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72–846 2001

S. HRG. 106–1004

OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL

BUREAU OF PRISONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE OVERSIGHT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 6, 2000

Serial No. J–106–75

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman

STROM THURMOND, South Carolina

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania

JON KYL, Arizona

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri

SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

BOB SMITH, New Hampshire

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

MANUS COONEY, Chief Counsel and Staff Director

BRUCE A. COHEN, Minority Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE OVERSIGHT

STROM THURMOND, South Carolina, Chairman

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri

SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont

GARRY MALPHRUS, Chief Counsel

GLEN SHOR, Legislative Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Page

Leahy, Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 79

Thurmond, Hon. Strom, a U.S. Senator from the State of South Carolina ........ 1

WITNESSES

Sawyer, Kathleen Hawk, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 2

Stana, Richard M., Associate Director, Administration of Justice Issues, General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement and attachments ......................................................................................... 14

Fine, Glenn A., Director Special Investigations and Review Unit, Office of

the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement ....... 62

APPENDIX

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions from Senator Thurmond ...................................................................................................................... 81

Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions from Senator Leahy .... 84

Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions from Senator Thurmond .............. 85

Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions from Senator Leahy ..................... 86

Responses of Glenn A. Fine to Questions from Senator Thurmond .................... 87

ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Dorgan, Hon. Byron L., a U.S. Senator from the State of North Dakota,

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 89

Johnson, Hon. Tim, a U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota, prepared

statement .............................................................................................................. 91

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF

PRISONS

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2000

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE OVERSIGHT, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:04 p.m., in room

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Strom Thurmond

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Alson present: Senator Sessions.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STROM THURMOND, A U.S.

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Senator THURMOND. The committee will come to order.

I am pleased to hold this oversight hearing today regarding the

Federal Bureau of Prisons. I have always believed that we must be

tough on crime, and maintaining dangerous criminals in prison is

a key component in the war against crime. One of the primary reasons that crime is on the decline is that we are putting more serious offenders in prison and keeping them there for longer periods

of time.

One of the greatest challenges facing the Bureau of Prisons today

is its duty to house an ever increasing inmate population. The

number of prisoners has doubled since 1990, and is expected to rise

by an additional 50 percent in the next 7 years. Today, prisoners

are being added at a rate of at least 1,000 per month.

Keeping the growing inmate population productively occupied is

essential. Boredom and idleness, especially in our currently overcrowded prisons, can be dangerous. Last year, this subcommittee

held a hearing on Federal Prison Industries that highlighted the

central importance of this work program to the effective management and safe control of Federal inmates. This program teaches job

skills to inmates, and studies continually show that participants

are more likely to find and hold jobs after their release and are less

likely to commit other crimes.

I think this year we should make every effort to reform this program without endangering its success. We can eliminate the legal

preference that Prison Industries has to make products for the Federal Government if we also allow it to compete in the commercial

market. Also, we should encourage Prison Industries to produce

items that are currently made in foreign countries and not in the

United States. Reforms such as these should further minimize its

impact on the private sector.

2

With the constant rise in inmates, the Bureau is doing a good job

in controlling the cost of medical care for prisoners. While national

trends show health care costs rising annually, the Bureau’s costs

have actually decreased for the last 3 years in a row. This is based

on various initiatives that the Bureau has implemented, including

staff reorganizations, bulk purchasing, and telemedicine.

Moreover, as the General Accounting Office notes, the Congress

should permit the Bureau to charge a small co-pay for inmates

when they receive non-emergency care, as many States already do.

This would help discourage frivolous health care visits, thereby

freeing medical staff for needy inmates. Also, the Bureau should be

able to cap inmate hospital payments at the Medicare rate.

A recent DOJ Inspector General report raises concerns about inmate use of telephone calls to continue their criminal activity while

incarcerated, including crimes like drug trafficking and fraud. In

1995, the Department of Justice settled a prisoner lawsuit regarding phone use on terms generous to the prisoners.

Currently, most inmates are allowed to make as many telephone

calls as they are able to pay for, or as many collect calls as people

outside will accept. The case demonstrates that while the current

Justice Department often encourages settlement agreements in

various areas of the law, these settlements are not always in the

best interest of all parties involved.

While inmates should be able to maintain contact with their families and communities, the Bureau must balance these needs

against the public interest in preventing inmate crime. The Bureau

is taking steps to address this issue. It must work diligently to prevent prisoners from committing crime from behind bars.

I want to thank the witnesses who are present, especially the Director of the Bureau. Dr. Sawyer has one of the toughest jobs in

the Federal Government, and I wish to commend her for her hard

work and dedication. I look forward to discussing these important

issues today.

I will now introduce Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the Director of

the Federal Bureau of Prisons, of the Department of Justice. She

has 24 years of management and training experience in the Bureau

of Prisons and currently oversees the operation of 95 Federal institutions.

How are you doing?

Ms. SAWYER. Just fine, sir.

Senator THURMOND. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wheeling

Jesuit College, in West Virginia, and both a master’s degree and

doctorate degree from West Virginia University.

We will now turn to Director Sawyer.

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN HAWK SAWYER, DIRECTOR,

FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, WASHINGTON, DC

Ms. SAWYER. Good afternoon. I am certainly pleased to appear

before you today, and I want to start by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, for your tremendous support of the Bureau of Prisons, and I

thank you for that throughout the years that we have worked with

you.

The Bureau continues to effectively meet our mission. As you indicated, our 31,000 outstanding and dedicated staff manage over

3

140,000 inmates in 95 of our own Federal prisons, as well as contract facilities around the country. During fiscal year 1999, the Bureau experienced its second consecutive year of record-breaking

growth. We grew by 11,300 inmates last year alone, and we anticipate that by 2007 the Bureau of Prisons population will reach

205,000 inmates. That is a growth of nearly 50 percent over today’s

numbers.

Crowding in our facilities is 34 percent over-capacity systemwide. At medium- and high-security facilities, crowding levels are

even more dangerous, with 55-percent crowding at medium-security and 51-percent crowding at high-security. We must reduce this

crowding at each facility for the safety of staff, inmates, and the

communities surrounding us.

With the resources Congress has already provided, we are making significant progress in this regard. We have 22 new prisons

that are funded or partially funded, and in the fiscal year 2001

budget we are seeking funding and advanced appropriations for

nine additional new prisons.

In addition to absorbing our own rapidly increasing Federal inmate population, the Bureau has begun assuming responsibility for

the sentenced felons from the DC. Department of Corrections, as

required by the National Capital Revitalization Act. Thus far, we

have absorbed 2,300 sentenced felons, and we will be absorbing the

remainder of the inmates by the end of 2001. Absorbing these inmates is going to be a great challenge for the Bureau because, as

I indicated, our facilities are extremely crowded already and the

new bed capacity to absorb the DC. inmates will not be constructed

before the deadline date of December 2001.

You may recall that in the preliminary drafts of the Revitalization Act, the Lorton closure date was supposed to have been 2003,

which was consistent with the dates by which we would get the

new institutions built. However, when enacted, the date for closure

had been changed to 2001, which means we will be absorbing the

remainder of the inmates by the end of 2001 without sufficient bed

capacity on line.

The Bureau is committing to providing inmates with programs to

help them make the most of their time in custody, as well as to

reenter the community successfully. Our programs include drug

treatment, education, vocational training, and work skills training.

We operate residential treatment programs for substance abuse for

nearly 30 percent of the Federal inmate population who have serious substance histories.

An interim report researching our success in our drug treatment

programs shows that, 6 months after release, 73 percent of the inmates who completed our program are less likely to be arrested

and 44 percent are less likely to test positive for any substance

abuse. Last year, nearly 6,000 inmates completed their General

Education Degree, the GED, and thousands of others completed a

variety of additional education and vocational training programs.

As I have testified on previous occasions, and as you mentioned,

Mr. Chairman, Federal Prison Industries is our most important

program, and it is a cost-effective program. It is entirely self-sustaining and operates without any appropriated funds. It provides

4

significant training for inmates that has been demonstrated to reduce recidivism.

For many years now, as you indicated, some members of the

business and organized labor communities have voiced strong concerns with the mandatory source preference, that it gives us an unfair advantage in the Federal marketplace. Should we lose mandatory source status, we would clearly need alternative authorities, as

you indicated, such as being able to make products for the commercial market and being able to make products that are currently

made offshore.

Recently, the General Accounting Office conducted an audit of

our health care, and as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, it was determined that our health care costs have been steadily going down as

nationwide health care costs have been increasing. GAO noted several of the initiatives that contributed to this savings. They also

highlighted the two legislative proposals that you mentioned in

your comments, Mr. Chairman, about the inmate copayment and

the Medicare rate caps. And it would certainly improve our ability

to provide cost-effective health care in the Bureau if both of these

legislative initiatives would be successful.

In August 1999, the Office of the Inspector General completed an

audit on our inmate telephone system. The report identified some

significant problems that have occurred over the years with inmates abusing their phone privileges, and we have been working

diligently to improve both the inmate telephone system and our

monitoring to address the shortcomings of the program.

Our goal is to maintain reasonable access by inmates to phones

to support healthy family and community ties which assist in successful return to the community, but at the same time we must

control for any abuses of phone privileges. The dramatic growth

that we have experienced in the Bureau over the last several years

and the huge numbers of new staff coming in have outpaced our

traditional methods of preventing phone abuses. We must now look

to new technologies that are now available for us to enable us to

control phone abuses, and the new technology will be installed in

all Bureau of Prisons facilities by November of this year.

I am very proud of the Bureau of Prisons staff and the job that

they do each and every day. Despite our record-setting population

growth, the Bureau has maintained its outstanding level of performance.

I would like to conclude again, Mr. Chairman, by thanking you

and the members of the subcommittee for your wonderful support

of the Bureau of Prisons throughout the years. This concludes my

prepared comments and I would be happy to take any questions

you might have.

Senator THURMOND. Thank you very much. I want to compliment

you on your fine record.

Ms. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator THURMOND. I have heard so many nice things about you.

You are not only nice looking, but you are a very efficient woman.

Ms. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, your budget for the new fiscal year requests about $2 billion in new funding to construct or

complete construction of 17 new prisons over the next 3 years. Is

5

this new funding, including advanced appropriations, critical to

help you control overcrowding?

Ms. SAWYER. It is absolutely critical, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated, our crowding levels are really at very dangerous proportions,

especially at our medium and high security levels, which are the

most dangerous inmates in our system. We desperately need to

have more prison beds coming on line. We are trying to build them

as fast as we can to get the beds on line quickly. We appreciate

the great support and resources we receive from the Congress, and

we desperately need each and every one of those beds we are requesting.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, the GAO review of health

care costs in the Bureau of Prisons shows that unlike the national

trend, your per-capita health care costs are declining. What do you

credit as the primary reason you have been able to keep per-capita

inmate medical costs under control?

Ms. SAWYER. Well, we have been watching our costs very carefully, Mr. Chairman, looking for every way possible to bring those

costs down, and we have identified a number of things that have

had a great impact on our costs. One was reorganizing or changing

the way we staff our health care operations.

We used to be very reliant on physicians and mid-level practitioners, physician assistants. We find that by spreading the health

care resources a little differently, by bringing in more registered

nurses and licensed practical nurses and other staff to do the lesser

skilled work, frees up, then, the physicians and physician assistants to do what they are trained to do, and that is provide medical

care, but at much less cost to the taxpayer.

We have entered into a number of cooperative agreements with

the Veterans Administration and the veterans hospitals. We share

some contracts with them. We do laboratory work together. We

have a cooperative agreement with them, or a contract on our pharmaceuticals that we are able to achieve at a much lesser cost

through the VA.

Telemedicine has been a great boon for us, and I think we have

only just begun to see the benefits of telemedicine because that not

only saves us money in terms of the amount that we spend for the

consultant medical staff, but it saves us the cost of transporting an

inmate downtown to a local hospital. We are able to do it using the

technology of teleconferencing, telemedicine. We are getting wonderful results there and significant cost savings. So there are a

number of different strategies that have resulted in our cost savings.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, as you are well aware, the

inmate population continues to grow and it is aging. Also, more

and more inmates have serious health conditions such as AIDS.

Will problems such as these make it harder to keep health care

costs under control in the future?

Ms. SAWYER. Well, I think it is specifically because we envisioned

both of these things coming our way, an aging population as well

as the many infectious diseases that come into our institutions— HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis. That is exactly why we took such an

aggressive approach to reducing our costs because we need to be

able to keep those costs down to a reasonable level and still meet

6

the medical needs of both the aging population and the many infectious diseases that come our way.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, do you think it is a problem today that too many inmates seek medical care when it is not

needed, and would requiring prisoners to make a modest co-pay for

non-emergency care help prevent prisoner abuse of health care

privileges?

Ms. SAWYER. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. We have done a lot of

tracking and counting the numbers in our institutions. We believe

that about 25 to 35 percent of those inmates who come to sick call

really don’t need to come to sick call. They are trying to get off a

day of work or get out of a school class and not have to attend.

They really don’t need to be utilizing the very expensive medical

resources that we have available. We believe the medical co-pay requirements where the inmates would have to pay just a nominal

amount for, again, non-emergency situations would reduce the

abuses of sick call.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, the GAO review of health

care costs concludes that the Bureau could save money if it could

pay hospitals at Medicare rates, especially if benchmarking efforts

were expanded. Do you agree that these appear to be promising

methods to help BOP control medical costs in the future?

Ms. SAWYER. Yes, we agree that both of those are promising initiatives. We are very much hoping to someday achieve approval of

the legislation that would allow us to have Medicare rates capped

by the outside hospitals. We believe it would save up to 50 percent

of what we are currently paying now on health care costs out in

the local hospitals.

The benchmarking is a very promising thing, and we are teaching all of our staff around the system how to do benchmarking

when they are developing new medical contracts. It is very promising in some locations, especially the inner city and some other

areas around the country. We are a little wary of it in some of the

smaller, more remote communities where we are located because

communities that have a larger poor population get offsets by

Medicare. There are multipliers that actually increase the costs

somewhat. So we want to look at it a little carefully in terms of

some of our remote institutions to make sure there truly will be a

cost savings utilizing the benchmarking approach in some of those

locations.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, the August 1999 report of

the Inspector General raises concerns about inmates using telephones to continue criminal activity from behind prison walls, such

as drug trafficking. Are you concerned about this issue, and what

steps have you taken to respond?

Ms. SAWYER. We are very concerned about this issue, Mr. Chairman, and our concern for this was what led us to be looking to utilize the new technologies that exist today to get much better control over inmate access.

We have been trying to put into place a new technology phone

system for the last several years and we ran into some serious

glitches both in terms of some protests to our contracts as well as

some litigation which delayed our ability to put in the new system.

7

During that same time period, though, as GAO noted, we were

growing dramatically and we had a lot of brand new staff coming

in, and our own practices and procedures and our policies fell short

in terms of being able to be sure that we identified all the inmates

who were going to attempt to continue illegal activities in the institutions.

So we are now very clearly targeting getting that new technology

in place by November of this year. Since the GAO report, we have

implemented a lot of new practices and procedures and oversight

and monitoring to make sure that we do control any inmate who

attempts to abuse our phone systems.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, I understand from the IG

report that some BOP facilities limit prisoner phone calls to 15

minutes each. Do you think that all BOP facilities should limit the

length and total number of calls that a prisoner can make on a

weekly or monthly basis?

Ms. SAWYER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We believe, as GAO does, that

one of the ways to get better control over abuses is to limit access

to calls. Again, we have already cut back access in our institutions

currently, shutting down the phone systems during the daytime

when inmates are supposed to be working, and shutting all the

phones off later in the evening as the evening comes to an end.

Our plan is with the new phone system, we have it installed now

in 40-some institutions, and that will automatically cut you off

after a 15-minute phone call and it will restrict how long you have

to wait before you can make another phone call. Again, the new

technology coming is going to give us some wonderful benefits.

With the 140,000 inmates that we have in our system and 90-

some institutions, it is hard to keep controls on these things manually anymore because we are so big, and the new technology will

just give us tremendous new capabilities, including cutting an inmate off after a 15-minute call.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, what is the status of implementing ITS–II, your new telephone monitoring system, in all

facilities, and what effect will it have on curbing inmate telephone

abuses?

Ms. SAWYER. Currently, 42 of our 95 institutions are already

fully installed with the ITS–II system. The remainder of the institutions will be completed by November of this year, 7 months

away. It will do a number of things for us. It will identify every

inmate using the telephone with a PIN number. We will know exactly which inmate is on the phone. We will know which numbers

they are calling because it can restrict you to just 10 approved

numbers by us.

It cuts you off after 15 minutes. It controls how frequently you

can use the phones, so it controls the inmate access. But the other

thing it does is it allows us to do a lot of cross-referencing to really

target abuses. We can tell how much time over the course of a

week or a month you may be trying to utilize the phone. If you are

using it excessively, obviously you are probably up to no good, and

we can target your calls and monitor them even more carefully.

We can cross-reference numbers to determine whether or not

multiple inmates are trying to call the same numbers which may

suggest illegal activity going on there, or at least something that

8

is not appropriate. They will be able to cross-reference numbers

with any numbers that law enforcement officials have that they

know are known drug connections. And if our inmates are utilizing

any of those numbers, we can pull it up quickly through the new

technology. There is just a wealth of capabilities that this new system will provide for us, and again it will be fully operational by November of this year.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, is Prison Industries better

than other prison work programs to teach inmates skills they need

when they are released and to help prevent recidivism?

Ms. SAWYER. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. We believe that the

Prison Industries program is the best possible way to teach good

work skills and develop good work habits, and research backs us

up with that fact. Traditional vocational training programs teach

the skill, but there is not sufficient live work then for the inmates

to be able to do to develop the proper kinds of work habits and

really make those skills reality for them.

The Prison Industries program enables us to do both teach the

skills, develop the good work habits, and also give them real work

over an extended period of time to really hone their skills so that

by the time they are released, they are very ready to go back into

law-abiding society and have good employment.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, assuming that Congress

eliminated the mandatory source preference for Prison Industries

regarding the Federal Government but did not give Prison Industries the authority to sell products in the private sector, what impact would this have on Prison Industries?

Ms. SAWYER. We believe it would have a serious impact upon

Prison Industries. We don’t know exactly the volume that it will

have, but we know that if we lose the mandatory source, we will

lose some sales in some of the traditional markets that we have

been involved in historically.

That is exactly why, as you indicated in your opening comments,

Mr. Chairman, should we lose mandatory source, we must have

some new opportunities open to us, some new authorities that will

allow us to sell to some other markets in order to keep an adequate

number of inmates employed in Prison Industries.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, if Prison Industries were

permitted to make products for sale in the commercial market and

paid comparable wages similar to State prison work programs,

would Prison Industries be able over time to eliminate the mandatory source preference that it now has in the Federal market?

Ms. SAWYER. We believe that that is one vehicle that would help

us certainly reduce our reliance on mandatory source. Being able

to sell in the commercial market and pay prevailing or minimum

wage is a program that is available to State facilities right now,

State correctional systems. It is called the Prison Industries Enhancement program, PIE program, and we believe that that would

help us to achieve the kinds of sales levels that we need.

The other area that would be helpful, as you referenced earlier,

is being able to make products that are currently being manufactured offshore and then brought back and sold in this country. If

we could have access to the commercial market for those kinds of

9

products also, we believe the combination of the two would significantly reduce our need for mandatory source.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, do you think it would be

beneficial for the Bureau of Prisons and for American companies if

Prison Industries were allowed to make products that are currently

made by foreign labor outside of the United States?

Ms. SAWYER. Yes, we certainly do, Mr. Chairman. We think that

is a wonderful opportunity for us because those jobs have already

left this country. We wouldn’t be harming the domestic labor market at all, but it would give good work to our inmates and develop

good work skills.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, on the issue of inmate telephone calls, it seems that one way to deter prisoner abuse of

phones is to provide tough, consistent punishment for inmates who

abuse their telephone privileges. What is the Bureau’s policy for

the discipline of these inmates?

Ms. SAWYER. We agree exactly with that point, Mr. Chairman,

and it was one of the issues raised by the Inspector General’s office

also. Our disciplinary response to inmates in the past had not been

as tough as we could make it, so we have made some significant

changes in that regard giving a lot more teeth to the disciplinary

action that will occur for those inmates who abuse our phone systems.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, are three-way calls a significant problem, and will the ITS–II telephone system help prohibit inmates from making three-way calls?

Ms. SAWYER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, three-way calls are very difficult for us, and unfortunately the ITS system in and of itself will

not resolve that problem for us. There is currently no technology

out there that can clearly identify and clearly eradicate three-way

calls. We continue to work with the technology experts in the field

of telecommunications and as soon as they land on anything that

is usable in terms of three-way calls, we will include that into the

ITS system. But currently there is nothing that is fail-safe that

would identify for us three-way calls.

Senator THURMOND. Director Sawyer, I believe that completes

the questions I had in mind. Do you have anything else you want

to say?

Ms. SAWYER. No, sir. Again, I just thank you for your support of

the Bureau of Prisons.

Senator THURMOND. Thank you again for your good work.

Ms. SAWYER. Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sawyer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN HAWK SAWYER

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to appear before

you today to discuss the operations of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Let me

begin by thanking you, Chairman Thurmond, Ranking Minority Member Senator

Schumer, and other members of the Subcommittee for your strong support of the

BOP. I look forward to continuing our work with you and the members of the Subcommittee.

The BOP continues to meet effectively our mission to protect society by confining

offenders in facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure,

and that provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders

in becoming law-abiding citizens. Through their dedication and outstanding conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
10

tributions, over 31,000 BOP staff manage over 140,000 inmates in 95 institutions

and contract confinement facilities throughout the country.

POPULATION GROWTH AND RESOURCES

During fiscal year 1999, the BOP experienced its second consecutive year of record

breaking inmate population increases. In fiscal year 1998, the population increased

by more than 10,000, and in fiscal year 1999, the increase was over 11,300. By fiscal

year 2007, we anticipate a Federal inmate population of approximately 205,000.

That is growth of nearly 50 percent over the current level.

Overcrowding in BOP facilities is 34 percent over capacity system wide. At medium and high security facilities overcrowding levels are at even more dangerous

proportions, 55 percent at medium security facilities and 51 percent at high security

facilities. We must reduce overcrowding at those facilities for the security of staff,

inmates, and the surrounding communities. With the resources Congress has already provided, we are making substantial progress with 22 new prisons funded.

However, we need to do more. In the fiscal year 2001 budget request we seek funding and advanced appropriations to fund 9 new prisons over the next three years.

Advanced appropriations, coupled with design-build contracting, will enable the

BOP to build the new facilities more quickly and at less cost.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC) FELONS

In addition to absorbing the rapidly increasing federal inmate population, the

BOP has begun assuming responsibility for sentenced felons from the District of Columbia (DC), as required by the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 (the ‘‘DC Revitalization Act’’). The BOP also continues to move forward on the Revitalization Act requirement to privatize confinement for at least 2,000 DC sentenced felons. Environmental and legal challenges

have delayed our efforts to transfer the inmates to privately operated prisons, but

we have accepted almost 2,300 DC sentenced felons from the DC Department of

Corrections facilities for placement into facilities operated by or under contract with

the BOP. Over 900 of these inmates are currently housed in a facility operated by

the Virginia Department of Corrections.

During fiscal year 2000, the BOP will accept on an on-going basis from the DC

Department of Corrections, minimum and low security male sentenced felons, female sentenced felons, and sentenced Youth Rehabilitation Act (YRA) offenders. The

inmates to be accepted include both new Superior Court commitments and those

confined in the DC Department of Corrections (or facilities under contract with the

Department of Corrections). We will continue to accept, on a case-by-case basis, special management cases, as well as inmates with chronic medical problems who can

be housed in the general population of a BOP minimum or low security facility. Further, despite severe overcrowding at our penitentiaries and medium security facilities, we have agreed to take up to five maximum custody inmates per month who

have shown by their behavior that they are incapable of functioning in an open inmate population. Also, contingent upon BOP capacity, transfer of additional mental

health/medical cases will be accomplished.

Absorbing the DC sentenced felons into the BOP presents an extraordinary challenge. BOP facilities are extremely overcrowded, and the new prison facilities being

constructed to absorb DC felons will not be ready until after the transfer deadline

of December 31, 2001. In the preliminary drafts of the Revitalization Act, the Lorton

closure date was 2003, consistent with BOP estimates for construction completion

of new facilities. However, when enacted, the date for closure was 2001, and thus

we are not in the best position to absorb these inmates. We are, nevertheless, committed to meeting the requirement of the act and receiving all inmates by the end

of 2001.

Finally, we continue to seek a modification to the 50 percent privatization requirement in the DC Revitalization Act. This charge is necessary because nearly twothirds of the D.C. Code sentenced felons are classified as medium and high security

under our classification system. Consequently, to meet the 50 percent requirement

in the Revitalization Act, the BOP would have to place more than 2,000 medium

and high security offenders in contract prisons. Consistent with the Administration’s

position that the private sector has not yet established a sufficient track record in

housing these offenders, the BOP believes it would present a significant risk to public safety if the higher security D.C. offenders were to be placed in privately operated prisons. Accordingly, we are seeking language to provide us with the same discretion that we have with other federal inmates to determine which D.C. felons can

appropriately be placed in private facilities, consistent with the safety of staff and

inmates and the surrounding community.

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INMATE PROGRAMS

The BOP takes its mission very seriously and is very committed to providing inmates with programs designed to help them make the most of their time in custody

and successfully reenter the community upon release. We provide a variety of correctional programs that further these objectives, including drug treatment, education, vocational and work skills training.

Residential drug abuse treatment

The BOP operates residential drug treatment programs for the nearly 30 percent

of the federal inmate population who have histories of substance abuse. Residential

programs (where inmates live in housing units devoted to drug treatment activities)

are the most significant component of the drug treatment process. Through our 44

residential drug abuse treatment programs we provide treatment to all eligible offenders with substantiated histories of moderate to serious drug abuse. Nearly

50,000 inmates have completed this program since 1990. An interim report from an

ongoing evaluation of BOP residential drug abuse treatment programs showed that

individuals who had been released to the community for a minimum of six months

after completing residential treatment were 73 percent less likely to be arrested for

a new offense and 44 percent less likely to test positive for drug use, as compared

to similar inmates who did not complete the program.

Education and vocational programs

Last year nearly 6,000 inmates completed their General Education Degree (GED)

and thousands of others completed a variety of additional education programs, as

well as vocational training programs. Through these programs, inmates gain knowledge and skills that help them become gainfully employed upon release and avoid

new criminal conduct. These programs have been shown by BOP research to significantly reduce recidivism. I will address the value of work skills programs in more

detail below in the context of Federal Prison Industries.

Life skills programs

In recent years the BOP has developed a host of new programs intended to assist

inmates make a better adjustment to prison life, to help those who had been involved with gangs adapt to independent functioning as inmates in prison and as citizens after release to the community, and help those inmates with deficiencies in life

skills improve their functions while being incarcerated and upon release. The programs are designed to bring about a significant increase in the quantity and quality

of interactions between staff and inmates. The goal of these interactions is to increase the likelihood that staff will have a positive influence over the inmates, as

well as a greater opportunity to prevent illicit inmate behavior. They also emphasize

the development of positive, pro-social values and behaviors that will enable inmates to manage better their lives in the institution and upon return to the community; all are designed to teach individual responsibility, respect for the law and authority, and pro-social coping and interacting skills.

We remain committed to self-improvement programs for inmates and their significance to our overall mission despite the substantial overcrowding and the additional

strain that it puts on our staff in providing programs.

FEDERAL PRISON INDUSTRIES

As I have testified on previous occasions, Federal Prison Industries (FPI) is the

BOP’s most important and cost-effective correctional program. FPI, which is entirely

self-sustaining and operates without any appropriated funds, provides an important

inmate program at no cost to the taxpayers. FPI’s mission is to: (1) employ, instill

good work habits in, and provide skills training to as many inmates as possible; (2)

contribute to the safety and security of federal prisons by keeping inmates constructively occupied; (3) produce market-priced, quality good for Federal Government customers; (4) operate in a self-sustaining manner; and (5) minimize its impact on private business and labor. FPI employs nearly 21,000 inmates, representing approximately 25 percent of the sentenced, medically eligible, federal inmate population. Inmates employed by FPI learn marketable job skills, develop a strong work ethic, and

are less likely to engage in prison misconduct.

In addition, inmate employment in FPI reduces recidivism and thereby increases

public safety. A comprehensive study conducted by the BOP demonstrated that FPI

is an important rehabilitation tool that provides inmates an opportunity to develop

work ethics and skills that can be used upon release from prison. Inmates employed

by FPI were found to be 24 percent more likely, upon release, to become employed

and remain crime-free for as long as 12 years after release.

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The FPI program also contributes significantly to the safety and security of the

BOP’s correctional facilities. FPI keeps inmates productively occupied and reduces

inmate idleness and the violence and other misconduct associated with it. In recent

years, FPI’s role as a correctional program has become even more important as the

inmate population and institution overcrowding have increased substantially. The

FPI programs are essential to the security of communities in which they are located,

the Federal Prison System, its staff, and inmates.

For many years now, some members of the business and organized labor communities have voiced strong concerns that the mandatory source preference gives FPI

an unfair competitive advantage in the federal market place. The debate has intensified in recent years as the number of inmates employed in FPI has increased with

a corresponding increase in output of goods and services. The increases are drive

by the past two decades bi-partisan federal criminal justice policy of putting more

people in prison for longer periods of time. There is now an ongoing dialogue between interested Members of Congress, FPI, private business, and organized labor

that we hope can achieve a solution that will simultaneously satisfy the legitimate

concerns and competing issues of all interested parties.

Should FPI now forgo its mandatory source status, as an offset for sales and inmate job assignments that would be lost as a result, the BOP clearly needs alternative opportunities in order to maintain current inmate employment levels in industries.

We believe there is broad-based consensus for several principles, which should

guide the development of these opportunities: • Private businesses should be allowed to compete for federal business. • Federal customers should have more discretion in procuring products. • EPI should operate in a manner that minimizes any adverse impact on domestic

companies and workers. • EPI should employ inmates and provide job skills training to provide for secure

prison management by reducing inmate idleness and to reduce recidivism by prisoners who are released to the community. • EPI should operate in a self-sustaining manner.

MEDICAL ISSUES

Chronic health care costs

The number of inmates over 50 years old confined in BOP facilities is gradually

increasing. While it is true that the aging inmate population has inordinate needs

for health care, we have found that younger inmates who have a history of high risk

behaviors are also prone to significant health concerns (e.g., HIV, hepatitis). Specifically, many of our elderly inmates have no significant health care needs, and are

appropriately housed based upon their security levels in our general population facilities. The bulk of our health care costs emanate from our Medical Referral Centers (essentially prison hospitals), which house some elderly offenders, but also

house large numbers of younger offenders suffering from chronic, debilitating diseases that result from the lifestyle as they have led.

Infectious disease

Large urban correctional systems, like the District of Columbia system, have consistently reported higher rates of drug use among their inmates, a behavior strongly

linked to blood borne pathogen infections, such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. For

example, studies of the felon population at the DC Jail have shown HIV infection

rates of 8–10 percent, while the prevalence of HIV infections in the BOP inmate

population has been steady at 1 percent over the past decade (based upon our random seroprevalence studies and clinical observations, we can estimate that our

seroconversion rate is extremely low). Accordingly, we expect that our health care

costs will rise as a result of absorbing the DC Code offenders, since treating HIVinfected inmates is very expensive; medical care averages $20,000 per year per HIVinfected inmate, compared to just over $3,200 per year per non-infected inmate.

General Accounting Office audit of BOP health care costs

From July, 1999 to February, 2000, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an audit of the BOP’s inmate health care costs. GAO found that inmate

health care costs rose from 1990 to 1996, but declined thereafter. In comparison, nationwide health care costs rose continuously from 1990 to 1998. They further noted

that several BOP health care cost-containment initiatives are beginning to produce

savings.

GAO also highlighted the BOP’s support for two legislative initiatives that could

improve inmate health by increasing efficiency and potentially reducing medical

costs, while maintaining the quality of inmate health care. First, H.R. 1349 and S.

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704 are companion bills that provide the BOP the authority to charge non-indigent

inmates a minimal copayment fee for health care visits. These bills seek to decrease

health care visits scheduled by inmates who do not have genuine medical concerns,

but sign up for ‘‘sick call’’ to avoid required activities (e.g., work assignments, education classes). The Department strongly supports these bills, and believes they

would provide a significant tool to assist BOP medical staff to more appropriately

spend time evaluating and treating inmates with legitimate medical needs. Additionally, we believe these bills would further our efforts to help inmates understand

the importance of personal responsibility.

A Medicare rate-based cap on payments to hospitals that treat federal inmates,

similar to that already granted to the Department of Defense and the Department

of Veterans Affairs, might produce substantial health care savings without decreasing the quality of health care inmates receive. Our analysis of a small sample of

BOP inmate health care billings to outside hospitals revealed that the Medicare rate

cap provision would have saved the BOP almost 50 percent of the total hospital bills

included in the sample.

INMATE TELEPHONE USE

From February, 1998 to August, 1999, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG)

conducted an audit of the BOP’s inmate telephone system (the results of the audit

were published in a report entitled ‘‘Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges’’). The report identified some significant problems that have occurred over the years with inmates abusing their

phone privileges. We have been working diligently to improve both the inmate telephone system and our monitoring to address the shortcomings in the program. The

systems in place today are significantly better than in past years. The systems and

operating procedures, and monitoring capabilities planned for the future are the

best available in the field of corrections, and I believe the BOP has repeatedly assumed a national leadership role in the development of inmate telephone monitoring

hardware, software, and investigative strategies.

The BOP recognizes the importance of inmates maintaining close family ties,

through visits, written correspondence, or telephone calls, in order to assist with

their successful reentry to society following release from prison. Unlike many smaller state correctional systems that generally house inmates relatively close to home,

the federal system must sometimes house inmates far from their families. As a result, social visits may occur less frequently, greatly increasing the importance of inmate telephone contact with family members. The BOP has provided inmates with

access to collect call telephones for many years, and as a matter of security we have

recorded all non-attorney calls and have randomly monitored non-attorney conversations. However, as our population has grown dramatically since the late-1980’s, our

traditional mechanisms to prevent inmate telephone abuses have been outpaced by

population growth. Therefore, we have had to turn to new and improved technologies to prevent abuses.

As part of our technological advancement, in the early 1990s the BOP began developing a new telephone system that would provide inmates with debit calling and

would enhance our monitoring capacity. While implementation of these technological

advances has been delayed by litigation and contracting difficulties, we are now

making substantial progress installing our most recent generation debit calling telephone system (ITS–II), and we hoe to have it installed in all federal prisons by November 2000. This new system will allow the BOP to significantly increase control

of every inmate’s calling privileges. The system can provide staff with numerous reports to assist in monitoring inmates and determine which inmates may be attempting to abuse telephone privileges. Additionally, the system links together all BOP

facilities for information sharing among staff about inmate phone usage, and makes

this information readily available to our headquarters.

In the OIG report, it was recommended that the BOP make changes in four broad

areas: increased telephone monitoring, increased discipline of telephone abusers,

proactive telephone restrictions for certain inmates, and detection and deterrence of

inmate use of telephones for criminal activity involving the community. We have

taken actions in all of these areas.

• We are revising training protocols and tracking systems to enhance proactive

monitoring of inmate telephone calls. This will allow us to increase surveillance of

inmates who are more likely to abuse the telephones and to better understand some

of their often coded conversations. We have established a target date of June 30,

2000, for implementation of this initiative.

• We are developing a national contract to install state-of-the-art recording equipment in our institutions, and we are reviewing the potential for use of technologies

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that enhance detection of three-way calling and other prohibited practices. We are

conducting a pilot test of new technology and anticipate completion and assessment

of the pilot data by December 31, 2000.

• On December 1, 1999, we modified our institution misconduct policy to reflect

new offense codes for engaging in coded conversations, with loss of telephone privileges as one of the available sanctions. However, prior to implementation of these

changes, our union (AFGE) notified us that, in accordance with the Master Agreement, they intend to negotiate this policy change. We are unable to provide a target

date at this time, but we are hopeful these changes can be implemented very soon.

• On January 5, 2000, the BOP implemented the recommendation to use the Security Threat Group (STG) ‘‘telephone abuse’’ category more frequently and set better standards for its use. This will allow BOP staff to increase and enhance overall

institution monitoring of targeted inmates.

• We have modified our inmate classification procedures to permit proactive restrictions upon inmate telephone privileges.

CONCLUSION

I am very proud of the BOP staff and the job they do each and every day. Despite

our record setting population growth, evidenced by the net increase of 1,800 new

inmates in the BOP last month alone, we see indications of our effective prison

management. For example, over the past 5 years we have had substantial decreases

in both inmate suicides and inmate misconduct, including assaults. However, such

successes cannot be expected to continue in the face of the dramatic population increases and record setting overcrowding we project will occur in the next several

years. Without the resources we have requested to bring additional bed space capacity on line, our record of service may be in jeopardy.

The BOP’s mission involves myriad program and policy issues; today I have

touched on just a few key topics. I’d like to thank you, Mr. Chairman. and Members

of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to provide an update on the operations of

the Bureau of Prisons. This concludes my prepared remarks, and I would be pleased

to answer any questions you may have.

Senator THURMOND. Our next witness is Richard Stana, Associate Director for Administration of Justice Issues at the General Accounting Office. Mr. Stana, who has

been with the GAO for 24 years, has a master’s degree from Kent State University.

He will present the findings of GAO regarding containing health care costs for an

increasing inmate population.

Our final witness is Glenn Fine, Director of the Special Investigations and Review

Unit of the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General. He has been with the

IG’s office for 5 years and received an undergraduate and a law degree from Harvard. He will discuss the IG report, Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges.

I would ask that you please limit your opening statements to no more than 5 minutes. Your written testimony will be placed in the record, without objection.

We will start with Mr. Stana.

PANEL CONSISTING OF RICHARD M. STANA, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ISSUES, GENERAL

GOVERNMENT DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC; AND GLENN A. FINE, DIRECTOR,

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS AND REVIEW UNIT, OFFICE OF

THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

WASHINGTON, DC

STATEMENT OF RICHARD M. STANA

Mr. STANA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here

today to discuss the results of our review which we did at your request of the Bureau of Prisons’ efforts to contain rising inmate

health care costs.

As you know, the inmate population in the Federal prison system

is growing at a dramatic rate. Over the last 3 years, roughly 1,000

inmates were added to the Federal prison population each month,

and BOP projects it will have almost 200,000 inmates by fiscal

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year-end 2006. That is about 50 percent more than it has today.

This population growth——

Senator THURMOND. Did you say 1,000 a month?

Mr. STANA. One thousand a month.

Senator THURMOND. Increase?

Mr. STANA. Yes, sir.

This population growth, along with the effect of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug-related crimes and the aging of the inmate population, has placed unprecedented demands on BOP’s

health care system. My prepared statement discusses in detail the

trends in BOP’s health care costs, the various initiatives BOP has

undertaken to address these trends, and some options for controlling rising costs.

In my oral statement, I would like to highlight two main points.

First, BOP’s overall health care costs are on the rise on an overall

basis. They increased by about 170 percent during the 1990’s. Population increases aside, the three major cost drivers are salaries of

BOP medical personnel, the cost of community hospital services,

and salaries and relocation expenses of Public Health Service personnel.

However, BOP health care costs look much differently when analyzed on a per-capita basis rather than an overall basis. Adjusted

for inflation, per-capita costs rose steadily, from about $3,000 in

1990 to a high of about $3,700 in fiscal year 1996, then decreased

these past 3 years to about $3,250 per inmate in fiscal 1999. In

contrast, the nation’s per-capita health care costs rose continuously

during the 1990’s, to about $4,140 per capita in 1999.

In part, this recent downward trend is a result of many cost containment initiatives that Director Sawyer mentioned in her statement. Among these are medical staffing restructuring, obtaining

discounts through quantity or bulk purchases, leveraging resources

through cooperative efforts with other Government entities, centrally pre-certifying inmates for surgery before they are sent to

community hospitals, using telemedicine, and even privatizing

services at selected facilities. Collectively, BOP reports that these

initiatives are saving millions of dollars each year.

My other point focuses on the next steps toward controlling

BOP’s health care costs. Two of these steps are embodied in legislative provisions. One provision would authorize the Director of BOP

to assess and collect a fee of not less than $2 for certain health care

visits requested by an inmate. CBO estimates this provision would

generate annual revenues of about $1 billion, but by law these revenues would go to the victims of crime and not to BOP. Rather

than being a revenue generator, the value to BOP is to reduce the

number of unnecessary medical visits and free up limited resources

for the inmates who need them the most.

The second legislative provision would allow BOP to emulate

Medicare’s prospective payment rates which vary with each hospital. These Medicare rates would become a cap to BOP’s payments

to community hospitals for services provided. This is significant because about one-fourth of BOP’s total health care costs are for contracted services with community hospitals. CBO estimates that this

provision would save BOP about $6 million annually. We believe

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that both legislative provisions would be helpful to BOP’s efforts to

control medical costs.

Another step is one BOP could take without legislative action.

Given its increasing reliance on community hospitals, BOP needs

to negotiate more cost-effective contracts. BOP’s South Central Region recently began using an innovative approach called

benchmarking to identify best value among competing proposed

contracts.

Specifically, the region required bidders to use a common or

standard benchmark rate—that is, the Medicare Federal rate—and

to separately show a proposed percentage markup or discount to

that benchmark rate. This not only makes it easier to compare

bids, but it also allows for more accurate payment for services rendered.

According to regional office contracting officials, if the

benchmarking approach were applied to all contracts in the South

Central Region, the estimated savings would be about $5.6 million

annually in this one region alone. We are recommending that BOP

take steps to test the benchmarking approach in other regions and,

if the test validates its cost-effectiveness, implement it BOP-wide.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my oral statement. I would be

happy to answer any questions you have.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Stana, your report shows that the Bureau of Prisons is saving money with its private contract with the

local medical university in Beaumont, Texas. Do you think it could

be beneficial in the future for the Bureau to look for partnerships

with other teaching medical centers as a way to control costs?

Mr. STANA. Well, there is a lot of merit in this proposal. They are saving about $4 per inmate per day on this contract, but I also

ought to say at the same time that it is not clear that this contract

and the costs that are connected with it would necessarily be able

to be duplicated in other locations, for a number of reasons.

The long-term care is passed on to BOP and the contractor himself has said that they could no longer do it for this amount of

money. So while the concept is a good one, I am not so sure that

the exact features of the Beaumont contract could be duplicated.

Senator THURMOND. Excuse me. I want Mr. Fine to make his

opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stana follows:]

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STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE

Mr. FINE. Mr. Chairman, Senator Sessions, thank you for inviting me to testify before the subcommittee about a special investigation conducted by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector

General regarding telephone abuse by Federal prison inmates.

My name is Glenn Fine and I am the Director of the Special Investigations and Review Unit, the unit of the Office of the Inspector General which conducts sensitive or complex investigations of

Department programs and personnel.

In August 1999, we issued a special report entitled ‘‘Criminal

Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate

Telephone Privileges.’’ This special investigation attempted to identify the scope of the problem of telephone abuse by Federal prison

inmates, look at the Bureau of Prisons’ response to that problem,

and offer recommendations to address the issue.

The review was conceived of and conducted by a team of OIG employees, led by an OIG attorney, Tamara Kessler, an OIG inspector, Adrian Flave, and an OIG investigator, Jeff Long. Our 122-

page report, which has been provided to the subcommittee and

which is available on our Web site, contains a detailed description

of our findings.

Because my written statement has been submitted and will be

admitted to the record, I will briefly try and describe our report,

the structure of our review, the major findings of our review, and

the recommendations that we made.

At the outset of the review, we attempted to determine the scope

of the problem. However, we quickly learned that the Bureau of

Prisons had little information on this issue. Neither BOP headquarters nor Bureau of Prisons facilities throughout the country

keep statistics on cases in which Federal prison inmates are accused of committing crimes from prison using telephones.

We therefore attempted to independently assess this problem by

sending out questionnaires to 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices, to the FBI,

and to the DEA asking them to identify prosecutions and investigations they had conducted involving Federal inmates’ use of telephones. We also surveyed BOP facilities and conducted site visits

of nine BOP facilities to interview the staff that was responsible for

monitoring inmate calls and to ask them about the pattern of inmate calls.

In addition, we examined some high-profile prosecutions of inmates who had been convicted of committing crimes using prison

telephones. We also interviewed one inmate, Rayful Edmond, a notorious drug dealer who had been convicted of drug trafficking both

outside prison and inside prison, to ask him about his experience

using the telephones.

What did we find? Well, our surveys, case examinations, document reviews and interviews painted a very troubling picture of the

scope and seriousness of the problem of Federal inmates using prison telephones to engage in criminal activity We believed that it

was a significant problem.

For example, responses to our survey to the U.S. attorneys’ offices revealed over 100 cases in which they had prosecuted Federal

inmates for committing crimes behind bars using prison telephones, and in approximately 10 of them there were murder cases,

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there were drug trafficking cases, there were fraud cases. We also

found additional investigations by the FBI and the DEA, and in

few of these cases was the criminal activity detected by the Bureau

of Prisons.

FBI agents and Federal prosecutors whom we interviewed also

told us that they believed that the BOP made insufficient effort to

target telephone calls and to refer the evidence of criminal conduct

for investigation. Many of the BOP monitors and employees we

talked to believed that a significant percentage of the calls made

by inmates were not for legitimate purposes, such as maintaining

ties to their family and community, but were for illegitimate purposes.

We also found that very few of the calls that were made were

monitored. Virtually every call made by a prison inmate is taped,

but less than 4 percent of them, only about 3.5 percent of them,

are ever listened to by Bureau of Prisons officers or monitors.

Another finding was that we found during our site visits that the

BOP staff that was responsible for monitoring telephone calls was

insufficiently trained, and that monitoring equipment often was not

working. We saw that some officers who were assigned the duties

of monitoring as collateral duties performed their duties in a perfunctory way and not sufficiently.

In our case studies, we saw many cases in which prison inmates

who had been convicted of using prison telephones to commit

crimes were not targeted even after they had been convicted for

monitoring and still enjoyed full telephone privileges, and that was

despite some calls and requests by prosecutors or judges to keep

track of these inmates. Rayful Edmond was one of them. He told

us that, in his experience, he used the telephones virtually every

day—he called on it all day long—to arrange drug deals outside of

prison; that he on 50 or 60 occasions used telephones to have drugs

introduced in prisons. He participated in telephone conference calls

to Colombia.

And, Senator Thurmond, that is Colombia, South America, you

will be glad to know, not Columbia, SC.

Senator THURMOND. I hope so.

Mr. FINE. He said he knew that most of his calls were not listened to and he didn’t fear that any restrictions would be placed

on him even if he were found out. He had little concern about that.

Based on our review, we made recommendations to deal with

this issue in four areas. First, we said and we recommended that

the BOP should increase the percentage of inmate telephone calls

it monitors if it expects to make any headway in the problem of inmate telephone abuse.

Second, we believe that the BOP should more consistently discipline telephone abusers. Third, the BOP should restrict and target telephone privileges proactively for those inmates who have a

history of telephone abuse or a likelihood of telephone abuse. And,

fourth, the BOP should emphasize the responsibility of its officers

to detect and deter crimes by inmates using telephones.

In response to our report, the BOP has acknowledged its shortcomings and has stated that it is working diligently to improve its

monitoring program. The Director told you that, and we have seen

a response by them. However, to determine whether the changes

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in the BOP procedures have been effective to adequately address

these issues, we plan to conduct a 1-year-after review, approximately 1 year after we completed our initial report, to review the

Bureau of Prisons procedures and the changes that it made to determine whether they are effective in protecting the public and to

correcting inmate telephone abuse.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and Senator Sessions, permitting

inmates access to prison telephones and protecting the public

against crimes facilitated through the use of prison telephones

present a complex balancing of interests. The BOP has told us that

its main mission of its monitoring program was to detect internal

activity that could undermine the security of its institutions. It has

also told us that it wants to allow prison telephone calls to promote

ties to the family and community of the inmates. Those are both

critical and legitimate objectives.

We also believe, however, that it is critical that the BOP focus

on preventing inmates from using prison telephones to commit

crimes outside of prison that affect those outside the institution as

well. We believe that the BOP should aggressively implement

changes such as the ones we recommended to address the serious

problem of inmate telephone abuse.

That concludes my oral testimony and I would be glad to answer

any questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fine follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE

Mr. Chairman, Senator Schumer, and Members of the Subcommittee on Criminal

Justice Oversight:

I. INTRODUCTION

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss the

work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with respect to our oversight of

the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Specifically, I appear before this panel today

to discuss a special investigation conducted by the OIG and issued in August 1999

entitled, ‘‘Criminal Calls: A Review of The Bureau of Prisons’ Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges.’’ This special review sought to identify the scope of the

problem of telephone abuse by BOP inmates, assess the BOP’s response to the problem, and offer recommendations to address this serious issue.

Telephone privileges for BOP inmates have increased dramatically since the

1970s when inmates were permitted one telephone call every three months and that

call was placed by BOP staff. Now, most BOP inmates are allowed to make as many

telephone calls as they are able to pay for or as many collect calls as people outside

prison will accept. The BOP provides inmates access to telephones on the grounds

that it furthers important correctional objectives, such as maintaining inmates’ ties

to their families. However, BOP’s responsibilities extend beyond those objectives.

Permitting inmates virtually unlimited access to telephones comes at the cost of allowing inmates the ability to commit serious criminal activity using prison telephones. Often those crimes extend beyond the prison. Even though the BOP records

all inmate calls, except prearranged calls between inmates and their attorneys, we

found that the BOP listens to few such calls—approximately 3.5 percent of the tens

of thousands of calls made daily by federal inmates.

Our review found that federal inmates using prison telephones to commit serious

crimes while incarcerated—including murder, drug trafficking, and fraud—is a significant problem. Although the BOP has been aware of the problem for many years,

we concluded that it had taken insufficient steps to address the abuse of prison telephones by inmates. The BOP failed to respond adequately, partly because of the fear

of litigation if it made changes to inmate telephone privileges, partly because of its

misplaced reliance that new technology will provide solutions, and partly because

of its apparent belief that inmates primarily use the telephone to maintain family

relationships and community ties.

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We concluded that the BOP needs to squarely address what appears to be significant inmate abuse of prison telephones and take immediate and meaningful actions

to correct the problem. Technology alone will not solve the problem of inmate telephone abuse without aggressive intervention by BOP officials. We believe that unless the BOP places some meaningful restrictions on inmate telephone privileges,

steps up its monitoring of inmate calls, disciplines telephone abuses more consistently, and devotes more effort to detecting and deterring prison telephone abuse, the

significant problem of inmates using prison telephones to commit crimes will persist.

II. THE OIG REVIEW

At the outset of our review, we attempted to determine the scope of the problem

of inmates’ abuse of prison telephones. However, we learned that the BOP had a

paucity of information on this issue. Neither BOP headquarters in Washington,

D.C., nor BOP facilities across the country keep statistics of cases in which inmates

are accused of committing crimes from prison using the telephone. Although the

BOP maintains statistics on violations of prison regulations, this data is not sufficiently specific to identify which cases involve the use of telephones. Several BOP

officials acknowledged to us that their limited statistics do not represent the overall

number of telephone violations because many violations are resolved informally or

not pursued administratively when criminal charges are brought.

Given the limited information available from the BOP, we attempted to independently identify the scope of inmate telephone abuse through a questionnaire we sent

to all 94 United States Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs). In the questionnaire, we asked

the USAOs to identify any cases they prosecuted involving crimes committed by inmates using telephones in BOP facilities. We sent a similar questionnaire to the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

headquarters, for distribution to all FBI and DEA field offices, asking them to identify investigations they conducted involving federal inmates’ use of prison telephones

to commit crimes. In response to our requests, we received information from 72

USAOs, 16 FBI field offices, and 11 DEA field offices. Because these organizations

do not index cases according to whether they took place in prison or involved the

use of telephones, their responses to our questionnaires were based on the recollection of the people who filled them out rather than on any comprehensive statistical

review, and they undoubtedly do not represent the total universe of such cases.

We also sent a questionnaire to the 66 BOP facilities that use the Inmate Telephone System (ITS), a telephone system employed by the BOP that can store and

analyze data about inmate telephone calls better than the older telephone system

used in 27 other BOP facilities. In this survey, we sought information about the volume of inmate calls and each institution’s monitoring practices, staffing, equipment,

and other policies related to the detection of telephone abuse by inmates.

We also visited nine BOP facilities to interview staff responsible for the institution’s security and inmate telephone monitoring operations. These nine facilities

represent institutions with different security levels and different physical layouts,

two factors that affect the methods of monitoring the use of prison telephones. We

visited four penitentiaries, three medium-security facilities, and two low-security institutions.

In addition, we examined prosecutions of several high-profile inmates who were

convicted of committing crimes from inside a BOP facility. We looked at these cases

to determine what steps, if any, the BOP had taken to prevent these inmates from

using the telephones to continue their criminal activities while they were incarcerated. We also interviewed one of these inmates, Rayful Edmond III, about his experience using prison telephones to commit crimes.

In total, we interviewed more than 70 BOP employees and approximately 20 other

persons in the Department of Justice. We examined numerous documents, including

BOP program statements on inmate telephone usage, the case law on inmate rights

to telephone access, and the litigation and settlement agreement in a large class action lawsuit brought by inmates against BOP regarding the telephone system.

III. FINDINGS

Our interviews, case examinations, data collection, and document review paint a

troubling picture of the scope and seriousness of inmate use of prison telephones to

engage in criminal activity. Our 122-page report, which has been provided to the

Subcommittee and which is also available on the OIG’s website at ‘‘www.usdoj.gov/

oig,’’ contains a detailed description of our findings. For purpose of this statement,

I will summarize our major findings.

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We determined that inmate abuse of prison telephones appears to be significant.

For example, responses to our survey to the USAOs revealed more than 100 cases

recently prosecuted by those offices involving inmates’ use of prison telephones to

commit criminal acts. Eleven of these cases involved prosecutions for murder or attempted murder arranged by inmates over prison telephones. In one case, an inmate

used prison telephones to attempt to arrange the murder of two witnesses and a

judge and to pay for the execution with illegal firearms. One inmate directed a

fraudulent employment matching service scheme using prison telephones that involved approximately $1.6 million. Another inmate used prison telephones to swindle trucking companies out of more than $100,000.

The FBI field offices that responded to our questionnaire reported that they conducted 44 investigations between 1996 and 1998 involving prison inmates using

telephones to commit crimes. The DEA reported investigating 12 cases at BOP facilities in the recent past in which federal inmates had used prison telephones to

commit crimes. In none of the DEA cases was the criminal activity detected by the

BOP.

FBI agents who handled many cases of prison crimes told us that they believed

that the BOP makes little effort to target inmate telephone calls and to refer evidence of criminal conduct to the FBI for investigation. Similarly, a federal prosecutor from the Los Angeles USAO, who works mostly on prosecutions involving

crime in prisons, said that the prison telephones to commit crimes is rarely detected

by the BOP.

Rayful Edmond, a notorious Washington D.C. drug dealer who used prison telephones at USP Lewisburg to run an international drug organization, told the OIG

that he talked on the telephone ‘‘all day long’’ and made arrangements for drug

deals on the telephone almost every day, including participating in conference calls

to Columbia. He estimated that he arranged to have drugs brought into prison 50

or 60 times. He claimed that almost half of Lewisburg inmates were involved in

bringing drugs into the institution and that most of these drug deals were arranged

over prison telephones. Edmond said that he has little concern about conducting

drug deals using prison telephones because he knew that most calls were not being

monitored. He said he also believed that even if he were caught abusing his telephones privileges, at worst he would receive a light punishment or a restriction of

his privileges for a short period of time.

Our survey determined that most inmate calls from prison are never listened to

by BOP employees. Only 3.5 percent of the tens of thousands of calls made every

day from BOP facilities were monitored. Our survey also found that even though

inmate telephones were available an average of 18 hours per day, the institutions

had staff assigned to listen to telephone calls an average of only 14 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on weekends. Our survey also indicated that 16 of the 66 BOP

institutions using ITS assign staff to listen to inmate telephone calls less than 50

percent of the time that the telephones are operational. While all calls are recorded

and can be listened to later, we found that this occurred rarely.

Some inmates use prison telephones excessively. Fifteen inmates at the nine institutions we visited spent more than 66 hours each on the telephone during a onemonth period. This equates to more than two hours per day, on average, that these

inmates spent talking on the telephone. However, none of the institutions had done

anything about this excessive telephone use or was even aware of it.

During our visits to the nine institutions, we also found that the BOP staff responsible for monitoring inmate telephone calls were not sufficiently trained on the

telephone monitoring equipment or monitoring procedures. For example, we did not

talk to any telephone monitor who had received anything other than on-the-job

training. We found no BOP telephone monitors who had received formal instruction

on the best way to monitor inmate telephone calls; how to recognize suspicious activities or coded inmate language; which inmates should be monitored; or how to

detect three-way calls, which are prohibited under BOP regulations. We also found

that many BOP facilities make little or no effort to monitor telephone use by highrisk inmates. In addition, we saw that some correctional officers who are assigned

collateral duties of monitoring inmate calls do so in a perfunctory way, often monitoring fewer calls than they are required by their post orders. During our site visits,

we also saw that some of the equipment used to monitor calls was broken and no

one had placed an order for it to be repaired.

In addition to our surveys and site visits, we examined several high-profile prosecutions of inmates who were convicted of conducting their crimes from inside a

BOP facility. We looked at their cases to determine the response of the BOP in each

case and what, if anything, it could have done differently to detect the criminal activity. These cases provided stark examples of the BOP’s failure to adequately monVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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itor inmate telephone use. In addition to the case of Rayful Edmond, we reviewed

the following cases:

• Anthony Jones, a drug dealer in Baltimore, MD, was convicted of being a felon

in possession of a firearm and was incarcerated at a BOP facility in Allenwood, PA.

While incarcerated, Jones became aware of an ongoing grand jury investigation into

his drug activities and used prison telephones to order his associates outside prison

to murder two witnesses he suspected had testified against him. One of the witnesses was killed and the other was shot several times. As a result, in May 1998

Jones was convicted of murder and attempted murder, and he received a sentence

of life imprisonment without parole. Yet, even after these convictions, Jones retained full telephone privileges and the BOP failed to take any measures to monitor

his telephone calls. Only after the OIG questioned the BOP about Jones’ telephone

access in connection with this review did the BOP move to restrict his telephone

privileges in July 1998.

• Jose Naranjo was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1979. While

serving a 12-year sentence in Otisville, NY, he used the prison telephones to participate in a conspiracy to import cocaine from Colombia, South America to North Carolina. Even after his conviction for that crime, he continued to enjoy full telephone

privileges. After being transferred to Petersburg, VA, he engaged in other conspiracies to distribute cocaine, and in 1995 was again convicted of drug distribution offenses that he had committed using prison telephones. After Naranjo’s sentencing,

the federal prosecutor wrote to the BOP to urge it to prohibit Naranjo from using

prison telephones. However, during our review in 1998, we were surprised to learn

that Naranjo’s telephone privileges had been restored and that the BOP was making

no special effort to monitor his calls.

• Oreste Abbamonte was convicted of using prison telephones at Lewisburg, PA,

to orchestrate the distribution of multiple kilograms of heroin. After this conviction,

federal prosecutors wrote a letter to the BOP stating that Abbamonte’s access to

prison telephones had enabled him to commit drug crimes while incarcerated. When

Abbamonte was sentenced, the court specifically recommended that he be confined

to the BOP’s highest security facility with limited telephone privileges.

Despite these recommendations, the BOP placed no restrictions on Abbamonte’s

telephone use, and his drug trafficking using prison telephones continued. While in

a BOP facility in Leavenworth, KS, Abbamonte again used prison telephones to conspire to purchase cocaine, and he was convicted in 1992 for this offense. When we

reviewed Abbamonte’s BOP files in 1998, we were again surprised to find that his

telephone privileges were not limited in any way despite the prosecutor’s letter, the

court’s specific request, and his repeated use of the prison telephones to commit

crimes.

Several BOP officials told us they believed that a new generation of telephone

equipment planned for installation in all BOP institutions during the next two years

will detect many cases of inmate telephone abuse. However, no new technology—

including ITS II, the BOP’s new inmate telephone system—will solve the problem

of inmate telephone abuse without aggressive intervention by BOP officials. Implementation of a new inmate telephone system is not the ‘‘cure all’’ that some BOP

officials apparently are counting on. In fact, given the lack of understanding and

failure to use some of the security features that already exist in the BOP telephone

system, the new system could have little impact on BOP’s efforts to detect telephone

abuse by inmates unless the BOP makes a more sustained effort to use the new

technology aggressively to detect and deter telephone abuse.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on our review, we recommended that the BOP take steps to curb prison

telephone abuse in four ways. First, the BOP must increase the percentage of inmate telephone calls it monitors if it expects to make any headway on the problem

of inmate telephone abuse. While additional resources will be helpful in this regard,

because of the high volume of inmate calls the only realistic solution is to reduce

the number of calls so that BOP staff assigned to this task can monitor a greater

percentage of calls. Towards this end, we made various recommendations, including

that the BOP impose limits on all inmates’ telephone privileges, set a significantly

higher goal for monitoring inmate calls and then calculate the resources needed to

meet this goal, have telephone monitors on duty at all times that prison telephones

are available to inmates, do a better job identifying inmates with a high probability

of abusing their telephone privileges, and institute a plan to monitor these inmates’

calls proactively.

Second, the BOP must increase and more consistently discipline telephone abusers. During our review, we found various cases in which inmates retained full teleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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phone privileges even after they were convicted of a crime involving use of prison

telephones. We recommend that the BOP develop and enforce policies to ensure that

administrative action is quickly taken against inmates who abuse their telephone

privileges, particularly those inmates convicted of crimes stemming from their use

of prison telephones. The BOP also should develop and implement policies that

mandate restriction of telephone privileges as the preferred sanction for inmate telephone abuse. Subsequent violations of BOP telephone policies should result in increased sanctions that include loss of all telephone privileges. Inmates who commit

crimes using prison telephones also should have their privileges revoked.

Third, the BOP should restrict telephone privileges proactively for inmates who

have a history of telephone abuse or a likelihood of abuse. This would mean that

some inmates simply would not have telephone privileges because of their previous

behavior using the telephones in prison. As an additional safeguard to deter potential criminal conduct, the Department of Justice should educate prosecutors about

the availability of court orders restricting an inmate’s telephone privileges in racketeering and drug cases. The Department also should consider seeking legislation to

permit similar court orders in all cases in which the government can make a showing that the defendant should not be entitled to telephone privileges because of a

prior history of telephone abuse.

Moreover, the Department should emphasize to USAOs the need to inform BOP

of inmates who pose special risks of committing serious crimes while incarcerated,

as outlined in a letter from the Attorney General on May 7, 1998. As of the fall of

1998, the BOP had received only two such notifications. These notifications are critical because they fill gaps in BOPs’ knowledge about the inmates’ history and put

the BOP on notice of the risk posed by certain inmates. In light of the BOP’s failure

to properly monitor high-risk inmates after either court order or notice from prosecutors, we recommend that a reporting system be established to assure USAOs

that the BOP has taken proper measures after such a notification.

Fourth, the BOP should emphasize the responsibility of its officers to detect and

deter crimes by inmates using BOP phones. Our review found that Special Investigator Supervisor (SIS) officers at BOP institutions spend far too little time detecting

and deterring criminal conduct committed by inmates using prison telephones. The

SIS’s mission should be expanded to include a more substantial focus on the detection of crimes by inmates in BOP custody. This could be accomplished through additional training for SIS staff, greater communication between the SIS and other law

enforcement agencies, and better intelligence-gathering on inmates. In addition, the

BOP should revise its procedures to require SIS staff to ensure that the numbers

listed on an inmate’s telephone calling list are investigated prior to approval of

those lists, especially with high-risk inmates.

V. OIG FOLLOW-UP REVIEW

In response to our report, the BOP acknowledged the shortcomings of its telephone monitoring efforts and stated that it has been working diligently to improve

its monitoring program. However, the BOP contested whether there was widespread

abuse of prison telephones by inmates, arguing that the 100-plus cases of inmates

recently prosecuted for telephone abuse cited in the OIG report were only a small

percentage of the total number of inmates in BOP custody. We found this argument

unconvincing. Our surveys identified serious cases of criminal activities. In addition,

our interviews of BOP correctional officers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors,

and Rayful Edmond, as well as our case studies of how the BOP failed to monitor

the telephone calls of inmates who had been convicted of committing serious crimes

with prison telephones, indicate that the problem is significant. Moreover, we believe that the absence of reported cases is attributable, in large measure, to the fact

that the BOP does not monitor prison calls adequately and does not even compile

statistics on prison telephone abuse. As a result, the reported cases we collected in

our survey appear to be, as one FBI agent who investigated such cases phrased it,

‘‘the tip of the iceberg.’’

In its response the BOP concurred with many of the reform recommendations we

made, including imposing limits on telephone privileges. It disagreed with several

of the recommendations, however, such as whether the BOP should monitor a higher percentage of inmate calls, whether there should be a telephone monitor on duty

at all times prison telephones are available to inmates, or whether SIS officers

should focus more of their attention on the detection of crimes by inmates in BOP

custody.

To determine whether the BOP’s procedures and proposed changes in response to

our report adequately address these issues, the OIG plans to conduct a ‘‘year-later’’

follow-up review of the BOP’s management of inmate telephone privileges. We inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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tend to use a variety of techniques, including surveys, interviews, site visits, data

analysis, and document review, to assess whether BOP has made improvements in

its efforts to curb inmates’ abuse of telephone privileges.

In conclusion, permitting inmates access to prison telephones and protecting the

public against crimes facilitated through use of prison telephones present a complex

balancing of interests. Our review highlighted the serious nature of inmate abuse

of prison telephones, including murders and drug deals arranged using BOP telephones. Our review also led us to conclude that the current inmate call monitoring

system is ineffective. Our interviews of telephone monitors left us with the impression that they are overwhelmed and not adequately trained. The low number of

crimes or administrative violations detected and the high number of crimes likely

being committed should indicate to the BOP that major changes are needed. We believe that, in light of our report, the BOP should aggressively implement changes

to address the serious problem of inmate telephone abuse.

Senator THURMOND. Senator Sessions.

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Well, on the telephones, do the Federal prisons themselves make

a profit by selling the phone to a private contractor, and do they

have an incentive to allow more calls to be made? That was true

in Alabama prisons, I know, and actually they were paying for it

because the prisoners had to call collect to their mama or their

wife, who didn’t have the money to pay for the calls. But they

couldn’t turn them down when they called collect and ended up

with big fees, higher than normal telephone fees, and the contractors and the prison both were making money off of the deal.

Mr. FINE. Senator Sessions, in this case the contractor and the

Bureau of Prisons do get a share of the profits that are made from

inmate telephone calls. I think the problems in the State institutions that I have read about are significantly different in that there

are exorbitant rates charged to inmates using the telephones.

In the Bureau of Prisons, the rates that are charged are approximately 15 to 31 cents for debit calls. For local calls, it is 50 cents,

a flat fee, and for collect calls it is the standard collect charge,

whatever that may be. A portion of the profits go to the contractor

and a significant portion of the profits do go to the Bureau of Prisons.

Senator SESSIONS. So the more calls that are made, the more

they make. What do they use that for the coffee fund or——

Mr. FINE. Well, they use that for the inmate trust fund. There

is currently an issue whether they can use that money to monitor

telephone calls. The money that is used has to go in the inmate

trust fund for the benefit of the inmates, and there is an open question whether that could be applied to monitoring efforts. We believe

that it should be, and there may be sort of a need for clarifying legislation to make it clear to the Bureau of Prisons that they can use

that money to more proactively and aggressively monitor the inmates’ calls.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, several of the former public officials or

public officials who were involved in this are now themselves in the

bastille in Alabama for these manipulations of telephone toll calls.

And I thought it was really bad. Some of that investigation began

when I was attorney general.

Do you think that the fact that the prison makes some money

out of it could cause them to be less aggressive in containing the

calls?

Mr. FINE. Well, that is a possibility.

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Senator SESSIONS. Well, you know, I guess that is the answer.

My next question is did you have any occasion to examine the nature of these contracts to make an opinion about the wisdom of

those contracts? I thought they were rather bizarre because there

was big money being made. Once they set the system up, the owners sit back in their homes and the money just comes in. Every

time some prisoner calls their mother collect, the chink goes into

that cash register of the businessman, and I wonder why the Federal prison system couldn’t run that itself, or get the major phone

companies to do it.

Mr. FINE. We did not examine the contracts and the arrangements that had been made between the Bureau of Prisons and the

telephone companies. What we were mostly focusing on in this was

their efforts to monitor and prevent criminal calls from behind

bars. We found a significant problem there. But you raise a serious

issue; there is not question about that.

Senator SESSIONS. And is it basically done on a collect call basis?

Mr. FINE. No. It is on a debit basis in most institutions, with the

option of having collect calls. They can make debit calls. They get

a phone access code and if they have money in their commissary

account, they can use that phone access code to make a direct debit

call. If they don’t have sufficient money in their commissary account, they can use the phones to make collect calls to their families.

Senator SESSIONS. One hundred seventeen prosecutions is significant of people in prison abusing the phones. One of the great prosecutors I have ever known, Broward Segrist, in Montgomery, years

ago prosecuted some 30 prisoners who were using the prison

phones to conduct fraud, and I remember him telling me, they said,

well, you know, it is just worthless; a lot of these guys got 20 years

in jail. We have got a trial, it will be a holiday for them. They get

another year and there is nothing you can do to them. But he said

he felt so strongly about it that it was wrong that he was not going

to turn away and listen to the prison people and the experts who

said they shouldn’t be prosecuted.

I would assume, based on my personal experience, that a lot of

cases of significance have not been prosecuted for that very reason,

and actually gone to trial and been convicted because the U.S. attorney’s office has a lot of demands on it. It is going to prosecute

a $1,000 fraud when the guy has already got 10 more years to

serve in jail, and he might escape during the prosecution. So it is

a burdensome thing to prosecute. So, that indicates to me that you

have a bigger problem than a lot of people would suggest.

Have you seen any computer fraud? Has there been any access

by prisoners to computers in a way that has led to fraudulent activity?

Mr. FINE. No, not in this survey. What we did was we surveyed

the U.S. attorneys’ offices, and they did not have—everyone did not

have indexes of these cases and records of these cases. What it

really was was whoever got our survey from memory remembering

the cases that involved prison telephones.

So I agree with you. We believe that those numbers were the tip

of the iceberg, and the fact that there were that many prosecutions

indicates that there is much, much more criminality going on beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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hind bars and only some of them get prosecuted. Of the cases that

we were referred, I don’t believe there were any computer frauds

that were noted in response to our survey.

Senator SESSIONS. I had a neighbor in Mobile, AL, that talked

to me about receiving—two people I knew in town received a call

saying their child had been either in an accident or arrested, and

that this person had been asked to call on their behalf and they

needed to fax so much money to this address. And these people

were terrified. They didn’t know whether their child had been injured or had been arrested. Eventually, it turned out to be a prison

call scam.

Is that the kind of thing we are talking about?

Mr. FINE. That is the kind of thing we are talking about. We are

talking about those kinds of frauds where prisoners have virtually

unlimited access to the phone and can commit these fraudulent

schemes. We saw one case, for example, where there was a prisoner behind bars in Federal custody who committed a fraud by

claiming he was a headhunter, claiming there was an employment

matching service. Send me some money and I will get you a job.

The person who sent the money had no idea that they were sending money to a prisoner behind bars. That is the kind of thing that

can happen, and the thing that you just described as well.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, many of these are quite devious and

sociopathic, and it is why we have controls on the use of their

phones.

Do you uncover any need for legislation, or did you think for the

most part the problems could be solved by regulations within the

prison?

Mr. FINE. We believe for the most part the problem can be solved

by the Bureau of Prisons by aggressively intervening, by aggressively using the technology that they have and monitoring inmate

calls more aggressively, by restricting the number of calls to a reasonable level. We saw some cases where there was an absolutely

incredible amount of telephone calls being made by single prisoners

that the Bureau of Prisons was not aware of or was not even doing

anything about. So the tools are in place.

There is a little bit of legislation that we suggested around the

edges; one, for example, making it clear that the Bureau of Prisons

can use the profits from the telephone system to monitor telephone

calls, that that is part of the overall system, and that that would

be used for the benefit of the inmates; that is, providing a secure

system could use that money.

In addition, judges can restrict privileges for inmates if it is a

drug offense or a racketeering offense, and we looked into and recommended that there be some consideration of expanding the types

of crimes where judges can actively restrict the privileges of inmates. But in response to your question, by and large the tools are

there and we have recommended that the Bureau of Prisons aggressively use those tools.

Senator SESSIONS. I would think they ought to look at the whole

idea of this contracting out this phone business. I am not sure that

is healthy. Maybe in the early days, only a few people knew how

to put a system in like that that could work to do the collect calls

or however they managed it. But I think we are probably beyond

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that now. Mainstream companies probably could do it, and it provides an opportunity to create a cash cow for a contractor who really is not doing any work. Once he gets the system set up, it just

basically runs itself and the money clinks in every week.

Mr. Chairman, I did want to ask a little later some questions

about health care issues, but I have taken too much time. I apologize.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Stana, do you believe that the benchmark contracting initiative and a cap on hospital charges at Medicare rates has the potential to significantly help contain costs?

Mr. STANA. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. The initiatives that are currently being implemented by the Bureau of Prisons have been very

helpful, but they can only go so far. They have gotten the Bureau

down to the levels they are from 3 years ago, but there is going

to be a sort of a diminishing return to how much more you can expect from those initiatives.

Now, what you get with a Medicare cap is you have the hospitals

using a system that they fully understand. It is the Federal system. There are predetermined rates that are set by HCFA, with a

little bit of room that would be made in the legislative proposal for

any other special needs brought about by taking care of inmates.

And you would know exactly what you had. You would have more

of a basis for confidence that you are getting one of the best values

for the money.

With the benchmark, you have something completely different.

What you have with the benchmark rate is not using the Medicare

care, per se. You are using the Federal Medicare rate, which is the

base rate before each individual hospital gets to add their own circumstances and cost features into that rate, and this is significant.

Of the five hospitals in the El Paso area, for example, there was

a 40-percent difference in the Medicare rate among the hospitals

for the same procedure. So by using the benchmark rate, what you

are telling the hospitals is this is the rate I want you to benchmark

your bid at; let me know the percentage above that rate or below

that rate you are going to bid at. Now, both of these rates could

be complementary, with the Medicare cap being at the upper end

and the benchmark rate being something perhaps below that, so

that they could work in tandem.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Stana, what do you predict will be the

primary health care cost issues that the BOP will face in the future?

Mr. STANA. Well, I think there are many issues that they face

in the future, but I would boil it down to three. The first one is

contracts. Right now, about a third of their costs are made through

contracting, and they need to have the confidence that they are getting the best possible contracts. And we think the Medicare cap

and the benchmarking procedure would go a long way to making

sure that they are getting the smart contracting procedures.

The second thing is caring for special-needs populations. Director

Sawyer mentioned the problem of the aging inmate population. In

fact, I just last week visited two Federal medical centers in Fort

Worth, TX, Carswell for women and Fort Worth for men, and what

I saw is a number of elderly inmates who are not really appropriately placed in the general population, but being that there is

73

no intermediary care, were placed in the Federal medical center,

taking up a hospital bed, which is very expensive care.

Right now, I believe the Bureau estimates that they have virtually enough inmates, or will very soon, to open a separate facility

that would, in essence, be nursing care. And this is a challenge

that is going to exacerbate as the aging of the population proceeds.

The third thing is pharmaceuticals. They spend a lot of money

on psychotropic drugs for mentally ill inmates, cocktails for HIV inmates. For example, the normal prisoner’s health care cost is about

$3,250. For an AIDS patient, it is about $20,000, and the hepatitis

drugs the same thing.

Senator SESSIONS. Twenty thousand for whom?

Mr. STANA. Twenty thousand for an AIDS patient.

Senator SESSIONS. And $3,500 for—— Mr. STANA. And $3,250 for the average BOP inmate health care

cost.

For hepatitis C, it is $14,000 for medications there, and care, for

an average hepatitis patient. Again, the average for BOP-wide is

$3,250.

Senator SESSIONS. A year?

Mr. STANA. A year.

As times goes on, as you get more and more AIDS patients and

hepatitis C, which they are just beginning to test for, and mentally

ill inmates in the system, health care costs are going to go up, and

we need to be sure that we can get on top of these issues.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Stana, the Bureau of Prisons is faced

with a sharply rising prison population which increases Government expenses in all areas, including health care costs. In this time

of growth, is it important for the BOP to make cost containment

measures a top priority not only in the medical care area but other

areas as well?

Mr. STANA. It is critical that they have cost containment strategies for all areas of their operations. In the early 1990’s, we did a

number of reports dealing with the construction program and the

population management programs that the Bureau had at that

time, and that is when we were dealing with a population base of

about 50 to 60,000 inmates. As you know, we are more than double

that today.

I would think that they would focus their cost containment areas

in a handful of areas where there may be some payback. One is reexamining the design capacities, how they are designing their prisons to enable the use of double-bunking where appropriate instead

of having each inmate have a separate cell. Of course, you can’t do

that at the more advanced security levels, but at the mediums and

below, you may be able to take advantage of that in a greater way.

The second thing is construction costs. When we compared construction costs of the Federal prisons to State and local prisons a

number of years ago, we found that the Federal prisons were far

more expensive. In part, that is because they build a more substantial building, but in part they didn’t take advantage of common use

areas and they gave each inmate, on average, more square footage.

Another area that we would like to reexamine sometime is their

use of halfway houses. We found a lot of excess capacity going unused in the halfway house system, when there were inmates that

74

could be appropriately placed there and they could be housed there

at much less expense.

Finally, privatization. Of course, we have the Taft experiment

going now and we don’t know how that is faring yet. There is not

enough experience there, but I think we ought to look to the private sector to do more and more just as they are doing in the

health care system.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, what steps has the Bureau taken

in response to your IG report to make inmate abuses of phone

privileges more of a priority?

Mr. FINE. We have been generally pleased with their response.

They have acknowledged the shortcomings and have stated they

have diligently attempted to address the issue. They are implementing the new inmate telephone system, the new technology, at

many different institutions. They have told us that they have entered many more inmates in categories of inmate telephone abuse,

and that they will look at them more targeted and more

proactively.

They have sent out a monitoring guide to the officers and the investigators in the field. They have made the use of coded language

in telephone calls a more severe disciplinary offense. They are attempting to increase the discipline levels for some of the offenses.

So they have told us they have taken significant steps to address

the problem of inmate telephone abuse.

What we intend to do, however, is, as I stated before, go back in

a year after our report to see whether those policy changes and

procedural changes have had an effect. In the past, we have seen

a disconnect to some extent from the policies that are at the headquarters level to what we saw in the field, and we think it is important that those policies are implemented throughout the Bureau

of Prisons so that they will have the intended effect.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, at the time of your report inmates

were provided almost unlimited telephone privileges. What restrictions on inmate telephone calls do you think are appropriate?

Mr. FINE. Well, we know that the Bureau of Prisons had a wardens’ working group a few years ago that looked at this issue and

suggested that 300 minutes a month would be an appropriate restriction. That seems to us to be reasonable. We didn’t state the

exact number of minutes that should be the maximum, but we do

think that there should be a restriction on the number of minutes.

Otherwise, the Bureau of Prisons won’t be able to get a handle on

the problem of inmates using the telephones excessively and using

them excessively to conduct criminal activities. So we have recommended to the Bureau of Prisons that they look at this issue

and put in a reasonable restriction such as that.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, do you think that the settlement

that the Department of Justice recently made in the Washington

v. Reno litigation was more generous for prisoners than the law required, and has the settlement deterred efforts within BOP to restrict telephone privileges?

Mr. FINE. It has restricted efforts to some extent. The main problem with that settlement agreement, in our view, was that the litigation and the settlement agreement delayed the implementation

of needed changes. It delayed to some extent the new technology,

75

the new inmate telephone system, and it also has created a mind

set within the Bureau of Prisons that they are hesitant to make

changes in the inmate telephone privileges and hesitant to make

changes in the current system, when the actual settlement agreement, in our belief, wouldn’t prevent that from happening.

For example, the settlement agreement states that inmates

should be allowed 120 minutes of collect calling per month and 60

minutes of debit calling per month. That, in our view, is not an onerous restriction because the wardens’ working group and sort of

in our view, any restriction would be a higher level. But that settlement agreement has prevented the BOP from looking at this issue

and making changes while the settlement agreement is in effect,

and we think that the fear of litigation and the fear of the settlement agreement shouldn’t hold up the needed changes.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, should the Department of Justice

try to get the court to amend the consent decree on terms more favorable to BOP if the decree impedes efforts to restrict telephone

abuse?

Mr. FINE. I would say yes. If it does restrict the efforts to restrict

telephone use, then the Department of Justice should clearly look

at that settlement agreement. However, in our talking to the Federal programs attorneys and the Bureau of Prisons attorneys, their

view is that the settlement agreement would not restrict efforts as

long as the Bureau of Prisons could make the case, and we believe

that they can, that restrictions are necessary for the security and

good order of the institution and to protect the public.

That is a provision in the settlement agreement, and as long as

the case can be made and the Bureau of Prisons makes that case,

the settlement agreement should not restrict their efforts to impose

significant controls on inmate telephone use.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, your report notes that in 1998 the

Attorney General sent a memorandum to U.S. attorneys encouraging them to inform the Bureau of Prisons of incoming inmates

who posed a special risk of committing crimes while in prison. Do

you think the Department of Justice needs to do more to encourage

U.S. attorneys to warn BOP about these new inmates?

Mr. FINE. Yes, we do think they should. We think that memo

was a good step. When that memo was issued in May 1998, we

looked at it, and in the fall of 1998 there had only been two referrals to the Bureau of Prisons to look at inmates who exhibited a

likelihood of continuing their criminal activities. In August 1999,

there were six. We are told currently there has only been about 17

referrals. We believe that there should be more referrals, and the

Department of Justice and both the U.S. attorneys’ offices as well

as the law enforcement agencies should make an effort to notify the

Bureau of Prisons about inmates of greatest concern.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Fine, is it important to limit prisoner

use of telephones to hours when telephone monitors are on duty?

Mr. FINE. We think that is an important restriction that should

be made. I know the Bureau of Prisons disagrees with that. They

believe that monitors should only be on duty at the times of the

highest usage. The problem we found is that although almost all

inmate telephone calls are taped, if they are not listened to live,

they are rarely listened to. And we believe that the live monitoring

76

is the most effective monitoring that occurs; that the alerts can be

noted and listened to. And we believe that there should be monitors on duty at the time of telephone usage.

Senator THURMOND. I want to thank you gentlemen for being

here and for your testimony. I have got another engagement and

I have got to go.

Senator, can you take over now?

Senator SESSIONS. Yes, I can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just

have a few questions I would pursue.

It is difficult to overestimate the problems that come from these

consent settlements. Every warden, when asked to do something

about phones, is going to say, well, there is a lawsuit and they

have got a consent settlement and the judge will put me in jail if

I do anything. So it is just an excuse for doing nothing.

I really believe that the Bureau of Prisons needs to assert the

fact that they represent the United States of America with regard

to housing prisoners, and not lawyers and a judge in a back room

in a courthouse somewhere trying to monitor the telephone system.

I really think we have gone too far on that, and I hope that out

of this will come a determination to conduct reform across the

board.

Mr. Stana, with regard to the aging population, I assume that

was not part of your analysis precisely, but anecdotally or otherwise did you form any opinions or develop any concerns about increasing health care costs coming from an aging prison population?

Mr. STANA. Well, aside from the obvious cost of maintaining an

elderly patient, what we found is that the Bureau’s system of

health care really isn’t flexible enough right now to provide a gradation of care as inmates move along in their care needs.

In the private sector—you and I have parents and uncles or

whatever—if you need a little more help, you can go into assisted

living. If you need a little more than that, you can go into a nursing home. If you need a lot of care, there is a hospital. You know,

there is a gradation of care.

Well, with the Federal prison system, if you can’t maintain yourself or be maintained in the general population, given your security

level, your option is to go to the Federal medical centers. That is

very costly. I just came back from the Federal medical centers last

week and one impression I came away with is there are an awful

lot of elderly inmates who are using up bed space.

Senator SESSIONS [presiding]. Hospital-style bed space?

Mr. STANA. Hospital-style. It is questionable whether they needed that intensity of care, but there is nowhere else to put them. So

I think what the Bureau needs to do, and I think they are thinking

along these lines, is to create an option, almost a nursing home, if

you will, to care for these elderly inmates.

Senator SESSIONS. And you believe that would be not only more

appropriate, but less expensive in the long run?

Mr. STANA. Well, like I say, it frees up hospital beds for inmates

who need hospital-style care. That is what the private sector does

and that is what the Bureau of Prisons is eventually going to have

to do.

Senator SESSIONS. To your knowledge, are there any proposals

now about how to deal with elderly prisoners who maybe have

77

reached a point in their life when they cease to be dangerous? I

don’t think we can say that about every prisoner, but there are

some probably that that could be said about, people who have contracted a terminal illness or something like that. Is there sufficient

ability for the prison system to transfer them to some sort of work

camp or outside facility, or even on a home detention basis?

Mr. STANA. I met an inmate last week who was terminally ill

with cancer. She had maybe 2 months to live, and the Bureau was

working with her on a compassionate release so she could go home

and essentially die with her family. The problem is not many inmates who serve long sentences have a support network once they

leave the prison. Their relatives disown them or they just aren’t

there.

So by releasing the inmate to get care other than in a prison, the

question is where do you release them to, and would the private

sector care, either nursing homes or other types of assisted living,

be willing to take on inmates who are there under those circumstances.

Senator SESSIONS. Not an easy question to deal with.

Mr. STANA. No.

Senator SESSIONS. What trends did you see in pharmaceutical

drugs? Has that been going up steadily?

Mr. STANA. Well, they have, but through bulk purchasing and cooperative agreements with other governmental agencies, they have

really got a bit of a handle on that. The issue here is what are they

going to do with the inmate population as they see it coming. You

know, they are testing more for hepatitis, hepatitis B and C, and

so they are finding more cases of that, and that is a very expensive

treatment. It is a form of blood poisoning.

The same with AIDS patients. There is only 1 percent of the

BOP inmate population that has HIV or AIDS, but about 8 to 10

percent of the District of Columbia inmates that are being transferred into the Federal system have the AIDS virus. So it is very

expensive care. Psychotropic drugs, as I mentioned before, are very

expensive, you know, the anti-depressants, schizophrenia drugs,

and so on. And you have to provide this level of care.

Now, what the Bureau does attempt to do in discerning what

type of care to give to which inmates is try to discern who needs

life-saving care, who needs the kind of care that would essentially

leave them with a lifelong condition, like a bad hip and they just

can’t get along without it. They may provide that.

Then there is a sort of a gray area on a case-by-case basis of if

a person has a hernia, well, can they live with it? Well, if they can,

they won’t do it. If they can’t live with it, then they will; they will

provide the care. And then there is a fourth category that is dental

caps and removing tattoos, things like that that are most of the

time dismissed out of hand. But I have got to say my own observation would be if they are going to err, they are going to err on the

side of providing the care rather than withholding care from an inmate in need.

I have one thing I wanted to mention. You were having an exchange with Mr. Fine a second ago and you asked about computer

security in prisons. We did a report and issued it last summer on

the controls on inmates who do prison work programs that gives

78

them access to personal information. It is mostly in the State systems where the State department of corrections may be under contract with the health bureaus or the driver’s license bureaus to

transfer files on computers.

The real key we found there is good supervisory controls over the

inmates, making sure that they are controlled when they go in,

they are working in a controlled environment while they are working, and there are some controls to see what they are taking out

of the facility with them.

We found a relative handful of cases where an inmate read a

medical file and discovered that it was a relative and they called

the relative and it resulted in an embarrassing situation. Or they

got a credit card number somehow or a driver’s license and they

proceeded to get a credit card and it was Eddie Bauer for the cell

block, you know. But it was rather rare. In fact, we expected to

find more of it, and we owe it to the kinds of controls that they

have in prison work programs. The programs that did not have the

controls really were at risk.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, everything is risk. You hire somebody

off the street and they can violate privacy or steal. I am generally

of the view and would be supportive of more effort to make prisoners work, to have them work. The prisoners benefit from it, the

prison benefits from it, the taxpayers benefit from it. Violence in

the prison goes down when prisoners are working. There is just a

more pleasant circumstance. So I think we can’t be intimidated just

because somebody might escape. Well, they are about to be released in 9 months anyway, free and clear, you know. I think we

have got to pursue the effort of work and employment.

The numbers on health care costs look fairly good to me over the

decade. I mean, they have more than doubled, tripled, probably,

but we also have almost twice as many.

Mr. STANA. Well, that is it. The biggest cost driver is the population increase. We mentioned earlier that the net increase is about

1,000 inmates a month. Well, what that does is that commits the

Bureau of Prisons to about $3 million more in health care costs

each year just by the fact that they are coming in the door with

the average health care costs. You do the math and it is $3 million

more a year just by simple population growth. But they have taken

steps and they are bringing it down on a per-capita basis.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, Federal prison does not segregate AIDS

patients, is that correct?

Mr. STANA. I am not clear on that. I think if they present a danger, they would, but I don’t know if they would do that on a routine

basis.

Senator SESSIONS. The State of Alabama has segregated AIDS

patients, won that at the supreme court level, and believes that

even if it is just one, two, three, four, five cases that are eliminated

in transmissions of disease, that is a benefit to the prisoner as well

as to the taxpayer.

Mr. STANA. Yes. My understanding is they do not segregate

them.

Senator SESSIONS. I don’t think they do.

What about hepatitis C? That is easily transmitted.

79

Mr. STANA. My understanding is they do not, but I think one

thing that they are trying to do, or at least it is a proposal they

are thinking about is trying to bring patients with like needs together in the same situation so they can treat everyone and maybe

come up with a cost saving that way.

For example, the medical center at Fort Worth has a specialty

in wounds treatment. The medical center in Springfield has kidney

dialysis. By doing that, you bring people with like illnesses together and maybe get some savings that way.

Senator SESSIONS. And they have always had mental hospitals.

Mr. STANA. They have always had those things, yes.

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you very much for your testimony. I

believe that the prison system is a necessary evil, if you want to

say it that way. I don’t believe anyone can deny that our tendency

in recent years to lock up for longer periods of time repeat, habitual, dangerous offenders has saved people from being murdered

and has reduced crime in America. It is a big factor in it. We are

doing a better job. We are not where we need to be, but we are

doing a better job of identifying those who need longer periods in

prison and seeing that they get it.

That does mean that we have got costs that occur from that, and

we need to keep them as low as possible. The taxpayers do not

need to be paying more than they have to take care of a person’s

health care, or they shouldn’t be subjected to crime because they

want to give a prisoner the right to use a phone whenever they reasonably can allow them to use that phone.

Before we dismiss, I will put Senator Leahy’s statement into the

record. He is the ranking member of this committee.

[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE

OF VERMONT

As we renew are discussion of the issues facing our prisons, I would like to address an aspect of the prison privatization that poses a serious threat to public safety and deserves immediate congressional action—the interstate transportation of

prisoners.

Last year, the escape of convicted child murderer Kyle Bell from a private prison

transport bus should have served as a wake-up call, to the Congress and to the

country. Kyle Bell slipped off a TransCorp. America bus on October 13, while the

bus was stopped in New Mexico for gas. Apparently, he picked the locks on his

handcuffs and leg irons, pushed his way out of a rooftop vent, hid out of sight of

the guards who traveled with the bus, and then slipped to the ground as it pulled

away. He was wearing his own street clothes and shoes. The TransCorp guards did

not notice that Bell was missing until nine hours later, and then delayed notifying

New Mexico authorities. Bell was a fugitive for three months before his capture in

January of this year.

Kyle Bell’s escape is not an isolated case. In recent years, there have been several

escapes by violent criminals when vans broke down or guards fell asleep on duty.

Just last week, James Prestridge, a convicted murderer, escaped in Chula Vista,

California, while he was being transported from Nevada to North Dakota by a private company called Extradition International. According to the Los Angeles Times,

the van was stopped at a rest area when Prestridge overpowered two guards, took

one officer’s gun, and escaped with another violent offender who was being transported by the same van. They remain at large today.

In addition to these disturbing incidents, there have also been an alarming number of traffic accidents in which prisoners were seriously injured or killed because

drivers were tired, inattentive or poorly trained. Privatization of prisons and prisoner transportation services may seem cost efficient, but public safety must come

first.

80

This is why I joined Senator Dorgan in introducing S. 1898, The Interstate Transportation of Dangerous Criminals Act. This bill requires the Attorney General to set

minimum standards for private prison transport companies, including standards on

employee training and restrictions on the number of hours that employees can be

on duty during a given time period. A violation is punishable by a $10,000 fine, plus

restitution for the cost of re-capturing any violent prisoner who escapes as the result

of such violation. This should create a healthy incentive for companies to abide by

the regulations and operate responsibly.

I would also like to take this opportunity to urge House action on S. 704, the Federal Health Care Copayment Act, which was introduced by Senators Kyl, Abraham,

Ashcroft, Cleland, Dorgan, Grassley, Hatch, Inouye, Johnson, Lincoln, Sessions and

Thurmond. Senator Johnson brought this issue of medical copayments for prisoners’

health care to my attention last year. My own state of Vermont does not have a

copayment requirement for prisoners’ health care so I appreciated the Senator from

South Dakota sharing with me the problems he has seen in his State.

After some initial reservations, I was glad to help move this bill out of Committee

after it was improved during markup. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent

on May 27, 1999, more than 11 months ago, but has still not been acted upon in

the House. This is legislation that has the support of the Bureau of Prisons and of

the U.S. Marshals Service.

In my view, a critical part of this bill is its protection against prisoners being refused treatment based on an inability to pay. In particular, I am glad the Senate

accepted my amendment to make clear that copayment requirements should not

apply to prisoner health care visits initiated and approved by custodial staff, including staff referrals and staff-approved follow-up treatment for a chronic illness. The

goal of the bill is to deter prisoners from seeking unnecessary health care, not to

prevent them from seeking health care when they need it.

In addition, the version passed by the Senate excluded visits for emergency services, prenatal care, diagnosis or treatment of contagious diseases, mental health

care and substance abuse treatment from the copayment requirement. Copayment

requirements should not prevent prisoners from receiving emergency and critical

health care.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today and welcome their comments. We will hear today whether the Federal Health Care Copayment Act is still

needed, or whether the Bureau of Prisons has been able to make administrative adjustments despite the lack of authority that measure would have provided.

Senator SESSIONS. Is there anything else either one of you would

like to add at this time?

Mr. STANA. No.

Mr. FINE. No. Thank you for inviting us to testify on this subject.

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you for your reports and your work. I

think it will be helpful to the Bureau and to all of us as we attempt

to operate a better and less expensive system.

So we will leave the record open now for a week for additional

materials anyone may want to submit, and the hearing is adjourned at this time.

[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

(81)

A P P E N D I X

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

RESPONSES OF MS. KATHLEEN HAWK SAWYER TO QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR

THURMOND

Question 1. Director Sawyer, what steps are you taking to proactively limit some

inmates’ telephone use based on their classification when they enter a facility rather

than waiting until crimes are committed?

Answer. The BOP has developed a Public Safety Factor (PSF) for Serious Telephone Abuse and is incorporating it into the classification policy. PSFs, which can

be applied during an inmate’s initial classification or during their incarceration, are

entered for inmates who require increased security measures to ensure the protection of society. Inmates with a PSF for Serious Telephone Abuse will have restrictions placed on their telephone use, and any telephone calls they are permitted to

make will be live monitored. The Warden must permit inmates who have had their

telephone privileges limited to place at least one telephone call per month. The PSF

will be entered if any one of the following criteria applies:

• The PSI reveals the inmate was involved in criminal activity facilitated by the

telephone;

• Federal law enforcement officials or a U.S. Attorney’s Office notifies the BOP of

a significant concern and need to monitor an inmate’s telephone calls;

• The inmate is convicted of a criminal act directly related to telephone usage;

• The inmate has been found guilty of a 100 or 200 level incident report code for

telephone abuse; such as using the inmate telephones to further criminal activity, or attempting to circumvent telephone monitoring procedures by placing a

third party call or talking in code or;

• The Special Investigative Supervisor’s (SIS) Office has reasonable suspicion and/

or documented intelligence supporting telephone abuse.

Question 2. Director Sawyer, many of the changes that the Inspector General has

recommended to curb phone abuse were derived from a 1997 Warden’s Working

Group on telephone abuse. Are you reviewing the Working Group’s findings further

subsequent to the Inspector General Report?

Answer. Yes. In November 1997, the BOP’s Executive Staff reviewed the Wardens’

Inmate Telephone Work Group Report and approved 9 of the 14 recommendations.

In December 1999, we adopted four more recommendations of the Work Group (see

below).

• After the Inmate Telephone System II (ITS–II) is installed in all of our facilities,

we will have the technology in place to individually limit each inmate’s calls to

a prescribed number of calls or a total of minutes per day, week, or month, Although we continue to consider this and other means of limiting access as warranted, any significant changes to inmates’ access to the telephones risks action

by the Court who presided over the Washington v. Reno case. In January, 2000,

the BOP requested of the Federal Programs Branch, Civil Division, Department

of Justice, (the branch that represented the BOP in the Washington v. Reno

case), an assessment of the litigation risks associated with further restrictions

to limit inmate telephone access. The Civil Division opined that there would be

a risk of reopening litigation if inmate telephone privileges were further restricted.

• Inmate telephone access has been restricted during normal inmate working hours

(Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until after

the 4:00 p.m. inmate count). Institutions with ITS have the capability of allowVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
82

ing limited telephone access during restricted hours to accommodate inmates

who do not work standard institution shifts (e.g., evening or weekend Food

Service workers).

• We have established the following guidelines to assist Disciplinary Hearing Officers (DHO) in imposing meaningful sanctions for inmates found guilty of abusing telephone privileges: 1st offense: 6 to 18 months loss of telephone privileges;

2nd offense: 18 to 36 months loss of telephone privileges; and 3rd offense: 5

years to duration of sentence loss of telephone privileges. When the sanction

falls below the suggested range due to mitigating factors, the DHOs document

in writing the reason for the departure.

• As discussed in question one above, we have developed a Public Safety Factor for

limiting an inmate’s social telephone calls as a matter of classification.

Question 3. Director Sawyer, if the 1995 settlement of the Washington v. Reno

lawsuit causes problems for your efforts to control inmate phone use, should the Department of Justice consider reopening the settlement agreement pursuant to the

Prison Litigation Reform Act?

Answer. The terms of the settlement agreement are set to expire in 2002. Under

the Prison Litigation Reform Act, it is possible to seek modification of a consent decree by returning to the original judge. Given Judge Wilhoit’s very strong feelings

regarding this case, the BOP has concerns that further review of the case could precipitate additional, more onerous burdens rather than amelioration of the current,

restrictive terms. The DOJ has similarly opined that there would be a risk of reopening litigation if inmate telephone privileges were further restricted (see Question 2). Accordingly, we have no plans to seek modifications.

Question 4. Director Sawyer, the Inspector General has recommended that the

Bureau institute certain minimum administrative punishment, including loss of

phone privileges, for certain types of phone abuse. Are you considering this suggestion?

Answer. Rather than developing mandatory sanctions for inmate misconduct, the

BOP prefers to develop suggested ranges of sanctions that provide the Disciplinary

Hearing Officers (DHO) with discretion in sanctioning inmate case. We have recently implemented a suggested sanction range for abuse of telephones (see Question (2). This strategy of providing DHOs some discretion in sanctions was successfully implemented several years ago by providing suggested ranges to DHOs for

sanctioning inmates found to have introduced drugs into the institution through social visiting. The result was that DHOs imposed greater sanctions, and the introduction of drugs through the visiting room was reduced.

Question 5. Director Sawyer, is the Bureau increasing the involvement of Intelligence Section (SIS) officers in reviewing telephone crime?

Answer. Yes. We have taken action to improve our telephone system and monitoring efforts as follows:

• FBI staff are included in all SIS training sessions in an effort to improve the quality and effectiveness of our investigative operations as they relate to telephone

monitoring.

• We created 24 additional intelligence positions at facilities located in metropolitan

areas to work with inter-city crime task forces in identifying criminal acts and

trends. Staff in these positions work as liaisons with law enforcement agencies

to gain information about outside illegal activities, including targeting activities

taking place through telephone communications. Two of the positions are assigned to FBI Headquarters and help ensure the BOP is aware of inmates coming into our custody who may pose unique security concerns.

• We prepared and distributed an Inmate Monitoring field Guide for Wardens and

SIS staff. This guide gives very detailed instructions for staff regarding proper

procedures to detect and deter telephone abuse. Moreover, we are developing a

computerized tutorial training program for telephone monitoring which will be

available to all BOP staff.

Additionally, the BOP is taking the following steps to support the agency-wide goal

of enhanced telephone monitoring:

• We added a category for inmate telephone abusers in our computerized inmate

database, thereby assisting staff in the identification and monitoring of those

inmates who have or are likely to abuse their telephone privileges.

• Many of our facilities have recently instituted additional telephone monitoring

stations that allow a higher percentage of telephone calls to be monitored.

• We have almost completed installation throughout the BOP of ITS–II, an enhanced telephone system that allows the BOP to significantly restrict every inmate’s calling privileges. The system can be programmed to alert staff every

83

time a high risk inmate makes a telephone call. ITS–II can provide staff with

numerous reports to monitor and determine which inmates may be attempting

to abuse telephone privileges. It also ‘‘links’’ all BOP facilities and our headquarters together for information sharing of inmate telephone use information.

The system allows the BOP to tag and target specific inmates who display a

propensity to commit fraudulent or criminal activity over the telephone. In addition, the ITS–II system allows the BOP to restrict an inmate’s calling capabilities to specific time periods, specific telephones, specified number of calls per

day, specified number of minutes per day, period of time prior to placing another call, or no calls. • We have added two new offense codes to the inmate discipline policy; a 100-level

offense code for utilizing the telephone to continue criminal enterprises and a

200-level offense code for noncriminal use of the telephone. Additionally, we

have made the use of coded language by inmates over the telephone a disciplinary violation in all circumstances.

Question 6. Director Sawyer, are you working to make telephone monitors in each

facility a permanent position?

Answer. We expect to have permanent telephone monitor posts in place in all facilities by December, 2000. The posts will be rotated among qualified staff. This allows each monitor to become familiar with the process, yet avoids the ‘‘staleness’’ that can occur with a permanent assignment.

Question 7. Director Sawyer, the Bureau must always be alert to criminal activity

within prison, and telephone abuse by inmates is one aspect of this issue. What is

the status of implementing National Strategic Planning Objective 5.11?

Answer. National Strategic Planning Objective 5.11 was most recently revised

with a greater emphasis on telephone initiatives. Action plans include some of the

Office of Inspector General recommendations and approved BOP Executive Staff decisions. The current action plans, approved by the Executive Staff in March 2000,

will be completed by early 2001. At that time, new actions plans will be developed

and submitted to the Executive Staff for their approval.

Question 8. Director Sawyer, guard escort services for inmates who need transportation to medical facilities is one cost that has decreased considerably in recent

years, down by an average of almost $100 per inmate. Have your efforts to expand

telemedicine been an important reason for this decline?

Answer. As of June 9, 2000, twenty institutions will have telehealth equipment

installed, and the equipment will be fully operational at ten institutions. The program appears very promising as a health care cost reduction initiative that, importantly, allows us to maintain the community standard of care for inmates. However,

because of the relative newness of the program, further study is required before we

can comfortably ascertain definitive cost benefits. A large part of the cost savings

the BOP has realized results from the increased use of ‘‘in-house’’ medical visits by

community specialists. By coming to the institution, physicians are able to examine

multiple inmates in one visit, and the BOP does not incur transportation or escort

guard costs. The BOP continues to seek innovative, cost-effective strategies for providing the community standard of medical care to our inmate population.

Question 9. Director Sawyer, in your statement you said that one of the major

concerns facing the BOP is the number of inmates who have AIDS and hepatitis

C and require additional care, along with an inmate population which is aging. Do

you feel that the BOP should have an intermediate care medical facility that can

offer assistance for those inmates who do not require full hospital services but need

more medical assistance than the general inmate population?

Answer. The BOP is planning to develop enhanced care facilities that would house

many of the chronic care inmates that are currently housed at Medical Referral

Centers. These inmates do not require the intensive level of health care services

available at the Medical Referral Centers, but do require more health care than

most inmates in our general population facilities (e.g., uncontrolled diabetes, HIV

infection requiring multiple medications, hepatitis C). By developing a multi-tiered

health care delivery system, to include Medical Referral Centers, enhanced care facilities, and general population institutions, the BOP can match the appropriate

level of health care resources to the appropriate inmate population.

Question 10. Director Sawyer, are inmates with infectious diseases such as HIV

segregated from other inmates? Please explain.

Answer. All BOP staff and inmates are educated regarding appropriate precautions to prevent transmission of infectious diseases. These precautions include

‘‘universal precautions’’ (i.e. assuming all blood and body fluids are infected) and

educating staff and inmates about how infectious diseases are spread and how they

are best prevented. As such, inmates with infectious diseases such as HIV or hepaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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titis are housed in general population with other inmates, as these diseases are not

spread by casual contact. We segregate sick inmates as necessary to provide appropriate medical treatment and prevent transmission of diseases that spread through

casual contact (i.e., tuberculosis).

Question 11. Director Sawyer, is it a problem that inmates will use the fact that

they have or may have an infectious disease as a weapon against staff or inmates,

and if so, what type of punishment does this type of conduct receive?

Answer. The BOP views any assault as a serious incident, regardless of the means

used to carry it out. Over the past five years the assault rate in the BOP has decreased by almost 30 percent, due in part to the efforts of our staff to effectively

communicate with the inmate population. Ordinarily, inmates who engage in

assaultive behavior toward staff are charged with a Greatest Severity Prohibited

Act offense code, regardless of whether or not the inmate committed the assault

with the intent to infect staff with an infectious disease. If the charge is sustained

following the inmate’s administrative hearing, any of the following sanctions may

be imposed: loss of good conduct time, disciplinary transfer, disciplinary segregation

up to 60 days, and loss of privileges (i.e., visiting, telephone, commissary).

Question 12. Director Sawyer, the Federal inmate population has more than doubled since 1990, and about 1,000 offenders are being added to your custody each

month. Is managing the rising number of inmates the primary challenge that your

agency faces today.

Answer. Managing the increasing number of inmates in a safe and secure manner

and adding sufficient prison capacity are the two largest challenges we face. During

FY 1999, the BOP experienced its second consecutive year of record breaking population increases when the total inmate population increased by more than 11,300.

The BOP projects that inmate population growth this year will set another record,

with projected growth of approximately 12,500 inmates. By Fiscal Year (FY) 2008,

we anticipate a federal inmate population of approximately 209,000, nearly 50 percent above the current population level. To meet this growth, we currently have 32

prison facilities in some stage of planning, design or construction, though some are

contingent on the advanced appropriations requested in our FY 2001 budget. These

requests are currently under consideration by Congress.

RESPONSES OF MS. KATHLEEN HAWK SAWYER TO QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR LEAHY

Question 1. You testified about a number of successful administrative initiatives

that the Bureau of Prisons has put into place over the last several years to contain

inmate health care costs and increase efficiency of services. Indeed, BOP’s per capita

inmate health care costs have decreased steadily since 1997. In light of this trend,

is the Federal Health Care Copayment Act still necessary, in your opinion? If yes,

please provide a detailed explanation of your response.

Answer. The BOP views inmate health care copayments as a valuable tool in our

overall strategy to encourage inmates to use available services in an appropriate

manner and to teach them personal responsibility. While this will undoubtably reduce medical costs somewhat as some inmates decide not to seek unnecessary medical treatment, this is not the primary purpose of the bill. Inmates will not be

charged copayments for prenatal visits, chronic care clinics, food handler’s examinations, psychiatric assessments, or intake physicals. They will only be charged for appointments they initiate. None of the revenue generated by this bill will be made

available to the BOP.

Question 2. The Inspector General’s report on the management of inmate telephone privileges recommends legislation explicitly to authorize the Bureau of Prisons to use proceeds from the inmate telephone system to pay for monitoring inmate

calls. Mr. Glenn Fine, Director of the Special Investigation and Review Unit of the

Office of the Inspector General, indicated in his testimony that all such proceeds are

required to go to the Inmate Trust Fund. When was the Inmate Trust Fund established and for what specific purpose? What are the current requirements for using

funds from the Inmate Trust Fund? What specific operations, programs or other expenditures are currently funded by the Inmate Trust Fund?

Answer. The inmate Deposit Fund was established in 1930 by the Department of

Justice (Circular No. 2126, ‘‘Rules Governing the Control of Prisoners Funds, at the

Several Penal Institutions’’) to maintain inmates’ monies while they were incarcerated and to authorize the establishment of an inmate commissary at each federal

correctional institution. The existence and operations of prison Commissaries was

recognized and approved by Congress in 1932 with the passage of the Department

of Justice’s 1933 appropriation bill. In 1934, Congress designated the ‘‘funds of FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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eral prisoners’’ and ‘‘Commissary funds’’ as ‘‘Trust Funds’’. All monies accruing to

these funds were to be appropriated and dispersed in compliance with the Trust.

By the terms of the Trust Fund, profits may be used to provide programs that

benefit all inmates, and may not be used for the personal benefit of individual inmates. Profits may not be used to purchase items ordinarily procured from funds

appropriated by Congress for care of prisoners. Additionally, a September 26, 1994,

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Washington v. Reno upheld a prohibition

against the BOP using inmate commissary trust funds to pay for inmate telephone

system components with a primary purpose of institution security.

Some examples of items purchased with trust Fund profits are:

• Recreation/arts and crafts operating costs, activities, and supplies including contracts, supplies, and equipment related to fulfilling the mission of the BOP’s

Recreation program (Staff salaries, benefits, travel and training are not funded

through the Trust Fund, but are funded only through Salaries and Expenses

(S&E) appropriations)

• Advanced Occupational Education (AOE) programs that may lead to an associate

degree. All inmates, with appropriate academic prerequisites, are eligible to

participate in AOE programs.

• Other Inmate Programs, including Artists in Residence; Inmate Placement; and

Beckley Responsibilities and Values Enhancement Programming (Staff salaries,

benefits, travel and training are not funded only through S&E appropriations)

• Educational items such as self-help videos, library books

• Commissary merchandise for inmate purchase

• Inmate Performance Pay (pay for satisfactory completion of inmate work assignment tasks)

• Commissary and ITS computer systems, property, and operating supplies (freezers, safes, shelving, etc.)

• Salaries and benefits for Trust Fund employees

RESPONSES OF RICHARD M. STANA TO QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR THURMOND

Question 1. Do you think that prisoner abuse of health care, such as inmates

using medical visits to get out of work or other duties, is a significant problem, and

would you expect a copay requirement to help reduce any such abuse?

Answer. In our testimony, we reported that the Congressional Budget Office

(CBO) had looked at this question and reported that, where similar prisoner copayment programs were adopted in 36 states or local jurisdictions, prison medical facilities experienced average reductions in sick call visits of 16 percent to 50 percent.

Although we are not aware of any formal study by BOP or others, we received anecdotal information from BOP health care officials that frivolous visits to medical

units do occur in BOP and that some reduction in this kind of abuse could be anticipated if some additional charge were levied. However, we were not provided with

an estimate of the magnitude of the anticipated reduction.

Question 2. Does it appear that states have benefited from a copay requirement?

Answer. As noted in response to the previous question, CBO has reported that

after adopting copayment requirements, 36 states or local jurisdictions experienced

reductions in the number of sick call visits. These reductions ranged from a low of

16 percent to a high of 50 percent.

Question 3. It appears that personnel salaries are the primary category for health

care costs. Have recent BOP initiatives, such as restructuring staff to depend less

on highly paid physicians for routine duties, helped reduce staff costs in recent

years?

Answer. One BOP official told us that, as a result of our 1994 report, BOP began

examining the utilization of its health care staff to allow for more efficient operations. One result the BOP official cited was a restructuring initiative that focused

on using qualified, lower-salaried medical personnel instead of more highly paid

physicians and physicians’ assistants for certain routine duties. BOP attributed annual savings of about $5.5 million to this initiative. We also testified that BOP medical personnel salaries—on a macro level—have decreased steadily from a peak of

$1,399 per inmate in fiscal year 1996 to $1,225 in fiscal year 1999. We testified that

Public Health Service (PHS) associated costs, largely composed of PHS salaries,

have dropped from $378 per inmate in fiscal year 1997 to $367 in fiscal year 1999.

A BOP Health Services Division official was quite confident that the downward

slope in per inmate medical personnel salaries and PHS associated costs was due

to the staff restructuring initiative and other related cost-cutting initiatives. HowVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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ever, BOP officials were concerned that the savings from these economy and efficiency measures will eventually bottom out.

BOP officials said they expect overall medical costs to continue to rise in future

years for several reasons:

• Projections of the number of inmates incarcerated in federal facilities show continued increases.

• Felony inmates transferred to BOP from the District of Columbia Department of

Corrections generally have disproportionately more medical needs than other

BOP inmates.

• BOP is receiving increasing numbers of long-term, nonreturnable detainees from

the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

• BOP’s expenditures for pharmaceuticals likely will rise due to the increasing prevalence of illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.

Question 4. You noted during your oral testimony that many inmates are staying

in medical referral centers for long periods due to serious medical conditions. Do you

think it may be more cost effective for BOP to have an intermediate care medical

facility for inmates needing long-term care?

Answer. Most evidence indicates that an intermediate care facility could have advantages for BOP, although a thorough cost-benefit study might still need to be conducted to consider the various forms that such a facility could take. Medical costs

at BOP’s medical referral centers are higher on a per inmate basis than medical

costs at standard prisons. Based on BOP data, the estimated medical costs on a per

inmate basis at a medical referral center are about $16,000 per year, whereas medical costs at a standard prison are less than $2,500 per year.

In terms of inmate access to medical care, BOP officials told us that it is important that there be a regular turnover of patients in medical referral center hospital

beds—based on the medical needs of the patients. They told us that increasing numbers of chronically ill inmates with long sentences are being sent to medical referral

centers because the inmates’ medical conditions cannot be treated approximately at

a standard prison. For these inmates, the medical referral center is the end of the

line. This means that fewer and fewer hospital beds are turning over. It also means

that new patients from standard prisons may have to wait for the next available

medical referral center hospital bed to be freed up. For example, at one medical referral center we toured, we learned that the waiting list of new patients for the next

available bed is gradually getting longer.

Anecdotally, we were told that BOP already has enough chronically ill inmates

to fill an intermediate care medical facility of 400 beds. The type of facility would

have the added benefit of freeing up more expensive medical referral center beds

presently occupied by inmates who have little chance of returning to their home

prison. Nonetheless, a cost-benefit study could determine, for instance, whether the

per inmate cost of constructing an intermediate care medical facility would be more

or less than competing alternatives, such as contracting for a privatized nursing

home environment, or renovating an existing building at a medical referral center

just for the chronically ill.

RESPONSES OF RICHARD M. STANA TO QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR LEAHY

Question 1.—In your written statement, you indicated that CBO has estimated

that the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act of 1999 would generate annual revenues of $1 million and ‘‘would be helpful to BOP’s efforts to control medical

costs.’’ Under section 4048(g) of this legislation, fees collected from inmates subject

to an order of restitution shall be paid to victims in accordance with the order. Seventy-five percent of all other fees collected would be deposited into the Federal

Crime Victim’s Fund and all the remainder would be used to cover the administrative expenses incurred in carrying out this Act. With legislative mandates on the

use of copayment fees, how would the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act

of 1999 significantly contribute to reducing health care costs?

Answer. We testified that a May 1999 CBO analysis of the proposed $2 health

care system fee estimated that BOP might generate additional revenue of about $1

million in fiscal year 2000. However, BOP enforces the proposed fee primarily as

a means to reduce unnecessary or frivolous medical visits—that is, BOP does not

view the proposed fee primarily as a revenue generator.

BOP has suggested that the proposed legislation be modified to mandate that 100

percent of collected fees go to the Crime Victims Fund. According to one official,

BOP might send a check each quarter to the fund—a procedure that would help to

minimize administrative expenses. BOP suggested this alternative because an adVerDate 11-MAY-2000 06:23 Sep 08, 2001 Jkt 072846 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\B846.XXX pfrm11 PsN: B846
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ministrative process is already in place that could be modified at little or no cost

to include tracking collected fees. However, the cost of distributing restitution

checks to victims is another matter since no administrative process or supporting

staff structure currently exists. One BOP official told us that the number of checks

could be enormous, the amount of each check would be small, and the administrative cost of establishing and maintaining a process (to make sure victims received

the appropriate checks) would be an additional expense. This official also opined

that victims might react negatively to receiving checks of such small amounts repeatedly over the years.

CBO has looked at this question of unnecessary or frivolous medical visits. CBO

reported that where similar prisoner copayment programs were adopted in 36 states

or local jurisdictions, prison medical facilities experienced average reductions in sick

call visits of 16 percent to 50 percent. We received anecdotal information from BOP

health care officials that frivolous visits to medical units do occur in BOP and that

some reduction in this kind of abuse can be anticipated if additional charges are

levied. However, we have not independently verified the magnitude of such a reduction.

Neither BOP nor we believe that the primary benefit of the copayment proposal

to generate revenue. Rather, its primary benefit would be to reduce unnecessary or

frivolous medical visits and the burden population through 2006, it appears the demands on BOP’s health care system will increase.

Question 2. Have the administrative initiatives that BOP put into place over the

last several years to contain inmate health care costs and increase efficiency of services been taken into account by your estimate? Have the facts or assumptions on

which you based your estimate of $1 million changed?

Answer. The estimates of increased efficiency of services by virtue of administrative initiatives BOP has undertaken over the last several years are BOP estimates.

The $1 million estimate of anticipated revenue generated by a prison copayment

provisions is CBO’s estimate. We referred to the CBO estimate in our testimony because we did not want to duplicate that work. Also, given the short time in which

we conducted our review, we did not attempt to independently verify the estimates

and do not know whether the facts and assumptions used by CBO have changed.

BOP officials believe that savings or benefits from the economy and efficiency initiatives BOP has implemented will eventually bottom out and they expect that inmate health care costs will rise given

• the pressures from a growing prison population; • transfers of inmates to BOP from the District of Columbia Department of Corrections—inmates who generally have disproportionately more medical needs than

other BOP inmates;

• the increase in numbers of long-term, nonreturnable detainees from INS; and

• the growth in expenditures for pharmaceuticals because of the increasing prevalence of illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.

We believe it is time to consider additional measures for containing BOP medical

costs. The copayment provision is one alternative to consider—not because it is a

revenue generator, but rather because such a provision can be expected to reduce

the demand on medical services by reducing the number of unnecessary or frivolous

medical visits by inmates.

RESPONSES OF GLENN A. FINE TO QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR THURMOND

Question 1. Mr. Fine, do you think that prisoner use of coded language on the

telephone to disguise criminals activity is a problem, and is it important for the

BOP telephone monitors to be trained in detecting coded language?

Answer. Yes. Use of coded language by federal inmates is a serious problem and

BOP telephone monitors need better training to identify such language that may

disguise serious criminal activity. We believe it is very important for BOP telephone

monitors to receive additional training regarding detecting criminal conversations

on the telephone, including the use of coded language. In addition, as we suggest

in recommendation number 12 in our report:

The BOP should examine the possibility of making use of coded language by

inmates over the telephone a disciplinary violation in certain circumstances.

Such a rule would allow the BOP to restrict or suspend an inmate’s telephone

privileges when an SIS officer finds an inmate engaging in suspicious coded conversations. As a model, the BOP should look to its existing correspondence regulations that contain a provision allowing wardens to reject correspondence that

contains a code.

88

Question 2. Mr. Fine, I understand that inmates are limited to twenty telephone

numbers that they can have on their list to call at any one time. Does the Bureau

need to do more to review the listed numbers that high-risk inmates may call to

verify whether these numbers have connections to criminal activity?

Answer. Yes. Our investigation revealed that the BOP does an inadequate job reviewing the telephone numbers submitted by inmates for inclusion on their personal

calling lists—especially inmates that should be considered high-risk for telephone

abuse. As we point out in our report, inmates at most BOP institutions with the

ITS system have unlimited calling privileges to contact up to a maximum of 30 individuals on an approved telephone list. Inmates prepare their proposed telephone

lists during their admission and orientation process at a new BOP facility.

Inmates may submit on their list telephone numbers for any person they choose,

with the understanding that all calls are subject to monitoring. Inmates are required to pledge that any calls made from the institution will be made for a purpose

allowable under BOP policy or institution guidelines.

Normally, telephone numbers requested by the inmates are approved without review. When inmates request persons other than immediate family members or persons already on their visiting list, BOP staff are required to notify those persons

in writing to afford them an opportunity to object to being placed on an inmate’s

telephone list. Other than this notification, however, the BOP conducts no screening

of these individuals placed on an inmate’s telephone list.

(89)

ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE

STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding this

oversight hearing today, and for the opportunity to submit this statement.

One of the duties that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) is charged with is

transporting federal inmates. It is a duty that the FBOP has carried out with the

utmost care and responsibility.

At the state and local level, law enforcement agencies are responsible for the

movement of their own prisoners. Although they can contract with he United States

Marshals Service to move prisoners, states are increasingly turning to private companies to perform this service.

These companies transfer prisoners from state to state, often taking long, circuitous routes all over the country. Prisoners are dropped off and picked up at numerous stops along the way. These trips can last for weeks, requiring the guards to take

constant breaks to eat, sleep, refuel, etc.

Mr. Chairman, the simple fact is that many of the companies have proven themselves inept when it comes to keeping prisoners in custody. Since 1996, at least 26

prisoners have escaped while being transported by a private company. Many of

these escapees were violent offenders—murderers, rapists, sexual molester, armed

robbers, and so forth. In this same time frame, FBOP has not lost a single prisoner.

In fact, its been almost 10 years since someone escaped while being transported by

FBOP.

It leads me to wonder what has caused these companies to fail where FBOP has

been so successful. In my judgement, the answer is simple: FBOP has to live up

to certain established standards, ranging from the hiring and training of personnel

to the types of restraints used when transporting prisoners. Amazingly, there are

currently no such standards that apply to private companies that haul violent prisoners around the country.

There are standards that govern how we transport toxic waste, because we want

to make sure it’s handled properly to prevent a risk to the public. But there are

no standards governing how violent criminals should be handled when they are

transported—and believe me, the public is very much at risk.

As I said earlier, there have been many escapes from private prisoner transport

companies. Just last month, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without

parole escaped during a rest stop in Chula Vista, California. A convicted armed robber escaped with him, and they are still on the loose today. I want to share with

you the details of this escape and some others that have taken place in the past

few years. I think they will shock you, as they did me.

• March 25, 2000—Convicted murderer James Prestridge and convicted robber

John Doran escaped while being transported form Nevada to out-of-state facilities.

During a restroom break, the two convicts overpowered a guard, taking his gun, his

keys, and his clothes. They then returned to the van transporting them and overpowered the other guard, who was taking a nap. After locking the two guards in

the back of the van with the other prisoners, the inmates sped off, abandoning the

van just north of the Mexican border. Prestridge was serving a life sentence without

parole for first degree murder. Both inmates are still at large.

• January 22, 2000—three prisoners escaped while the van transporting them

stopped at a convenience store for a restroom break. While the two guards weren’t

looking, two inmates jumped into the front seat, where the keys had been left in the

ignition. The inmates sped off down the highway, leaving the two guards helpless

on the side of the road. Luckily, shortly after the escape the van spun out of control

and slammed into a dirt embankment, preventing the prisoners from completing

their escape.

90

• October 13, 1999—Convicted child molester and murderer Kyle Bell was being

transported to a prison in Oregon. The transport van traveled from North Dakota

to Nashville, Tennessee and across the south central plains, until reaching Santa

Rosa, New Mexico, where it stopped to refuel. While tow of the four guards refueled

the bus and shopped at the truck stop, the two guards left behind to supervise the

prisoners slept in the front seat. Using a key hidden in his shoe, Kyle Bell undid

his handcuffs and shackles, and escaped through the roof ventilation hatch. After

resuming its journey, the van traveled for nine hours before the guards discovered

Bell was missing. And then it was another two hours before they notified law enforcement officials that here was a convicted killer loose in the area.

• July 24, 1999—Two men convicted of murder escaped from a van while being

transported from Tennessee to Virginia. The two guards went into a fast food restaurant to get breakfast for the convicts, but then they returned did not notice that

the convicts had freed themselves from their leg irons, possible with a smuggled

key. While one guard went back into the restaurant, the other stood watch outside

the van. But he forgot to lock the van door. The inmates kicked it open and fled.

One was caught after 45 minutes. The other stole a car, but was apprehended eight

hours later.

• July 30, 1997—Convicted rapist and kidnapper Dennis Glick escaped from a

van while being transported from Salt Lake City to Pine Bluffs, Arkansas. While

still in the van, Glick grabbed a gun from a guard who has fallen asleep. He took

seven prisoners, a guard and a local rancher hostage and led 60 law enforcement

officials on an all-night chase across Colorado. He was recaptured the next morning.

• November 30, 1997—Whatley Rolene, being transported from New Mexico to

Massachusetts, was able to remove his cuffs and grab a shotgun while one guard

was inside a gas station and other slept in the front seat. He later surrendered after

a showdown with the Colorado State Patrol and a local Sheriff’s Department.

• December 4, 1997—11 inmates escaped after overpowering a guard in the van

transporting them. Among the escapees were convicted child molester Charles E.

Dugger and convicted felon (and former jail escapee) Homer Land. Apparently, the

escapees shed their shackles either by picking the locks or using a key. The one

guard in the van had opened the van doors to ventilate it while the other guard

was inside a fast food restaurant. The guard in the van had been on the job less

than a month.

Dugger and the others were apprehended shortly after, but Homer Land forced

his way into the home of a couple in Owatonna, MN, and held them hostage for

15 hours. He later forced them to drive him to Minneapolis, where they escaped

while Land went into a store to buy cigarettes. Land was later apprehended in Chicago on a bus headed to Alabama.

• August 28, 1996—A husband-and-wife team of guards showed up at an Iowa

State prison to transport six inmates, five of them convicted murderers, from Iowa

to New Mexico. When the Iowa prison warden saw that there were only two guards

to transport six dangerous inmates, he reportedly responded ‘‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’’ Despite his concerns, the warden released the prisoners to the custody

of the guards when told the transport company had a contract.

Despite explicit instructions not to stop anywhere but county jails or state prisons

until reaching their destination, the husband and wife decided to stop at a rest stop

in Texas. During the stop, the inmates slipped out of their handcuffs and leg irons

and overpowered the couple. The six inmates stole the van and led police on a highspeed chase before being captured. The escape was reported to local authorities not

by the husband and wife, but by a tourist that witnessed the incident.

These escapes all have one thing in common—they are fraught with errors and

missteps by employees who are either inadequately trained or lack good supervision.

Clearly, something needs to be done before more harm is wreaked upon an

unsuspecting public; before more murderers, rapists, and child molesters escape

while being transported by people who have to meet no standards and follow no

common procedures.

That is why I have introduced, along with Senators Ashcroft and Leahy, the Interstate Transportation of Dangerous Criminals Act. I call the bill Jeanna’s Bill, after

the 11-year old girl who was brutally murdered in North Dakota by Kyle Bell.

This legislation requires the Attorney General to develop a set of minimum standards that private prisoner transport companies must follow if they want to continue

hauling murderers and rapists across the country. The standards must include some

basic common-sense provisions, such as employee background checks, minimum

training standards, minimum standards for restraints, and a requirement that if a

violent prisoner escapes while in transport, the company must immediately notify

law enforcement.

91

These standards are not onerous—in fact, they can be no stricter than those the

federal government uses when transporting federal prisoners. Rather, they provide

a minimum level of safety and common sense to an industry that so far has lacked

both.

Finally, the bill would also establish civil penalties for companies that violate

these standards. And if a company’s failure to follow the requirements results in an

escape, then the company can be held liable for the costs incurred by state and local

law enforcement agencies involved in the search. State and local governments do not

spend millions of dollars to apprehend, try, and incarcerate violent criminals just

so a private company can lose them again. If private prisoner transport companies

are made liable for these costs, perhaps fewer violent convicts will escape.

No American should ever have to pull the family station wagon up to a gas pump

only to find that the van next to them is full of convicted murderers whose only supervision is someone with one-week’s training who may well be asleep. Nothing in

this bill requires a degree in criminology. It is just common sense, and we need to

make absolutely sure that private transport companies start to show some.

Senator Leahy and I have asked Chairman Hatch for a full committee hearing

on our bill, and I am hopeful that one will be scheduled soon. In the meantime, I

encourage you to support this bill. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is accountable for

its actions, as evidence by this hearing today. But there is no oversight when it

comes to these private companies. I hope you’ll help me change that by supporting

this important legislation.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF

SOUTH DAKOTA

I want to thank Subcommittee Chairman Thurmond and Ranking Member Schumer for allowing me to share some thoughts on Federal prisoner health care costs

and the Bureau of Prisons. As you know, Senator Kyl and I introduced last year

a bill to require federal prisoners to pay a nominal fee when they initiate certain

visits for medical attention. Fees collected from prisoners will either be paid as restitution to victims or be deposited into the Federal Crime Victims’ Fund. My state

of South Dakota is one of 34 states that have implemented state-wide prisoner

health care copayment programs. The Department of Justice supports extending

this prisoner health care copayment program to federal prisoners in an attempt to

reduce unnecessary medical procedures and ensure that adequate health care services are available for prisoners who need them.

My interest in the prisoner health care copayment issue came from discussions

I had in South Dakota with a number of law enforcement officials and US Marshal

Lyle Swenson about the equitable treatment between pre-sentencing federal prisoners housed in county jails and the county prisoners residing in those same facilities. Currently, country prisoners in South Dakota are subject to state and local

laws allowing the collection of a health care copayment, while Marshals Service

prisoners are not, thereby allowing federal prisoners to abuse health care resources

at great cost to state and local law enforcement.

As our legislation moved through the Judiciary Committee and Senate last year,

we had the opportunity to work on specific concerns raised by South Dakota law

enforcement officials and the US Marshalls service. I sincerely appreciate Senator

Kyl’s willingness to incorporate my language into the Federal Prisoner Health Care

Copayment Act that allows state and local facilities to collect health care copayment

fees when housing pre-sentencing federal prisoners.

I also worked with Senator Kyl and members of the Judiciary Committee to include sufficient flexibility in the Kyl-Johnson bill for the Bureau of Prisons and local

facilities contracting with the Marshals Service to maintain preventive-health priorities. The Kyl-Johnson bill prohibits the refusal of treatment for financial reasons

for appropriate preventive care. I am pleased this provision was included to preempt long term, and subsequently more costly, health problems among prisoners.

The goal of the Kyl-Johnson Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act is not

about generating revenue for the federal, state, and local prison systems. Instead,

current prisoner health care copayment programs in 34 states illustrate the success

in reducing the number of frivolous health visits and strain on valuable health care

resources. The Kyl-Johnson bill will ensure that adequate health care is available

to those prisoners who need it, with out/straining budgets of taxpayers.

I am pleased the Senate passed the Kyl-Johnson Federal Prisoner Health Care

Copayment Act last year, and I am hopeful that the House will act on this legislation before the end of this session. A companion bill, sponsored by Representative

Salmon, has bipartisan support and is now waiting action by the House Judiciary

Committee. I look forward to working with members of the House on this important

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piece of legislation, and I once again thank Chairman Thurmond, Ranking Member

Schumer, and Members of the Subcommittee for giving me the opportunity to discuss this issue with you today.

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