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MS–13 AND COUNTING: GANG ACTIVITY IN

MONTGOMERY AND PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 6, 2006

Serial No. 109–182

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

BENJAMIN CHANCE, Clerk

MICHAEL GALINDO, Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 6, 2006 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Colvin, Carolyn, director, Department of Health and Human Services,

Montgomery County; Robert Green, warren, Montgomery County Correctional Facility; Michael Butler, gang prevention coordinator, Prince

George’s County; Luis Cardona, youth violence prevention coordinator,

Montgomery County; Daniel Arretche, director, Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center; and Richard Brown, small business owner .................. 49

Arretche, Daniel ........................................................................................ 73

Brown, Richard .......................................................................................... 82

Butler, Michael .......................................................................................... 66

Colvin, Carolyn .......................................................................................... 49

Green, Robert ............................................................................................. 57

Johnson, Jack B., county executive, Prince George’s County, MD; George

Leventhal, chairman, Montgomery County Council; Assistant Chief

John King, Montgomery County Policy Department; and Captain Bill

Lynn, commander, Violent Crimes Task Force, Gang Unit, Prince

George’s County Police Department ............................................................ 14

Johnson, Jack B. ........................................................................................ 14

King, John .................................................................................................. 28

Leventhal, George ..................................................................................... 24

Lynn, Captain Bill ..................................................................................... 32

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Arretche, Daniel, director, Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 75

Brown, Richard, small business owner, prepared statement of ................... 84

Butler, Michael, gang prevention coordinator, Prince George’s County,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 68

Colvin, Carolyn, director, Department of Health and Human Services,

Montgomery County, prepared statement of .............................................. 52

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 12

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 5

Green, Robert, warren, Montgomery County Correctional Facility, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 60

Johnson, Jack B., county executive, Prince George’s County, MD, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 18

King, John, assistant chief, Montgomery County Policy Department, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 30

Leventhal, George, chairman, Montgomery County Council, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 26

Lynn, Captain Bill, commander, Violent Crimes Task Force, Gang Unit,

Prince George’s County Police Department, prepared statement of ......... 35

(1)

MS–13 AND COUNTING: GANG ACTIVITY IN

MONTGOMERY AND PRINCE GEORGE’S

COUNTIES

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Takoma Park, MD.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:30 p.m., in the Takoma Park City Council Chambers, Takoma Park, MD, Hon. Tom

Davis (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Cummings, Van Hollen,

and Ruppersberger.

Also present: Representative Wolf.

Staff present: David Marin, staff director; Jennifer Safavian,

chief counsel for oversight and investigations; A. Brooke Bennett,

counsel; Mindy Walker, professional staff member; Benjamin

Chance and Michael Galindo, clerks;

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me apologize for our tardiness. Representative Wolf and I were in a meeting with our Governor at the

Capitol that went a little longer on the future of the rail at Tyson’s

Corner. We got out as quick as we could. Chris, we ran into some

traffic, which does not surprise anybody.

Let me thank my distinguished colleague Chris Van Hollen for,

really, his responsibility for this hearing, calling our attention to

the problem over here. He has been a very active member of the

Government Reform Committee legislatively and on this particular

issue. Chris, thank you for hosting this today.

I would ask unanimous consent that my distinguished colleague

from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mr. Frank Wolf, be able to

participate in today’s hearing.

Mayor Porter, would you like to make a few opening remarks before we go to ours?

And thank you for hosting this, as well.

Mayor PORTER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of

the committee.

We welcome you to the city of Takoma Park, and I welcome especially Chris Van Hollen, who has been here many times before, but

we are very glad to have him representing us in Congress.

We are pleased to host this hearing on the extremely important

topic of gang violence. As you know, I am sure, there have been

some very serious incidents of gang violence in this area right

across the border in the Langley Park area.

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We are concerned because we know that gangs do not respect political boundaries, and because of the negative effects gangs have

on our young people and on our community.

In Takoma Park, we have actually taken a few steps to address

in some small way the issue of gang violence. I was very pleased

to be a member of the Bi-county Task Force on Gangs created by

officials in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. As a member of that task force, I learned that the most effective way of controlling gang activity is to prevent young people from joining gangs.

We also supported the location of the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center in Takoma Park. This was one of the recommendations of the Bi-county Task Force on Gang Violence, and it offers

special services to young people at risk of joining gangs.

The city of Takoma Park has also hosted two public forums to

educate parents and other adults about gangs, one focused on law

enforcement and the other focused on other efforts to prevent

young people from joining gangs.

Along with Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, we have

also created a CSAFE area. CSAFE stands for Collaborative Supervision and Focused Enforcement in the Langley Park area. This

program is State funded, and it helps to coordinate law enforcement and crime prevention in high crime areas. So it’s very appropriate for that area.

We also regard many of the recreational and education programs

that we offer in this new building as very important in steering

young people away from gangs. It gives them constructive things

to do with their time.

The issue of gang violence continues to be a very important issue

in Takoma Park, and we thank you for taking the time to have us

here and to address this very important topic.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

I want to thank everybody for coming out to Taloma Park. The

examination of gang activity in Maryland is not just Montgomery

and Prince George’s Counties. In July, we looked at the strikingly

strong presence of MS–13 and other Latino gangs in northern Virginia. Maryland also has a strong MS–13 presence, but it doesn’t

stop there: if you thought Crips and Bloods were the stuff of Los

Angeles gang wars, think again.

During our July hearing, we learned two basic truths: one, gangs

are transient; and, two, gangs require more than just a law enforcement response. The bottom line is that gangs do not observe

neat jurisdictional boundaries. We have reports of Maryland law

enforcement picking up gang bangers with Virginia license plates,

and gang members from Maryland currently serving time in Virginia jails. With this level of mobility, law enforcement needs to be

able to move easily across boundaries—whether city and State,

Federal and local, or simply across State lines.

The northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, which we

heard from in July and which was set up by my colleague Frank

Wolf, is doing just this. It is coordinating efforts among 13 Virginia

jurisdictions. Law enforcement officials in Montgomery and Prince

George’s Counties are coordinating through a similar organization

called the Regional Area Gang Enforcement Task Force. This

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RAGE Task Force includes State, local, and Federal law enforcement, including the Park Police in whose jurisdiction gang activity

often takes place.

Many recognize that the Northern Virginia Task Force has been

extremely successful in its suppression and enforcement efforts,

and some go so far as to attribute increased gang activities in

Maryland and other jurisdictions to the success in northern Virginia. As we craft our regional strategies for combating gangs, we

need to be careful not to cutoff one head only to see it sprout up

somewhere else.

We need to recognize fighting gang activity requires regional coordination, and we look forward to hearing about this coordination

from enforcement officials in Montgomery and Prince George’s

Counties.

But if our previous hearing taught us anything, it’s that enforcement is only part of the equation. Any response to gang activity

must include a prevention and intervention component also. Prevention and intervention help us answer the important questions,

such as how you divert at-risk kids from the lure of gangs and how

do you best address the needs of gang-involved youth looking for

something more.

Gangs prey on young people who lack role models, who spend

time on the street with no constructive activities, and who are simply lost in the system. These wanderers become the perpetrators of

the gruesome murders, stabbings, and violent felonies we too often

read about in the papers. And, that’s all before they turn 16.

Fortunately, like the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task

Force, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties have developed

effective prevention and intervention tools. We will hear from elected officials and representatives from the Department of Health and

Human Services from these two counties regarding their public

health approach to a public safety issue. We will also hear from the

Director of the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, the Warden

of the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, and a former gang

member-turned-small-business-owner, each of whom directs their

own unique approach to helping those who are at-risk or are current or former gang members.

None of the good news we will hear today would have been possible without the efforts of my good friends and colleagues Frank

Wolf and Chris Van Hollen. Congressman Wolf’s response to gang

activity in his district triggered a region-wide recognition of the

presence and prevalence of gang activity, and he secured significant Federal fundings to fight gangs in northern Virginia.

Congressman Van Hollen also secured over $2.3 million in Federal funding to support joint county initiatives, including the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, community-based after school

programs, and increased policing activities.

When you put the Federal funding and the good activities it supports together, what you get are safer streets, safer schools, and alternatives for at-risk youth. Ultimately, this means your neighborhood is safer, and the region will not become a haven for gang activity and violence.

But challenges persist. When Frank and I went to El Salvador

last year, we learned of prisons that are recruiting grounds for

4

MS–13 and other violent gangs in the region. In fact, a convicted

murderer who escaped from a Salvador prison and sought refuge

in Virginia’s Loudoun County was just picked up by Federal and

local law enforcement and is now in Federal custody awaiting deportation.

We are aware of the unique challenges gangs present. We should

continue to try to identify and understand the sources of the problems—be they international jails or the streets and schools in our

own backyards.

This is why we call hearings like this, to hear about the successes of our law enforcement and prevention communities and

how we in Congress can continue to assist you.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today, and,

again, I want to thank the city of Takoma Park for so generously

making this facility available to us.

Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for the

record, and I will now recognize my colleague Mr. Van Hollen.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,

and I will be brief because you have covered a lot of territory.

Let me also begin by thanking the mayor of Takoma Park, Kathy

Porter, for her hospitality today and for all of her leadership in our

area. I want to thank you for all that you have done for our community.

I also want to thank Chairman Tom Davis for his leadership on

this very important issue. As he said, we had a hearing earlier on

the Virginia side of the Potomac River. We are now here on the

Maryland side of the Potomac River. He has done a terrific job of

drawing attention to this very, very important issue and working

on a regional basis and on a bipartisan basis to try and get things

done.

Let me also thank my colleague Frank Wolf, who really launched

this effort for our region a number of years ago. He saw what was

an emerging problem, and he did not just sit by and look at it going

by. He actually decided to take some very significant action, and

we are very pleased that through working with him, Congressman

Davis and others, he has been able to provide the resources, use

his influence on the Appropriations Committee to provide the resources that we need in our region to fight gang violence.

And as Congressman Davis has pointed out and others, this is

not just a Maryland problem or just a Virginia problem or D.C.

problem. It is truly a regional issue. It is a national issue, and it

is an international issue. And if you just succeed in fighting a gang

in one place and it moves to another, it does not do you any good.

So you have to fight it on a regional basis, and I want to thank

them publicly for their real leadership on this issue.

Let me also thank County Executive Jack Johnson and County

Executive Doug Duncan for also seizing the initiative on this a couple of years ago. Unfortunately County Executive Doug Duncan is

having hip replacement surgery today and could not be here, but

I want to thank both of them.

Jack Johnson and Doug Duncan teamed up. They did form the

Joint County Gang Prevention Task Force. They understood we

had an emerging problem, and again, they did not just want to sit

and watch it get worse. They wanted to intervene and address the

issue head on.

And as a result of that Joint County Gang Task Force and the

local and Federal partnership, I do believe we have made considerable progress. We have a ways to go. No doubt about it, but we

have helped address the issue, confront the issue, and now we are

working to roll back the issue.

And I want to also thank the leaders from our county councils.

I am very pleased to have George Leventhal here, who is president

of the Montgomery County Council. They have been a real team

player in this effort, and thank you for your leadership as well.

And I should also mention the State’s Attorneys Glen Ivy in

Prince George’s County and the State’s Attorneys Offices on both

sides have also been very supportive and involved in this effort.

The task force essentially has representatives to deal with the

multi-pronged approach. As you said, Mr. Chairman, we need to

deal with three components: suppression, the law enforcement comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Nov 03, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30329.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
9

ponent; make sure that people who are committing crimes are

taken off the streets and dealt with appropriately.

But we also need to address the prevention part of this, and obviously, to the extent that we can prevent a young person from getting in trouble in the first place, getting involved in a gang in the

first place, we have done an even better job of protecting the community and insuring that a young life is a life that is productive

rather than one that is a cost to society.

So we want to focus on those prevention efforts. You have mentioned the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center. I think that’s a

terrific example of us moving forward in this Federal and local

partnership. We also have the suppression component. I am very

pleased that the representatives from the police department are

here both on the Prince George’s County side and the Montgomery

County side. I think they have been working together as a team.

So this is an effort that I think we have seen success both in

terms of regionally in Maryland, Prince George’s County, Montgomery County working together, but also regionally throughout the

D.C. metropolitan area where Virginians and Marylanders and representatives from the District of Columbia have been working together to address this issue.

So I want to thank my colleagues from Virginia for their support

and effort in this regional partnership. And I see we have been

joined by my colleague, Elijah Cummings, and I want to welcome

him and thank him for all of his leadership as well.

Let me just if I could mention a few other elected officials that

I have a list of who I know are attending. I am very pleased to

have Council Member Howie Dennis here. I do want to recognize

Howie. Thank you for being here.

And Council Member Marilyn Praisner. Thank you very much to

both of you for your leadership.

We also have Maryland Deputy Secretary of State Luis Borunda

representing the Secretary of State of Maryland’s Office.

We also have a number of folks who are going to be testifying

a little later, and we will introduce them as they come up.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

I want to welcome all of the guests in the room.

Mr. Wolf.

Mr. WOLF. Thank you, Chairman Davis.

I want to thank you for putting all of the time and attention in

this, which is very important because the public has to be part of

this. I also want to thank Chris for his leadership. Many times we

would walk over to the floor together to a vote, and Chris raised

this issue and said how important. And I think he is exactly right.

This region has to work together. You cannot just solve the problem in Fairfax without it popping up in Loudoun, and the same

way if you cannot solve it in just Virginia you come over here. So

I think he is exactly right.

The last thing I would say is it is a tough problem, but it is doable. It is solvable. It can be dealt with in a very successful way.

And I think finally, with the education and the suppression and

the intervention combined, and not thinking just in terms of the

law enforcement, I think we are well along the way in northern

Virginia to solving it, and you are here. but I want to thank both

10

Tom and Chris Van Hollen for their leadership and making the effort and showing that we can work together both across political

lines, but also political boundaries. So thank you very much, Mr.

Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank you and certainly Congressman Van Hollen

for your leadership, and I want to thank Congressman Wolf for

being here and all of you who are here and are witnesses.

No one is immune from the impact that gangs can have on a

community. Gang violence is widespread, dangerous, and often

deadly. Drive-by shootings, carjackings, home invasions, intimidation tactics, and the loss of innocent life have become all to frequent, paralyzing neighborhoods and simply destroying lives.

People who join gangs often establish a lifelong pattern of involvement with the criminal justice system. For some the gang life

style has even passed down as a family tradition leading to endless

cycles of violence and endless cycles of despair. Notably, this is not

simply an inner city problem. Gangs reach every corner of every

county of every State in this country. Today gangs and the aspects

of the violence they attract draw young people from all walks of

life, from all races, and from all economic backgrounds.

Gang violence is a persistent problem facing not only the more

publicized locations of Montgomery County and Prince George’s

County, but also my constituents in the Seventh Congressional District of Maryland, which includes neighborhoods in Baltimore City

and Howard County and Baltimore County.

Hundreds of gangs exist in Baltimore City, including youth gangs

that operate in neighborhoods or schools and drug gangs. The vast

majority of our neighborhood gangs composed of 18 to 15 youth

who focus their activities in a specific housing area, but a smaller

number follows the culture of nationally recognized gangs, such as

MS–13.

In Baltimore County, approximately 35 gangs are in operation.

About half of these are the smaller neighborhood or school variety,

and the rest identify with national gangs, such as the Crips, the

Bloods, and to a lesser extent MS–13.

In Howard County an entire suburban and rural area, the greatest gang threat comes from MS–13. Police observe MS–13 members

traveling into Howard County from Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties and Washington, and so as Congressman Wolf and

Congressman Van Hollen have said, this is a regional problem that

we must all address.

In Howard County last year about 25 to 30 incidents were linked

to MS–13 ranging from tagging and vandalism to robberies, theft,

auto theft, and sometimes violent crimes, such as stabbing and

rape.

In Takoma Park, MS–13 has similarly infiltrated the community.

That is why the FBI in 2004 established an MS–13 National Gang

Task Force, to bring together State, local, Federal and foreign

agencies to address the growing trend of violence by MS–13 and

similar such gangs.

11

Other partnerships include the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network in which the agencies seek to improve officer

and public safety through a variety of means, and the Gang Intervention Partnership Unit, which conducts outreach to the community to educate residents about the dangers of gang, how to identify

possible gang activity, and whom to call to report it.

Furthermore, because of the nexus between violent gang activity

and drug trafficking, the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA headed by

my good friend Tom Carr and funded by the Officer of National

Drug Control Policy has been an active participant in MARGIN

(phonetic).

We must continue to work together to address this growing

threat, to win this battle on behalf of innocent law abiding citizens.

If we do not put an end to the vicious terror of the gang culture,

the impact will continue to be felt by generations yet unborn.

I commend our panelists today who work to combat the threat

of gang activity. I welcome Kathy Porter, Jack Johnson, George

Leventhal and the rest of the panelists who have been working

tirelessly to help our area rid ourselves of gangs and gang violence,

and so I look forward to the hearing today, and again, I want to

thank you, Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Chairman, for your leadership.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

We are now ready to get to our panel. Thank you for your patience. Again, our apologies for starting a little late.

Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for the

record. Our first panel, the Honorable Jack B. Johnson, the county

executive from Prince George’s County, MD; the Honorable George

Leventhal, the chairman of the Montgomery County Council; Assistant Chief John King, Montgomery County Police Department;

and Captain Bill Lynn, the commander of Violent Crimes Task

Force, Gang Unit, Prince George’s County Police Department.

It is our policy that we swear all witnesses in before you testify.

So just rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Johnson, we will start with you and we will move on down.

We have a light in front of you. It is green and turns orange after

4 minutes and red after 5. Your entire statement is part of the

record, so please try to keep it within 5 minutes. It moves things

along, but I am not going to gavel you down if you feel you want

to go on.

Thank you very much for being with us.

STATEMENTS OF JACK B. JOHNSON, COUNTY EXECUTIVE,

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD; GEORGE LEVENTHAL,

CHAIRMAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY COUNCIL; JOHN KING,

ASSISTANT CHIEF, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICY DEPARTMENT; AND CAPTAIN BILL LYNN, COMMANDER, VIOLENT

CRIMES TASK FORCE, GANG UNIT, PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT

STATEMENT OF JACK B. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I hope my

microphone is working.

Let me first say, Mr. Chairman, we are just so really pleased

that you and the committee have come down here today to speak

to us.

Mr. Wolf, we want to really thank you so much. Congressman

Wolf, when I first met you at the opening of the Wilson Bridge, I

personally told you how much I appreciate what you are doing on

the gang and for bringing recognition that this is a problem not

only in this region, but in the entire country. We really appreciate

your effort on that.

And to Congressman Van Hollen, we want to thank you for what

you have done in our community assisting us in the region, and so

likewise Congressman Cummings. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

You have my statement and so, therefore, I will not read all of

this.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me have whoever is getting the volume up to turn it up a little bit.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I can hear you, but I am not sure everybody can.

15

Mr. JOHNSON. We have submitted our written statement. So,

therefore, I will not read the entire statement because I want to

really touch on some of the core issues that I think are just really

important.

The first one is to recognize that gang is a problem in the United

States and the region.

The second is that the idea that suppression is the way to go is

something that really does not work in and of itself. As you know,

I was a State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County for 8 years,

and we took that approach in terms of gang tough prosecution, and

I remember in many of the cases that I prosecuted there were very

young people, and we thought for a long time that was the way to

do it: infiltration of the gang and get the intelligence and then go

after them when they commit criminal activities.

That is absolutely important, critical to the part of suppression

that we believe that’s so important, but it is only one factor.

The other thing that we recognize is that you cannot do it alone,

and I think that is why this task force was formed. Doug Duncan

called me 1 day and said, ‘‘Jack, you have a gang problem. We have

a gang problem. We sit right next to each other, and unless we

work together we cannot get it done.’’

So Doug and I met and we decided that, you know, it cannot be

suppression alone, that what we have to do is look holistically, look

at why young people enter into a gang. What are the social factors?

What are the family structures? What are the health issues concerning those young people? What are the attractors, and why do

they deal with the gang?

And so we decided then to bring the police department and all

segments of our community together. We have lifted them for you.

Juvenile services, as I indicated, the health services, the police department, social services, all of that, and we formed this joint task

force.

Now, they have 20 recommendations that they will lay out for

you as to what they came up with, but what we determined is that

in order to be successful, it must be a holistic approach, and the

holistic approach must include every segment of the community:

teachers, very important; family; recognition of colors; why young

people are alone; what are the signs of gangs; all of those kinds of

things that will first bring to the public the idea that it exists and

that we need to recognize signs of gangs.

And I think that is one of the great things, Congressman Wolf,

that you have done, is to say to the public it does exist and it is

time to find out what is going on so that we can be effective in

stopping that.

So we began by creating, as I indicated, the task force. But I

want you to know that so we decided, therefore, then that we have

to put our moneys into it, and so the county, Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, decided that we would contribute I

think it was $400,000, and that we will find a place on the order

where young people who are at risk could come and interface with

the professionals, the health providers, the social workers, the

school teachers, the folks in the neighborhood who can assist them

with the loneliness and isolation and help them resist the urge to

join these kinds of organizations.

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Because we have found that young people do not wake up 1 day

and decide that they want to join a gang. What they focus on is

some kind of family structure, some kind of good relationship,

something that makes them feel secure, and we realize then that

the security has to come from the collective community through our

Crossroads initiative.

And we call it the Crossroads because it is right on the crossroads of Prince George’s County and Montgomery County. The

Crossroad opening was just amazing. Congressman Van Hollen,

you were there. We had all of the social workers and all of the

other people that were involved, but more importantly, we had ex

gang members who were touched by folks when they testified as to

the significance and why they formed gangs and why they joined

gangs, and they were really excited to have the recognition from

the larger society.

We realize then that recognition and the self-work of individuals

were so important. I say that to say that, Congressman Van

Hollen, we called you because we recognized that we cannot do it

on the local level alone, and you were the face of the Federal intervention, the Federal help, the Federal partner that we must have,

and so I think that is the message today, that prevention can make

a huge difference. it is the key. The local communities must put resources into gang prevention. It must be holistic, and that the Federal partners must be a part of this solution.

We will do our part in terms of law enforcement, but we really

need you on the suppression side, and we think that together we

can really turn this thing around and put many of our young people on the right track, give them the kind of choices that they need

to be productive citizens and move in the right direction.

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So, again, I just want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of this committee for allowing us to be here today and to talk

about how important this activity is and how important the work

of your committee is and how important the Federal partner is in

helping us deal with this problem.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Chairman Leventhal, thank you for being with us today.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE LEVENTHAL

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Chairman Davis thank you so much for inviting

us. Congressman Van Hollen, we appreciate your effective and responsive leadership. Our colleagues and friends, Mr. Cummings

and Mr. Ruppersberger from Maryland, welcome to Montgomery

County. It’s great to have you here, and thank you for your work

to solve our gang problems here.

And, Mr. Wolf, a special thanks to you for your work on the Appropriations Committee. You see here on this panel cooperation between Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties and the description of the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, but we also absolutely agree with your comments and Chairman Davis’ comments

that we cannot solve this problem on one side or the other of the

Potomac, and we’re very, very grateful to you for your assistance

and look forward to continuing to work with you.

Gang violence is increasing throughout the metropolitan Washington area. In Montgomery County we are trying to combat this

increase with a comprehensive and regional approach. There are

between 20 and 28 active gangs in Montgomery County, and 680

to 930 persons identified as gant members. The numbers change as

gangs come and go, arrests are made, and as people move in and

out of the area often to other jurisdictions represented here.

Primarily gang members are young people between the ages of

15 and 21. I agree with County Executive Johnson that the prevention and early intervention are a critical approach to this problem,

and we have taken this approach as Mr. Johnson has outlines.

When young people cannot find stability, support, friendship and

activities in their own homes, schools, and communities, they become vulnerable to the invitations of gang recruiters, and the other

side of the equation is, of course, effective law enforcement and

prosecution. Often gangs are held together by a small number of

older gang members. When these individuals are taken off of the

street, many times the gang will dissolve.

The number of gang members being held in our local jails and

being supervised in community programs is also increasing, and

this brings challenges to our corrections department in terms of

housing inmates and providing effective rehabilitation services.

We need help from the Congress. We’re investing significant resources of our own. We were very, very grateful to the assistance

we received from the Congress in fiscal 2006, and we are requesting additional help in fiscal 2007. We’re requesting $1.4 million for

after school programs. Keeping our young people active and engaged during after school hours is important not only for preventing gang activity, but for many other problem behaviors, including

drug use, teen pregnancy, and the increasing problem of childhood

obesity.

The county council has expanded our Rec Extra Program in this

year’s budget under the leadership of Council Vice President

Marilyn Praisner, who is here, so that we have after school programs in every middle school in Montgomery County.

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We responded to request from Blair High School Students to

make sure its sports academy program will continue, and we’ve expanded this to Einstein High School as well.

We are partnering with the public schools and with nonprofit

and faith based organizations to make sure that after school programs provide not only recreational opportunities but also programs to improve young people’s academic performance.

We’re asking for 1.4 million, and we expect to receive the following benefits in terms of a Federal appropriation: an increase in

school attendance and student participation in school activities; reduction in suspensions and disciplinary actions; improvement in

school completion; reduction in illegal and risky behavior; improved

sense of safety and belonging on the part of young people; increased sense of competence and confidence; and reduction in disproportionate minority representation in the juvenile justice and

adult correctional systems. We’re also asking for $260,000 for a street outreach network composed of former gang members. We’re asking for $485,900 to

continue funding our centralized gang investigation unit; $1 million

to help us expand our efforts to provide high school wellness centers in high risk schools which would create two new centers with

targeted services to high risk youth who face challenges with poverty, youth, and gang violence, teen pregnancy and school failure. And finally, just over $3 million to help us expand the Youth Opportunity Center Program, which you heard Mr. Johnson describe,

which we believe has been very successful and has been a great example of cooperation between Montgomery and Prince George’s

Counties.

We are not only expecting to do this with Federal resources with county dollars. We have invested $5.8 million this year of county

dollars in 22 different programs, nonprofit organizations and agencies, to address the multi-faceted problem of gang violence.

Montgomery County is trying to make comprehensive and take

a regional approach to the growing problem of gang activity. We

need to continue to be partners. We need to continue to work with

our neighboring county, Prince George’s, and with our friends and

colleagues from the State of Virginia.

And thank you very, very much for allowing me to testify today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Leventhal follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chief King, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF JOHN KING

Asst. Chief KING. Thank you, sir.

I am John King, assistant chief of police, Montgomery County

Department of Police.

On behalf of our Chief of Police Tom Manger and the men and

women of the Montgomery County Department of Police, I want to

thank the committee. Clearly, from your opening comments it is

really clear to us on the panel here that you have a good grasp of

what is needed and what is being done with the resource, and we

are very thankful to you for your continued support.

It is an opportunity for us to discuss what we are doing in Montgomery County in response to the gang activity in our community.

As with most criminal activity, gang crime does not adhere to any

jurisdictional boundary. That is why it is important and our area

law enforcement agencies have united to work together to address

this issue.

The Montgomery County Police have joined other regional agencies, including Maryland State Police, Prince George’s County Police, Maryland National Capital Park Police to work with the ATF

on a regional area gang enforcement unit, the RAGE unit. This

unit enables each of the participating agencies not only to gather

valuable criminal intelligence, but it also gives law enforcement a

very effective operational arm.

In our community of Montgomery County, we have seen gang

membership and gang related crime increase at a steady rate over

the last few years. What is more alarming to us, however, is that

from November 2005 to May 2006, we have witnessed a 30 percent

increase in active gangs, from 20 to 28; a 30 percent increase in

documented gang members, from 680 to 930; and a corresponding

30 percent increase in crime which we have attributed to gang

members. Most of these crime increases have been in burglaries,

robberies, and vandalisms.

In the second quarter of 2006, 24 different gangs were involved

in documented incidents in Montgomery County. Three of those 24

gangs accounted for 67 percent of all reported gang involved activities. Those gangs were identified as the Crips, the Bloods, and MS–

13.

The Crips were involved in 21 incidents, while both the Bloods

and MS–13 were involved in 18 incidents each. No other gang was

involved in more than five documented incidents.

Our intelligence indicates that these Crips and Bloods are not

formally associated with their popular namesakes in California, but

the presence of these two groups highlight the importance of our

actions on this issue.

In addition to the enforcement efforts, Montgomery County Police

work with other government and non-government agencies to prevent young people from becoming involved in gangs. Over the last

year we have noted a significant increase in results for our educational presentations on gang prevention both from our schools

and from our community groups.

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In addition to providing us education to our general population,

we work to identify potentially at risk youths and their families

and target them for focused prevention efforts.

In our wing community, our gang task force officers and Choices,

a nonprofit group, work together to help young people who are considering joining a gang. Officers identify these children and then

involve them and their parents in the program. A plan is then developed with the assistance of the Montgomery County Social Service agencies to provide wrap-around services to that family. These

services continue for up to 6 months.

These type of responses are consisting of the department’s community policing philosophy wherein we identify problems and then

work with multiple shareholders to work on solutions.

It is important for us to note and thank the U.S. Congress for

the support that you have given us on this important issue of gang

activity. With a grant of $500,000, the Montgomery County Police

Department is able to, in addition to other things, fund six fulltime gang investigators who will be dedicated to conducting countywide gang investigations from a centralized office. These gang investigators will also work closely with our county level partners

who include Health and Human Services, the State’s Attorney’s Office, the public schools, our County Detention Center, and our community-based organizations, such as Identity, the Youth Crossroads

Opportunity Center, and Choices.

This Federal funding from Congress is very important, and we

are thankful for the assistance. It is having a positive impact on

our fight for the expansion against gang related activity.

A special partner of ours in this battle is the Prince George’s

County Police Department. Chief High and his officers have taken

a proactive role in facing this challenge head on, and we, the Montgomery County Police, are thankful for their efforts in working

with us on a regional level, and I appreciate Captain Bill Lynn

being next to us. I think it is very appropriate that we are sitting

shoulder to shoulder here because that is really the way we are

working to approach this regional issue.

The Montgomery County Police Department will continue to be

aggressive as we deal with this issue of gang activity. We will seek

out new activities, initiatives not only to suppress gang criminal

acts, but also to intervene and prevent young people from becoming

active gang members.

Thank you for your time.

[The prepared statement of Assistant Chief King follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you very much as well.

Captain Lynn, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN BILL LYNN

Captain LYNN. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis and the distinguished members of the committee. I am going to be brief on behalf

of Chief Melvin High, the Prince George’s County Police Department.

Chairman Davis and the Committee members’ opening statements this morning pinpoint the important aspects of gang prevention, intervention and suppression. Also, you stressed the importance of funds to start and maintain our programs and to keep our

efforts going in the long term.

Gangs and their criminal enterprises pose an ever increasing

concern for local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies

more than ever before. Today gangs and gang related violence leading to the erosion of the basic quality of life in many of our communities is widespread, more so even compared to the gangs of the

1920’s that plagued many of our U.S. cities.

As I stated during a hearing in July 14th of this year, the Prince

George’s County Police Department started a gang unit in 2003,

and shortly thereafter began the framework for what has resulted

in the multi-agency task force, the Regional Area Gang Enforcement [RAGE].

The task force is comprised of Prince George’s County police officers, officers from Montgomery County, Howard County, Maryland

State Police, Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Department, the

Maryland National Park and Planning Police Department, the Hyattsville City Police Department, ATF, ICE, and the FBI.

Prince George’s County Gang Unit and the Task Force have seen

tremendous success through the hard work and determination.

Coupled with the various State’s Attorneys Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we have a formidable front against the threat.

As we are well aware, the most notable gang in our area is MS–

13. This group has been active throughout the region, in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. No community has escaped its influence, burden, and violence, and no one community is the central hub for its

occupation.

Fortunately, lawmakers like you, law enforcement and civilian

agencies have come together on several fronts to cause the united

effort to combat an organization that depletes the cultural and economic resources of our communities.

Our law enforcement partnership has brought to bear the strong

arm of the Federal Government against MS–13. In 2005, we

opened a Federal RICO case against several cliques of MS–13. The

success of this investigation has generated additional arrests and

more intelligence on the reach and violence of the group.

The first phase or trial begins today and is expected to last for

several weeks. The success and importance and impact of this investigation are clear to everyone that is involved. It has also been

demonstrated the need for additional personnel to pursue the

countless avenues that MS–13 travels.

However, it is not just MS–13 that we need to focus on. Whether

it is in northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, Montgomery or

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Prince George’s County, we are all seeing the emergence of young

people associating themselves with violent groups known as Bloods

and Crips. Again, these groups, born on the West Coast, influence

our youth in many ways, including television, movies and music.

Many of the things that draw youth to MS–13 also draw them

into these terrible organizations. So our approach to combatting the

Crips and Bloods must be similar to that of MS–13, but we must

have an action plan, and we cannot ignore these groups.

In Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, we have

been fortunate that our county leaders recognize the importance of

all aspects of combating gangs and created the bi-county gang task

force. This endeavor brings the executive levels of government, law

enforcement, and other government agencies, schools, and private

organizations together to focus their resources, efforts, and expertise in fighting gangs.

As we all well know, we cannot simply put handcuffs on MS–13,

the Crips or the Bloods and make the problem disappear. With the

work of the Bi-county Gang Task Force, along with our efforts in

law enforcement, we believe great strides have been taken to address these criminal enterprises. Each of the participating agencies,

governmental and civilian, should be commended for their dedication to this effort. Certainly our strength is in our numbers, coordination, and determination.

While MS–13 cliques in our regions do not demonstrate the level

of sophistication and criminal activity equal to their counterparts

in Los Angeles, it is not for lack of trying. This disorganization

should not be seen as a weakness. Leadership from Los Angeles is

known to visit our area and provide guidance, organization to the

cliques and try to define their criminal activity. These same statements can be applied to the Crips and Bloods.

The Prince George’s County Gang Unit constantly evaluates the

changing face of gang activity in our communities, as do many of

our allied agencies. We constantly evaluate our approach to all

issues generated by gangs. We not only concentrate on the traditional law enforcement approaches to the problem, but we maintain

the open lines of communication and stay actively involved in our

schools, along with counseling and intervention programs.

The dismantlement of gang cliques via the RICO case and our

gang unit operations have disrupted the organization and operating

ability of local MS–13 cliques. Strong sentencing and the possibility

of life sentences as well, the possibility of release have sent a dramatic message to gang members.

But with the long lasting and multi-agency, multi-pronged approach to a complicated, deep rooted problem, if we don’t have

these, we will be revisiting some of the same issues over and over

again. This is why I feel that Prince George’s County and our allied

regions will be successful in their war against gangs. We are putting police, schools, private and governmental service providers,

local, State, and Federal Government together on the front lines of

the battle.

We recognize that MS–13, Bloods and Crips are active in our

schools and recruit new members there. This is why the Prince

George’s County Gang Unit will increase its already steady involvement in schools by educating the educators. We will continue our

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efforts at training teachers, school administrators, certainly in the

early signs of gang involvement. We will increase our efforts at

making contact with at risk youth, their family, and before they become members of gangs.

We will continue our efforts at staying current on gang activity

and trends. We will maintain contacts in the networking throughout the anti-gang community, which is an extremely important

part of the overall fight.

Our collective efforts, whether they be local, State or Federal, are

the key to controlling violent, disruptive gangs in our communities.

Chief Bratton of the L.A. Police stated, ‘‘Gangs have made a gallant

attempt at taking our streets from us. However, law enforcement

as a whole, connected family will never allow this to happen.’’

Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today

and share not only the work of the Prince George’s County Police

Department, but the Bi-county Gang Task Force and our allied

agencies that participate in the effort to combat gangs.

Mr. Chairman and the members of the committee, again, thank

you for your interest and support.

[The prepared statement of Captain Lynn follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Let me ask. We have talked a lot about the prevention side and

what we do to try to keep kids out of gangs and the like. What programs do you have for the non-school age population, including

kids maybe who have dropped out of school or kids 18 to 20, 22.

Is there any strategy for that, because a lot of these gang members

are not just young kids.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Mr. Chairman, one of the programs that has

been mentioned here is a nonprofit called Identity, Inc. It is one of

the most successful nonprofits approaching this problem, and they

have a special program for dropouts, which is primarily in Spanish.

There is peer counseling. There is a lot of interaction, and they

have had great success in getting people back into school and getting affected young people to get their GED and pursue successful

careers.

One of the most important things in dealing with the gang problem is that young people talk to peers, that they have someone that

they can relate to and trust, and we have been very supportive of

this group, Identity, Inc., which brings to bear this kind of peer

counseling to help people turn away from that life style.

Mr. JOHNSON. And, Mr. Chairman, we have what we call Men to

Men Program, and I know that does not include the women, but

it is a mentoring program. Actually last year we had about 5,000

people and about 2,000 men hooked up, and the word went out.

And many of the mothers brought their young sons who they felt

were having issues and many of these were 16, 17, and 18 years

old, and we hooked them up one on one with the person after we

did background and all of those type of things, and they are a real

strong mentoring making a huge difference for some of the young

people.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Now, do I understand the Federal money

correctly? Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties get one allocation of Federal funding to combat gangs, but the State of Maryland

receives a separate allocation of Federal funding which cannot be

spent in Montgomery and Prince George’s. Is anybody familiar with

that?

Captain LYNN. That is correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is that true, Captain?

Captain LYNN. That is correct, yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you know what the reason is for the

delineation? Is there any thought of collapsing the two and coordinating?

Captain LYNN. I do not know the answer to that question, no, sir.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I will answer that question. A lot of the

focus of the State is usually now in the prisons and attempting to

deal with the issue of the gang issues and putting money into the

development and working to deal with the issue in prison. Have

you heard that or is that your understanding?

Captain LYNN. I do understand that, yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. So a lot of the State funding is going

into that and is specifically targeted for that.

What is the awareness of the general constituency about gang

issues? I have done meetings on gangs. I think some of my colleagues have done that, and you get a certain level of people, parVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Nov 03, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30329.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ticularly those who have kids in the schools, that get interested.

But I go out and talk to other groups that mention the gangs, and

it is just like you get these blank stares.

What is the general level that you are seeing of awareness

among the public on these issues? Does anybody want to take it?

Let me ask the politicians, I mean.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. If there

is a crime, a big crime, everybody is aware for a short time, and

then it seems like it just kind of goes out the window, and that is

the reason why I talked to Congressman Wolf about his effort, because I think that it just has to be sustained.

I do not want to change the topic, but people do not want to recognize that they live among gang members or in a community

where gangs exist. They want to say, well, my neighborhood does

not have those kinds of things, and I think that is probably some

of the liability.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. I have certainly been interacting with a lot of

my constituents over the last several weeks, and there is an awareness that there is a gang problem. I do not think there is enough

awareness that county government and the two counties together

are making really to address the gang problem. I think our State’s

Attorney’s Office has had a particularly effective approach, and

that has been perhaps a little bit mischaracterized in the course of

this election season.

But certainly voters are aware of it. I think it is important that

we try to misspell stereotyping and misperceptions. The fact that

someone may come from an immigrant family does not mean that

they are responsible for a gang problem, and so we have to be clear

where there are problems we are working on them. We are working

on them in the ways we have described, but we should not use the

gang issue as the way of evoking, you know, fear just for its own

sake.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me thank all of you for your testimony. I just want to emphasize the point that Mr. Leventhal just made as well, which is that

no matter what community you come from, you can be susceptible

to gang activity.

Obviously if you are a recent immigrant, in some cases, given the

whole range of factors and pressures you are facing, sometimes

people prey on people who are in that position, and clearly, there

have been successful recruiting efforts, and that is why we are

here, to try and make sure that we address those issues and deal

with them.

I want to thank you, Jack Johnson, again. You sort of had both

hats. If you could just elaborate a little more. You were a State’s

Attorney and you dealt with the criminal aspect of this, and you

understand that is an important focus, but also, as county executive you have the hat on where you deal with this on a comprehensive manner.

If you and Mr. Leventhal could just talk about how this has also

helped bring the counties together, it seems to me that we need to

develop a greater cooperative relationship between the counties on

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a whole host of issues. I think we are moving in the right direction,

and how this has helped create a better working relationship between law enforcement and our social service agencies.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, let me say, first of all, that in 1994, when

I became the State’s Attorney, I probably did not know that there

was a gang problem until there was a murder coming out of one

of our high schools, and there was a small gang. There was a guy

who was the head of the gang, and I think many of the students

knew it. He ordered one of the young ladies killed, and she was

killed by a knife, and it became a huge public issue.

And I think that was the first real awareness in our county in

1994 that there were gangs in our county and that we had to really

begin to address it.

But as I indicated, suppression, and the law enforcement authorities were to handle that, and that is why I want to give Doug

Duncan, county executive for Montgomery County, a lot of credit,

because he called me, and he tells the story of a gang fight that

started in northern Virginia, came through Prince George’s County,

and someone ended up dying in Montgomery County.

So you had three jurisdictions involved in that one act, and he

said we have to come together. The lines where we have some of

the activities are right here on the border, but we just cannot do

it through prosecution alone, and that we need to figure out how

we can use the prevention side, and how we can bring all of the

community involved.

And I think that was the recognition and the coming together.

And of course, as I indicated, we called you because we wanted the

Federal authorities to be involved, and so that is where we are

now.

We think that with the two strong law enforcement authorities

that spoke today in terms of what we are doing, the Federal people

are very much involved in these prosecutions, and they are helping

us. I think we have the approach that can really pay tremendous

dividends, and we want to thank the chairman for all that you are

doing in terms of the moneys.

We have a budget. I think we have put a really great budget together, and we are going to spend the money mostly on prevention.

Many of the prosecution moneys are coming from our own pockets

in terms of what we allocate through the budgetary process.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Congressman Van Hollen, we have had a lot of

discussion in our last two county budgets about the gang initiative,

and in the previous county budget when the proposal was made

that we should fund the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center,

that funding came through the committee that I chair, the County

Council’s Health and Human Services Committee, and we asked

some skeptical questions of Director Colvin, who will be speaking

later, as to what really would be Prince George’s County’s commitment to this project since we knew that it was going to be located

right on the border and that many of the unfortunate incidents of

violence had occurred on the other side of the county line in some

of the neighborhoods in and around Langley park.

And what has occurred is that Prince George’s County absolutely

has come through, that the costs have been very fairly allocated,

and that all of our questions have been answered satisfactorily, and

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so in the second year we came forward and funded all of the requests because we were confident that it was moving ahead successfully as a bi-county cooperation, and we have been very pleased

with everything we have heard from County Executive Duncan,

from Chief Manger, from our State’s Attorney Doug Gansler and

from Director Colvin about the cooperation with their counterparts

on the Prince George’s County side.

And in particular, I have heard the success that County Executive Johnson’s administration has had in incorporating the input of

the Latino community in the planning and in the outreach.

Thank you.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Wolf.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

In northern Virginia, the task force that we have set up goes

from Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Manassas, Manassas Park,

Loudoun, Prince William, Fauquier, and out into the Shenandoah

Valley, and down actually into Harrisonburg.

And I wonder if you have or if your area is broad enough because

last week I was up in Pennsylvania, up in Bucks County, and their

biggest problem is coming out of Trenton, coming out of Allentown,

and coming out of north Philadelphia, and I wondered should Baltimore County not be part of your effort in the other counties so that

it is a broader jurisdiction.

Because the problems we were having when they would leave Alexandria and go to Arlington, leave Arlington and go to Fairfax,

but we felt we had to broaden it out so that we had the whole area.

Now, each county has its own education and intervention program. They are buying a machine whereby they will take the

tatoos off and do different things like that. Different school systems

are teaching the teachers colors, signs, but from the law enforcement, the task force goes from actually the Potomac River in Alexandria and Arlington down into Harrisonburg, and normally those

communities never talk to each other.

Should your area be broader? Should this task force be a little

broader than it is?

Asst. Chief KING. Mr. Wolf, that is an excellent observation. I

think what we have seen here in our area is that we initially get

more return on investment for focusing it in the areas of our joint

counties here, but we also have this member of the task force, the

Maryland State Police, that we can expand up to Baltimore County

when need be.

Most of our data indicates that our region here, the members

that are active when they are going through this area, do not necessarily come up. A smaller percentage do that actually come

across the river from Virginia, and they are sort of localized this

way.

But we do have the State Police involved to give us that expansion capabilities and the Federal partners so that we can go across

the river.

Mr. WOLF. The other question, I heard you and I am sure the

answer is yes, but in ours, we have FBI, DEA, ATF, and Marshal

Service, all assigned. Are all four working with your task force?

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Captain LYNN. We have ATF, ICE, and the FBI as current members of our task force.

Mr. WOLF. Well, wouldn’t you want to ask DEA and ATF to be

part of that?

Captain LYNN. ATF is a member. They are responsible——

Mr. WOLF. Marshal Service?

Captain LYNN. Marshal Service has been in conjunction with us,

yes. We have not seen a whole lot of involvement in drugs traversing back and forth with MS–13. We have shared information with

DEA. We do not have them as a signed on member of the task

force, but we certainly do work in conjunction with them.

Mr. WOLF. OK. Well, I guess that is one of the things. In our

area you do have very much drug involvement, and the cooperation

of the four, you know, ATF, a lot of it is gun activity, and then you

have a lot of drugs. You have the combination particularly.

You have not seen yet, but I think you may very well see—well,

let me ask you: have you seen methamphetamine here yet?

I mean, it is coming up the Shenandoah Valley, coming in, and

so the combination of these groups getting involved, and you know,

it is up to you all, but if you would like to, we would certainly intercede. They all come before my committee, but I think that DEA

would offer you a unique approach, that they could be very, very

helpful.

But I will wait to hear from Chris and wait to hear from you.

The other question is would it be a good idea, or maybe you already do it, that your people sit down with our task force and with

the District of Columbia on a monthly basis. And I am a main cog,

but I mean the law enforcement is the law enforcement to exchange. Is that taking place on a regular, every first Tuesday of

every month that all of the task forces get together or is it on an

ad hoc basis?

Captain LYNN. We have not set up that every Tuesday, every

Wednesday type of schedule that you are referring to, but the advantage that we have now is the Northern Virginia Gang Task

Force knows that we exist, vice versa. We all know everybody’s

home telephone numbers. The exchange of information is tremendous back and forth. Everybody knows that if you need some information, you’re going to get it here. Here is where you go to, and

again, the exchange of information has just been tremendous between all of the groups.

Mr. WOLF. So you are dealing with the northern Virginia and the

District in exchanging information?

Captain LYNN. Absolutely.

Mr. WOLF. Do you ever meet?

Captain LYNN. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Mr. WOLF. OK. Last, you might want to look at Boys Clubs and

Girls Clubs and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and different groups

like World Vision and some of those other groups. We are trying

to bring many as a nonprofit for after school programs, for soccer

programs, Boys Clubs, Girls Clubs.

Are they active? How many Boys Clubs and Girls Clubs do you

have?

Mr. LEVENTHAL. We do have very active Boys Clubs and Girls

Clubs in Montgomery County, and the County Council has supVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Nov 03, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30329.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ported a number of their programs, and we do interact closely with

them on the after school programs as well.

Mr. WOLF. OK. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for your

service, too. I appreciate it.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Thank you for your support.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to pick up on some questions that Congressman Wolf was asking, and as I listened to you all, I did not

hear the word ‘‘drugs.’’ You almost said it, Captain, until the questions were just asked.

It seems to me that drugs can have a phenomenal impact on

keeping people in an organization, getting them in the organization, and for a lot of the violent activity that happens. In our subcommittee, we deal with drugs. In the subcommittee that I rank

on, I mean, we deal with this subject every day.

And I am just wondering how much of an impact does drugs

have on these gangs and their involvement from what you have

seen.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. If I may.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. For MS–13, we do not see, at least in our region

in Prince George’s County, we do not see a tremendous involvement in the distribution of narcotics.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Now, we certainly see narcotics use, whether it

be cocaine or marijuana. Now, a differing factor between MS–13

and the Bloods or the Crips are drugs, are narcotics, and a differing factor between MS–13 and the Bloods and the Crips is Bloods

and Crips are for profit organizations to a great extent. MS–13 is

not. A lot of times for a lack of a lengthy description, MS–13 is

more of a violence driven type of organization where the Bloods

and the Crips certainly do not step away from violence, but there

is that for profit type of thought or thinking in what they are

doing, and certainly part of that is the distribution of narcotics.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, it just seems to me, like I said, when

you put drugs in the midst of something, you get a whole other set

of dynamics going on, and I was just curious about that.

Mr. Johnson, you and Mr. Leventhal have talked about organizations, and Mr. Wolf, helping out with these young people and Congressman Wolf also mentioned the Girls and Boys Clubs. I am just

thinking about the people in my district. I am a former Cub Scout

and Boy Scout, and a lot of the young people in my district, they

look at Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts as it is just not something that

they are that interested in. I means that is just reality. I mean if

you start real little, like 6, 7 years old, but after they get about 10

years old and they see what is going on on the streets and they

get involved in a gang, it is almost like probably one of the most

negative times you could do is being a part of the Scouts. I am just

telling you.

And I am just wondering. What we have seen though is the faith

based organizations getting a hold of these kids, creating a very

positive peer group, getting a critical mass of people, showing that

it is OK not to commit crime. It is OK to do things the right way.

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It is OK to be smart in school. So then you get this group, this critical mass, and the very peer pressure that some of you all talked

about, it flows back and forth.

I mean, what have you found? You have talked——

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, Congressman Cummings, I was the chairman of the Two Rivers District for the Boy Scouts of America for

4 years, and the Two Rivers sits between the Patuxent and the Potomac. So I had pretty much all of Prince George’s County.

The one conclusion that I can make is that the prosecutor for 8

years, now my Boy Scout years were before that. I never prosecuted a Boy Scout in 8 years. So to the extent that they get involved in Cub Scouts and stay there, it is just a phenomenal program. It just really works.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I do not want you to think I am knocking it.

Mr. JOHNSON. No, I know that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am on the board of the Boy Scouts, too.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, and I say that to say that it is harder to get

the churches to have the kind of after school programs, the consistency that we need. It is something that we have to work at.

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. I guess I would just comment. I want to be very

careful because we are a successful economy, and we attract people

from around the world and we have a highly motivated and successful immigrant community that brings a lot of skill and ability

here, and we also do see among some elements of the immigrant

community this gang phenomenon growing, and so I think the challenge for nonprofit groups is to find culturally competent ways to

reach out and incorporate the growth communities into their activity.

I am not familiar with efforts that Boy Scouts of America may

be making in that regard. It is a challenge for all of us in government. It is a challenge for all of us in the nonprofit sector. How

do you reach the growth communities in ways that the recipient of

the services is going to accept the services, and you have to be culturally competent. You have to have language skills. You have to

some extent appear cool and like an activity that would be fun and

interesting to be involved in.

So that is a contemporary challenge that all service providers are

facing.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, may I be excused? I have to leave.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure.

Also, Mr. Cummings, also we do some things that are maybe not

formally the Boy Scouts, but there are church-based activities in

Montgomery County, and they are mainly driven by the community

they are in, but some of them are also very successful.

We also have the Police Activities League, who provides another

venue, and it is really socially acceptable and cool to be doing that

after school.

And then Mr. Leventhal has mentioned the after school programs, where we have formal after school programs so that we

keep the kids there and provide that instruction, and when Mr.

Wolf mentioned about the recent immigrant population, using the

game of soccer to reach out. We do a Kids with Cops Program

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where we have officers do soccer clinics, and it really breaks down

that barrier and gives them a goal, something to do after schools

and stuff. So we do a lot of pieces and try to find a lot of bites out

of the elephant, if you will.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Sure. Well, first, Mr. Chairman, I want to

thank you for having this hearing, and, Chris Van Hollen, I want

to thank you for hosting this hearing.

Clearly, we have identified we have a gang problem. Sitting here

listening to the testimony and the statements of my colleagues, I

think we have a tremendous opportunity to make a difference, and

one of the reasons is because of the regional approach that we are

taking.

I was a former prosecutor, former Baltimore County executive,

and one of the things that I saw as it related to law enforcement

is that crime has no geographical boundaries, and if law enforcement gets off the turf and works together, you can make a difference, and I think that is really starting to happen: this hearing

and what we are hearing about the relationship between Montgomery and Prince George’s.

We had a hearing in Virginia, and I was very impressed with

what my colleagues have been doing, Congressman Wolf and Davis

and Moran, and how they have come together. I was impressed

with some of the issues that we have talked about here today, but

also the legislative side, giving the tools to prosecutors to deal with

the issue of suppression.

So I think it really bodes well that we are coming together as a

region, but we have to step it up a little bit more, I think, in the

Baltimore region, and Elijah Cummings and I represent the Baltimore region. So you have the players here from a Federal level who

work very closely at the local level, I think, to start pulling this together.

I think Congressman Wolf talked about New Jersey and areas

like that and Philadelphia, which probably Baltimore is going to

have to reach north because, again, crime has no geographical

boundaries, and I think though that we are on the right track.

Now, County Executive Johnson talked about the holistic approach, and I think that we need to address this problem in different ways, and those priorities are suppression. Clearly, we have

to deal with the issue of suppression and what we are going to do,

and then we even have problems beyond that once these members

go into prisons, and that is causing a big problem also.

But I think the prevention is a very important approach. Congressman Davis and I went to El Salvador, and we were at the

heart really of MS–13, and over and over the message was that the

gang members come from poverty. This is their only family; this is

their family.

And so we have to address that issue, and then when gang members want to get out of gangs they cannot, and how do we deal with

that? These are issues that we have to deal with.

So with that statement about where we are, I think what I would

like to ask you three is that from a Federal level where would you

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like to see our priorities from a Federal level, helping you in coordination.

I think the coordination, and Congressman Wolf addressed it, is

extremely important. We are fighting terror, and I think one of the

most effective ways we are fighting terror is in the Federal Government we have the Joint Terrorism Task Force. We have Federal,

State and local. You have those jurisdictions. You have FBI; you

have DEA; you have CIA, and it is all pulling together as a team.

And I think we can help in that regard, or do you need more resources in the area of different types of suppression tools? And I

would like to hear your thoughts on that. Or is it more in the prevention area? Where do you think we, through a Federal level, this

body here? And you do have the players here.

And I think it is going to bode well eventually to pull the team

together, to communicate, and we will be able to be effective. So

if you can tell me where you think your priorities are and what you

would like us to do from a Federal level, whether it is funding, coordination, whatever.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Sure. Well, this hearing is very helpful, and in

my testimony I have outlined some requests that we have made

and with continuing support from the Congress, we hope we can

leverage the county money that we are spending. So certainly we

need funds. Certainly we appreciate that this committee has

brought different jurisdictions together to share experiences.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. But funds where?

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Well, my testimony outlines both.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Yes, I heard your testimony.

Mr. LEVENTHAL. Yes. So health care, law enforcement prevention, some of these intervention programs, these are the approaches

that we hope are going to bear fruit, and we have benchmarks. We

have measurements that we are going to be reporting on the data

as to the success we are achieving in these young people’s lives.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Is there anything that we are not doing

that you would like to see us do on the Federal level? I should ask

the two members of law enforcement.

Asst. Chief KING. First, I do want to compliment you. I think this

committee is really on the mark here. You guys have a good grasp

of the issues and have been very supportive. That continued support is critical as we continue to expand the partnership, and just

to let you know, we do work with Terry Sheridan and Bill

McMahon, the Chiefs of Baltimore County and Howard County. It

is just the focus right now is a little bit south fortunately, but we

do have regular communication.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Hartford County? Do you have Hartford or

Anne Arundel?

Asst. Chief KING. We do not with Hartford County.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. We will deal with that.

Asst. Chief KING. OK, but I think that we can expand. We have

regular communication with them, although it may be ad hoc. We

have valuable exchange of information with them, even though

they may not be actively involved with us.

In my police hat, I always like to see us as the tip of the spear,

but we just don’t see it as the enforcement effort. We know we usually are the first contact with them, but then we share with our

48

other partners, and so we realize too under the community policing

clause there’s a lot of aspects to it, but we usually come in contact

with them for better or worse usually first.

I think the coordination piece that you speak of is extremely important. The Joint Terrorism Task Force, if you were to apply that

same type of philosophy to gangs I think would be very beneficial.

You know, we find gang members. The RAGE Unit has traveled

out to the West Coast and done some training out there and attended conventions and has gone and ridden with the border patrol

out there and LAPD and San Diego Police Department, and we

have run into gang members that were on the East Coast and

we’ve run into them out on the West Coast.

So you know, they travel just as much and probably a great deal

more than we do, and that information exchange is going to be the

key to dealing with this problem.

We have a great deal of local lines of communications now just

simply because of the task forces, whether they be northern Virginia or whether they be RAGE task force that are being set up.

We now know who to call in one particular place or another to obtain some information, but certainly could there be more coordination? Could there be funds to facilitate that? Yes, and I think if

that was to occur, then our efforts were going to increase tenfold.

From a law enforcement perspective and even to reduce it down

if you’re talking about items that we need that we lack, there certainly is. I mean, there are simple things like digital cameras and

the quality digital cameras that we need out on the street because

to get that intelligence information to be able to put it into a data

base, whether it be GangNet, whether it be something that the FBI

has in their national data base or even at a local level that we’re

maintaining simply on a desktop. If we don’t have the equipment

to do that, then we’re fighting an uphill battle.

So you reduce it down to even those smaller items like that, the

funding is important to take care of those things, whether it be

something in a joint gang task force or something if you’re talking

about $300 or $400 for a quality digital camera across the spectrum if the phones are needed.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Thank you all very much. It has been

a very, very helpful hearing. We will take about a 2-minute recess

as we move our next panel forward.

Thank you.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Our goal is to try to get out of here in the

next 45 minutes if we can just because Members have things. So

I would like to swear in our first panel if I could.

Carolyn Colvin, the director of the Department of Health and

Human Services for Montgomery County; Warden Robert Green

from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility; Mike Butler,

gang prevention coordinator, Prince George’s County; Luis

Cardona, the youth violence prevention coordinator, Montgomery

County; and Daniel Arretche, the director, Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center; Richard Brown, the small business owner.

It is our policy to swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. Again, your entire statement

is in the record, but if we could keep it 5 minutes a piece, I think

we can move through this. Ms. Colvin, I will start with you and

we will move right on down.

Thank you very much for your patience in being here. It is very

important to us.

STATEMENTS OF CAROLYN COLVIN, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, MONTGOMERY COUNTY;

ROBERT GREEN, WARREN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY; MICHAEL BUTLER, GANG PREVENTION

COORDINATOR, PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY; LUIS CARDONA,

YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION COORDINATOR, MONTGOMERY COUNTY; DANIEL ARRETCHE, DIRECTOR, CROSSROADS

YOUTH OPPORTUNITY CENTER; AND RICHARD BROWN,

SMALL BUSINESS OWNER

STATEMENT OF CAROLYN COLVIN

Ms. COLVIN. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, Congressman Van

Hollen, and members of the Government Reform Committee, Mayor

Porter, and officials of the city of Takoma Park, our elected officials, and other partners in the area of youth violence prevention.

We certainly want to thank you, Congressman Van Hollen and

Chairman Wolf for supporting our efforts in this area.

I’m Carolyn Colvin, director of the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, and I am a co-chair along

with Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger of the

Montgomery County’s Gang Prevention Steering Committee.

It is my privilege to speak to you today to share the strides that

we have made in Montgomery County and Prince George’s working

together to address the gang issues. I am going to limit my comments because, as you have indicated, you have our written comments.

I do want to say up front that we are most appreciative of the

financial support that we have received from you, as well as the

other assistance in our efforts in this respect. As was noted by

president of the Council, Joyce Leventhal, the county has funded

significant areas of this initiative, but we really rely on your continued support for us to be able to continue to do what we have

been able to do. You may know that our current operations stem

from the work of the Joint County Gang Prevention Task Force

which was formed in 2004 by Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan, along with Jack Johnson, the county executive for

Prince George’s County.

The task force provided guidance and support to individual task

forces convened within each county and agreed upon a set of recommendations to further our shared interest in addressing gang violence and preventing youth involvement in gangs and criminal activity. In our effort to operationalize gang prevention, we followed

guidance by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and its comprehensive gang model and the model provided a

multi-layered approach consistent with our approach to address

prevention, intervention and suppression of gang activity.

50

The Department of Health and Human Services offers a series of

services and programs and interventions to address gang prevention and youth violence. The department has a long history of collaborative community-based partnerships in the delivery of prevention and intervention.

The Youth Provider Council whose membership well represents

public-private partnerships and service to youth is committed to

implementing best practices, engaging in collaborative grants, seeking opportunities and coordinating services to specific community

issues.

The Youth Leadership Council’s membership includes former

gang members and young people at risk for gang membership and

guides the development and implementation of community-based

services. The Youth Leadership Council has participated in county

and statewide forums and trainings in the schools and in the community where they have educated, youth, families, and practitioners about the consequences of joining gangs and how to effectively

get out of gangs.

In addition, the department funds linkages to learning programs

which are programs which deliver comprehensive services to our

youth and their families whose needs have been identified by

school staff. We recently have a staff training for our linkages program, which is provided by Luis Cardona, who is your youth violence prevention coordinator, and that training has strengthened

our provider’s capacity to serve gang involved youth and families.

The department is also actively partnering with the Department

of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and we have partnerships with

the Juvenile Justice System to provide assessment and diversion

services, a swell as some transition services to help young people

reenter the community successfully.

We have attempted to centralize coordination of gang prevention

efforts through the work of the country’s Gang Prevention Steering

Committee and through the extensive work of the county’s youth

violence prevention coordinator. The Steering Committee’s membership includes directors of, in addition to the Police Department

and the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human

Services, we have representatives from the county Department of

Corrections and Rehabilitation, Recreation and the Montgomery

County Public Schools, as well as representatives of the county’s

executives African, American, Asian, and Latino Advisory Boards.

The Steering Committee provides oversight at a high level of government and is responsible for implementation of the nearly 100

recommendations that came from the various task forces.

We are expanding our efforts through the creation of the Street

Outreach Network, which will place community resources directly

in targeted areas, that will serve gang involved youth, youth at

risk of joining gangs and their parents as well. Street outreach

workers may be former gang members who have successfully left

gang life behind and serve as community role models for youth.

We will also be establishing high school wellness centers that

will provide youth development, somatic and behavior health care,

educational and familial supports and other outreach services. This

effort is essential as it demonstrates a vital coordinated effort between the Department of Health and Human Services and MontVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Nov 03, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30329.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gomery County Public Schools to better serve gang involved youth

as well as those at risk of joining gangs.

These centers will provide an intensive support environment for

youth to resolve conflicts that would otherwise escalate without appropriate guidance.

An important element of our gang prevention effort is to centralize coordination offered by the county’s youth violence prevention

coordinator. Luis Cardona, who is that individual, provides critical

services through community education, participating in community

forums, providing support to individual young people and families

as they strive to exit gangs, serving as a mentor when needed, and

maintaining liaison with relevant departments and agencies.

And Luis will talk with you about some of his activities. He

works very closely with his counterpart in Prince George’s County,

and they recently convened a regional meeting of gang prevention

coordinators, including gang coordinators from northern Virginia to

facilitate regional prevention intervention efforts.

The cornerstone of Montgomery County’s partnership with Prince

George’s County is the Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, and

again, we certainly thank you for your support of that initiative.

This partnership fully implements a recommendation of the Joint

County Task Force to offer a presence in the Takoma Park-Langley

Park communities to combat youth violence.

The youth participants have clearly identified this center as a

neutral territory, free from the influence of gangs. The center offers

a one stop shop in the community for direct service and/or referrals

for behavior and somatic health care, employment training, job referrals, educational income supports, mentoring and other support

services.

Since its opening in May, the center has served almost 15—I’m

sorry—100——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Your entire statement is in the record.

Ms. COLVIN [continuing]. And 50 young people and their families.

I want to mention that we awarded seven community mobilization grant awards, and those awards were youth led and youth

planned. They determined what they thought they would like to

see funding for, and those went to groups like the Gap Busters, the

Mental Health Association, the Cambodian Duty Society, Identity,

Boys and Girls Club, Montgomery County Tennis Foundation and

Arts on the Block.

So we have tried to use the nonprofits to actually provide services that will be meaningful and culturally sensitive.

We have been very fortunate to have your support to continue

funding the centralized gang unit here in the county, as well as the

Youth Opportunity Center. Your leadership and foresight on this

issue makes it possible for local jurisdictions to design solutions

that will work long into the future. It gives communities the confidence that these supports will be present for the long term and

not just the passing fan. Again, we thank you for your support and

implore you to continue funding our regional activities.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Colvin follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Warden Green, thank you.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Chairman Davis, Congressman Van

Hollen, distinguished members of this committee.

You have my written testimony. I will not read through it. There

are four vital points that I would like to bring forward.

First, I would like to also recognize Counsel Brooke Bennett and

Mindy Walker of your staff who spent 5 hours on the ground in our

facility watching what we are doing, how we are doing it, talking

to the people that are doing it, and also talking to the population

that we are serving. So we greatly appreciate that.

I am here representing Director Wallenstein, director of the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation in Montgomery County,

the men and women of the department, our various division chiefs

that run the pre-release center, our Pretrial Services Unit, Management Services Division, and our Intake and Assessment Facility.

The four points I want to talk about is our role in this initiative,

where we’re at, and what we’re doing in local corrections, some

characteristics of the gang involved youth within our jurisdiction.

I want to talk about a promising program of cognitive behavioral

change that we utilize within the walls of the facility, 16 step program, moral recognition therapy, and I want to close hoping to dispel a little bit of this myth of Federal prison, State prisons and

local corrections. That is something we need to understand and

truly the numbers we are talking about.

First and foremost, our role in this issue. I sit before you today

with 103 validated gang members in the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. Those gang members

represent 38 nationally known or locally recognized regional gangs

and street crews.

My role, our department’s role in this issue is twofold. It’s law

enforcement public safety and human development, keeping the

public safe, my staff safe, the inmates that we are tasked to taking

care of safe, but also making sure that when they leave our facilities, they are leaving better informed, more well prepared to face

the challenges that they are dealing with when they walk out the

door.

To that end, we hold a couple of things to be very true within

our facility. There are no gangs inside the walls of the Montgomery

County correctional facility. The only gang is the staff that runs

those facilities. We make that very clear at the front end. We do

not let crime run rampant in the street within our correctional facility. We view it as a pertinent philosophy of Montgomery County

that there is no more acceptance of crime within the walls of our

jail than it is within the streets of our community, and those laws

are applied.

Graffiti, colors, recruiting, signs and symbols, none of that is tolerated. It’s administratively handled, and it is also criminally handled with our State’s Attorney’s Office who has helped us successfully prosecute 38 cases since we opened in 2003. Of course, all of

those not directly gang related, but again, prosecution of crime

58

within a correctional facility. That is very vital to be able to do the

work that needs to be done.

So everyone you have talked to here today is involved in what

we’re doing: identity, Health and Human Services, the police. We’re

all working together collaboratively, and that does make a difference in Montgomery County. It is the people that are involved

in how you are doing it, not necessarily how much money you

throw at a problem as to how well you fix it.

The characteristics of our gang involved youth. The primarily 17

to 22 years of age, very low functioning in the educational range,

low reading levels, sixth, seventh, eighth grade reading levels at

best. The population is getting younger. We are seeing 15, 16 year

olds coming into our facility. We’re seeing generational trends,

brothers and sisters following their older siblings and following in

the footsteps of fathers. Uniquely this youthful offender population

17 to 22, the average individual has one or more children left in

the community when they are incarcerated, very much have a lack

of impulse control both inside the facility and outside in the community, have severed family ties or at best severely damaged those

family ties, have minimal to no work experience, and in context to

your question, sir, they are heavy substance abuse users. We are

finding that to be true, not necessarily the crime that brought them

there, but heavy substance abuse users.

What are we doing? Within the walls of our facility, we believe

that we can impact every individual that comes in the door whether we have them for an hour, 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. We can

allow them to leave our system, our correctional system with something they did not have coming in the door, be it a resource, a card,

some attachment to the community, and in Montgomery County we

are fortunate to have such community resources that are incredible. We do not reinvent resources inside the walls of the facility.

We bring those that are already providing it inside the walls. We

network so that when Johnny is leaving our facility he is going to

assist them that he already has a relationship with. Those things

are vitally important.

The MRT program, 16 step cognitive behavioral change program

looks at structure, looks at highly skilled staff that help with issues

of education, anger management, domestic violence. This is a structured, therapeutic community, and I have given you some pictures

to show you in your mind what that unit looks like, but 64 people

living inside those walls as a community 24–7 eat, drink, and sleep

a structured program of change that has shown great promise. It

has been part of what we have been doing since 1997 within our

correctional system.

One of the photos you have is a group of gang members graduating from a baby program. On that day 71 percent had children, but

they very uniquely told me they were not very well aware of how

to be fathers. So we are doing just a whole myriad of programs that

would take me much longer than 5 minutes to talk about.

Last, I think at the national level we need to dispel a myth, a

reality, whatever you want to refer to it as. You know, we read

with great interest when we read the Bureau of Justice statistics

that there are 713,000-plus people in America’s local jails and reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:25 Nov 03, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\30329.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gional jails, 1.4 million in State prisons and Federal prisons. We

are funneling a lot of money that State and Federal direction.

The reality is Dr. Alan Beck, Bureau of Justice Statistics, the

number that local corrections will touch in and out the doors in a

year, this year 12 million people. Local corrections is the deep end

of the pool. Resources to provide these programs, to make a change,

make a difference before they are going on into State and local systems; that number of 600,000 coming in and out of State and Federal facilities pales to 12 million people, and local corrections is

very uniquely situated with our local community to make a difference in that area.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Butler.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BUTLER

Mr. BUTLER. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, members of the

committee. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before

you today.

My name is Michael Butler. I am executive director, Office of

Youth Strategy and Programs, Prince George’s County.

The Office of Youth Strategy and Programs functions to manage

and control youth violence, gang activity in Prince George’s County

through effective implementation of prevention and intervention

strategies working under one umbrella. Our goal is to implement

a collaborative effort to better serve the needs of youth in Prince

George’s County, and we do this by mobilized communities, public,

private, inter-faith communities, representatives, and youth in

neighborhoods and schools.

I am going to cut my testimony short and get to the meat of

things. The Youth Opportunity Center is one of the initiatives that

I oversee in the Office of Youth Strategies, and I want to thank the

committee and Congressman Van Hollen for the $364,000 that was

given to the center, awarded to the center to make their Crossroads

Youth Opportunity Centers work.

In the center, it is the Joint Youth Center is we have different

partners, and as the Department of Social Services comes to the

center, where the Health Department, drug addiction, mental

health, case management. We have work force services, and this

talks about what you were talking about, Congressman Cummings:

job readiness, job placement. We have legal services, the Public Defender’s Office, criminal, civil, and legislative cases. We have positive youth development programs at the center, and we also have

job training and replacement. The YMCA does that, and we have

mental health services.

In summary, we have served over 100 youth at the center and

their families, but also, the Office of Youth Strategies and Programs is creating a youth directory for Prince George’s County for

all of the services and providers in Prince George’s County. We are

partnering with Maryland National Capital Park and Planning to

create this directory to talk about all of the providers, the services

that a parent or youth can have.

We are going to put it online. It is going to be updated on a regular basis, and that is in the working stages.

We have strategies where we have workshops for foster parents

through Department of Social Services. We are telling them about

the training and resources available for parents, foster parents,

grandparents, kinship providers.

I want to take a minute to thank Congressman Wolf. In one of

your conferences that you had in Chantilly, VA last year, we got

this parents’ quick reference card, and we have given out several

thousand of these quick reference cards to community groups,

PTAs, civic associations to talk about the warning signs if their

child is in a gang.

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This has been a very effective tool for parents that did not know

their children was involved in gangs. So I want to thank you for

your time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Butler follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cardona, I understand you are going to introduce our next

two witnesses.

Mr. CARDONA. Oh, yes. Good afternoon. Members of the committee, Congressman Davis, Congressman Wolf, Congressman Chris

Van Hollen, the Honorable Congressman Elijah Cummings, I just

want to take this opportunity to introduce key resources that we

have here in Montgomery County.

In particular, Mr. Daniel Arretche who is the director of development and identity and a long time friend of mine, who I am very

proud to have here at the table because most people that know me

know that I have lost a lot of my friends to this craziness, and this

is one of the brothers who have restyled it and said he wants to

give back to the community. So I want to thank you for being here

and standing by my side.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Arretche, thank you.

STATEMENT OF DANIEL ARRETCHE

Mr. ARRETCHE. Thank you.

I apologize for my English, and it is the first time that I use

glasses. So I have to recognize my age here. [Laughter.]

Thank you for this invitation to participate in this hearing on

gang activity in Montgomery and Prince George’s County.

I am the program director of identity, a nonprofit organization

that is the lead agency of the Crossroads Youth and Community

Center in Takoma Park.

I would like to provide you with some information regarding the

characteristics of the population we are serving at the center, as

well as the summary of the work that has been realized up to date.

Examples of actual incidents in the lives of our clients will hopefully illustrate for you the emotional and psychological situations

confronted by many of these young people.

Imagine the pain that a young 13 year old girl must be feeling

who decides to be initiated in a gang knowing full well that she

will be used sexually by the male members of that gang. This

young girl finds herself in an abandoned room engaging in sexual

relations with 10, 15 boys or young men.

I always ask myself: what was the extent of her pain that led her

to make this decision? Nothing justifies the actions of the perpetrators and they have to pay for their crime. However, my understanding what brings a young person to this point of that in his

life, we will be able to effectively work in prevention or intervention.

A young boy was just 6 years old when his parents abandoned

him in his country. They fled a country that had been devastated

by civil war and had left them in an extreme poverty. His caretaker resulted to be an abusive alcoholic and violent uncle. During

2 years no one heard his cries, cries so similar to those of the

young girl in the abandoned room that he is now raping. Therefore,

when he was only 8 years old, he escaped from his house, and in

the street he found himself a new family.

They told him over and over that they would protect him. He became part of the group of lost children with nothing, nothing, nothing to lose.

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Seven years later, now 15 years old and tired of so much violence

all around him, he finally decided to do something different with

his life. He made the tremendous, difficult decision to leave the

grand life by coming to the United States in search of a safe home.

He found his family here, but it was a changed family. He hardly

knew his parents, and they had little time for him. The community

he found himself in seemed to know nothing of the harshness, suffering, poverty and violence from which he had come, and no one

ever asked about it.

That same longing for a family that drove him into the street at

the age of 8 drove him there again. Thirteen minutes of beating,

punches, kicks, and once again, he was jumped into a street gang.

Some time later he found himself in that abandoned room waiting

his turn with a 13 year old girl and wondering what had happened

to his dream of a new life.

The perpetrators of crimes can be seen as victims, depending on

the point of which you begin to relate the history of their life. Histories such as this and many that are even more complex are right

at the center every day.

The Youth Opportunity Center reflects the shining efforts of

Montgomery county, Prince George’s County, the Federal Government, and Infinity Center partners, the YMCA of Silver Spring, the

Office of the Public Defender, Pride Youth Services, and the Montgomery County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The complexity of the cases that I have seen in the center can

only be dealt with in this fashion. The center became operational

in May of this year, and thus far it has served 119 clients, youth

and their family members who are impacted by gang and gang violence. As of today, these clients have received 169 documented

service that included case management, educational support, youth

development and social skill building, mental health, legal services,

job training and placement, and tutoring.

In addition, a youth advisory board and a community advisory

board met very early.

We have also established an excellent working relationship with

Warden Green and his established correctional facility. We are

working together to provide youth who are to be released from that

facility with early support to help them stay away from recidivism.

But while we see these 119 clients as an example of early success, there remains much more to be done. In closing I want to

thank everybody, and particularly to Congressman Chris Van

Hollen, Kate Garvey, Luis Cardona, Mike Butler, Carolyn Colvin,

Robert Green, and the staff and the team of the Youth Opportunity

Center. I want to thank them because their unconditional support

make the Youth Opportunity Center possible.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Arretche follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Excellent job. Thank you very much.

Mr. Brown, thanks.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I would first like to give an honor to my Lord and

Savior, Jesus Christ that makes all things possible in my life.

Good afternoon, Congressman—I am sorry——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Congressman is fine. You get us all that

way.

Mr. BROWN [continuing]. Congressman Van Hollen and Chairman Tom Davis and the committee. I want to send a warm, heart

felt thanks to all of you for allowing me to speak to you today. I

am not only a concerned citizen of Montgomery County. I am also

a reformed gangster, gang member, however you want to call it.

I have lived the life that we are trying to prevent others from

getting to or have already been in. I think the only way to reach

these youth is to actually go inside or think like them, talk like

them, you know, be able to reach them. You know, you have a lot

of us out here. There are a lot of reformed gang members, a lot of

reformed drug dealers, a lot of reformed people that are trying to

give back to the community.

Mr. Cummings, you talked about drugs. It exists. It is part of the

gangs. I mean, this is reality. In order for them to thrive, in order

for them to, you know, continue to go on, they use drugs. They sell

drugs. That actually funds their organization.

You know, I am a living proof of that. You know, I have done

that. I have been there. I know how to go and talk to them and

I know how to understand them. There are a lot of us out here that

we have made mistakes in our lives. We have paid for our mistakes. We are trying to give back to make sure that our kids do

not do what we have done.

I mean, I have two beautiful, handsome sons. I just adopted, I

took custody of a little girl because we did not want her to go into

foster care. So I do not want my kids into any gangs, into being

passed on as tokens for initiation, as far as my daughter is concerned, you know, being raped or anything like that.

This society, the society that I live in right now, I live in Montgomery County. I moved into the suburbs because I said, oh, it is

safer here to raise a family.

No, it is not safe anywhere. The MS–13, the Crips, the Bloods,

all of these gangs exist. They are here. They are going to continue

to thrive. They are going to continue to plague our city. They are

going to continue to plague America if we do not do anything about

it.

I feel that, you know, there are a lot of people out here that are

trying to help out and give back to the community. Lou—that is

who I call him—you know, he called me up and he said, ‘‘Look,

man. I heard you were trying to help out. I heard you were trying

to do this.’’

I have been shunned. I started an organization in the Montgomery County Rec Center. I had a youth program that I tried to get

the kids to come in if they had any problems. You know, there was

no response because I did not have the resources.

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You know, basketball, little boys love to play basketball. Football,

they love to play football. You know, in our organizations out here

it costs money. A lot of these kids do not have the money. You

know, a lot of these kids do not have the opportunity to do any

sports activities, any extra curricular activities. I really feel that

they do need resources in order to stay away from the gang activity. They need choices, and I would love to participate.

I am going to grab hold of Lou’s coattail, and hopefully he can

drag me along and use me the best way that he possibly can. I

really want to give back to my community. I do not want to see

what happened to me happen to my kids. I do not want to live in

an environment where I have to fear coming out of the door.

That is where I grew up, because I did not have any choices. I

come from Washington, DC. I was born and raised in the inner

city. We did not have any choices. I come from a broken home. It

is in my statement. I am not reading from my statement. I am

reading from my heart right now.

I am a concerned parent. I am a concerned citizen, and I am a

reformed gang member, and I really, really want to give back.

I am going to keep it real brief. I really, really thank you for allowing me to speak today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you all very much for some

very moving testimony. Mr. Wolf, I will start with you.

Mr. WOLF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize. I have to leave. I have a meeting downtown at the

State Department, but I want to thank all of the panel, and I think

the testimony demonstrates that there is a lot of hope. There is a

lot of opportunity, and a lot of hope; a lot of problems, but a lot

of hope, and I want to thank them.

And I would just ask you, Warden Green if you could be in touch

with Brooke from our subcommittee here with Mr. Davis. I would

like to put you in touch with John Marshall, the director of the

prison system in the State of Virginia to make sure. Based on what

you said, I was very impressed because we have a major problem

in the prisons in Virginia to make sure that everything that you

are doing is being done in our prison.

So if Brooke could arrange and Chairman Davis and I could do

a letter then to make sure that everything you know our people

know, to make sure that we are doing it, if we could do that.

Mr. GREEN. I would be happy to do that, sir.

Mr. WOLF. Good. Thank you.

And, again, Chairman Davis, thanks for the hearing, and Mr.

Van Hollen, thank you for inviting me.

And with that I will just excuse myself. thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me also thank as he leaves Congressman Wolf, again, for all

of his support and leadership on this issue and the chairman of the

committee and my colleague, Elijah Cummings, has been a great

friend, and we worked together on a lot of issues involving the

State of Maryland and the country.

Let me also thank all of the panelists. I mean, I thought your

testimony was right on point from a lot of different perspectives,

and as Congressman Wolf said, I do think it was inspirational and

provides hope. It also outlined the challenges we have.

And I want to thank Carolyn Colvin for being on the Joint Task

Force from the start and your leadership there, and Warden Green,

thank you as well, and to your director, Art Wollenstein, who has

testified before the Congress as well, I want to thank you, and I

am going to come back to you for a question as well.

But thank you as well, Mr. Butler, for your efforts. Luis, I know

you testified before our committee when we were on the Virginia

side, and again, thank you for what you’re doing to help so many

young people in our community. You are also somebody who has

taken through the pain of their personal experience and helped

turn other people around, and I just want to thank you for your

good work.

And Mr. Arretche, you spoke beautifully, and you also really, I

think, crystallized for us the kind of challenges with the personal

stories you related, and it is those kind of really tragic but very

real human situations that ultimately we are dealing with on a

one-to-one basis. So thank you for what you and Identity are doing.

Mr. Brown, thank you again for your testimony and your personal story of transformation because it does, I think, leave us all

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on a note that we can rally around together and address these important issues.

We have talked a lot today about prevention, and I still think

that has obviously got to be the front line. Every person you can

prevent from getting into a gang is one person that we have saved

and will have a productive life and escape many of the sorrows and

sadness that comes with participating in a gang.

We have talked about suppression as well, but let me talk about

intervention a second because it has come up here. People who

have been in gangs, we have all heard it before. He is here to get

into a gang, then get out of the gang.

So let me just talk to you, you know, ask you, Warden Green,

and maybe you, Mr. Arretche. You have been dealing with people

who have been involved in gang life, and Mr. Brown has a personal

story. The number of people, Warden who are going into your correctional facility, going through this program, do you track them

when they come out? To what extent can we really know whether

or not we are being successful in terms of the intervention that we

are providing these people in the facility?

Mr. GREEN. As noted in my testimony, there were some studies

of the program in 2000 and none since then. Quite frankly, Congressman we take our successes as they come, one at a time. We

look at the transition and transformations taking place with these

young people inside the walls. We are with them 24–7. Counselors

are there with them. We are doing family groups, allowing the family to come in. It is the only group that has contact visits in our

system.

We are seeing it happen. We do not track beyond the walls. That

is something that we need to do. It is a work in progress, but the

transformation we are seeing inside of the walls, if we want to look

right here, quite frankly, it is working very well because violence

is down. Crime is down. The jail that was built in 2003 looks like

it did the day it was built. It is not full of graffiti.

I agree we need to go beyond the walls, and that is a difficult

thing to do. We are engaging Parole and Probation, Health and

Human Services, Luis and many others with this collaborative approach. Every other Wednesday at our facility we have anywhere

from 40 to 50 case managers representing pretty much everyone in

this room that sits around a table and talks about reentry and

going home.

That is going to be our finger in keeping tabs on them going into

our communities. So that is the work in progress that we need to

go forward with.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And I guess if you find them back in your

facilities——

Mr. GREEN. Of course. Obviously the recidivism comes back.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Have you seen much recidivism in this?

Mr. GREEN. The recidivism rate when we were tracking coming

into that particular program was below 20 percent, which is well

below the national norm. I believe it falls around 67 percent.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right. Mr. Arretche.

Mr. ARRETCHE. Maybe we can divide the gang members into two

groups. The first is those gang members who are not going to leave

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the gang activity, and the other group is performed by those who

want to leave these kind of activities.

It is really hard to work with the first group, but at the same

time, we made a lot of effort trying to help the second group because they need a lot of resources. They need a lot of support, and

sometimes they need a safety plan, and it is really hard to create

a safety plan for these people.

This is maybe the main challenge, to create a safety plan, and

this safety plan means to find a job for these people, to train for

this job to these people and sometimes to relocate them or their

families. That may be the next step or the main thing that we need

to do in order to help these young guys.

With regard to the first group, the first step is to treat them as

human beings. Sometimes people ask to Identity, and the people

who are working with Identity, which is our key for our success,

and maybe the unit key is to treat them as human beings.

They have been treating us as beings for years, and when they

find someone who treat them as humans, and when they find

someone that tried to help, really help them, they start thinking

that maybe there is an option. It is really hard, but it is not impossible. It is not impossible.

But after showing them an option, we have to have an option,

a real option for them, and a real option, again, means support,

educational support, housing sometimes, and a social support.

When we work with the youth at the correctional, some of them

are afraid of the environment. They say that when they will come

back to their homes, they fear the environment. So we need to

change this environment.

Sometimes our success is limited in the area of identity of the

Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center, but we need to replicate the

success outside of the Youth Opportunity Center, but for replicating the success, we need to work in the environment. We need to

change the environment in order to provide them with a real opportunity.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, again, I want to thank you, Mr.

Van Hollen, for the hearing. I want to thank all of our witnesses

for being here.

I want to just go to you very quickly, Mr. Brown. By the way,

all of your testimony has been wonderful. What is it that you—I

think you talked about choices, people needing choices. You know,

I think that a lot of times when people in the city think about

Montgomery County, they think that you have a lot of people who

have a lot of money and they have a lot of choices, and that is an

image that I think comes from the fact that people do well here.

On the other hand, you have a lot of people in the city who are

not doing so well financially, and with resources people assume

that there are choices, in other words, that there are opportunities

for the Little League, you know, and all of those types of things.

I mean, something as simple as joining the Cub Scouts in the

city can be difficult because the kid can’t afford a uniform. So I was

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just thinking. I was listening to your testimony. You heard the earlier testimony. Are those the kind of choices you were talking

about, the panel before this panel?

Mr. BROWN. Well, actually, when I was coming up in the streets

and the police were coming around, we knew when they were coming, and when they came around, they harassed us. They were not

friends or anything like that. It is like if the police had come and

it was Officer Friendly, like when I was really young, there was

such a thing called Officer Friendly. There are no more Officer

Friendlies anymore. You know, they came around and said, ‘‘Hey,

how are you doing? What is your name?’’ got to know everyone in

the neighborhood, and then when he came around, instead of us

running, we can sit and talk to him. Do you know what I am saying?

So we are all sitting out front, and this is at the wee hours of

the night. When I say choices, I meant that we are all sitting out

on the corner block. Things are going to happen, not good things,

but bad things. So when the officers come around, they are looking

for the bad things instead of trying to create good things, you

know.

‘‘OK. What are you guys doing? Hey, man, let’s talk,’’ you know,

instead of the kids getting together and saying, ‘‘Hey, man, there

is nothing to do. Let me go rob this guy. Let me go—oh, she looks

good. Let me go see if I can do something to her.’’

You know, the police, it is almost like us against them, and it

should be a combined, joined effort.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, it is interesting. Your statement and

the last statement of Mr. Arretche kind of overlap. You talk about

people being treated as human beings, being respected. I mean,

there is an overlap there. I guess you may notice that.

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And directly connected to that, I will go to you,

Warden. One of the most brilliant things I have ever heard and

ever saw was the picture in here where you have these men holding the babies. That is absolutely incredibly brilliant. I do not know

where you got that from or where that idea came from.

Mr. GREEN. I did not invent it. I stole it from someone else.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, let me tell you something. One of the biggest problems is that we have seen, and I am sure all of you know

it. Some of you all, you testified to it. We see generations upon generations.

You know, I had an incident not very long ago that a young man

was trying to get transferred from one prison to another. I mean,

every time he could get a telephone call he called my office, and

we finally figured out why he wanted to be transferred. He said he

wanted to be near his father in another prison.

And so this generational stuff, I mean, a lot of parents do not

know how to parent, and so just the idea of somebody holding a

baby, understanding that is a precious life, and as I say to folks,

a lot of times we look at our little children and we forget they do

grow up.

And so I just think that is a great idea. I mean, are the men

open to it?

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Mr. GREEN. Oh, yes, sir. They wait in line for it. They are mechanical, about $1,000 a piece. They have different keys you have

to put into it. They simulate crying, trauma. They flunk the program if they do not protect the head and it snaps back.

It, quite frankly, came from my own experience, Congressman, as

a 38 year old first time father and someone handed me this child,

and I am like, ‘‘Whoa.’’ You know, seriously, I do not want to break

this. How do I do this?

I did not know at 38. How do they know at 21 and 17?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, again, as my time runs out, I want to

thank you all very much. This has been very informative. I was

saying to my assistant, we want to be in contact with you all because there are a number of things that we want to bring up to

Baltimore and we will be calling on you.

But thank you all so much, and continue to do what you do. I

know sometimes you may get a little bit discouraged, and you may

wonder whether you are making a difference, but you are. You are.

It may be one person at a time, but the fact is that not only are

you affecting that person, but you are affecting their children, and

guess what. Their children’s children.

And when we are up in heaven, hopefully, you will still be affecting generations yet unborn.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Let me just add. Warden Green, I just wanted to ask. The language barriers, how do you address the language barriers and how

do you educate kids and get them GEDs if they are illiterate in

their native language?

Mr. GREEN. We look at the whole myriad of issues that we have

to face. We are very fortunate in Montgomery County that 42 bilingual staff that we pay to be bilingual and are available to translate, and using translation lines and whatever we need or hiring

a translator to come in to deal with that issue.

Uniquely what we are doing now with our Spanish speaking population, we do not immediately pigeonhole them into an ESOL Program, but we are finding, again, through our association with Identity that if we begin to work on literacy in their first language, it

helps us to work within the second language that we are trying to

teach them.

The program that we have, again, I have 108 programs operating

within the facility. That is not an exaggeration, from faith based

to education, formal education, special education, ESOL, NA, AA.

We have substance abuse treatment inside the facility, certified

treatment, all of those in one place.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I mean, if someone is discharged and they

are illiterate, their chances of coming back are just almost automatic, aren’t they?

Mr. GREEN. Oh, absolutely, sir, and we are connecting them.

Again, that whole idea of not reinventing the wheel. Whatever we

are doing in the jail, we are creating what is already in the community, not our own program. So we are bringing the community in,

and when they walk out the door, that program is there waiting

on them.

And I think that is just vitally important.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just say to all of you thank you

very much. Mr. Arretche, you have recorded yourself well in your

first testimony up here.

Mr. ARRETCHE. OK.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And, Mr. Brown, we very much appreciate

hearing your story, and good luck in your businesses as you move

forward, and hopefully you can be a role model and mentor others

as we move ahead.

Ms. Colvin, thank you for all you do in Montgomery County, and

the same to you, Mr. Butler.

Thank you all very much. This has been very helpful. As I said,

your entire statements are in the record, but I think the discussion

has been very useful as we move forward.

Mr. Van Hollen, thank you very much for hosting this for us, and

hopefully we can continue and enhance our regional cooperation.

Thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:04 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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