds left. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

Mr. MADDEN. The risk assessment, there are two different types 

of risk you have: the risk of the people redoing the same crime that 

they did and the risk of violent offenses. And you need to make 

sure your risk analysis truly analyzes the differences between the 

two because a lot of your prisoners are low risk of violent crimes 

but high risk of doing the dumb thing that got them to prison the 

first time. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Yield back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

Gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner. I just want 

the record to show that this is the most informative and thoughtful 

panel on this subject that I have heard in a long, long time. And 

I thing you and Ranking Member Bobby Scott should be congratulated on putting this together. 

And, you know, I am beginning to feel like there are more Republicans like yourself, Senator Ward, that are thinking about this. 

It is a wonderful thing. And what I wanted to start off by asking 

Dr. La Vigne is, how would we prioritize these legislative recommendations? I am going to get copies of this discussion here 

today because I think it needs to be shown around the country, not 

just to the people that are looking at it now or reading about it 

later. Where do we start? How do we get this thing on the road? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. Right. I wouldn’t recommend any one piece of legislation over another, but I will emphasize our conclusion in our report, and that is that you really need more than one. You cannot 

achieve meaningful reductions in the Federal prison population 

looking only at, for example, earned release or other back-end 

measures. 

The reason is because, as we have mentioned already, the degree 

of overcrowding is so great. It is so great that you really need to 

do a lot of different things to achieve reductions. So what we conclude is that it really needs to be a combination of both back-end 

and front-end reforms. 

Mr. CONYERS. Would you, Senator, like to add anything on to 

this discussion? 

Mr. WARD. Real briefly, Congressman, what I would say is this. 

It is going to take some political courage more than anything else. 

I mean, the tools and the data that you have heard here today from 

my esteemed colleagues on this panel, I mean, we have experts 

from all over the country that can tell you some of the road maps. 

The problem we have—and let’s face it, I am from the reddest of 

red States, I am almost as red as Utah, I mean, we are a very Republican, conservative State—but at the end of the day what we 

have to realize is the level of incarceration spending that we are 

doing now, the conditions of the facilities that we are doing and 

what we are expecting as far as what comes out on the back end, 

is not sustainable. It can’t be sustained by our current fiscal poli-
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cies in State government. It can’t be sustained by what we would 

consider adequate conditions under the Eighth Amendment. 

The data is there. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel of the 

States. They have already been done. But we have to have the political courage to say, this is broken, we have to fix it. Whether you 

are from a red state, blue state, purple state, we all agree there 

is a broken system, and this is one area that I think we can all 

agree on how to fix it because the tools are out there. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, are there more conservatives coming around 

to this point of view being expressed here in the Judiciary Committee? 

Mr. WARD. Absolutely. I think there are people here on Capitol 

Hill that have expressed on several occasions, both in the Republican Party and Democrat Party, that it is one issue we can work 

together on. And I think in State government we realize, too, as a 

conservative, I want to see a much more efficient way of government being operated. But you can’t run an efficient government the 

way we are doing it right now with corrections. So, yeah, I think 

there are. 

Mr. MADDEN. May I take a shot at that, too? 

Mr. CONYERS. Please do. 

Mr. MADDEN. Since I am with the Right on Crime people, the 

Texas Public Policy, and it is the national conservative voice that 

is speaking out on this, I will say that when we first did all these 

things and we had Pew conferences, the things that we basically 

got out of that from the States that did the reforms, and that is 

people like Georgia and Kentucky and North Carolina, those States 

basically said go as much as you can, get all the areas that we are 

talking about. 

So the legislation that is out there now, whether that be—I have 

noticed the sponsors on both Senate and House legislation have 

been both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, and 

they are mixed on the bills. That is a great sign, and I would highly encourage continuing because that is the opportunities there 

that we have found in the States, and the great thing was that 

most of those pieces of legislation were passed almost unanimously 

and almost with total bipartisan support. 

Mr. CONYERS. We have a Congressional Black Caucus conference 

coming up in September, and I think three or more of our colleagues who are on Judiciary Committee would welcome a panel 

with any of you that can be there with us to help get this word 

out. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman will yield, I would just 

urge you not to be afraid of the Congressional Black Caucus because I have been and talked to them and I am still here. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, yeah, but you are one of those exceptional 

conservatives that I was bragging about along with Senator Ward. 

We are looking for more Sensenbrenners, more Wards. And we 

want to come together and make this real and not just a sensational hearing on August 15. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I will say the gentleman’s time has expired. Before people on the other side start criticizing me, the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
105 

Mr. Madden, who in the Federal system do you think is incarcerated because we are mad at them as opposed to being afraid of 

them. 

Mr. MADDEN. Sure. When we discussed that on mad versus 

afraid, the ones that we are afraid of are clearly the people who 

would do us a great deal of harm, and that is murderers and rapists and, yes, major drug dealers. I think we have some in the Federal system. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you know there are going to be very few people 

in Federal prison because of rape or murder—— 

Mr. MADDEN. That is true. 

Mr. GOWDY [continuing]. Because most of them are in State prison. So who in Federal prison is there because we are just mad at 

them? 

Mr. MADDEN. I would say that those people who are actually 

drug users are probably those we are mad at. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, now, Chairman, there is nobody in Federal 

prison for using drugs. They may be there for possession with intent to distribute, they may be there for conspiracy, but they are 

not there for using drugs. So I ask you again, who is in Federal 

prison because we are mad at them, not because we are afraid of 

them? 

Mr. MADDEN. The nice thing is my studies that I had, Representative, was that I don’t portray myself as an expert on other systems that they have. What I do have is I do have the knowledge 

of what other States have looked at and the data that they have 

looked into. I agree with you, though—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am not the one that said it. 

Mr. MADDEN. I understand. 

Mr. GOWDY. I didn’t write that people are in Federal prison because we are mad at them and not afraid of them. That was you 

that said that. 

Mr. MADDEN. I think I wrote that we have people in the prisons 

that we are mad at and afraid of, and that was distance that use, 

particularly in the States and our discussions there. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, that necessarily assumes that the only reason 

to send someone to prison is because we are afraid of them, and 

I would argue that there are lots of other reasons to send people 

to prison other than the fact that we are afraid of them, like maybe 

the fact they didn’t learn when we gave them probation. Maybe 

they didn’t learn when we put them through a diversion program. 

Mr. MADDEN. One of the things that we look at the Texas Public 

Policy Foundation and Right on Crime is overcriminalization and 

things that are made criminal law, that basically we look at the 

things like mens rea provisions. And, again, I am not a lawyer, so 

I am speaking in terms as the gentleman who says there are things 

that we make as overcriminalization, and we have specifically 

talked about that. I know there have been hearings up here 

about—— 

Mr. GOWDY. There have been. 

Dr. La Vigne, let me ask you to help me understand a phrase 

that sometimes I struggle to understand, which is nonviolent offender. 
106 

Ms. LA VIGNE. Right. This was a challenge in our report because 

we lacked the data that we really needed to see what the criminal 

histories were of the people in the Federal system. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, give me a for instance of a nonviolent offender. 

Ms. LA VIGNE. So what we did instead was to use security level, 

so those housed in low security Federal facilities we assumed were 

nonviolent. 

Mr. GOWDY. Did you look at the incident report? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. I am sorry, the what report? 

Mr. GOWDY. Did you talk to the victim? I am trying to get an 

idea, because I have heard multiple witnesses use the phrase nonviolent offender. 

Ms. LA VIGNE. This is a really good question and one that we 

would very much like to answer if we can get the right data from 

the Bureau of Prisons. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, here is the challenge. And I readily agree, at 

least 80 percent of the crime I saw was drug and alcohol fueled. 

The difficulty we ran into when we tried to put a defendant in a 

nonviolent fact pattern into drug court, his or her defense attorney 

objected because it was much easier to just go straight probation 

than go to drug court. So how do you make someone post-adjudication go to drug court? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. I don’t have that answer. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, look, I am with you. Drugs and alcohol drive 

80 percent of the crime. And I am not suggesting other people don’t 

have the victim’s perspective, but I am much more interested in 

the victim’s perspective than I am the inmate’s perspective. But 

when you have a defense attorney advising people to go straight 

probation even though they are an addict because that is easier 

than going through drug court, I don’t know what you expect the 

State to do about that. 

Mr. WARD. Congressman, I would say you incentivize it. I would 

say you make it more attractive. And I think everybody up here 

agrees the victim’s rights should always come in front of the inmate’s. We all agree on that. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, how do you incentivize it other than shortening the term of incarceration? 

Mr. WARD. Well, what you do, for example, if you have a choice 

of post-incarceration of probation or drug court, make it more attractive to go there. And I don’t know the answer how you make 

I think more attractive. Make it more attractive. Maybe shorten 

the term of the probation, maybe lighten the terms of the probation 

to incentivize them. 

Mr. GOWDY. But that is post-adjudication. That is not a diversion 

program. 

Mr. WARD. Well, then do it ahead of time. Do it on the front end 

as well. You could do it on the front end as well. I mean, there are 

ways to incentivize it to make it attractive as opposed to what the 

alternative is, and that is how you get around the defense attorney’s argument. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, regrettably, I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. 

Bass. 
107 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for holding this 

hearing, and also to the Ranking Member. 

You know, like my colleague, I also have the victim’s perspective 

in mind, and one of the things that has happened over the years 

as the incarceration rates have been so high is that we have not 

really thought about when we release people in a lot of instances 

around our country you have a tremendous number of people who 

are released to certain communities. And then they have no options. Because of collateral consequences, they don’t have an opportunity to work in the legal economy and they go right back and 

commit crimes. So having an overconcentration of people coming 

out of prison to particular communities then revictimizes those 

communities. 

And so what I wanted to ask you about, because you talked 

about evidence-based programs—I come from California, by the 

way, so you know we are really struggling with this and the courts 

have required us to release people. So one of the issues that we are 

dealing with is that when people get out, how do you then reintegrate them into a community so that they have other options? 

So I wanted to ask you if there has been research about reentry 

programs that help people navigate their way so that they don’t 

wind up incarcerated again. And then, which collateral consequences do you feel we should eliminate at the Federal level? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. Okay. Yes, there is ample research on ways that 

people can be prepared for successful reintegration. A lot of that research is actually embodied in the What Works in Reentry Clearinghouse. It is something that the Urban Institute developed in 

partnership with the Council of State Governments, funded by the 

Second Chance Act. And what we strove to do was to identify only 

the most rigorous studies out there, because a lot of people point 

to studies that are effective or not, but then when you look at them 

you realize they are not really well conducted to begin with. 

So after screening out only the most rigorous studies, we then 

identified by different types of reentry mechanisms, say, enhanced 

education, employment, housing, treatment, what programs worked 

and for whom. And all of that is housed on a Web site that is 

searchable, and you will see that there is an ample body of research that suggests several things. 

One, reentry should really start at the point of incarceration. So 

you use the risk and needs assessment to identify what kind of programs and services and treatment that they need, make sure that 

they get them, and then also that you really need a very good transition from prison to the community. So you don’t just release them 

and say, good luck. You release them and you have that handoff 

to the community services and support. 

Ms. BASS. Right. That is one of the things that we are doing in 

California, unfortunately, is releasing, and some people who have 

been in solitary confinement forever getting released and going 

straight on the street with not a lot happening. So one of the phenomenons that is kind of happening in the Los Angeles area, and 

in LA, since we have 30 percent of the prison population who come 

out, one of the things that is happening is a number of formerly 

incarcerated individuals are starting their own little mom-and-pop 

nonprofits to essentially hand hold people. Some people who have 
108 

been locked up too long don’t even know how to use public transportation or do the basics. 

And so I am wondering, in your evidence-based research, do you 

have very small nonprofits that have been studied like this? And 

that is for anybody. 

Ms. LA VIGNE. I haven’t found those in any of the very rigorous 

studies that we have looked at, but it stands to reason, and actually there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the best kind 

of support for returning citizens is that that comes from folks who 

have already experienced incarceration and can really relate and 

speak to them and help them and understand what their challenges are. 

Ms. BASS. And for the other panelists in my remaining time, do 

you see a difference with private prisons, people coming out of private prisons versus government-run prisons? 

Mr. WETZEL. Pennsylvania doesn’t do private prisons. 

Mr. WARD. In Alabama, we spend so little on our incarceration 

rate that actually it costs us more to use private prisons. And from 

the data that we looked at around 2006 when we actually did experiment with private prisons, there was absolutely no difference 

between the two facilities as far as the outcome-based results of the 

offenders released. 

Ms. BASS. Texas? 

Mr. MADDEN. Texas has some private prisons. The recidivism 

rate that you get from the private prisons, since they are generally 

there for our lower-level offenders, match pretty closely the State 

facilities that we have for low-level offenders. They are about the 

same. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. 

Yield back my time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ward, and this applies to everybody on the panel as well, but 

the theme that runs throughout most of your testimony is the need 

of flexibility in our criminal justice system, alternatives to detention, individualized approaches to parole, treatment, and much 

else. 

I have a bill with Congressman Scott, it is called the Smarter 

Sentencing Act, which would give judges more flexibility to make 

individualized sentencing determinations. Can you address the 

issue of flexibility in sentencing in your State and the importance 

of an individualized approach in criminal justice more generally? 

Mr. WARD. Unfortunately in Alabama we had a situation where 

we had, and use the phrase too much flexibility, up until about 

2006. Basically I could go to one county and be sentenced to community corrections or probation, I could go to the next county over 

for the exact same crime, the exact same instance, and be sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

So what we did was we came up with a uniform voluntary set 

of guidelines. Those guidelines, again, were still ignored by some 

of the judges, taken on by other judges. These guidelines were created through a data-driven empirical analysis to look at the system. 
109 

We now have presumptive guidelines in Alabama. The presumptive guidelines do give the judges flexibility, because there are certain circumstances when the judge says this person really belongs 

in community corrections, and they can show an exception to the 

presumptive guidelines in writing and say, this is why I believe 

this inmate should go to or this offender should go to community 

corrections. 

The flexibility is necessary because the moment you start putting 

everyone in a small box, you are hamstringing yourself and you are 

restricting the judicial right to determine individual case-by-case 

basis. And that is how alternative sentencing has really been successful, because drug courts are handled by judges who say we 

need an exception to this set of circumstances. So in my State, I 

think that is a very good thing and it has been very successful as 

well. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Excellent. And that is what we are trying to do 

here in the House of Representatives as well, is to give a little bit 

more flexibility within the guidelines to give the judges a little bit 

more flexibility. 

You also discussed the benefit of certain sentencing reduction 

programs, and I think these are all good ideas. But I am wondering 

why we don’t get the sentences right in the first place, which 

sounds like that is what you were doing in Alabama. 

Mr. WARD. You are exactly right. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So according to a review of the Justice Department records of prisoners released since 1994, prisoners are more 

likely to recidivate the longer they stay in prison. And the reason 

why America has such a larger population of prisoners than Europe is that we imprison them so much longer. Given these facts, 

Ms.—is it La Vigne? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. La Vigne. 

Mr. LABRADOR. La Vigne. Shouldn’t we have the goal at the outset of making sentences fit the crime and give judges the ability 

to avoid unnecessarily long sentences? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. Well, this is my own personal opinion, but I think 

that judicial discretion is kind of an interesting thing. When I was 

working many, many years ago in Texas for the Sentencing Commission, at the time judges had between 5 and 99 years for first 

degree felonies. It was too much discretion. Everybody agreed with 

that. But in the Federal system you see restricted discretion because of mandatory minimums. And your bill, sir, to have mandatory minimums for certain types of drug offenders I think makes 

sense because it is not mandating that sentences be lower, it is just 

giving the judges a little bit more discretion. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. Now, I just have a general question. I was 

a criminal defense attorney, so I don’t dislike them as much as my 

good friend here to my left. But I always wondered why we don’t 

have shorter sentences and harsher punishment. So have any of 

you considered what could we do at the State level or at the Federal level to make sure that the sentences, when you go to prison, 

you actually have harsh punishment? 

I will just give you an example. I went to talk to a junior high 

school class of Hispanic students, and one of the students kept 

looking at me. I was trying to explain to them why it was impor-
110 

tant to go to college and do all those things, and one of the kids 

just looked at me and says, hey, I have an uncle in prison, and he 

gets three meals a day and he has four walls and he gets fed, and 

he is enjoying, he is actually enjoying being in prison. That broke 

my heart to hear something like that. 

What could we do at the State level and at the Federal level to 

actually make prison a little bit more difficult so they are not 

thinking that they are actually on a vacation while they are there? 

Mr. WARD. Congressman, I was just going to say, first of all, 

these rehabilitation programs, forcing them to learn a skill, forcing 

them to work while they are in there, not only does it make the 

sentence harsher, but also makes them more productive when 

eventually they do get released, and 95 percent do get released. 

And as your colleague to your left said, the crimes that occur in 

State prisons or what got you to the State prison are very different 

from what got you into, say, a Federal prison. We have a lot more 

violent offenders. So you have got to give them those skills, make 

them work harder. And while they are working, they are learning 

a skill while they are incarcerated. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Richmond. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

calling the hearing. 

Senator Ward, and you mentioned the political will and the political courage to get it done, and my colleague, Mr. Chaffetz, entered 

into the record the Newt Gingrich article. The disappointing part 

about it is that the article was written in 2011 calling for all of us 

to come together. And I think that you see mutual ideas here and 

in fact that many of us are on the same page, but it is 2014 and 

we are still on step one. 

So part of the question is, how we move it forward without people who are afraid of it being branded, I guess, soft on crime, and 

I just think it is something we have to do. 

Let me ask you, I am going to give you a figure and then I want 

you all to give me your estimate. And I am not going to hold you 

to it, but right feel for you. With the Federal prisons, what a good 

time credit would be. We give about 54 days a year. For every 7 

additional days that we would give, we would save about $200 million over 5 years, about $30 million a year. 

In my State of Louisiana, we went in and doubled good time 

under a Republican governor, a Republican legislature, because we 

saw it made sense. And all of our Southern States are kind of moving in that trend. 

If you just had to throw out a number of how many days of 

earned good time you think you can absorb without making the 

public less safe, if you had to throw out a number, what would you 

throw out, or a range? 

Mr. WARD. I would say in Alabama you could probably add 10 

additional days. That would be the general consensus. Again, I am 

speaking off the cuff, 10 additional days from what we would do 

now. But we would still be below what Louisiana’s average is. 

Mr. SCOTT. Ten days for what? 

Mr. WARD. I am sorry? Ten additional days from what we do 

now, which I believe is 54. 
111 

Mr. RICHMOND. We are 54 in the Feds. And while Mr. Wetzel answers, I will look and quickly glance and see what Alabama is at. 

Mr. WETZEL. We are not a good time State, and so that is not 

really how we relate to the world. We really try to introduce risk 

assessment at sentencing, so make a good decision. So everybody 

knows at the sentencing time how much time at minimum the individual is going to serve. And then to the extent you can individualize decisions and make good decisions at who can get out earlier, I think that is what makes sense in our context. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Well, I think it still incentivize behavior that 

will—— 

Mr. WETZEL. I am not disagreeing with that. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Right, that will reduce your sentence. 

Mr. WETZEL. I don’t have a point of reference to throw a number 

out to you. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Okay. 

Mr. MADDEN. It was interesting. I was over in your State of Louisiana before their legislature this last session on several bills that 

they were doing, that they have done, and a couple that they didn’t 

do dealing with the powers of individuals in your State. But a couple of recommendations that are there. We have a parole board 

that looks, we are probably more of a good time State than John’s 

is, but we are not a good time State either when it comes to incarceration, but what you can look at is what are you doing with your 

parole and your parole actions that you have in putting people or 

releasing them, what amounts to release time. 

One of the things we actually did in our looks was we had the 

parole board that was saying, this person is eligible for parole, all 

they have to do is have this drug treatment program, this 18- 

month drug treatment program. The problem we had in Texas 

when we did this is there was a waiting period for that drug program of over a year, people just sitting there. Before they started 

an 18-month program, they were sitting there and waiting for over 

a year. 

This is the great thing as an engineer who could sit there and 

think about studies of queuing theory and how much did we spend 

on just keeping those people to wait for a program that they needed and then were eligible for release. We saved a lot of money by 

putting in additional drug treatment facilities in the prisons, so we 

shortened that waiting time substantially. And those are the kinds 

of things you can look at doing. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Have any of you all enacted reentry courts? I 

passed a reentry court bill a couple years ago, and now it is coming 

full circle, and we have just run some awards in Louisiana which 

would allow the judge to sentence a person to—and actually, they 

send them to Angola, which is our State penitentiary, with a range 

of between zero and 10 years. But after completing programs and 

going through training, at some point the warden will declare that 

they are not a risk to society and the warden then has the ability 

to petition for their release. 

And that has been a very effective model in getting people actually treatment, skills, workforce development, and all of those other 

things to put them back on the streets in an area where our recidi-
112 

vism rate with those offenders are very, very low, even though they 

are going to our State penitentiary. 

Mr. WARD. That has been a political debate with our State prosecutors, although I think it is an idea a lot of them are warming 

up to now. But, yes, we have looked at that. Legislation 3 years ago 

to do that failed in Alabama; however, I think there is a lot more 

support now for that than there used to be due to the crisis we are 

in. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, I, first of all, want to thank you and 

the Ranking Member for holding this hearing. I think it is a very 

important topic. 

And thank all of you for being here. I apologize. I have been in 

an Armed Services hearing that was in conflict. And I hope I am 

not asking you a question that you have already addressed, but I 

was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on the mental 

health aspects and how we are assessing individuals when they 

come into the system, what you view in terms of our treatment capabilities, and any recommendations you might have along those 

lines, to any of you that would feel that you could offer some suggestions. 

Mr. WETZEL. In Pennsylvania, 21 percent of our population is on 

the mental health roster, which equates to about 10,000 people, 

which means that I am responsible for the delivery of mental 

health services for more individuals than any other one entity in 

the State. And I think that is pretty consistent around the country. 

Mr. MADDEN. It is. 

Mr. WETZEL. And when you talk about a challenging group, a 

group that requires, first of all, good assessment, to include a full 

psych workup, which means resources and time. 

Mr. FORBES. Do you feel you are getting that now? 

Mr. WETZEL. Excuse me? 

Mr. FORBES. Do you feel you are getting that kind of assessment? 

Mr. WETZEL. Yeah, we do. And we have bolstered that. I mean, 

we have come up short on some of the back-end stuff, in other 

words, keeping folks healthy in general population. And what we 

have seen around the country, and Pennsylvania in particular, was 

people not getting sick from a mental health standpoint and then 

ending up in segregation. And so sometimes when you put mentally 

ill offenders in an intensive environment that prisons are, it is not 

the most therapeutic environment in all cases. So it is certainly a 

challenging thing. 

So I think assessment at the front end, individualizing a treatment plan for each individual, splitting out the seriously mentally 

ill, which is anywhere between 7 and 10 percent of our population, 

and putting them on a completely separate track, so creating safe 

environments in general population. 

And then for reentry for that group in particular, there has to 

be a lot of coordination between the prison system and the community infrastructure, to include case management and the treatment 

providers, because we have places in rural Pennsylvania where you 

are waiting 2 or 3 months to get an appointment with a psychiatrist. We are releasing a mentally ill offender with 30 days of medi-
113 

cation. Oops. What happens in that 30 or 45 days that individual 

doesn’t have medication, and it is not good. So I think it is a very 

challenging group. 

I think that there needs to be as much attention on creating a 

community safety net so mentally ill folks are less likely to come 

to prison in the first place. People get concerned that corrections 

isn’t going to adjust and be able to deal with mentally ill offenders. 

I am concerned that we are going to be able to adjust, and I am 

not sure that is the right thing from a public policy standpoint. 

Mr. WARD. Congressman, I would say, too, one big issue, and this 

is the distinction between the Federal and the State level, is how 

do you define mental health problems? The Bureau of Justice Statistics says that 56 percent of all State inmates have a mental 

health problem; however, if you look at the definition of mental 

health problem on the Federal level, that number shrinks dramatically. I have a child, for example, on the autism spectrum. They 

would not be considered mental health. There are those out there 

who are coming back from war with post-traumatic stress syndrome. They would not be considered for these purposes mental 

health. 

So I think how we define mental health is going to go a long way 

to how we prevent or give the proper treatment for those who have 

already been incarcerated or to prevent them from becoming incarcerated in the first place. 

Mr. FORBES. Good. Anybody else? 

Ms. LA VIGNE. What I would add to this conversation is the 

intersection between people with substance addiction and mental 

health problems, and those are often co-occurring disorders. And 

looking at the Federal system and the large volume of drug offenders who are in the system, that could be an issue that you will 

want to explore. 

Mr. FORBES. Good. Well, thank you all so much for doing that. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman yields back. The Chair recognizes himself to wrap up. 

I think the best thing that we can do in the remaining days of 

this Congress is to reauthorize the Second Chance Act. That has 

been very useful. The gentleman from Virginia and I have been 

pushing this. It took a couple years to get it passed the first time, 

and I think that we ought to get it reauthorized and at minimum 

tweaked so that it is more effective. 

What I am looking at in the whole continuum of somebody who 

gets involved in the criminal justice system is we start out with the 

arrest, then we have decisions that have to be made by the prosecutor and defense counsel, there is a trial, there is a conviction, 

then there is an investigation by a probation or parole department 

pre-sentencing to advise the court on what the proper sentence 

would be. Then there is incarceration and what goes on during incarceration and then what goes on after release. So there is a huge 

continuum of various groups of people, often with conflicting interests, who put their oar in the waters in dealing with the individual 

who has run afoul of the law. 

My concern in dealing with this is that there is an awful lot of 

bureaucratic inertia or the bureaucracy trying to save their jobs by 
114 

saying that they have a larger casework than is really necessary, 

and it was a result of putting more notches on the report that goes 

up to the boss. We end up not treating those people as humans 

with special needs. 

Now, some of them might require incarceration, particularly if 

they are involved in violent crime or drug trafficking. We have 

talked about mental health issues, and then we have talked about 

what goes on in prison and how they are supervised if they are released on probation. 

How do we manage to lick the bureaucratic inertia that keep 

things the way they are because people have jobs and they want 

to keep their jobs and they are afraid of losing them if there are 

changes? And I would like to ask you, Secretary Wetzel, to start 

out with this, because you are the chief of a bunch of public employees in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who work in the 

corrections system there. 

Mr. WETZEL. Yeah. I think it is really important to pay attention 

to the process, and I think oftentimes we set up processes that 

incentivize the wrong thing. So you alluded to a situation where 

someone really could benefit or an agency could really benefit by 

not necessarily making the best decision and control caseloads from 

that manner. So I think it is very important that we look what we 

incentivize and we look at how the system works. 

And Pennsylvania is a place where we looked, and we had 2,400 

inmates every month come up who were eligible for a parole hearing. The parole board had the capacity for 1,800 a month, right? 

So every month we have 600 offenders. 

But here is the rub and here is what we were doing poorly. We 

weren’t being deliberate about who got skipped. So if I was an individual who was not following any rules, didn’t do any programs, 

was in trouble constantly and was in disciplinary, and you were an 

individual who has done everything we have asked you to do, we 

were equally likely to get skipped. If I get skipped, it costs me 

nothing, because I wasn’t getting out anyhow. If you get skipped, 

it costs us from a standpoint that you were likely to get paroled, 

so it is going to cost us real money. 

But beyond that, what message are we sending? If we are saying 

we are a justice system, you have done everything we have asked 

you to do, and now because of our bureaucracy or incompetence, 

however you want to describe it, you are not getting a hearing. So 

I think it is those kinds of things, really looking at how the system 

is structured and making sure it is structured in a manner that we 

are delivering what we need to do and making just smart, commonsense decisions, I think we can get where we need to get to. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. I have 45 seconds left, so, Senator 

Ward, you are the incumbent policymaker. How can you answer my 

question? 

Mr. WARD. One of the biggest areas I have noticed is, is a disparity in how court cases are actually counted. We had a situation 

in Alabama where one southern county counted each charge filed 

as a ‘‘caseload.’’ And in my particular county, Shelby County, those 

five same charges that were filed down there are considered one 

case load for purposes of statistics. We have to make sure we have 

accurate data with regard to caseloads. 
115 

*The material titled, ‘‘Ending Mass Incarceration, Charting a New Justice Reinvestment,’’ is 

not reprinted in this hearing record but is on file with the Subcommittee and can be accessed 

at http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url= 

http%3A%2F%2Fsentencingproject.org%2Fdoc%2Fpublications%2Fsen—Charting%2520a%2520 

New%2520Justice%2520Reinvestment.pdf&ei=bt1XVKavM4PasASlrYH4Aw&usg=AFQjCNHfR 

k4zDod6rZWcwuLxW9TrCckr4Q&bvm=bv.78677474,d.cWc. 

**The material titled, ‘‘Justice Reinvestment Initiative State Assessment Report,’’ is not reprinted in this hearing record but is on file with the Subcommittee and can be accessed 

at www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412994-Justice-Reinvestment-Initiative-State-Assessment-Report. 

pdf. 

Second, he is absolutely right, the secretary is right. You have 

got to incentivize the idea of, how can I get your caseload down, 

how do we incentivize you to have a lower caseload? If we can come 

up with that solution, I think it encourages your judges and your 

prosecutors to pursue the alternative sentencing programs. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. My time has expired. 

I would like to thank all of the witnesses. This has been a very 

interesting and fascinating hearing. And it is something that is 

really necessary in terms of not only trying to reduce our prison 

population, but also trying to reduce the recidivism rate. And I 

think there is a public interest in both, but the greater public interest is reducing the recidivism rate, because somebody who gets out 

and re-offends is going to cause a whole different group of victims. 

And if we want to protect those victims from being victimized, the 

thing to do is to convince the person who gets out not to continue 

in a life of crime. 

Does the gentleman from Virginia have some unanimous consent 

requests? 

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that 

two op-eds sponsored by Mr. Madden be entered. One is a public 

safety op-ed which outlined many of the things he said today, but 

also a very articulate article supporting the Youth Promise Act, 

which I enjoyed reading since I am the chief sponsor of that legislation. Also a letter and report from the ACLU, ‘‘Ending Mass Incarceration: Charting a New Justice Reinvestment,’’ * and a report 

from the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, State assessment, from 

the Urban Institute.** 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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118 
119 
120 
121 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. If there is no further business to come before the Subcommittee, without objection, the Subcommittee stands 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ