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76–090 PDF 2001

COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACTIVITIES

IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 11, 2001

Serial No. 107–20

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

——— ———

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland, Chairman

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia,

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

——— ———

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

RUSSELL SMITH, Staff Director

MATTHEW BATT, Legislative Assistant

JON BOUKER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 11, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Kellems, Margret Nedelkoff, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice,

Government of the District of Columbia; Kathy Patterson, chairperson,

Committee on the Judiciary; and Rufus King III, Chief Judge, Superior

Court of the District of Columbia ................................................................ 54

Ramsey, Charles H., chief of police, Government of the District of Columbia; Kenneth L. Wainstein, acting U.S. attorney, District of Columbia;

John L. Clark, Corrections trustee, D.C. Office of the Corrections Trustee; Cynthia E. Jones, Director, Public Defender Service of D.C.; Susan

W. Shaffer, Esq., Director, District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency; and Michael J. Gaines, chairman, U.S. Parole Commission ............... 89

Stana, Richard, Director of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office,

accompanied by William Jenkins, Jr., Assistant Director of General

Government Division, GAO; Mark A. Tremba, Senior Analyst, Justice

Issues, GAO; and Steve Harlan, chairman, the Council for Court Excellence, accompanied by Samuel F. Harahan, executive director, the

Council for Court Excellence ........................................................................ 17

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

Clark, John L., Corrections trustee, D.C. Office of the Corrections Trustee, prepared statement of ............................................................................. 121

Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 14

Gaines, Michael J., chairman, U.S. Parole Commission, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 155

Harlan, Steve, chairman, the Council for Court Excellence, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 41

Jones, Cynthia E., Director, Public Defender Service of D.C., prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 135

Kellems, Margret Nedelkoff, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice,

Government of the District of Columbia, prepared statement of .............. 57

King, Rufus, III, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 79

Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 4

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Representative in Congress from the

District of Columbia:

Chart on parolees arrested on new charges ............................................ 9

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 175

Patterson, Kathy, chairperson, Committee on the Judiciary, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 69

Ramsey, Charles H., chief of police, Government of the District of Columbia, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 92

Shaffer, Susan W., esq., Director, District of Columbia Pretrial Services

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 145

Stana, Richard, Director of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 20

Wainstein, Kenneth L., acting U.S. attorney, District of Columbia, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 98

(1)

COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE

ACTIVITIES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance A. Morella

(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Morella, Davis, and Norton.

Staff present: Russell Smith, staff director; Heea Vazirani-Fales,

deputy staff director; Victoria Proctor, professional staff member,

Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy; Matthew

Batt, legislative assistant; Robert White, communications director;

David Marin, professional staff member, Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy; Jon Bouker, minority counsel; and

Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mrs. MORELLA. I will call the Subcommittee of the District of Columbia to order.

Good morning. Welcome to all of you. It is a pleasure to welcome

everybody, witnesses and interested parties, to the second hearing

of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia in the 107th Congress.

I want to recognize the members of the subcommittee who are

here with us today. We have our ranking member, Congresswoman

Norton, and we have Congressman Davis, who is the former chair

of the subcommittee, and Mr. Platts is expected to join us soon.

Mr. Scarborough has indicated that he cannot be with us today.

I do want to make a special mention of our witnesses, all of

whom have outstanding credentials, and over and above that, they

are professionals who have dedicated a major part of their lives to

the justice system.

Of course, I want to recognize the work of the General Accounting Office that we have seen in their comprehensive report, the

D.C. criminal justice system, ‘‘Better Coordination Needed Among

Participating Agencies,’’ as it is entitled. That sets the foundation

for this hearing.

I am going to remind people that the rules of the Committee on

Government Reform require that all witnesses be administered an

oath prior to testifying. I will administer that later.

Also, I want to encourage opening statements and witness statements to be presented in about 5 minutes or less. This should be

as efficient as this criminal justice system should be. Of course, you

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may summarize your statements, and this will give us more time

to dialog with each of you. Your entire prepared statements will be

entered into the record in toto.

So we are here today to examine the role that Congress can play

in helping the various Federal and local agencies that make up the

District of Columbia’s criminal justice system work together to reduce crime, impose justice, and make our citizens and visitors to

the Nation’s Capital safer.

Before we begin talking about possible solutions, I just want to

take a minute to illustrate the problem that this hearing is convened to address.

Setting aside the more than 30 law enforcement agencies with a

presence in the Nation’s Capital, there are 13 governmental agencies that have a direct role in criminal justice activities in the District, from arrest and booking to trial to correctional supervision.

Four of these are city agencies, such as the Metropolitan Police

Department; six are Federal agencies, such as the Office of the U.S.

Attorney for the District of Columbia; and finally, there are three

agencies, Superior Court, Defender Services, and Office of the Corrections Trustee, that are local in nature but are funded by the

Federal Government.

There is plenty of evidence, including recent reports from the

Government Accounting Office and the Council for Court Excellence that we will hear from today, that these individual agencies

of the District of Columbia’s criminal justice system are not always

working in concert, and as a result, efforts at reform have sometimes stalled.

The Police Department loses millions of dollars a year paying

overtime to officers who are waiting for court cases or waiting to

consult with the U.S. attorney’s office. This is not the height of efficiency.

The agencies use 70 different information technology systems,

but they are not linked to one another.

Most tragically, miscommunication among agencies has led to

mistakes in correctional supervision, sometimes with fatal consequences. Most notable is the killing of Bettina Pruckmayr, who

was robbed and stabbed 38 times in 1995 by a criminal named Leo

Gonzalez Wright. Wright was a convicted murderer who should

have had his parole revoked on a drug charge, if not for the failures of the criminal justice system.

Today we are going to have GAO and the Council for Court Excellence shed some light on why these problems persist, how deep

they are, and what we can do to change this situation. We are also

going to hear, I hope, some suggestions from the policymakers and

the agency heads who have direct responsibility for the District of

Columbia’s criminal justice system and for making it function

smoother.

We also will be examining the future of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, which was created a couple of years ago by the

D.C. Financial Control Board as a way of bringing together the various criminal justice departments. It has realized some successes,

but unfortunately, the Council is down to a lone staff member who

is being paid through a grant.

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With proper funding and structure, I believe the CJCC can be a

very useful tool in fostering interagency cooperation. Not only can

it assist in making more efficient the day-to-day functions of our

various criminal justice agencies, but in so doing, the CJCC can

help ensure the broader policy goals, such as reducing violent crime

and meting out justice more swiftly. We can assure that is done,

also.

The questions facing us are: Who should fund the CJCC; at what

level; how should it be structured; and what should its responsibilities be?

Mayor Anthony Williams and the city Council have proposed pro- viding $169,000 in funding for the CJCC in fiscal year 2002. GAO

has suggested that Congress fully fund the CJCC to ensure that

the Council will retain its independence, with no formal link to any

of its participating members. I think $169,000 is mighty low, but I am interested to hear from

our witnesses today what they believe is the most appropriate as

we continue to reform our criminal justice system.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I would now like to yield to our distinguished

ranking member in the District of Columbia Subcommittee, who is

in the District of Columbia and who represents the District of Columbia, Congresswoman Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Morella.

May I first express my thanks to my good friend, the chairman

of the committee, Representative Connie Morella, for initiating this

hearing on the coordination of criminal justice functions in the District of Columbia.

For the record, I would like to thank, as well, the former chairs

of the District of Columbia appropriations subcommittees, Representative Ernest Istook and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who

commissioned the GAO report in the fiscal year 2000 D.C. Appropriations Act.

Crime and criminal justice continue to rank among the highest

priorities for my constituents. However, coordination of governmental functions among 13 agencies divided between two independent jurisdictions poses a unique management challenge.

The agencies include D.C.-funded D.C. agencies, such as the

Medical Examiner; federally funded D.C. agencies, such as the Superior Court; and federally funded Federal agencies, such as the

Bureau of Prisons [BOP]. No other jurisdiction in the United States

interfaces with an entirely different and independent jurisdiction in

order to carry out indispensable functions.

Poor coordination cannot help but adversely affect law enforcement in the District up and down the line of responsible agencies.

The District and the Control Board deserve our congratulations

for the important achievements of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC], during one of the most difficult periods in District of Columbia history. Our Police Department, under Chief

Charles Ramsey, deserves primary credit for the sharp decline of

crime in the District after a long period of sustained high crime

rates, but the CJCC agencies and the coordination among them deserve some of the credit, as well.

In addition, Mayor Tony Williams and Deputy Mayor for Public

Safety and Criminal Justice Margaret Kellums, whom the Mayor

promoted to Deputy Mayor as a result of her work on the staff of

the CJCC, have a sophisticated understanding of what it would

take to help create the seamless criminal justice system this mission requires.

While I welcome this hearing, there are criminal justice issues

included in today’s hearing under our Federal jurisdiction that

need special attention. Among the most urgent is a hearing I hope

we can soon have on halfway house operations.

Presently, D.C. residents are confused and concerned about the

new Federal system of halfway houses. Before the Federal Government took control of the system, halfway houses over many years

had garnered poor reputations in city neighborhoods, leading to

wholesale opposition to the placement of halfway houses today.

Residents have not learned of improvements instituted by the

Bureau of Prisons and the Court Services and Offenders Supervision Agency [CSOSA].

For example, because of rigorous management and deeply interventionist and helpful probation programs in halfway houses,

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CSOSA has been able to reduce recidivism among probationers released from prison remarkably by almost 75 percent since they had

control of this program.

Now, with more inmates—this graph shows what the recidivism

rate was when they got the program, and the reduction since they

have had the program.

Now, with more inmates being released from prison, more halfway house space is needed. However, neighborhood opposition to

such facilities is widespread, at least in part because residents lack

information concerning the improved Federal operation of halfway

houses by CSOSA, and have no information on the reduction of

crime because of halfway house programs.

Consequently, the BOP has been forced to release discharged inmates on probation who are now unable to submit to the rigorous

halfway house process because of a lack of halfway house space.

The results are heartbreaking to me, as I believe they would be to

residents and to CSOSA.

After bringing down recidivism dramatically among newly discharged inmates when CSOSA had halfway house availability, we

are now releasing inmates from prison who do not go through the

halfway house process. As a result, crime by newly released inmates has begun to climb again. Without immediate action, we

may well see the rise in crime rates in the District that the city

has greatly reduced only with monumental effort.

I also will be particularly interested today in testimony concerning police overtime. I have repeatedly asked that this issue receive

priority attention, yet this costly problem remains unresolved.

As the GAO report indicates, the equivalent of 23 full-time officers were devoted to court appearances in 1999. I’m sure that the

agencies involved have explanations from the perspectives of their

missions. However, after years of insufficient attention and incalculable losses of funds, patrol time in our neighborhoods, and probably even injury and loss of life for residents, I am going to insist

today that the relevant agencies, especially the courts, the U.S. attorney, and the MPD, submit at least a preliminary plan to the

CJCC within 60 days and to this subcommittee within 90 days.

Finally, I appreciate all the work and the findings of the GAO,

but its recommendation for a new Federal entity to coordinate

CJCC functions in the future is not likely to be effective in the District of Columbia.

Perhaps this proposal is intended to encourage funding from the

Congress, but if so, that is an insufficient reason to set up an independent Federal entity that, in my judgment and experience, would

find it difficult to gain the confidence of local officials and the people of the District of Columbia.

I would prefer a more detailed analysis of the pros and cons of

all the possible alternatives before fixing upon a single option, especially one that does not appear tailored to meet the unique circumstances and nuances of these functions in the District of Columbia.

The problems raised by the GAO report are very challenging, but

the District has shown that it knows how to design approaches to

solve problems equally, if not more challenging. I have no reason

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to doubt the ability of the home rule government and the Federal

agencies working together to create the necessary partnership.

I will be interested to hear the views of the agencies concerning

how the coordination function should be structured.

Again, my appreciation to the Chair for this hearing, and my

thanks to all the witnesses for their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

I am pleased to recognize for an opening statement Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Good morning.

I want to thank Chairwoman Morella for organizing today’s hearing about the current state of the criminal justice system in the

District of Columbia.

I also want to thank the witnesses for coming to discuss this critical issue with the subcommittee today.

The fiscal year 2000 District of Columbia Appropriations Act required the GAO to conduct a study of the city’s criminal justice system. GAO recently completed the study, which analyzed the structure of the criminal justice system and assessed its effect on the

coordination of activities between relevant agencies.

It also reviewed the current initiatives for improving the system.

In 1997, the District of Columbia was making great progress in

overcoming the spending and management crisis that had driven it

to near bankruptcy just 2 years earlier.

In order to encourage stronger management practices and alleviate the financial burden in the fastest growing parts of the city’s

budget, such as the criminal justice system, Congress passed the

National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement

Act of 1997. It restructured and improved the complex relationship

between the Federal Government and the Nation’s Capital.

Its essential elements included the Federal assumption of some

governmental functions that are normally performed by State governments. Therefore, several D.C. criminal justice-related agencies

were brought under Federal funding.

The act also placed certain programs, such as felony incarceration, under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, which was

better equipped to handle those services.

Unfortunately, GAO’s report indicates in the area of criminal justice that some inefficiencies still persist. GAO found an absence of

coordination between key agencies in the system. This is alarming

because of the potential impact on public safety. Currently, agencies do what is in their best interests, instead of operating as a

part of the whole. Our objective is to have a well-oiled machine,

with all parts working in tandem.

I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses today to

learn their ideas about how to best identify and implement the reforms recommended by the GAO to ensure operational efficiency.

GAO reported that we need to assess the current efforts to coordinate among the agencies.

We also need to determine what incentives can be established to

encourage the agencies to cooperate in their efforts, thereby ensuring a smooth and efficient process.

However, there are some basic impediments to achieving our

goal. GAO has identified several factors that complicate coordination efforts, including the agencies’ different funding structures, organizational perspectives, and data collecting systems. In fact,

GAO found that there are over 70 different computer systems in

use. Information technology and data base management are clearly

among the first areas I think that need to be reformed.

The report also found the agencies’ competing interests preclude

them sometimes from performing and pursuing reforms because

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they are also perceived as non-beneficial or financially burdensome.

Unfortunately, the agencies cannot even agree on the nature of the

problems that need to be addressed, so the system suffers.

In 1998, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council was created

as an independent entity. Agencies could rely on it to identify and

address significant coordination issues and reform initiatives. Until

this year, it was funded by the Control Board, but now CJCC has

been reduced to one staff member funded through a grant.

The CJCC has made progress in addressing some coordination

concerns, particularly in the area of data-sharing among agencies.

But there is still a lot of work to be done. I look forward to hearing

our witnesses’ opinions about the benefits of maintaining CJCC as

recommended by GAO.

I am also interested in hearing about the obstructions that the

agencies themselves have identified and the solutions they propose

to overcome the challenges facing the coordination of the city’s

criminal justice system.

Your testimony will help us determine what, if any, congressional action may be needed to facilitate critical reform efforts.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

On our first panel, I am pleased to recognize Mr. Richard Stana,

Director of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office, accompanied

by Mr. William Jenkins, Assistant Director of General Government

Division, GAO; Mr. Mark Tremba, Senior Analyst, Justice Issues,

also the GAO.

We also have Mr. Steve Harlan, chairman of the Council for

Court Excellence, accompanied by Mr. Samuel F. Harahan, executive director of the Council for Court Excellence.

Thank you, gentlemen. If you will rise in accordance with the

policy of this committee and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. The record will reflect an affirmative response.

Again, as I stated, so that we have an opportunity to ask questions and hear our other panels, too, if I could ask you to try pretty

much to confine your statement to 5 minutes. Whatever you have

submitted in toto will be included in the record.

We will start off with you, Mr. Stana.

STATEMENTS OF RICHARD STANA, DIRECTOR OF JUSTICE

ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY

WILLIAM JENKINS, JR., ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF GENERAL

GOVERNMENT DIVISION, GAO; MARK A. TREMBA, SENIOR

ANALYST, JUSTICE ISSUES, GAO; AND STEVE HARLAN,

CHAIRMAN, THE COUNCIL FOR COURT EXCELLENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY SAMUEL F. HARAHAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE COUNCIL FOR COURT EXCELLENCE

Mr. STANA. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the results

of our review of the District of Columbia’s criminal justice system.

With me at the table are Bill Jenkins, Assistant Director on this

assignment, and Mark Tremba, the lead analyst.

As you know, the criminal justice process from arrest through

correctional supervision in any jurisdiction is generally complex

and typically involves a number of participants, including police,

prosecutors, defense attorneys, courts, and corrections agencies.

Coordination among these participants is necessary for the process to function as efficiently as possible within the requirements of

due process; that is, all involved agencies need to work together to

ensure proper and efficient system operations, identify any problems that emerge, and decide how best to balance competing interests in resolving these problems.

Our report and my prepared statement discuss in detail the

structure of the D.C. criminal justice system, the mechanisms that

exist to coordinate its participants’ activities, and current initiatives aimed at improving overall operations.

In my oral statement, I would like to highlight three main

points. First, the D.C. criminal justice system has a unique structure that blends Federal and D.C. jurisdictional boundaries and

funding streams. As shown in table 1, the D.C. criminal justice system consists of four D.C. agencies principally funded through local

D.C. funds, six Federal agencies, and three D.C. agencies principally funded through Federal appropriations.

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Seven of the 10 agencies of the D.C. criminal justice system require coordination among agencies funded by different sources.

Over 30 law enforcement agencies, other than the Metropolitan Police Department, operate in D.C. This unique structure creates coordination challenges not found in other locations.

My second point is that all participants have not always taken

a coordinated approach to identifying and addressing problem

areas that balances competing institutional interests. One reason

for this is that the costs of coordinating activities and taking corrective actions may fall on one or more federally funded agencies,

while any savings may accrue to one or more D.C.-funded agencies,

or vice versa.

In the absence of a single hierarchy and funding structure, agencies have generally acted in their own interests, rather than in the

interests of the system as a whole.

For example, as shown in table 2, as many as six agencies need

to be involved in processing a case before an arrested person’s initial court appearance for a felony offense can occur. Unlike many

other major metropolitan jurisdictions that would rely on written

reports and data base entries to decide whether to pursue a case,

prosecutors in D.C. require an officer who is knowledgeable about

the facts of the arrest to meet personally with them before they determine whether to formally charge an arrestee. This meeting is

commonly referred to in D.C. as papering the case.

In addition, prosecutors rely on the officers to perform various

clerical tasks associated with case processing. During calendar year

1999, these activities required the equivalent of at least 23 fulltime officers, ultimately reducing the number of officers available

for patrol duty by an equal amount.

Another example lies in the initiatives underway to improve the

criminal justice system. As of November 2000, the agencies involved in the D.C. criminal justice system told us they had initiatives for improving the operation of the system, 93 of them. We

found numerous instances where participating agencies did not

agree on such fundamental things as initiatives, goals, status,

starting date, participating agencies, or results to date.

This lack of agreement underscores a lack of coordination among

the participating agencies that could reduce the effectiveness of

these initiatives.

My last point is that the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council

[CJCC], has been useful and should be continued. CJCC is the primary venue in which D.C. criminal justice agencies can identify

and address interagency coordination issues. Its funding and staffing have been modest, about $300,000 annual with four staff.

According to many criminal justice officials we spoke with during

its nearly 3-year existence, CJCC has had some success in improving agency cooperation, mostly in areas where all participants

stood to gain from a coordinated approach to a problem.

In problem areas where a solution would help one agency possibly at the expense of another, CJCC has been less successful,

mainly because of lack of authority to compel agencies to address

the issues.

On balance, however, the CJCC has provided a valuable independent forum for discussion of issues affecting multiple agencies.

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We are recommending that Congress consider funding an independent CJCC with its own director and staff to help coordinate

the operations of the D.C. criminal justice system, and to require

CJCC to report annually to Congress, the Attorney General, and

the D.C. Mayor on the results achieved and the issues that require

further attention.

We are also recommending that participating agencies report

multiagency initiatives to the CJCC, which would then serve as a

clearinghouse and highlight those initiatives that warrant further

discussion and coordination.

This concludes my oral statement. We would be happy to address

any questions the subcommittee members may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stana follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. That is pretty succinct for such a full and thorough report the GAO did. Thank you.

It is now a pleasure to recognize Mr. Harlan, who knows very

much about this whole issue and was responsible for its genesis.

Mr. HARLAN. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, Congresswoman Norton. We are delighted to be here today to testify

before you on this very important issue of coordination of criminal

justice in our city.

The Council for Court Excellence has had a mission of focusing

on the workings of the justice system within the Washington area

for many years. The Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan civic organization that has worked to improve the administration of justice

in local and Federal courts related to agencies in Washington, DC,

for nearly 20 years.

The Council for Court Excellence is a unique resource in our

community, bringing together members of the civic, legal, judicial,

and business communities to work with common purposes to improve the administration of justice.

In March of this year, 2001, the Council for Court Excellence

completed a 15-month research study under the direction of the

District of Columbia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. We

worked in concert with the Justice Management Institute to examine the resource management issues within the District of Columbia criminal justice system, with special emphasis on criminal case

flow management and Metropolitan Police Department overtime.

This project entailed working closely with over 10 separate criminal justice agencies that have already been identified here this

morning. Our formal statement is really grounded on the work that

study produced, as well as my experience from 1996, and on.

In 1996 we founded what we then called the MOU partners,

which were all of these agency heads, and ran that. I was the vicechairman of the D.C. Financial Authority. In 1998, the MOU partner organization became—changed its name; it had the same

makeup, the same mission, but changed its name to the Criminal

Justice Coordinating Council.

Let me say that this report, which is attached to our testimony

here today, had some very startling findings. We found, for instance, during our test period that on average, there were 670 police officers in the courthouse a day, off the streets, away from community policing; 45 percent of those officers were in prosecutional

hearings, and 55 percent were involved in court hearings.

That is a lot of police officers off the streets, particularly when

you consider that 60 percent of the cases scheduled for trial during

our test period did not go to trial. In other words, these police officers were there and not called.

There is a further great difficulty in that, on average, six to eight

officers were called for each case, but even when a case was called,

only two would testify. So we have a lot of cases not being called,

and you compound that, count that up, and it is just a huge manpower off the streets and not doing police work, as such.

The core conclusion of the Council for Court Excellence research

is that the agencies of the District of Columbia need to work together to overhaul the case management systems from the point of

arrest all the way through to the final disposition of the case. UnVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Dec 19, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76090.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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less this happens, this will not be able to be fixed. The Police Department cannot fix it by itself, and any given agency cannot fix

it by itself. They must work together.

Where do we find ourselves today? Well, certainly we believe that

the principal conclusions of the GAO report are accurate and

should be adopted. As you know and as you mentioned, the city

Council has enacted legislation in the 2002 budget that would fund

the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to the tune of $169,000.

Most of the agencies are under Federal control and were federally funded, as has been pointed out several times this morning,

every now and then I think we have to remind ourselves how that

came about in 1997. The Federal Government took over some of

these agencies from the District in exchange for the District not receiving $680 million worth of Federal payments.

We urge the U.S. Congress to enact authorizing legislation to create an annually funded independent D.C. Board, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, for the express purposes of encouraging,

supporting, and facilitating interagency and intergovernment cooperation across the District’s criminal justice system.

The proposed council should be comprised of the leaders of the

many criminal justice agencies; not delegated down to staff or

lower people, but be comprised of the leaders of the local and Federal agencies involved.

The CJCC should be supported by a staff responsible to the

Council. Properly funded and organized, we believe that this coordinating body can exert substantial peer pressure on member

criminal justice agencies, both Federal and local, to adopt more efficient and effective strategies and policies which ultimately will

benefit the entire system and, in turn, the community at large.

We recommend that Congress ensure the independence of the

CJCC through legislation. We urge that you recognize that there

is an ongoing congressional responsibility to provide annual funding and oversight.

We also believe that time is of the essence. If needed D.C. criminal justice reform such as those set forth in our recent report are

to be addressed, it needs to happen now.

Madam Chairman, the last point I would like to make today concerns how best to assure interagency accountability across the District’s criminal justice system. Such accountability is sorely lacking

today, as the GAO study documents.

The authorizing legislation creating an independent CJCC in the

District of Columbia, we believe it should specify that the CJCC be

required to publish an annual public report to the District Mayor,

the D.C. Council, the Congress, and the community at large. The

report should be done in the spring of each year so that the annual

appropriations hearings can be influenced.

The CJCC annual reports should explain what actions have been

taken over the past year to improve public safety and justice, and

what are the plans for the next 1 to 5 years. We would hope that

Congress would use this annual public report by leaders of the

criminal justice coordinating effort as a means of assuring a greater accountability.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harlan follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Harlan.

I must say, this first panel has moved expeditiously and come up

with some very specific recommendations which we want to explore

further.

I am going to try to keep us to 5 minutes each, each round, but

we can go back and forth for more than one round.

I will start off with the GAO, Mr. Stana.

The various agencies, the Superior Court, Pretrial Services, Defender Services, Sentencing and Felon Incarceration, Community

Supervision, previously funded by the District Government, are

now funded by the Federal Government as a result of the Revitalization Act.

I want to ask you what the impact has been of this change in

the criminal justice system. Do you think things are getting better,

or not? How do you think Congress can help to improve the operations?

Mr. STANA. As was pointed out earlier, the crime statistics seem

to show that things are going in the right direction. Homicides are

down, assaults are down, thefts are down, arson is down.

What I don’t know is whether this is owing to the Revitalization

Act and the changes made there. What was called for in the act,

seems to be moving on schedule, but for the purposes of this report,

we did not do the work that would allow us to answer the question

that you asked.

Mrs. MORELLA. Could I ask you, the CJCC appears to be an important component in the coordination of the operations of the D.C.

criminal justice system.

Would you have any comments about whether or not you think

Congress should fund the CJCC, and what reasons would you have,

yes or no?

Mr. STANA. The short answer is yes, we believe Congress should

fund the CJCC. There are a number of different models to use

when considering its structure and budget.

For example, Montgomery County, MD has a CJCC. There is no

specific funding for it, but rather, the members of the criminal justice community there donate staff and time and detail individuals

to accomplish what the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee

there has to accomplish.

One difference in the District, however, is that you have Federal

and local funding streams. You have over 30 different agencies operating here. There is a blend of interests and there is a blend of

organizational hierarchies that, frankly, exists nowhere else in the

country.

When we discussed the CJCC with agencies involved in the D.C.

criminal justice system, one thing they pointed out to us is that it

is extremely important that an organization like that be perceived

as independent, and the CJCC, under the Control Board, was perceived as independent.

We were told that in order to preserve that independence, it was

critically important that it not be perceived as an instrument of

one agency, the District Government or of any agency, any member

participant.

46

Mrs. MORELLA. You are right, it does pose some incredible challenges that other jurisdictions do not have in terms of coordination

jurisdictionally.

I noticed also that you did say in your testimony that you felt

that there should be the annual report. This is exactly what Mr.

Harlan also stated.

Mr. Harlan, I particularly appreciate your participation in our

hearing today. First, I want to thank you for your services as the

former vice-chair of the Control Board. In that capacity you are

known to be the driving force of the original Memorandum of

Agreement Group, the predecessor to the CJCC.

You also served as the first chairman of the CJCC, which was

principally established to improve the criminal justice system.

How has lack of funding affected the effectiveness of the CJCC?

And then, please, get into the concept of Federal funding, if you

would, sir.

Mr. HARLAN. All right.

Initially, the CJCC activities were funded through the Control

Board, as has been pointed out. That was true up until I believe

this current fiscal year. Each year the amount of funding since

1998, and I have been away from it, so I don’t know the exact dollars—the Control Board had funding in 1999 and the year 2000,

but it is my understanding that those were reduced from the budget we had.

In 1996, 1997, and 1998, we spent a lot of money looking at the

system early on. One activity that has gone on, and it is my understanding it has gone on quite successfully, even though the funding

in the current fiscal year for the CJCC is zero—it has gone on

through Federal grants and support. It is this system that has been

identified, I believe it is called Justice. It is based on a criminal

justice system that is operational in Pennsylvania.

The system takes these 70—it takes several of these systems in

each of these stovepipe agencies’, if you will, computer systems,

and overlays new, advanced technology so it can reach down and

get information to share with other agencies and the organization

as a whole.

Well, technology and working-wise, it is an excellent system. The

problem comes in as far as the voluntary nature of it. There is one

agency, which is a major agency involved in the criminal justice

program here in our city, that has opted out, decided not to participate. As a result, the system, while it will work for those that are

participating, there will be a big hole. It is that kind of thing that

causes major problems and restricts even great success from being

truly recognized.

So going forward, it is my understanding that to fund just that

system, staffing, handling, monitoring the data, making sure the

security is there and all that, it is going to take about $2 million

a year. So the $169,000 will not come close to even handling that

one system.

Mrs. MORELLA. I think you said you feel the Federal Government

should be taking——

Mr. HARLAN. I believe that this is a joint effort and must be recognized as a joint effort.

47

The local government is proposing local dollars. The Federal Government has the lion’s share of this. It should put up Federal dollars. So with local dollars and Federal dollars, I believe the leadership should be determined on an equal basis, that sort of thing.

If it is perceived, as the GAO has pointed out, that one group is

taking over, it will not be very effective. But if we can figure out

a way to make it a cooperative organization, independent, and not

championing one particular agency or funding source, I think it can

be fantastically cooperative and be a model for the country.

Mrs. MORELLA. I know my time has expired, so I will now defer

to Congresswoman Norton. We will be back for another round.

Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The problem that the GAO is confronted with and that Mr. Harlan has elaborated upon is a problem fit for one of my law school

classes. It is an unprecedented constitutional law problem, and I

see the problem. I caution us not to simply move forward with the

kind of normal cause and effect, because I don’t see the answer.

Let me address a question to GAO, the GAO representative.

The responses in the report from the District surely require some

response. First of all, let me ask Mr. Harlan, what agency has

opted out of the process?

Mr. HARLAN. The Bureau of Prisons.

Ms. NORTON. One thing this committee could easily do is to require that agencies participate in the process. That it seems to me

could be dealt with. But the responses surely are troubling, and require some response from us.

For example, when I look at the report, that the agencies needed

to feel ownership of the body in which they operate, there was concern about—particularly with agencies that must enjoy independence, like the courts, about a superagency over them.

Listen to this, just listen to this, if you are a local jurisdiction.

The nuance that will be required to fashion something is important. Listen to what the report says. ‘‘Consider requiring that all

D.C. criminal justice initiatives that could potentially involve more

than one agency be coordinated through the new independent entity.’’

The city questions, or one of its representatives in your report

questions, ‘‘Given the interrelatedness of agencies in our system, it

is difficult to think of any initiative, no matter how limited in scope

or application, that would not fit that definition and require review

by that entity.’’

I don’t see how you would avoid putting the criminal justice system of the District of Columbia under the Federal Government,

which is precisely what the Revitalization Act intended not to do.

Now, I see the problem of leadership, but I want your response

to these responses that I found in the report itself.

Mr. STANA. OK.

Let me take the second one first, and the second one was running the coordination initiatives through the CJCC.

What we found among the 93 initiatives was that in about twothirds of them, fundamental misunderstandings existed about who

was the leader of the initiative, what it was intended to do, what

goals and responsibilities were assigned, and so on.

48

What we had in mind here, and what our report is aiming to do,

is to use the CJCC as a clearinghouse, not as a directive body, but

as a body that pulls these initiatives in, studies them, and points

out these kinds of shortcomings to the members around the table,

to discuss how are we going to address them. What can be done

to address these disconnects? And that the members themselves

would say, well, I did not mean that, or yes, I could be involved

in this, or yes, that is the leader, I am not the leader. Let us see

if we can measure our goals. It is not a directive body, but it is intended to be a clearinghouse and a helpful body.

With respect to trying to Federalize the District of Columbia’s

criminal justice system by having the CJCC federally funded, I

don’t know if that would be the intent of Federal funding. I think

what Federal funding does is ensure that the most participants

possible appear at the CJCC table and work with the other members of the D.C. criminal justice community.

Ms. NORTON. We are beginning, I think, to focus in on how to

make this thing work. The word ‘‘clearinghouse’’ is very important

to use.

Here you have two independent entities. The District of Columbia is an independent jurisdiction. When we wrote the Revitalization Act, we were at great pains to keep those jurisdictions, the

Federal Government and the District Government, in their independent status.

Just because somebody is funding something, or just because our

prisoners go to the BOP, does not change the relationship between

the District government.

Yet, you raise a critical point. It seems to me—you help me in

what you have said. This is an entity that cannot function except

by consent of the governed.

Mr. STANA. Right.

Ms. NORTON. It may be in fact possible—and, if I may say so, despite what the District said, there is a supremacy clause problem.

The Mayor and the District of Columbia cannot order a Federal entity to do anything. There is still the Constitution of the United

States, and he does not have that jurisdiction, and certainly no

agency of the District government has that jurisdiction.

If we are talking about a clearinghouse—that is why I think we

need to think about this before we decide what we are doing here.

I would like to see a lot more analysis here.

If we would talk about a clearinghouse operation with matters

done by consent, then the funding would not matter, because you

have already said that these folks are funded now by a Federal

grant. So the funding is not a problem. The problem is leadership.

The problem is making sure that every agency, BOP and everybody

else, understands that it is a Federal obligation.

I would ask the D.C. government to pass a comparable statute

saying it is the obligation of every D.C. agency to fully participate

in this matter, and leave it to—here I am thinking off the top of

my head, based simply on what I have heard from you, because I

learned a lot from you; and if there was failure of cooperation, then

the leader, the real leader would have the obligation to see to it

that particular agency in fact fell into line.

49

We could get toward something in which everybody maintained

his sense of who he really is, and yet had an obligation to participate fully in this coordination mechanism.

Mr. STANA. Yes, and that was the goal of our third objective.

What we found when we compiled and analyzed these 93 initiatives was that, No. 1, this had not been compiled before; and No.

2, many of the other participants did not realize what the other

had thought—what was supposed to happen, or who was in charge,

and so on. So bringing these kinds of matters to the coordinating

committee would be very useful.

Our second recommendation about reporting to the Congress and

to the D.C. government and others is intended to let the funding

sources and the hierarchies of each member know what has been

resolved and what hasn’t been resolved.

As one participant said, sunshine is purifying, and if one funding

source realizes that, well, my person or my organization is not cooperating and I am not happy about that, then they can take that

individual to task over that and find more out about it.

What we found in talking with the different participating agencies is if the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee becomes dictatorial and exercises powers that are inordinate with its real responsibilities, that many members would not be around that table

for very long.

Ms. NORTON. That’s right.

Madam Chair, can I say that one suggestion I would make to the

Chair is that we might ask some of the distinguished lawyers in

our own D.C. Bar Association to look more closely at this matter,

maybe the Council of Court Excellence, so these issues we have

fleshed out, the consent, the responsibility of the leaders of the sectors, the Mayor and whoever would be designated for the Federal

sector and the clearinghouse notion, and that any notion that got

put into effect be put into effect as a pilot first, because it is so unusual, because it is unique, and we would not want to go willy-nilly

into something that simply did not work for us.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. We will be discussing that.

Continuing with our questioning to Mr. Stana, in your March

2001 report on the criminal justice system, you reported that the

criminal justice activities in D.C. are not effectively coordinated.

We have talked about that, longstanding problems not addressed.

We suggest that some of the real causes of the problems are the

lack of agreeing on the goals of the initiatives and the turf issues

between participating agencies. I wonder if these are the root

causes of the problem. Will the establishment of the federally funded or in-partnership D.C., Federal, etc., funded CJCC address the

root causes of the problem?

Mr. STANA. Our report points out that many of the causes for the

lack of coordination are systemic: different funding streams, different hierarchies. That is not to say these are insurmountable. By

coordinating activities and having a mechanism to coordinate, we

can take care of basically the three kinds of problems that we service.

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One is the interagency difficulties with the 93 initiatives, where

participants did not know the fundamentals llike which agency was

in charge and what are the goals, and so on.

The second involved papering. We have discussed the papering

issue quite a bit in the report. I’m sure you will talk about it a lot

more on the third panel.

There are some fundamental issues there that have to be dealt

with, and they just haven’t been, and a coordinating mechanism is

needed to do that.

The third involved the Leo Gonzalez Wright case that I believe

Ms. Norton mentioned, and that is just a series of errors that happened over years, that we believe some sort of a coordinating mechanism or some sort of a way to discuss individual problems would

have helped that case considerably.

Mrs. MORELLA. That leads—in fact, I think I mentioned that

case, but that leads to that question of, even if there is a Criminal

Justice Coordinating Council, when there is a stalemate among the

members in resolving the problems, as is the case now, how do we

ensure that the problem is resolved correctly?

Mr. STANA. Well, one of the problems with the current coordinating committee is that they could agree to disagree, and that was

the end of it, and nobody else knew about it. And what we’re hoping is, that by having a reporting mechanism back to the Congress

and to the administration and to the D.C. government, that by putting a little sunshine on these areas of disagreement, the Congress,

the administration and the Mayor and the city Council would be

in a better position to act from their viewpoint.

Mrs. MORELLA. I’d like to address that very same question to Mr.

Harlan for any comments he may have on it, how to resolve the

stalemate.

Mr. HARLAN. Yes. I agree that—and what—our recommendation

is very similar to the GAO’s suggested report, because of just bringing the clarity of the sunshine to the issue, sometimes the fear of

having to stand up and defend some action that an agency leader

has taken that blocks other agencies, he or she would have to stand

up and explain that to you if you held hearings on it and had a

report.

So we believe that an oversight responsibility is required, but I

also think that cooperation is the key to this. And unless we find

a magic cooperation here, as an agency head, he or she can find

1,000 ways to block progress if they really wanted to. I mean, that’s

the reality of operational leadership. Not that they would but we’ve

all seen it, and if the people don’t want to cooperate together, it’s

very difficult to make them. It requires sunshine. You give them

marching orders, and they still don’t do it. So they have to want

to do it, and it has to be a benefit to all.

Sometimes—it has to be a benefit to the whole system, and sometimes my agency may have to take it on the chin a little bit. I have

to fund something I really didn’t want to fund for the benefit of the

whole system. People have to work together, and that, to me, is the

critical aspect of this thing, finding a joint way for the Federal

leadership and the local leadership to help these agencies work together and then provide accountability, mandatory accountability.

Maybe it’s you or—reaching an agreement with the local leadership

51

that you will jointly oversight. I don’t know. But something of that

nature is going to be required.

Mrs. MORELLA. Which is another reason why I note that both of

you have stressed the leadership quality—leadership——

Mr. HARLAN. That’s right.

Mrs. MORELLA [continuing]. Commitment, working together.

Well, we’ll continue to discuss that.

I think I have another minute or a minute and a half left. So to

Mr. Harlan, we discussed this in our opening comments, but in the

recent study on case processing and the use of police resources, it

was reported that $1.5 million in overtime was paid to offices who

had to go to the prosecutor’s office to swear legally that reports

they had filed were true, and you gave us some incredible statistics

about the kind of time that’s spent, you know, in the courtroom by

police officers. What do you believe is the greatest impediment to

addressing the longstanding problems of case processing and case

overtime?

Mr. HARLAN. Let me—if I may, just to make sure I’ve got my

good adviser here, Sam, would you help me with that, please?

Mr. HARAHAN. I’ll be happy to. I think your biggest impediment

is tradition. They’ve always done it one way. They’re going to be

very reluctant to change. We documented that 25 or 30 other urban

jurisdictions do not require the police officer to come the next

morning to eyeball the assistant U.S. attorney or the prosecuting

attorney. We’ve always done it one way.

There will be 40 reasons given to you as to why the U.S. attorney’s office possibly can’t do this. They will do a pilot project, four

or five cases in the next 6 months. But the truth is, in major cases

there’s going to be a great reluctance to change the way it’s being

done today.

Mrs. MORELLA. We really can’t accept the way it’s being done

today. And I want to get into——

Mr. HARAHAN. It’s not rocket science, ma’am.

Mrs. MORELLA. Right. Why do you think the papering issue that

has been posed, why has it festered over a decade without being

resolved? Is that also traditional?

Mr. HARAHAN. Well, I think it’s the point that the GAO are making about the lack of incentives that exist in the system today for

people to change the way in which they are practicing.

Mrs. MORELLA. We would kind of like to look to what these incentives might be. But I’m going to defer to Ms. Norton and then

pick up that great question with you again before we terminate the

panel.

Ms. NORTON. Just to comment on Mr. Harlan’s notion about cooperation being the key to this coordination notion, and of course

it is, because this is—we know that there are systems—when there

are problems, you can put people in charge if you have compulsion

all the way down the line, but that is not our system. To make you

understand what I mean, when Russia was part of the Soviet

Union, there was very little AIDS. There was very little crime. Everybody had health care. There was no Russian Mafia. When freedom came, you got the same kind of chaos you have in democratic

societies.

52

In thinking through this system, we’ve got to assume the freedom of all the parties involved and then ask ourselves, how do you

get people who are free actors to do the right thing on time? That

requires deep thought. We could put the Federal Government in

charge. That wouldn’t do you any good in the District of Columbia.

It wouldn’t do any good anywhere in the United States, but especially in the District of Columbia would it not do you any good, not

given the resentment in this city to having us in charge, this committee, all of the Congress in charge and then for the Congress to

say, here’s an entity and you’re in charge. That’s why I’m very

pleased at the way you describe how this could be put together. I

think it may well take Federal legislation, but I think it’s also

going to take district legislation.

I’d like to ask about the problem that has troubled me ever since

I’ve been in Congress and the one that the GAO shed special light

on that Mr. Harahan just spoke about, and he said tradition is the

reason. Here is a classic case of where everybody is in charge and

therefore nothing happens, and this is why—and I want to reiterate what I indicated in my opening statement, 60 days, everybody, 60 days, try to do it in less, have—this is a test as to whether

consensual cooperation can work within 60 days.

The U.S. attorney, the courts and the police, marshals may be involved and there may be others, must have a new system, a proposal for a new system. May I suggest that you might consider taking it off the shelf from the many jurisdictions that know how to

do this?

The GAO has indicated some of the things that could be done.

The report would have been more helpful to me if there was some

indication of who in the region, for example, has learned to do this.

And the first thing I would ask is that the city and Federal agencies involved not to invent something from scratch but to look and

see how it is done first in the region and perhaps in some even better way nationally.

Mr. STANA. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Yes. Please respond.

Mr. STANA. May I add something there? I think tradition plays

a big part in this, and I think the cost does. And you talked about

the papering process, and we need to get on top of that issue somehow.

Simply put, there are eight steps in the papering process that involve D.C. policemen, and the police who are trained to be on the

street to fight crime. Of those eight steps, the majority are strictly

clerical, making copies, making file folders, and so on. That in our

view is not what policemen should be doing, but in order to change

that some other agency has to assume the cost of doing that and

it’s not going to be the police. So, yes, there’s tradition involved,

but there are other things involved, and we think that cost is a big

factor.

Ms. NORTON. So who assumes the cost of doing that?

Mr. STANA. The police make the copies, the police assemble the

file folders, in addition to speaking with the U.S. attorneys and

screening officers. Now, if the policemen weren’t to do that, arguably it would fall on the U.S. attorney’s office to do those clerical

tasks, or it would fall on the court to do those clerical tasks. But

53

why you have a trained police officer earning overtime to do those

kinds of clerical tasks needs explanation.

Ms. NORTON. If you forgive the pun, that’s criminal. When you

consider what crime rates in the District of Columbia are and the

way in which our police are overtaxed—I mean, I’ve gotten a bill

that has gotten through that is being implemented now to give assistance to the District of Columbia police and Federal police officers precisely because they are so overtaxed. I am very pleased

with how that is working, but those people, by the way, are going

to be bringing in—what do we call them—arrested people as well.

Let’s see what happens when the Federal police are confined to

clerical work.

But this is very—the cost issue—what you’ve indicated is it’s not

just turf; it’s cost. And so that’s going to make it really difficult in

these 60 days. And I don’t care how difficult it is. We’ve got to start

somewhere. And I said a proposal. I didn’t say in 60 days you have

to have something in place, but we really do have to begin this

process, and perhaps the Chair will find when she receives it that

she will want to have hearings at some later date, but we’ve got

to get something in place.

Could I ask whether in this—we’ve had difficulties in technology

in the district. You speak to some of the technology problems here.

It seems to me this becomes really difficult, then, if the District is

having trouble, not so much with its technology but with the interplacing of the systems within the District of Columbia, do you believe that working through the criminal justice—some kind of coordinating mechanism, this interface—this now double interfacing

will take—can be done, or is that going to require a whole new

project, a whole new way of dealing with technology once the coordination mechanism is in place?

Mr. JENKINS. Well, let me answer that. I think there are a couple

of things there. I think it has worked relatively well to date, partly,

as we point out, because in the justice system most of the participants view that they stood to gain from it in terms of access to information that would help them do their job better.

I think to date one of the reasons it’s succeeded is because of the

leadership of the person on Criminal Justice Coordinating Council

is perceived by those people who he’s working with as being competent, knowing what he’s doing, listening to people, listening to

concerns that the participants have. He has not tried to dictate a

solution. He’s tried to listen to things, identify what’s doable in the

short term, which is one of the reasons they have sort of chosen

the solution they have.

So I think it’s possible to use the Criminal Justice Coordinating

Council for that, and this particular effort, has shown that it can

work if it has certain conditions. But, as Mr. Harlan pointed out,

if somebody says, there’s not enough benefit to me to participate

and I’m opting out, then you do have a big gap; and, therefore, it

reduces the benefits that the other participants get out of it when

you have a major player that opts out of it.

Mrs. MORELLA. We have other questions we’d like to ask you, but

I am most concerned about our time and the fact that we have two

other panels. We would like very much to submit questions to you

within the next few days for your responses.

54

I want to thank you very much; and I want to thank you, Mr.

Stana. I want to thank your colleagues, Mr. Jenkins and Mr.

Tremba. I want to thank you, Mr. Harlan; and I want to thank Mr.

Harahan for being here. We value very much your statements; and

we’ll be following up with you, too.

So I’ll ask the second panel, then, to come forward, too.

Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, who is the Deputy Mayor for public

safety and justice, the government of the District of Columbia; the

Honorable Kathy Patterson, who is the Chair of the Committee on

the Judiciary; and Rufus King III, who is the Chief Judge, Superior

Court of the District of Columbia.

Maybe as you get to your designated spots, you could continue

to stand so I can administer the oath. If you would raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. I heae affirmative responses, which will be so recorded. Again, we’ll try to keep to the 5-minute rule.

We’ll start off with you, then, Ms. Kellems. Thank you very much

for coming, and thank you for being patient, too.

STATEMENTS OF MARGRET NEDELKOFF KELLEMS, DEPUTY

MAYOR FOR PUBLIC SAFETY AND JUSTICE, GOVERNMENT

OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; KATHY PATTERSON,

CHAIRPERSON, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY; AND

RUFUS KING III, CHIEF JUDGE, SUPERIOR COURT OF THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Ms. KELLEMS. Good morning. Good morning, Chairwoman

Morella.

I’m Margret Kellems, the Deputy Mayor for public safety and

justice. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on

the coordination of criminal justice activities in the District, particularly the past successes and future plans of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Mayor Williams is a staunch supporter

of the CJCC, and as Deputy Mayor for public safety and former executive director of the CJCC, I am especially committed to seeing

the organization become an institutionalized part of the District’s

justice system.

I am intimately familiar with how the CJCC can be and in fact

has been an effective tool for integrating the activities of our fragmented justice system. Background on the evolution of the CJCC

from 1996 to the present is found in my written submission. My

written testimony also includes greater detail on the staffing and

organization during fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

For now, I would like to briefly discuss some of the CJCC’s successful projects and the city’s plan for continuing those successes

in fiscal year 2002.

The mission of the CJCC is to foster systemic change in the justice system, serving as a forum to identify issues and their solutions, proposing actions and facilitating cooperation that will improve public safety and the related criminal and juvenile justice

services for the District of Columbia, residents, visitors, victims

and offenders.

During its brief existence, the CJCC has undertaken a number

of ambitious, successful projects. I will briefly highlight two to demVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Dec 19, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76090.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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onstrate some of the valuable accomplishments of the organization,

accomplishments that I am quite certain would not have been

achieved without the CJCC’s existence.

Each criminal justice agency in the District relies on the other

agencies for basic management information. However, the current

information systems maintained by the justice agencies within the

District are not integrated. It is difficult and in some circumstances

impossible to access necessary information in a timely manner.

In 1999, the CJCC envisioned a solution to this problem, the District of Columbia Justice Information System, to serve as a central

information-sharing facility. In partnership with the District’s chief

technology officer, the CJCC undertook to implement this solution;

and in December 2000, the proof of concept for the system was

completed for approximately $750,000, a fraction of the cost of

similar systems in other jurisdictions. The project is now in phase

2 and will be funded with Federal grants through fiscal year—I’m

sorry, fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2002.

A second project, which came to fruition just last month, is a

pilot project called Papering Reform 2000. This project, under way

in three police districts, will get more officers on the street and enhance the quality of prosecutions by eliminating some of the administrative duties currently required of police officers.

For example, officers will no longer be required to appear in person to present charges to a prosecutor before a decision is made on

pursuing a case. Instead, the officer can swear to the charges in

their district station or other unit of assignment and return to patrol. The corporation council prosecutor will then go forward with

the charging process without the officer being present.

The CJCC supported this project through 1999 and 2000. The

Metropolitan Police Department and the corporation counsel have

sustained this valuable project since the CJCC lost its full-time

staff. When the program is fully implemented, District residents

will enjoy the benefit of greater police presence on the street as a

result of these efforts.

These are but two of the many projects supported by the CJCC.

Experience has shown us that without this neutral body, without

resources dedicated to identifying and proposing solutions to problems of coordination among criminal justice agencies, systems improvements in the District’s justice system would be difficult to

achieve.

Consequently, the Mayor has fully supported the activities of the

CJCC and believes it is in the interest of the residents of the District of Columbia to institutionalize this body and bolster its efforts.

The fiscal year 2002 budget proposed by the Mayor and approved

by Council includes, as you noted earlier, $169,00 in earmarked resources for staffing the CJCC.

But, additionally, the Mayor is committed to providing additional

resources through block and formula grant funding to support specific projects, just as were used with the Information Technology

Development Project and the Council for Court Excellence report,

both funded by Federal grant dollars. As has been the practice,

member agencies will be asked to devote staff to specific projects

as needed. We believe that these resources will allow the CJCC to

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continue its current projects and expand its efforts in fiscal year

2002.

Additionally, related legislation establishes the CJCC formally

and codifies its duties to coordinate crime control activities, identify

systemic issues and develop solutions, participate in grant planning

and establish and report on measurable goals and objectives for

system improvement. In the next 60 days, the CJCC will conduct

planning sessions to identify the priority project areas for the coming fiscal year.

Additionally, during these planning sessions, the group will be

able to consider and clarify the member’s obligations to the organization and its projects. If necessary, the CJCC is prepared to further define the organizational structure and administration, for example, by creating a separate agency for staff support, if it is determined that would best serve the interests of autonomy and independence.

The CJCC can and should continue to serve as a mechanism for

identifying problems, developing the solutions and imposing accountability for the results that our citizens deserve. With the support and cooperation of all of the local and Federal partners, I am

confident that fiscal year 2002 will prove to be an effective and productive year for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and for

the citizens, visitors, victims and offenders in the District of Columbia.

Thank you again for this opportunity. I’d be happy to answer

your questions.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Ms. Kellems.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kellems follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Now Councilwoman Kathy Patterson.

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Morella,

Congresswoman Norton.

I am Kathy Patterson; and, since January, I have been chairperson of the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary with oversight responsibility for the major public safety agencies and criminal justice policy in the District.

I appreciate the opportunity to comment today on the report by

the GAO and on prospects for improving criminal justice coordination through the work of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. I would like to give you an overview on legislative actions taken

recently by the Council and also some major issues pending before

the Judiciary Committee.

There are two general themes that I would bring before you

today—the strong need for collaboration among Federal and local

partners and the need also to review certain governance issues that

affect partner agencies within the CJCC reflected in legislation before the District Council.

As has been mentioned, the District Council recently approved

the Mayor’s proposal to provide funding in fiscal year 2002 and

also to approve additional language spelling out the responsibilities

and functions of the CJCC.

I would like to highlight two of the cross-jurisdictional issues

that require the collaboration of member-partners. Issues of this

nature make the case for continuing efforts to sustain and enhance

the work of the CJCC.

The first is the issue of court overtime, researched most recently

by the Council for Court Excellence, and those findings were

shared with you earlier this morning.

I would only add that court overtime is not a new problem. The

Judiciary Committee budget report, which you have received, provides a summary of earlier reviews of police department overtime

issues.

One such review that I found particularly disturbing was a 1993

report by the Court Liaison Division detailing nearly 300 court appearances by police department officers that supposedly occurred

after charges were dismissed. These appearances were nevertheless

compensated based on reports filed by officers and corroborated by

assistant U.S. attorneys.

This particular finding I mention today because it underscores

the fact that, while policy and procedure reforms are needed and

can be advanced by the CJCC, also necessary are good management and vigilant oversight by responsible agency leaders.

The second example of the kind of systemic issue that requires

shared evaluation and coordinated action is one mentioned by Mrs.

Norton, the placement of detention facilities serving the District’s

criminal justice population, both pretrial detainment and halfway

houses for those released from prison.

The successful reintegration of individuals returning to the District from Federal prison is likely to be more or less successful, depending on the kind of transition opportunities that policymakers

provide and fund. How and where we locate pretrial detainment

and halfway houses for released felons requires coordination by

local and Federal entities. It also requires a healthy dose of public

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education on the need for and merits of detention and a similarly

healthy respect for and acknowledgment of the needs and concerns

of residents in District neighborhoods on the part of both local and

Federal partners.

I’d like to comment on the specific policy recommendations made

in the GAO report, specifically that the Congress enact legislation

to create, define and fund the CJCC. The GAO report does note the

CJCC has provided a valuable, independent forum for discussions

of issues affecting multiple agencies. I would suggest, based on

that, that the CJCC is not broken and therefore does not need a

Federal fix. Coordination and collaboration occur when equal partners agree to coordinate and collaborate; and, as has been noted in

the previous panel in the discussion, mandates have questionable

value in such a context.

At the same time, I think the GAO’s suggestion that the CJCC

have distinct reporting requirements is useful, and I foresee adding

reporting requirements to the Council language when we revisit

this issue in June. Reporting can keep you informed and can also

provide a check on the performance of an entity that will again be

receiving District taxpayer dollars.

It’s my view that the District dollars earmarked for the CJCC in

fiscal year 2002 represents a basic level of support that we can sustain. At the same time, when equal partners come to any table, it

is useful for them to be equally vested; and, for that reason, I

would suggest that the Federal member agencies provide a modest

sum toward the operation of the CJCC and would recommend that

the fiscal 2002 budgets that the Congress enacts for the Federal

member agencies incorporate such modest sums. This is an issue

on which the D.C. Council has not advanced a view, and I therefore

speak for myself.

There are two other issues touched on by the GAO report that

have been addressed by the D.C. Council in the Budget Support

and Budget Requests Acts.

First, we approved a line item of $100,000 in the Department of

Corrections’ budget to support the Corrections Information Council

called for by the Revitalization Act in 1997. In addition, I am

pleased to say that we are moving forward with names to populate

that Council, and I hope to see the CIAC in place over the summer

and able to hire professional staff this fall.

There’s a second issue that derives from the 1997 Revitalization

Act and is reflected in the Budget Request Act that the Congress

will be receiving. As you know, this law sought to transfer financial

responsibility for certain State-like functions from the District to

the Federal Government, including the financial responsibility for

incarcerating convicted District felons. The Council is asking that

the Congress revisit this issue and clarify that, in fact, the Bureau

of Prisons will pay the full cost for convicted felons, which is not

the case today.

There are other major legislative issues pending before or anticipated by the Council of the District of Columbia. Very briefly, one

has to do with local selection of judges. A second has to do with

an election of a local attorney general. These two will be the subject of a hearing shortly.

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A third piece of legislation I anticipate we will shortly have before us would be to comment on Judge King’s plan to strengthen

the family division of the D.C. Superior Court, and I look forward

to being able to share with the Congress the views of the D.C.

Council.

Finally, the Council has before it legislation introduced last week

to create a centralized, highly trained, competitively compensated

Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, similar to a panel

that was put in place in the State of Maryland in 1990.

I appreciate having this opportunity to appear before you, look

forward to working on these joint issues, and I would be happy to

answer any questions. Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Councilwoman Patterson. You certainly got through a lot of material, and I know there’s even a lot

more here in the written testimony. I appreciate that.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Patterson follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Judge King, we’re pleased to hear from you, sir.

Thank you for being here.

Judge KING. Chairwoman Morella, Congresswoman Norton,

thank you for the opportunity to discuss the coordination of criminal justice activities in the District of Columbia among our several

agencies.

Over the past several years, the Criminal Justice Coordinating

Council [CJCC], has provided a valuable forum for discussion of

criminal justice issues in the District and has fostered a spirit of

cooperation which has enabled it to accomplish several successful

projects and initiate others. The key to the past successes—and I

won’t enumerate them in view of the lengthy discussion of them before me this morning—has been the voluntary cooperation among

the independent agencies.

Moreover, the interests of justice demand autonomy for many of

the criminal justice agencies. For public defenders to function effectively, they must be independent of police and prosecutors. Requiring the courts to seek approval from the Mayor or another agency

for projects and initiatives, should the CJCC be funded through the

District, could undermine the crucial independence of the District’s

judiciary.

The Superior Court strongly recommends a continuation of the

CJCC as an organization of independent criminal justice agencies,

financed to provide staff and resources for interagency initiatives.

We envisage the CJCC as an independent agency with an executive director selected by the CJCC members and then a staff. The

executive director would seek grants for system wide projects and

administer appropriated funds for criminal justice initiatives.

The executive director would also provide annual reports to the

CJCC and to Congress and the city, the Mayor and the city Council

on accomplishments, progress and areas where improvement is

needed. Placing this responsibility on the executive director preserves the principle of separation of powers within the District government and the independence of local and Federal agencies in the

criminal justice system.

While the CJCC would continue to manage funding for some

projects itself, it would also coordinate budget requests from the

various funding authorities for projects whose costs and benefits

fall unevenly among different criminal justice agencies. For example, where costs of procedures to benefit the Metropolitan Police

Department,with reduced overtime expense might fall on the U.S.

attorney’s office, the CJCC would work to strategize the budget requests, so that the entire criminal justice system could realize savings.

This potential for system wide gains without disproportionate

costs would provide the incentive needed for criminal justice agencies to work more cooperatively together to resolve issues for which

solutions have proven elusive in the past.

In summary, the court believes the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council is an invaluable forum for discussion and interagency

problem solving. The essential feature for its success has been the

autonomy of the criminal justice agencies. The court strongly supports continuing an association of independent criminal justice

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agencies with the resources to staff projects and launch new initiatives.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on these important

issues, and I would welcome any questions.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Judge King; and thank the three of

you for your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Judge King follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. It’s great to have the three of you together at the

table, too, because there is some differences of opinion with regard

to the CJCC, whether it should be funded, how to keep it independent, if it should in fact be totally independent.

I guess I would ask you, Judge King, how should CJCC be funded in order to maintain its independence? Should there be a partnership? Should there be funding through the Mayor’s office? I

mean, the Council has, as was mentioned by Councilwoman Patterson, feels that the $169,000 would be adequate, and it should be

totally through the local office, and there is no need for the CJCC.

Would funding by the District government or other participating

agencies affect its independence?

Judge KING. In my view, without having really thought through

the mechanics of how it might be funded, I think in general it

would be better to have it come through the city. But less important than the actual mechanism for the funding is that the funding

come not encumbered by any kind of governmental or bureaucratic

strings. In other words, I fully support the notion that there should

be accountability through an annual report. And that obviously is

going to play out in the discussions here, whether through the

agencies or directly through the Federal Government in funding

discussions for that year.

But the most important thing is that the CJCC itself remain an

autonomous sort of federation-like council; and where the funding

comes from is less critical, in my view.

Mrs. MORELLA. Have you looked at the amount that might be

necessary to adequately——

Judge KING. I think $169,000, I believe it is, is certainly a good

start. It’s going to take more than that, in my belief. It should be—

the core funding to operate the CJCC should remain rather modest.

What will drive it up somewhat is the funding necessary for

projects.

For example, the justis system needs—and I can provide accurate

figures, which I do not have at the moment, if that’s of interest,

but it will need at least several millions more in order to complete

the phases 2 and 3 to bring all the agencies in and to fully enhance

the data-sharing capabilities that we contemplate. So I think the

funding to operate the CJCC is rather modest, more than is out

there now but rather modest. The funding for particular projects or

initiatives may go up from there, but obviously would be planned

as we go along.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

Let me ask Ms. Kellems how many meetings there have been of

the CJCC and who the current Chair is.

Ms. KELLEMS. The current Chair is Mayor Williams. There have

been—since the beginning of the fiscal year, which was October

1st, I believe there have been three. I’m not certain about that. It

should be a monthly occurrence. It was not the first couple of

months of the fiscal year, and I believe there have been three.

Mrs. MORELLA. There have been three since——

Ms. KELLEMS. Since——

Mrs. MORELLA. Since October——

Ms. KELLEMS. Since we lost the——

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Mrs. MORELLA. Have the principals been showing up? We heard

from our previous panel about the need for the leadership.

Ms. KELLEMS. Yes, ma’am. They always have. One of the best

characteristics of the CJCC has been the commitment of the principals themselves, with a few exceptions. There’s—some of the

members are a little less interested in appearing every single time,

but a vast majority of the time it is every member who appears.

Mrs. MORELLA. I guess to all of you, should the CJCC have the

ability to compel the submission of information from the member

agencies?

Judge KING. No, in a word. The system that we have—for example, in the data-sharing system, what we have done is to invite participation. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be compulsion,

perhaps, to participate, but if it’s a particular agency that is not

participating, the political and bureaucratic access to that agency

ought to be the means by which compulsion takes place.

So if, for example, it is an agency that’s under the command of

the Mayor, it would be to the Mayor to reach out to his agency

head and say ‘‘You need to participate in this,’’ rather than make

the CJCC a compulsory forum which would then lose its strength

of providing a forum for a free-ranging discussion of initiatives and

approaches and preparing initiatives with the best kind of buy-in

and voluntary participation.

Mrs. MORELLA. Just—my time has expired, so just a yes and no

from Councilwoman Patterson and Ms. Kellems on whether or not

the CJCC should have the ability to compel information—— Ms. PATTERSON. Should not have it statutorily but should have

sufficient skill to be able to compel partners to participate.

Mrs. MORELLA. That’s a good answer.

Ms. PATTERSON. That’s the answer.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.

Yes, I recognize that all kinds of legal issues could be raised by

compulsion to share any and all information in a criminal justice

system.

I do want to take note of part of Ms. Patterson’s testimony in

which she indicates that, despite the Revitalization Act—and I’m

going to say despite some urging here on my part—there remains

a large inequity embedded in that act that has defunding implications for the District of Columbia, and that is when an inmate becomes a Federal prisoner.

Now, you know this notion of making the District government

spend—of saying—of taking credit for taking over these functions,

now we—you know, big, big, big Federal Government—now we

have all the responsibility for paying for these prisoners while saying, well, not really, not until they’ve been designated a Federal

prisoner, not until we found a bed for them. That—considering that

they’re now going over to the BOP, now it might not be so bad.

What I would ask this committee to look closely at is that if,

since felons are facing additional charges, then the District of Columbia is required to pay for that inmate to remain in the District

of Columbia. That is at cross-purposes, indeed that is in conflict

with the Revitalization Act, and I would like—I wonder if either of

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you have any information on the cost to the District of Columbia

of that part of Mrs. Morella’s testimony on page 5, the designation,

retaining control and, therefore, containing—you don’t so much

contain control. What you do is contain cost control.

Ms. KELLEMS. I don’t have information on the cost with me. I’m

happy to provide that to you.

On the next panel, I think John Clark, the D.C. Corrections

trustee, will also address a different organization called the Interagency Detention Work Group that is working on specifically that

problem to try to minimize the amount of time and the cost associated—that the District continues to bear before they’re designated.

But I agree with you. It’s not working the way it is right now,

and the District is bearing a disproportionate share of the cost.

Ms. PATTERSON. My recollection is the dollar figure is somewhere

in the range of $20 million; and, again, the issue is that these decisions are not ours to make. If someone violates parole or if the U.S.

attorney wants someone held for some reason, they’re not—those

decisions to incur the cost are not the District’s to make.

Ms. NORTON. So there’s nothing the District can do but pay the

piper. We’ve got to do something about that. It’s just not fair. You

can’t take it over and then continue to give us costs.

What issues—first of all, I note that the CJCC is not now funded.

What issues—could you give me examples of issues that are under

consideration by the CJCC at the present—at this time?

Ms. KELLEMS. I will speak a little generously for the rest of the

group.

I would imagine that several issues that will continue to be of

concern would be substance abuse treatment for folks in the justice

system. Treatments are—drug abuse and substance abuse have

continued to be an enormous driver of crime and something the

CJCC has really struggled with, made some progress with in the

last couple of years but hasn’t been able to give as much coordinated attention to. Officer time in court is certainly one of the

highest priorities. It’s part of a larger issue that the CJCC grapples

with, which is the resource drain on all of the agencies, not just

the police department.

Ms. NORTON. So what you’re giving me is an agenda. I’m asking

for issues now in the process of coordination.

Ms. KELLEMS. I’m sorry. Ones we are currently working on?

Ms. NORTON. Uh-huh.

Ms. KELLEMS. The several large ones would be the court

calendaring issue that relates to police overtime as well. The technology integration is also another one that we’re actively working

on.

Ms. NORTON. Go ahead, please. I don’t want to stop you.

Ms. KELLEMS. We continue to focus on the management of pretrial offenders, particularly halfway houses. There’s a whole range

of issues surrounding that, and a group of people continue to work

on that.

Those are three of the primary ones.

Ms. NORTON. But there is no paid staff for the coordination council as such. So people simply borrow staff, I take it, or use their

own staff?

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Ms. KELLEMS. We use our own staff. There is one staff member

who is paid by grant who manages the technology piece. He was

paid by a grant before as well. There’s a staff member detailed

from the Metropolitan Police Department that also works on the

technology piece. The rest of the staff is the staff of the agencies

that continue to work on projects.

Ms. NORTON. Well, I ask the question, because, first, I want to

thank Ms. Patterson, because Ms. Patterson has sent a letter. She’s

a member of the Council. I don’t even think she would be a member of the coordinating group, but on her own initiative she has

done something that it seems to me the CJCC should have done.

She has sent a letter, and I want to thank her for it here, to ask

for all the representatives—I have her letter of May 4th to one of

the representatives from the court services to ask them—now,

here’s a member of the city Council having to do this, and she’s

sending this to Federal agencies as well, of course, as to District

agencies, asking them to meet on Thursday the 24th in order to

discuss the detention issues, precisely the halfway house issues

that I mentioned in my opening statement.

These issues are flaring—and I know Ms. Kellems and I have

had numerous discussions about them, and I know of your concern

to get moving on this, but it is some indication to me that, if the

Coordinating Council exists, it must exist on an ad hoc basis. Because if there was any issue that a member of the Council should

not have had to coordinate but should have been coordinated under

the Council, surely it would have been this issue where there is no

neighborhood in the District of Columbia now that wants to accept

halfway houses. And your crime rate, despite anything that our police chief can do, is just going to go up, because these are the people—the residents of our city who are most inclined to commit

crimes if they are left on their own without any help.

So I don’t know why this is being done by a Council member, except she saw the need—she sits on the Council and sees the problem, but it concerns me that it’s not a problem on the front of the

agenda for the Coordinating Council.

Ms. KELLEMS. That is a very good example of what I think the

panel before us and the panel after us will also focus on. That is

an interagency multijurisdictional problem that requires someone

who can focus across all of the agencies. There are individual pockets of activity related to halfway houses that will involve one or

two people, and they try to put staff on it. But each of the agencies

is responsible for their own individual mission, and that’s what

they tend to go back to—what is my role in this. They all recognize

that there is—— Ms. NORTON. So you tell me the Coordinating Council still exists.

So if it still exists, there ought to be some mechanism that by now

would have pulled these agencies together.

Ms. Patterson, do you have anything to——

Ms. PATTERSON. I would just say I appreciate you bringing this

up, but a year ago or a year from now this briefing that you mention on May 24th probably could have been a briefing between the

CJCC and members of the D.C. city Council who are policymakers

who need to be up to speed on these issues. And it’s the fact of the

lack of staff and the lack of regular meetings and so forth for this

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interim before we get up and running fully again that caused it to

be generated by me but knowing full well that it’s primarily CJCC

members that we’re inviting to the briefing.

Ms. NORTON. Well, you know, I can only thank you for taking up

the slack.

May I ask you, Ms. Patterson, first if you know why the control

board did not fund the CJCC in its own 2001 budget, since it was

still had jurisdiction over your budget, and why you believe that

$160,000 was the appropriate amount.

Ms. PATTERSON. I do not know why the control board did not

fund the CJCC a year ago, and I can also not explain why the

Council and Mayor did not take the initiative a year ago to fund

it as we are doing now. I wish we had done so. That’s my 20/20

hindsight speaking.

I think the $169,000 that the Mayor proposed and that the Council affirmed is basically seen by me anyway as seed money and the

District’s share. It would be my hope that other partner agencies

could either provide some additional funding or, as has been mentioned, project funding on a per project basis. I think we could use

a larger dollar figure, but I think that was viewed as the District’s

contribution at this point.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask the opinion of each of you on the kinds

of things we’re beginning to flesh out here?

You can see that there is a supremacy clause problem here with

the Federal Government and the local agencies involved. There’s

also a 10th amendment problem, because, you know, local police

departments and local agencies operate on their own jurisdictions

and not under the Federal Government. So we establish that in

order to have any legislation that would have jurisdiction over the

Federal agency it would have to be congressional legislation.

You’ve heard me say I think there should be comparable legislation as well for the District of Columbia. Suppose there was congressional legislation, established in a kind of clearinghouse notion,

where the agencies had to operate on a consensual basis, but the

leadership, the Mayor and whoever would be designated by the

Federal Government, had responsibility for ensuring cooperation

and funding could be through the Federal Government or by Federal grants. Do you believe that kind of legislation would be acceptable to the District of Columbia?

Ms. PATTERSON. For myself, again, not having had this affirmed

by the Council, I would prefer to see, if there is congressional legislation enacted, that it address itself, as you indicate, to the Federal

partners to basically say, ‘‘Federal agencies, you will participate in

such an entity as this’’ to give them both the authority and the direction to so participate as Federal partners.

Ms. KELLEMS. I agree.

Judge KING. I agree. Essentially, I think we need to create some

entity that can be funded and operated. Now it’s run by MOU still.

That could be by city Council legislation, just to create the physical

entity of some sort of corporate body. But then the need for legislation is really very minimal.

Ms. NORTON. So—excuse me, if I could just—so you think maybe

the whole thing could be done by an MOU? Could the whole thing

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be done by an MOU with an MOU between the Federal Government and the District government?

Ms. KELLEMS. The issue that I see where we have an MOU is

if we wanted to create something that could receive money, and the

MOU cannot create an entity that can receive money. The MOU

can only create the sort of board of directors, the CJCC members

itself. That’s what would require additional legislation if we got to

that point.

Judge KING. We can do the partnership but not the body that receives the funds and disburses them.

Mrs. MORELLA. That’s very helpful.

I’m just going to ask one final question so we can go on to our

next panel, to, I guess, Councilwoman Patterson. The District of

Columbia has proposed funding, as we’ve discussed over and over

again, for CJCC for fiscal year 2002. I’m wondering organizationally that, under that concept, where would CJCC be located?

Ms. PATTERSON. I think, as envisioned in the budget, the funding

would go to the Office of the City Administrator to be part of the

staffing pattern, I assume, within the Deputy Mayor, Ms. Kellems’s

budget. That’s insofar—again, as the District dollars are concerned,

that would be, as I said, seed money. That would be where you

would start from. But I could foresee—as the nonlawyer on the

panel here, I could foresee some entity being created that could

then use that funding and add to it.

Mrs. MORELLA. It seemed to me that one of the difficulties may

be the independence that we’ve heard over and over again, if you

in fact have it. So then the Office—as your draft legislation states,

the Office of the Chief Administrator, that it appears to me that

it might take away some of the need for independence.

Would you like to comment on it, Ms. Kellems?

Ms. KELLEMS. I’d be happy to.

That is certainly the concern that some of the members have,

that if the funding comes through any one agency, whether it’s the

Mayor’s office or others, that those staff people will be influenced

by the individual interests of the agency paying their salary. I

think that’s a very legitimate concern, and I understand it.

My only—I can only speak from experience. At the time that I

was executive director—and I had two staff people—we were funded by the control board. They paid our paychecks, but we did not

work for them. We quite clearly worked for the Criminal Justice

Coordinating Council, and that was the control board’s contribution

to it.

In the same way, we’ve made the commitment that the funding

that’s earmarked in the budget for the CJCC will be controlled by

the CJCC, whether that’s a—that’s the formality that we’ve put in

the budget with that language. But I understand the concern, and

I think that’s legitimate.

Mrs. MORELLA. Do you feel that—would Federal funding be appropriate, do you think, for the CJCC, Ms. Kellems? And I’m going

to ask you, Councilwoman Patterson.

Ms. KELLEMS. I’ve struggled with this issue a lot—of where the

funding should come from. I’m not opposed to it. I think because

so much of our system is Federal and there’s so much Federal obligation, then there’s certainly some cost to be borne.

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As Ms. Norton pointed out, it’s difficult to put the District in the

position of saying we’re taking away your responsibilities, but we’re

leaving you with costs of—that are associated with those responsibilities.

The reason that I think I have some confidence about the upcoming fiscal year is because I know how much of the CJCC activities

in the past were funded through grants, and the administration

has made the commitment, working with the CJCC, to use grant

dollars extensively in this year.

Mrs. MORELLA. Right.

Ms. Patterson.

Ms. PATTERSON. Thank you. I think my preference would be for

Federal funds to come from Federal agencies, as opposed to some

kind of a blanket grant, because then I think that—if a U.S. attorney or whoever brought money to the table, if you will, I think that

helps to vest those partners in the end.

Mrs. MORELLA. Judge King.

Judge KING. I think I essentially agree that if we had clearly earmarked funds, so they had to come in, it would be helpful to have

them come through the several agencies. So it brings everybody to

the table as a participant.

Again, I don’t think that’s the crucial issue. And as Ms. Kellems

said, if it’s clear that the funding comes to the CJCC for administration by the CJCC, it’s less critical where it comes from, but it

would be helpful to have it come from the agencies.

Mrs. MORELLA. I want to thank the three of you for being here.

I hope that you will respond to additional questions we may have,

but also feel free—since we’ve had this discussion this morning,

feel free to send us any other suggestions as a result of this hearing today.

Thank you, Ms. Kellems—I guess I should call—what do you call

the Deputy Mayor, Mayor?

Ms. KELLEMS. Margret is fine.

Mrs. MORELLA. Councilwoman Patterson and Judge King, thank

you.

So our third panel, we have the chief of police, Charles Ramsey,

chief of police of the District of Columbia; Kenneth Wainstein, acting U.S. attorney, District of Columbia; John Clark, Corrections

trustee, D.C. Office of the Corrections Trustee; Cynthia Jones, director, Public Defender Service of D.C.; Susan Shaffer, director of

the District of Columbia Pretrial Services Agency; and Michael

Gaines, chairman of the U.S. Parole Commission.

Boy, that’s a big panel.

Again, I will ask you, when you are so assembled, if you would

continue to stand so that I could administer the oath. If you would

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. The affirmative response is recorded.

So, again, if we’ll continue as we have for the others with condensing your comments to 5 minutes or less, it would be most appropriate. You have sort of the benefit of having heard what we

had already said. We will try not to repeat too much, but you’ve

also had the pain of waiting, and so I appreciate that, too.

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We’ll start off with the chief. Thank you all for being here. Thank

you, Chief Ramsey.

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES H. RAMSEY, CHIEF OF POLICE,

GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; KENNETH L.

WAINSTEIN, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; JOHN L. CLARK, CORRECTIONS TRUSTEE, D.C. OFFICE

OF THE CORRECTIONS TRUSTEE; CYNTHIA E. JONES, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICE OF D.C.; SUSAN W.

SHAFFER, ESQ., DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PRETRIAL SERVICES AGENCY; AND MICHAEL J. GAINES, CHAIRMAN, U.S. PAROLE COMMISSION

Mr. RAMSEY. Thank you and good morning, Madam Chair, Congresswoman Norton. I appreciate the opportunity to be present

here this morning and to present this statement concerning coordination in the District of Columbia’s criminal justice system. For

your information, the text of my remarks is available on our Department’s Web site, MPDC.org.

This hearing comes at a time of continued progress and tremendous promise within the Metropolitan Police Department and the

entire D.C. criminal justice system.

This year, as in the 5 preceding years, crime in our city is down

and down significantly. Thus far, in 2001, index crime has declined

6 percent when compared to the same time last year. Homicides

are down 34 percent this year, after reaching a 13-year low in the

year 2000. Lower crime rates, in turn, have translated into increased public confidence in the police, the justice system and the

entire District government and new investment in housing, jobs

and the city’s physical and technological infrastructure. Enhanced

public safety has been a major factor, I believe, in the rebirth of

the District of Columbia.

The reasons for the continuing decline in crime are many and

varied. There is no one specific program or trend that we can point

to with complete certainty. Still I’m certain that our success in reducing crime and improving public safety does revolve around one

basic principle, and that principle is partnerships.

If the history of law enforcement in our Nation has taught us

anything, it’s taught us that the police are most effective and successful when we work in partnership with other individuals and

entities that have a role in public safety in our communities. That

lesson has served as the foundation of the community policing

movement in our Nation over the last decade or so, a movement

that has brought police, other government agencies and citizens together in new and meaningful ways.

I do not believe it is mere coincidence that the current 6-year reduction in crime in the District of Columbia began right after our

city first implemented community policing in the summer of 1997

or that our record of success has continued as we have updated and

expanded our original model into the current strategy known as policing for prevention.

When people think of community policing, they often focus on

partnerships between police officers and residents. These partnerships are certainly critical to the success of community policing, but

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they represent only two sides of what we call the partnership triangle.

The third side, one that is critically important but frequently

overlooked, represents other government agencies and service providers, especially other agencies of the criminal justice system.

In policing for prevention, we take the third side of the partnership triangle very seriously. Working with our city and Federal

partners in the criminal justice system, we have put together a

number of innovative partnership strategies and incorporated them

into our larger community policing strategy.

For example, I believe D.C. is fast becoming a national model for

the emerging concept of community prosecution. Today in our city,

assistant U.S. attorneys and members of our corporation counsel’s

office work hand-in-hand with our police community PSA teams,

often using office space in our police district stations to target their

prosecutorial efforts on those crimes that are of greatest concern to

the community.

As such, the criminal prosecution of cases flows naturally and

smoothly from the problem-solving process initiated at the neighborhood level.

In the area of probation and parole, our officers are teaming up

with adult probation and parole officers to strengthen supervision

and enhance offender accountability. It sends a powerful message

to the offenders on supervision and to the community when MPD

officers and probation and parole officers work side by side.

In addition to increased supervision, these teams are developing

networks in the community to assist probationers and parolees

with training and educational opportunities, job placement, substance abuse assistance, and critical life skills.

Another example of enhanced coordination, under the leadership

of Congresswoman Norton, the MPD has now executed four Police

Coordination Act agreements with Federal law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction in the District. These agreements expand the jurisdiction of these Federal agencies, allowing them to

assist our Department in patrol and other law enforcement activities.

In communities such as Capitol Hill, where the U.S. Capitol Police have a longstanding agreement with the Metropolitan Police

Department on expanded patrols, our Federal partners are part

and parcel of the community policing and problem-solving process.

These Police Coordination Act agreements and the MOUs are in

addition to the numerous very successful task forces involving the

MPD, various Federal, State, and local agencies, the U.S. attorney’s office, and others.

In short, I believe the level of cooperation and coordination in the

D.C. criminal justice system is strong and getting stronger. Community policing has provided an umbrella, a guiding philosophy, if

you will, under which this coordination can take place. I believe all

of us at this table share in a commitment to seeing this spirit of

partnership continue to grow and develop.

That said, the District of Columbia, like States across the Nation,

continues to face coordination issues that are almost inherent in

the way criminal justice is structured in our Nation. Our situation

here is somewhat unique in that the entities involved are a comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Dec 19, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\76090.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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bination of local agencies, Federal agencies, and local agencies

under some form of Federal oversight.

But the underlying challenge is much the same here as it is elsewhere: to be efficient and effective; to act as a true system, working

toward the common goal of justice. We must ensure that coordination occurs not just on a case-by-case, project-by-project basis, but

rather, we must strive toward a smooth and seamless system of

working together.

In recent years, under the leadership of the District’s Criminal

Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC], we have been able to identify, research, and analyze some of the critical, systemic issues facing our criminal justice agencies.

For example, on the continuing matters of papering reform and

court overtime cost, the CJCC funded a comprehensive study by

the Council for Court Excellence, a study that documented the

shortcomings in the current system and offers a number of common-sense reforms. The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to doing our part to ensure these recommendations are implemented in a timely and efficient manner.

We recently began a pilot project with the Office of Corporation

Counsel to authorize so-called officerless papering and other reforms in a variety of misdemeanor quality-of-life cases prosecuted

by that office.

We continue to work with Chief Judge King and the U.S. attorney’s office in developing similar reforms in the processing of felony

cases, as well.

In this and other key areas, the CJCC has proven to be an invaluable partner in identifying issues that cut across multiple

agencies and in presenting recommendations from a system-wide

perspective.

I strongly support the continuation of the CJCC, and recommend

that its scope be expanded. For the CJCC to be truly effective and

for our criminal justice agencies in the District to form a more unified and effective system, the CJCC must have the resources and

the responsibility not just to raise and discuss these issues, but

also to provide leadership and impetus for ensuring action and affecting change.

The CJCC’s role will be especially critical as our system tackles

the continued problem of drug abuse and drug-related crime, youth

violence, illegal weapons, and cyber crime.

The CJCC will be equally important in coordinating our response

to such promising new endeavors as papering reform, new information technology, and restorative justice, just to name a few.

I applaud this subcommittee for examining the crime and public

safety problems in the District of Columbia from a holistic perspective, and the Metropolitan Police Department looks forward to an

era of even greater cooperation and coordination with our sister

agencies as we continue working toward our common goals of safer

streets, stronger neighborhoods, and justice for all.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Chief Ramsey.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ramsey follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I am pleased to recognize Mr. Kenneth

Wainstein.

Mr. WAINSTEIN. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Congresswoman

Norton. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia is pleased

to participate in this hearing on the important issue of coordination

of criminal justice activities in the District of Columbia.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia for years

has been involved in and at the forefront of efforts to facilitate enhanced coordination and cooperation among law enforcement agencies in the District of Columbia.

It is in this spirit that we support the creation of a permanent

and independent Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. To that

end, we offer several principles that should guide or that we believe

should guide the design and operation of a permanent CJCC.

First, independence. Given its Federal and local agency composition, the CJCC should be, in our view, an independent agency that

is beholden to no member or political entity. The CJCC should,

however, be prepared to issue periodic reports on the status of its

findings, objectives, recommendations, and initiatives for review by

all interested entities.

Second, principals. The CJCC should be comprised of the principals of the various agencies or entities involved in the criminal

justice system. While there may be times when a particular principal cannot attend a regularly scheduled meeting and must send

a representative in his or her case, these instances should be rare.

It is our perception that interagency efforts of this type succeed

only if the principals make a personal and an institutional commitment to them.

Third, coordination. As its name connotes, the purpose of the

CJCC should be to coordinate those efforts which involve or affect

more than one agency in the criminal justice system of the District

of Columbia. The CJCC cannot and should not have the power to

require an agency to take any particular action that agency believes to be contrary to its mandate, to its statutory, constitutional,

and ethical responsibilities, or to the integrity of its internal operations.

While the CJCC can urge, cajole, or otherwise attempt to persuade its members, it must not have the authority to order them

to adopt any course of action. Ultimately, the success of the CJCC,

in our view, will be built on mutual trust among its members, the

recognition of mutual self-interest among the members, and the establishment of a track record of successful cooperative initiatives.

As the staffing, the staff of the CJCC should report to the CJCC

and not to any individual agency or entity. The staff’s role should

be to gather information and data, draft reports and recommendations, seek funding for joint projects, manage joint projects as appropriate, facilitate the meetings, and provide other support services to the CJCC members.

Structure. Because the mission of the CJCC will be defined by

the members, we believe that the members themselves should be

given the opportunity to develop a governing and an operational

structure for the CJCC that will best serve its mission.

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We believe that because of their expertise and firsthand knowledge of their needs, the members are in the best position to establish these structures.

Project facilitation. The CJCC is uniquely positioned to facilitate

the design and implementation of those information technology

projects that involve the participation of multiple agencies in the

criminal justice system.

The GAO report and our own experience tell us that the absence

of integrated information technology and communications is the

single most significant barrier to effective coordination in our

criminal justice system.

Time and again, we have been stymied in our efforts to make improvements to the criminal process by our inability to transfer information efficiently, to provide accurate reports, and to track the

progress of cases and criminal defendants.

We can envision information technology projects that would benefit greatly from cooperative management by the CJCC. As the

GAO report cited, the papering process is an area in need of an integrated information technology system. We would realize significant savings of time and resources if we had the technology that

would permit the police to prepare arrest paperwork electronically

instead of by hand, and transfer that paperwork electronically to

the U.S. attorney’s office and the other agencies who use that information to perform the subsequent steps in the process of charging

and of presenting a criminal defendant in court.

Such a project requires the commitment of the agencies involved

in that process, and highlights the need for a coordinating body

that can bring those agencies together and help them mold a plan

that would achieve the systemic objective while taking into consideration each agency’s particular concerns.

We believe the interagency coordination and collaboration among

the agencies involved in the District of Columbia criminal justice

system will inure to the benefit of our victims and witnesses, the

criminal defendants and their counsel, and the District of Columbia

community at large.

Therefore, the U.S. attorney’s office stands ready, as it has been

since the institution of the current CJCC, to participate as an enthusiastic and an active member of a permanent and independent

CJCC.

We thank you for this opportunity to express our views about the

CJCC. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wainstein follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Clark.

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, and good

morning, Congresswoman Norton.

It is a privilege to appear before the committee today to discuss

what I consider to be very important issues. Though I feel very

strongly about these issues, in view of the hour, I will try to be

brief, stressing just several points from my written statement.

First, it has been my experience over the last several years as

an official in the District that a great deal of effective work is going

on by the agencies represented here today, and by others in the

District, to improve the quality of the criminal justice system. I

think you have heard a number of examples mentioned already.

But by the same token, there are also significant inefficiencies in

the system, as was detailed by the Council of Court Excellence report, including, certainly, the need for greater coordination and collaboration.

Next, I strongly endorse, as have a number of others, the thrust

of the GAO report on the need to formalize and strengthen the

CJCC as the most effective vehicle for that improved collaboration,

though I do, as a number of others, oppose giving it any authority

to mandate changes in internal policy or practice by the member

agencies.

Quite simply, there are no quick, easy fixes or solutions which

can be mandated to these difficult issues. These issues seem to be

more susceptible to good planning and dogged, sustained attention.

Regarding the manner of structuring the CJCC’s administrative

apparatus and staffing, I do support formalizing it, but as an independent District agency. However, if the CJCC is to be fully effective—if it is, in other words, to be more than a mere discussion

round table—it also needs significant resources, or some resources,

certainly.

I cannot emphasize enough that it needs a sustained, stable

stream of funding, first for staff, and second for projects and initiatives such as those required to implement the various recommendations of the report by the Council of Court Excellence.

In that regard, the CJCC is currently off to a modest but solid

start on several projects, some of which have been mentioned already, including the papering reform, making use of the $1 million

that Congress made available this year to the CJCC through the

budget of our office at the corrections trustee.

That kind of substantial funding, to my mind, needs to be sustained, and hopefully in the future that kind of money which came

through our office, would come directly to, in some form or fashion,

directly to the CJCC.

Further, I strongly endorse the thrust of the GAO recommendation that the CJCC issue an annual report. This requirement would

provide for public accountability and would, I think, promote the

sense of urgency and focus for the CJCC.

Finally, on a somewhat different note, I am pleased to point out

to the subcommittee a lesser known success story in the District in

terms of coordination; namely, the significant progress made by a

parallel coordination group previously mentioned by Margaret

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posed of about 15 agencies and court offices, including Judge King

in the Superior Court and most of the agencies at this table.

For the past 18 months, we have been meeting monthly, working

in six committees. Two documents detailing the very concrete

progress of that group have been made available already to the

committee.

With those brief comments, I will close and will be eager to discuss these important issues with the subcommittee.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Clark.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Mrs. Jones.

Ms. JONES. Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Public Defender Service for

the District of Columbia.

It is the mission of the Public Defender Service to provide quality

legal representation to indigent people facing a loss of liberty in the

criminal justice system, in juvenile delinquency proceedings, and in

mental health proceedings. We share the responsibility for providing legal representation with the Superior Court. The court makes

appointments under the Criminal Justice Act.

In addition to litigating cases in the local and Federal courts on

behalf of indigent people, the Public Defender Service is also devoted to ensuring that sound criminal justice policy decisions are

made.

The D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council is an effective

forum for this function. I have been working with the CJCC since

its early creation, first as the deputy director of the D.C. Pretrial

Services Agency, and now as the director of the D.C. Public Defender Service.

I know firsthand that the CJCC has been effective in bringing all

criminal justice agencies, local, independent, and Federal, to the

table for productive interagency collaboration. In short, the CJCC

works.

Just recently, the Public Defender Service, the Superior Court,

the Pretrial Services Agency, and the corrections trustee worked to

create the Options Program, a community-based mental health

treatment program for nonviolent mentally ill defendants. Each

agency contributed its resources and expertise to the creation and

successful implementation of this critical program. This level of collaboration would not have been possible without the forum of the

CJCC.

We all look forward to expanding this program over the course

of the next year to provide even greater services to this vulnerable

population.

How can the CJCC be improved? First, the Public Defender Service supports the efforts underway by the D.C. Council and the Mayor’s office to further strengthen and institutionalize the CJCC.

While we have made great strides, we have much more work to do.

Second, the CJCC does, in fact, need a small, permanent staff to

research best practices among criminal justice agencies around the

country, establish an annual performance plan, and set priorities

for the CJCC. The CJCC has been most productive when it is properly staffed with skilled professionals who are solely dedicated to

the implementation of CJCC initiatives by providing research to assist the group in making informed decisions.

Finally, the success or failure of the CJCC will depend largely on

the level of coordination and cooperation of the CJCC members.

The CJCC members do not always agree on the best course of action to achieve the best criminal justice reforms. That is to be expected with the diversity of perspectives we represent. But we are

all at the table. We have all willingly and voluntarily assumed the

responsibility to collaborate.

Most importantly, we all recognize the fact that productive collaboration is not optional. The missions of each of our respective

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agencies are so inextricably intertwined that we must cooperate or

we will surely fail.

There are many, many problems in the criminal justice system

that are of great concern to the Public Defender Service. These

issues will no doubt always keep PDS at the table.

Foremost on our agenda is ensuring that the poor receive fair

and equitable treatment by the police, the court system, and all

those charged with supervising and incarcerating adults and juveniles. PDS will continue to work to ensure that there is adequate

medical and mental health care for incarcerated and institutionalized juveniles and adults. I continue to believe that the CJCC is

and should be the starting point for addressing these very serious

problems.

Where do we go from here? I very much look forward to working

with the CJCC over the course of the next year in establishing a

mental health diversion court in the District of Columbia. Mental

health treatment in the criminal justice system has received a

great deal of attention across the country lately, and mental health

treatment and diversion courts are rapidly increasing in number.

In order to successfully implement such a new program, the U.S.

attorney’s office, the D.C. Superior Court, the Public Defender

Service, the Pretrial Services Agency, and others will have to collaborate and compromise and participate. I am confident that we

will do that.

I also look forward to working with other CJCC members to create a comprehensive community reentry program for offenders who

are returning to area communities after lengthy periods of incarceration. In order to implement this project, PDS will have to cooperate and collaborate with the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the D.C. Department of Corrections.

Again, I am confident that this level of collaboration will occur.

In sum, the District of Columbia criminal justice system needs

a strong CJCC, and it has one. I am sure that all of the other member agencies will agree that we have a great deal of work to do,

but we have already made some progress, and we have all made

a very strong commitment to working together.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mrs. Jones. Excellent testimony by

all of you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Ms. Schaffer.

Ms. SHAFFER. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and Congresswoman Norton. Thank you for inviting me to appear before

you today.

I am the director of the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency. Pretrial

Services assists both the Federal and the local courts in determining eligibility for pretrial release by providing background and

criminal history information on arrestees in the District of Columbia.

We are also responsible for supervising conditions of release for

approximately 24,000 defendants a year, and reporting on compliance to the U.S. District Court and to the D.C. Superior Court.

The Pretrial Services Agency would like to emphasize its support

for some of the central underpinnings of the GAO report: One, that

the CJCC is the primary venue in which D.C. criminal justice

agencies can identify and address interagency coordination issues;

two, that the CJCC has had some success, and in fact, some notable success, in improving agency coordination, particularly in areas

such as data sharing; three, that the CJCC should be an independent body with its own director and staff; four, that the role of the

CJCC is to help coordinate but not to mandate control of the operations of the D.C. criminal justice system; and five, that an annual

report on the results achieved and issues that require further attention would be a sufficient way to provide a spotlight on areas

of disagreement and continuing concern.

I think this report could be a very strong incentive for all agencies to cooperate, as it will highlight the cooperative efforts, or lack

thereof, in a very public way.

Pretrial Services does respectfully disagree with one finding in

the GAO report regarding the extent of disagreement between

agencies on goals and participants in various initiatives, initiatives

that in many instances were just beginning to be put together,

quite honestly, when the GAO report was written.

From Pretrial’s perspective, there was really no major disagreement on who should participate in various initiatives, but basically,

there was occasional uncertainty about which agencies wanted to

be at the table. This was really because many of these projects

were just beginning.

There was some disagreement about goals, and that generally related to different goals connected with the particular agency’s mission. So it was not so much that the members could not agree on

the overall goal of the committee, but some of the writing that was

done to support the various initiatives that were drafted by different agencies reflected a slightly different slant on how they

looked at it.

We don’t believe, however, that there is any lack of commitment

among the agencies to try to resolve issues of common concern. We

believe that participation on the CJCC should be voluntary. We believe that agencies should come to the table because they see the

clear, mutual benefit in doing so.

Over the years, Pretrial has successfully participated in a number of very good collaborative efforts which we have enumerated in

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tiatives, the CJCC-sponsored justis system, and the new Options

mental health programs that Ms. Jones described.

With these many successes, however, I do caution that it is imperative that a dedicated staff of an independent CJCC support

these continuing collaborations. This will allow ongoing collection

and analysis of multiagency data, as well as independent consideration of policy choices presented by the data, including alternative

ways of doing business that could enhance the entire criminal justice system.

I thank this committee for taking the time to bring attention to

these issues. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Shaffer follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Schaffer.

Now our last panelist, Mr. Gaines.

Mr. GAINES. Thank you, Madam Chair, Congresswoman Norton.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf

of the U.S. Parole Commission.

The Revitalization Act gave the U.S. Parole Commission a

unique role in turning over the District of Columbia parole responsibilities previously handled by the D.C. Board of Parole to it. It

is not totally unlike one State being given the parole authority of

another State, and I am certain it is something that has never even

come even close to happening in the past.

It is vital for the Commission to succeed with these new responsibilities, that there be the highest possible level of coordination

among the several participating Federal and local agencies that

make up the system. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council is

effective and can play a vital role in the future in that regard.

The Commission was pleased that the GAO report included

major initiatives undertaken by the Commission since August 5,

1998, to improve the parole release, supervision, and revocation

functions transferred to the Commission by the Revitalization Act.

Chief among these initiatives was the securing of adequate background information concerning offenders who are considered for parole and for parole revocation.

It has required major effort on the Commission’s part to build a

system whereby the necessary documents are regularly provided to

us by the courts and various agencies involved, and I would note

that without cooperative efforts by everyone involved, it would have

simply been impossible.

We are also pleased that the GAO report included the violence

prediction scale developed by the Commission in 1998 to guide its

parole release decisions. We believe the use of this scale in parole

decisions has resulted in a better use of prison resources to protect

the public from those offenders most likely to engage in violent recidivism, and has also saved tax dollars by avoiding the unnecessary incarceration of offenders who are most likely to be law-abiding citizens upon their release; again, citing the cooperative part of

this, given the supervision that they receive from CSOSA, one of

our major partners in this undertaking.

The GAO report does identify an area of concern for the Commission. It accurately notes that we, as well as some other Federal

agencies involved in the D.C. criminal justice system, receive our

appropriations from the Commerce, Justice, State, and Related

Agencies Subcommittees.

The President’s proposed fiscal year 2002 budget for the Commission provides badly needed additional funding for conducting parole

revocation hearings for D.C. offenders. The Parole Commission has

taken extraordinary measures in the current year to meet difficult

challenges presented by the new responsibilities we have received

under the Revitalization Act.

In particular, the Commission has had to cope with limited hearing examiners and support personnel to conduct revocation hearings within applicable deadlines. If anything, the GAO report understates the difficulties that we have encountered, including a

major backlog of parolees overdue for revocation hearings that were

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inherited by the Commission when we took over those responsibilities from August of last year, as well as difficulties in coordinating

with the D.C. Department of Corrections over matters such as notification of arrests and appearance of parolees for scheduled revocation hearings.

Although the Commission has been able to put the revocation

process back in reasonable working order since experiencing a near

breakdown situation last October, the situation does continue to be

very serious.

The Commission staff is working diligently, given serious staffing

limitations, to meet demands for statistical reporting and information requests that we receive, as well.

Many of the problems that we have encountered we have dealt

with on an ad hoc basis. As Congresswoman Norton knows, we had

a halfway house situation back in the fall, and only through her

efforts, I think, of bringing together the parties involved were we

able to come to a resolution of that.

It turns out that is how we have dealt with a lot of problems that

we have encountered during the revitalization process, simply by

doing it on an ad hoc basis. I think the CJCC, if adequately established and funded, could provide the proper mechanism for dealing

with those types of problems in the future, and I think that would

be—I know that would be of very great benefit to the parole commission.

Thank you very much. I would welcome your questions.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Gaines.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gaines follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you all. You were all great in the testimony that you submitted and that you gave orally.

I do want you to know that I have looked at the testimony you

have submitted, and for many of you, you submitted far more information than you had an opportunity to relate orally.

I am going to ask you all maybe one question. First of all, I understand all of you believe that there is the need for the CJCC. You

all believe it should be independent. That has been emphasized

over and over again. You all believe that there should be an annual

report, you know. You all believe that nobody should be coerced or

required to submit or to be involved. We should not be forcing entities, there should be leadership.

Now let me ask you, each and every one of you, do you think that

Congress should legislatively authorize the CJCC, and how do you

think it should be funded?

Anybody who wants to start off.

Ms. SHAFFER. I will start, since no one else is jumping up here

to speak.

As to how it should be funded, I am really not in a position of

authority to answer that, as it pertains to Federal funding. Let me

address your question about whether it should be formally institutionalized by Congress, regardless of the funding issue.

I think there is a strong sentiment, which you have probably

picked up on today, among the agencies that because we all, even

the Federal agencies, serve a local criminal justice community and

have a local mission, that the CJCC would most appropriately be

established by the city Council.

We have heard today that the city Council has taken steps recently to endorse the existence of the CJCC, and has established

limited funding. I think many of us believe that additional action

is now needed to formally establish the CJCC and its administrative support structure.

As to whether the District will finally establish it and adequately

fund it or whether it will want or expect contributions from the

Federal Government, I am really not in a position to say. I think

that it touches on what Councilmember Patterson addressed this

morning.

Mrs. MORELLA. That is good getting us started on that.

Mrs. Jones.

Ms. JONES. I would say that currently we have a CJCC where

no one is compelled to participate, yet everyone does. No one is required to be at the table, yet everyone is. I don’t know that Federal

legislation to create it is necessary. If the District of Columbia establishes an independent District of Columbia agency called the

CJCC, I think it will have the same amount of participation.

I do believe it needs to be adequately funded, and probably

$169,000 is not enough. As a practical matter, I believe that Federal funding may be necessary to fully implement all of the goals

of the CJCC, but again, I would emphasize that I don’t know that

there needs to be Federal legislation to create a new entity in the

District of Columbia to achieve the results this committee is looking for.

Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Clark.

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Mr. CLARK. I think there has been a real good discussion of these

issues previously in this hearing.

I heard Congresswoman Norton mention that it might be—I

identify with some of the remarks of Mr. Harlan, that it might be

beneficial for the Congress to at least acknowledge the existence of

an agency which may have been, and hopefully will be, more formalized in its creation by the D.C. city Council, especially since

there is so much Federal participation, and since I think an acknowledgment by the Congress of the existence of the Council

would give more focus and more motivation, possibly, to the Federal partners and federally funded partners.

So I think that makes sense to me, and I think that it probably

would be helpful in focusing attention, and would be helpful if

there was some indication of the intent of Congress for these agencies to seriously participate.

On the funding, again, obviously, I am in a position where I re- quested $1 million in this year’s budget. I have another request for an additional $1 million for next year, which has been endorsed in

the President’s budget, for money to flow through our office to supplement or to fund CJCC projects.

So certainly I think in the practical reality of things that if these

kinds of initiatives and projects are going to go forward, the local

funding needs to be supplemented with some Federal funding.

Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Wainstein.

Mr. WAINSTEIN. Thank you.

I am not going to stray far from the comments of the last two

witnesses. I would echo what Mrs. Jones said about participation

from all the agencies. I believe all the agencies to date have established a track record of willing and active participation. The principals have been appearing at the meetings. I think we can have

more meetings and rejuvenate the CJCC to some extent.

But in terms of our—our being the agency’s—the members’ willingness to participate, I don’t think that is a concern. That being

said, I would also echo what Mr. Clark said, that we do need secure, sustained funding for the CJCC to be effective.

We have all commented so far on the small staff, I guess a staff

of one. And if we want the CJCC to be able to undertake the kind

of initiatives that we envision, it will need the funding. If that requires proportional funding from Congress and from D.C., that

seems like that would be a wise construct. If that would, in turn,

require Federal legislation at least acknowledging the existence of

the CJCC, then I guess that would be necessary.

But the bottom line is for the CJCC to undertake the things that

we want it to undertake, I believe it will need sustained and secured funding.

Mrs. MORELLA. You would agree that maybe an acknowledgment

by Congress of its existence and importance might help?

Mr. WAINSTEIN. I will say, at least for this agency, we won’t need

that to be an active member of the CJCC. We will be, regardless

of whether there is an acknowledgment. It certainly could not hurt.

Mrs. MORELLA. Chief Ramsey.

Chief RAMSEY. I think my opinion differs slightly on this issue.

I think there needs to be probably a combination of both local and

Federal legislation around this issue. I will tell you why.

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It is true that to date all the agencies have voluntarily participated, but it is also true that we all acknowledge that we are in

a crisis, if you will, and that has really prompted a lot of participation.

If we want CJCC to succeed into the future once we start to resolve some of these issues, then I think it is very important that

critical agencies, both local agencies and Federal agencies, be mandated to participate in this. Otherwise, participation of a key agency could, in fact, fall off, and it could harm us in the long term,

and we could find ourselves right back in the position that we are

in right now.

Our local government, our Council, has already taken steps toward passing legislation around the CJCC, but the reality is that

we have no authority over any of the Federal agencies that are participating. So I think there is a need for something at that level

in order to make sure that all the people who are key players continue to participate.

I also think that in terms of funding, it ought to come from both

sources. I think there is a need for both local and Federal funding.

We need to take advantage of grants.

We have a lot of serious problems. It really has not been mentioned very often, at least I don’t recall hearing it, but we have a

lot of our problems centering around technology and the lack of integrated systems. It is going to take a tremendous amount of funding in order to correct a lot of those problems. I don’t know where

that money is going to come from. Not only do you have to create

the system, you have to be able to maintain it over the long term.

Technology, as rapidly as it changes, obviously there are going to

be upgrades to the systems, and there are going to be all kinds of

things that we need to take into consideration. There needs to be

some way in which we can do that.

I also think that when all is said and done, there is going to have

to be oversight of this body. I think that our city Council certainly

will provide some oversight in this area, but there needs to be some

at the Federal level as well. Because again, my experience, and I

have been part of this for 3 years now, from when it was MOU

partners and now CJCC, that we all are in agreement on certain

changes. However, the reality is if that change is painful to any

particular agency, there is nothing that really forces them to have

to implement the change. Sometimes it is a philosophical difference

that may make an agency reluctant. Other times, it could be a

strain on the budget.

It is one thing to say we want to change something, but it is another issue when it comes to budgeting for that and making it happen when there is a shift in costs from one agency to another. That

is a legitimate concern.

So there needs to be some oversight where, when these issues

are laid out and the annual report is written, that there is a gathering like this where questions are asked and people are held accountable for their actions are in looking at the larger picture of

the system as a whole, and just how it is functioning.

Mrs. MORELLA. In fact, in your testimony you mentioned expanding the scope of CJCC. Was that articulated by some of the comments that you now——

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Chief RAMSEY. Yes, ma’am. I think right now we are kind of in

a crisis mode. I think a lot of the issues we are looking at are simply because of the immediate urgency of some of the issues that we

are dealing with.

But the potential of CJCC is just enormous. I think we need to

really think about the potential that this group has. It may be a

while before we begin to realize some of that, because we are still

correcting many of the things that have been wrong with the system that plagued us for years.

But there is going to come a point in time when we can be very

creative and proactive in a way in which criminal justice is administered here in the District of Columbia. I would just not like us

to get too narrow in our thinking and really just leave the door

open for a lot of other possibilities.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

I am pleased to recognize Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. I appreciate the answers

you have just given to Mrs. Morella’s questions. I hope these answers and her questions and other questions have helped to stimulate you to think about what is a very difficult problem.

I think that the question of funding should almost be put aside.

The Federal Government can fund 100 percent a local entity, and

does, or by some formula do the funding issue. I still—the notion

that Mr. Wainstein raised about how—I don’t think there will be

any problem of people’s willingness to participate, certainly there

is no problem in the willingness to participate. The problem is how

do you get Federal agencies to participate in something that has

been—where the only statutory obligation is in legislation from a

local entity.

I would just like to invite hard legal thinking on this question.

Everyone knows where I am on the home rule question, but this

is more than that.

Mr. Clark, when he said some acknowledgment of Federal responsibility in legislation might be necessary—again, I think this

is not the kind of thing right off the top of our heads we can think

about it, but the kind of answers that you have given, it seems to

me, show how fertile the issue is. I very much appreciate them.

I would like to ask, I suppose beginning with Chief Ramsey,

now—this is a chart that I used before. Perhaps it can go up again.

What is not on that chart is the line I have now drawn.

Chief Ramsey, the line was drawn about March, and then you

see stuff beginning to go up here. We have reached a low point.

When they took over, when the Federal Government took over the

halfway house operations, there were 158 people arrested who were

on parole, out of jail. They got it down to 40. Now, the most recent

figures have it up to 66. This thing is climbing again. This is the

kind of thing we have to catch before it catches us.

I wonder, Chief Ramsey, if you are aware of increased arrests of

recently released inmates yourself.

Chief RAMSEY. Yes, ma’am. There has been a slight increase, and

certainly this chart begins to show that. Whether it will remain

over time, I don’t think anyone knows, but I think you are absolutely right, now is the time to be concerned and to really find out

the reasons why that is, and to take steps now to see to it that we

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once again get it back to lower levels, because we don’t want to

once again reach those high levels that we were at just a couple

of years ago.

I think more and more inmates will be getting released. I don’t

know exactly what the figures are, but I know that many people

who were sentenced back in the seventies and eighties under determinant sentencing are now beginning to come to the end of those

terms, and they will be coming back into our communities. If we

are not careful, we will have a problem with people once again engaging in criminal behavior.

So there are alternatives to that. Obviously, what we really have

to work toward is working with these people as they come out of

jail and helping them reintegrate into society.

Ms. NORTON. The alternative is they are out without all the services provided. I must say, I am very, very impressed with what

happened in this. Let me give some considerable credit to Mr.

Clark. For all of the talk about coordinating, Mr. Clark has shown

that with one man, you can have a one-man coordinating system.

Because when people began to walk away from these halfway

houses, and I read about it, frankly, in the Washington Post, I

asked everybody to come, every single agency, just to find out how

in the world—so this is where some of the fear developed in the

community, because they were reading in the paper that these

folks are out and they are walking away from the halfway houses.

I asked Mr. Clark, who had no—who was a peer and had been

meeting with all these agencies—if he would take charge of this.

Then I spoke to the deputy assistant attorney general to ask if he

would reinforce that, and he did. He indicated that, yes, Mr. Clark

would coordinate this.

I would like to ask Mr. Clark about what halfway houses did— what do they do so that you get this kind of reduction in crime by

people recently released from jail?

Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton, for those comments and for the question.

First of all, I would like to help the committee understand a little

better this chart that you have displayed, and how this came about.

It wasn’t, I will have to say, solely because of a new Federal responsibility kicking in. What happened in 1998 was several of us,

including the Parole Commission and the Court Services, got together with the director of the Department of Corrections, at that

time Margaret Moore, where there was a situation where she was

kind of out on a limb because of previous criticism, and did not feel

she could put any felons coming out of prison in halfway houses.

We said that we will all get together and help you with the public responsibility and the public concern on this. So the program

that went into effect in June 1998, which I think everyone acknowledges has had a significant impact on the rearrested parolees, for the most part was implemented by the D.C. Department of

Corrections. These were that were coming out of D.C. prisons, out

of Lorton or Youngstown and so on, and they were coming through

halfway houses, Hope Village and Effect and so on.

Along with that, we had the court services supervision officers,

committed by the Court Services Agency, to have offices in the halfway house. So not only was there the halfway house placement

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with job assistance and so on. We had a situation where the parole

officer was right in the halfway house helping with the transitional

services there.

So to me, this is an example that occurred kind of on a parallel

track with the CJCC, where several agencies got together, and I

think had a real effect on the public safety in the District.

These issues with the halfway house I know, as you have mentioned, are difficult in terms of neighborhood concerns about the

safety in that particular neighborhood. But the safety of the whole

community is enhanced if we are able to bring these folks out

through the halfway houses.

In addition to public safety, I think the economic development of

the District is enhanced. If we do not have parolees, who are the

most at-risk population in the District, getting rearrested and getting in trouble, then there is going to be an increased perception

of safety, and then the economic development of the District is

going to be enhanced.

Ms. NORTON. I think it is important—these parolees do not have

to go to a halfway house, isn’t that right, under the law?

Mr. CLARK. Under the law, they don’t. There was great encouragement from the U.S. Parole Commission once they took over responsibility from the paroling authority for the District to go ahead

and get in line with the policy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons of

bringing all these cases through a halfway house.

Ms. NORTON. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does this as a matter of practice, not of law, is that right?

Mr. CLARK. That is correct.

Ms. NORTON. So I just want to know how important this is, because what we have here is a kind of social service responsibility

that the District would never have had. Do these people get tested

also for drug use while they are on parole?

Mr. CLARK. They get tested regularly in the halfway house. In

fact, the policy in the Federal halfway houses was adopted as part

of this problem. If there is one dirty urine, they go back. Their parole is delayed and they go back into a treatment program for

about 60 days, and then they are placed again in the halfway

house.

Ms. NORTON. You can get all the way back to prison, I take it,

with dirty urine and whatever else?

Mr. CLARK. Absolutely.

Ms. NORTON. The incentive here is extraordinary, especially since

you have job counseling. You have to get a job, don’t you?

Mr. CLARK. Within 14 days.

Ms. NORTON. If you are on parole from BOP, what is the job responsibility that the recently released person has?

Mr. CLARK. Typically, in the halfway houses, it is the BOP policy

that the releasing prisoner should be employed within 2 weeks.

Sometimes they are not able to do that, but typically, it is my experience that when you tie that to some privileges of going home and

seeing your family for a few hours on the weekend, and some of

those other kinds of privileges, that people are motivated to go out

and obtain employment.

Ms. NORTON. Could I have comparable information about pretrial

detainees?

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Ms. SHAFFER. Certainly. Your Honor, the pretrial work release

defendants are actually released into the community but are ordered by the judges to return to the halfway house in the evening.

They go out during the day to jobs. If this works out, they secure

passes to go home on the weekend. They are actually not detained

in the halfway house. It is a little different situation.

Ms. NORTON. How about the rearrest rates?

Ms. SHAFFER. The rearrest rates for violent or dangerous crimes

is extremely low. In fact, it is going down. It is actually lower than

that for the general pretrial population. It is still the case that

about 75 percent of the rearrests that do take place are for not

coming back to the halfway house. There are still a number of people every month who come back late or don’t come back, who just

walk away from it. They don’t like the conditions of the halfway

house, and they leave. We request bench warrants on them right

away to bring them in, and they tell their story to the judge about

the problems they had at the halfway house. Many times they are

then stepped back and detained in the D.C. jail after that.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask both of you—and this is maybe the

most important information that came out of this hearing, when

you consider that now we are forced, according to CSOSA—because

the law says you have to release people. If you have not got the

halfway house, the person is out there, on us, at our expense.

I have to ask you, given the wholesale opposition in the District,

what have you done to make this information known to residents

in the District of Columbia?

Ms. SHAFFER. I think not enough, is the answer. Not enough.

Mr. CLARK. Could I just mention one thing? And I think the committee should be aware that for the last 2 years, since the series

of articles or one of the series of articles in the Washington Post

that you mentioned created somewhat of a crisis, frankly, within

the whole system here about the halfway house walkaways, under

the leadership or guise of the CJCC there was established a standing committee on especially the pretrial halfway house situation,

and all the agencies here, except the Parole Commission, who are

not dealing with pretrial cases, came together with a number of

other agencies and formed the Pretrial Services Subcommittee.

Judge Michael Rankin is currently the Chair of that committee.

We met within the last 2 or 3 days. We typically meet every month.

We appeared before the Citizen Council to brief the Citizen Council. I think a little over a year ago, a panel of, I think, eight or nine

of us appeared at that time before Mr. Brazil, the Chair. We were

influential, I think, in helping the Council reshape the Bail Reform

Law within the District to tighten up a number of cases that were

being—that have been problematic in being placed in halfway

houses.

But on the other hand, I will agree with Ms. Shaffer, that there

is a lot more that needs to be done to help the city Council help

the citizenry understand this critical issue.

Ms. NORTON. I recognize, Madam Chair, that I’m over my time,

but I would ask your leave, because I have a couple more questions

that I would like to ask.

Mrs. MORELLA. And I would like to call—to adjourn the hearing

close to 1 o’clock if we could, but, you know, I never gave you a

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chance, Mr. Gains, to respond to that question that I asked the rest

of the panel. It occurred to me that—— Mr. GAINES. Thank you very much.

Mrs. MORELLA. That was an omission on my part.

Mr. GAINES. I could only, I think, echo what the other panelists

have said. I didn’t hear a single thing, I don’t believe, that I would

disagree with. The critical thing is that there be a sufficient structure and funding there to deal with whatever the issues are you

take on. You can take on the big issues, as the chief was talking

about, which are very critical, but once you come to an agreement

there, then you have the nuts and bolts issue that may require two

or three of the participants. It may require committees and subcommittees and working groups and whatever, but you need the

structure and the funding there so that you can take those problems and take them all the way to the resolution rather than just

coming to a general agreement.

Mrs. MORELLA. Uh-huh. I thank you. I remember in the last

Congress we worked very hard with the District of Columbia for

the compliance with Y2K computer glitch to remedy it, and the discussion was after—after that worked out fine, did you learn something from it? And I remember the Mayor said, oh, yes, we have

updated our technology, and we’ve learned a great deal about that.

And I find in so many areas there is a need for updating technology

and the people who work with it. And this, as you have said, Chief

Ramsey, is an area where it’s kind of surprising we don’t have the

coordination that will come about through technology with all of

these agencies coming together. And I would ask you, do you all

think that the need for integration that would come through technology and looking into the whole technology situation is a vital

part of what we’re trying to do?

Ms. JONES. I would say yes. I’ve seen the justice system that the

CJCC is working on, and I believe all of the agencies—most of the

agencies at the table have participated in that data base which

takes data from all of our different agencies and coordinates them

into one system. It’s a major step in the direction of providing the

interagency technological coordination that you’re speaking of.

Mrs. MORELLA. Is it the technology or training the people? I

mean, is the technology there?

Ms. JONES. Yes. There is a software package that has been developed and all the agents are provided with—— Mrs. MORELLA. So you’re talking about training people, basically,

to utilize it?

Ms. JONES. It’s—yes, although it’s fairly user friendly to operate.

Everyone seems to be happy with the product so far.

Ms. SHAFFER. The one caveat I would add is it’s not realtime information. I mean, it is a vast improvement, because we’ll be able

to look at each other’s information, but it is not realtime. So there

may be a 24-hour delay; for instance, there may be a police officer

on the street who’s looking into the WALES mainframe to see what

the release conditions are for a particular defendant to see whether

he can arrest the defendant for being in violation of a stay-away

order. The officer cannot really rely on that information because he

doesn’t know if in the last 24 hours these release conditions have

changed. So there still is—I don’t want to be misleading. We are

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very excited about the justis system, but there is still a tremendous

amount of work to do to get to an integrated realtime information

system for the district.

Mrs. MORELLA. Right. It certainly should be an aim.

Mr. RAMSEY. Yes. And I think that’s a very important point here.

Our systems, for the most part, many of them are still very old.

The integration just isn’t there. So there’s an awful lot of work that

needs to be done. The justice system is a positive step, but it’s not

going to solve all of our problems. There’s a need for a huge investment in the technology infrastructure needed to really support information sharing between agencies in our area.

Mrs. MORELLA. This may be something we also want to monitor.

I’m going to leave the last question to Congresswoman Norton, but

I’m curious on the D.C. parolee’s chart. Sixty-six out of a body of

what? Do we have any idea of what the entire body is? Is it 66 people?

Mr. CLARK. I think the number of the parolees in the community

supervised by court services, who are in the room somewhere, is

somewhere in the range of 4,000, but I’m—— Mrs. MORELLA. I mean, I just wondered if that had increased

enormously with the—— Mr. CLARK. No. In fact, it’s been fairly stable.

Ms. NORTON. Parolees includes people, you know, who have been

out for—you’re not just including new—— Mr. CLARK. No. Those are clients who may have been on parole

for 5 or 6 years or whatever. Those are not just new parolees—— Mrs. MORELLA. So the number is even much larger in terms of

the number of parolees.

Ms. NORTON. He’s saying just the opposite. He’s saying that the

4,000 figure, will you explain what that figure involved, Mr.

Gaines.

Mr. GAINES. The total—our understanding is that the total D.C.

parolee population is about 3,200 currently.

Ms. NORTON. But that involves people who have been out for a

very long time and people who are recently arrested. So we’d have

to know—in order to answer Mrs. Morella’s question, we’d have to

know how many recent parolees we’re talking about, because the

longer you’re out, the less likely you are to be arrested in the first

place.

Mrs. MORELLA. I think the chief would like to add something.

Mr. RAMSEY. Well, what I’m trying to really—I think is a point—

and please someone correct me if I’m wrong. There’s another issue

that needs to be laid out here. Over the next 18 months or so, there

is a large number of people who will be released from the Bureau

of Prisons and will be coming back into D.C.

I’ve heard that figure was as high as about 5,000. Now, I don’t

know if that’s accurate or not, but that is certainly something that

we need to be thinking about now, because we’re looking at these

numbers as they exist today. But within the next year and a half,

another 5,000 or so people could be added to that, and that’s going

to certainly cause a lot of problems and issues.

Mr. CLARK. The number that are anticipated to be released is— it’s somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 a year coming out. Some

of those have come out on parole. Some of them come out on a

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mandatory release with some supervision, and some of them max

out their term, so to speak, and come out with no community supervision of any kind.

Mrs. MORELLA. My point was the 66 is an even greater progress,

given the entire body of the additions that have been made through

the years, particularly when you look back at May 1999. So it’s

even bigger.

Thank you. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. If I could clarify, the importance of the

chart is the 158 figure. That is the importance of the chart. That

would seem—that is a high point, and you look at the high point,

and you go down to 40, and you don’t—and you want to keep going

down no matter what the overall numbers are, and I think that’s

how we’re going to hold all of you accountable.

Could I just ask this question? In other jurisdictions, how do

you—how does the Federal Government fund States or local jurisdictions who are holding felons for the convenience of the government? Mr. Clark, Mr. Wainstein might be able to help me on that

one. Who funds—in Maryland, you’re Montgomery County. Who

funds you if the Federal Government asks you to hold somebody

who has been convicted? Who funds the locality?

Mr. CLARK. I think there’s a term of art called the primary jurisdiction. Not being a lawyer like some of those on the panel, but—— Ms. NORTON. Speak in English.

Mr. CLARK [continuing]. It’s my understanding—yes—that whichever jurisdiction has, for instance, arrested the person, owns that— to speak in English, I guess, owns that body, that person until

there is a conviction and then if—for instance, if the local government has—authority has arrested the person, they’ve been convicted, tried, sentenced in the local circuit court or whatever,

they’re sentenced when they’re ready to go to State prison, they

would go to the State prison. If the Federal Government—if the

U.S. attorney’s office at that point had another case that they

wanted to prosecute, at that point, they would—there would be

typically a detainer filed, and they would take over primary jurisdiction of that case. And they would stay in the local jail at the cost

of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Ms. NORTON. So at the cost of the Federal Government, then.

Mr. CLARK. On the other hand, if the case was prosecuted by the

Federal Government and sentenced and ready to go as a Federal

responsibility and the local jurisdiction, in this case superior

court—there was a case in superior court, and the U.S. attorney’s

office in this case being the local prosecutor, wanted to hold the

case if it was in another jurisdiction, and it was the State’s attorney that wanted to hold the case, then the State jurisdiction would

have to sort of borrow that person by filing a detainer. And at that

point, they would become financially responsible. So if that—— Ms. NORTON. It’s reciprocity, then, of funding?

Mr. CLARK. Correct.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Wainstein, you talked about papering as a kind

of technological problem, and I understand that problem there. I’d

like to ask you why you require face-to-face multiple meetings with

policemen and whether you could, at least as an interim matter, release our police into the communities by finding some shortcut to

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the enormous amount of time they now spend with prosecutors in

the U.S. attorney’s office.

Mr. WAINSTEIN. If I may, Congresswoman Norton, I’ll answer

that sort of in reverse order. We are actually working with MPD

and the courts to try to reduce the number of—— Ms. NORTON. For as long as I’ve been in Congress, you’ve been

doing that, sir.

Mr. WAINSTEIN. I know. We right now are actually engaged in

a couple of efforts that would reduce the number of officers that

have to come down for papering, specifically papering. I’m setting

aside court calendaring, which is a completely separate issue. But

as for papering, as I believe Chief Ramsey mentioned, they are

working with corporation council on an officeless paperless pilot

program right now.

That’s something that we actually initiated with MPD back in

1989 and because of a host of reasons, why the actual project—the

pilot project that we initiated did not get going—did not get into

full swing, and we’ve actually explained that in one of the attachments to my testimony here today. Those reasons that derailed

that project are what they’re working through right now in citation

cases, which is a very different animal than what we deal with.

We deal with cases where people are locked up and are brought

in. So we have a time clock. Citation cases that they’re working on

right now in this pilot project, the person gets a citation and then

appears, whatever, 20 or 30 days—I’m not sure what the timeframe

is, but well down the road, giving corporation council and the police

time to work through the paperwork and electronic issues.

Ms. NORTON. Look, you’ve heard me previously say, you know,

all parts of the system we’re now talking 60 days for a proposal to

come to the community—to the Coordination Council, 90 days before it comes to the Congress.

Final question. We had a terrible situation to arise—Ms. Jones

and Mr. Gaines may be most familiar with this—where people

were actually held in prison because of backlogs at the patrol commission. This seemed to me to be absolutely dangerous. People

were—had served their time, you know, had legally done what they

thought they were supposed to do, and somebody says because the

bureaucracy cannot process your paperwork, you’ll remain in jail.

The kind of rage that must build in somebody who has served his

time is probably hard for any of us to imagine. Therefore I have

to ask you what has been done about that, and what has been done

and what are you doing to make sure that it does not occur in the

future?

Ms. JONES. A few things have been done, but the problem still

persists. It’s a problem at every stage of the process. There are people who are eligible for parole. For example, if you got a 5 to 15-

year sentence, at the end of 5 years, you’re eligible for parole.

There has been delay in making the initial eligibility determination. So you are sometimes not quite getting a timely hearing.

There’s been delay for people who are in the reparole status; and

then the revocation status there have been a tremendous amount

of delays, which results in the Public Defender Service filing a series of Federal habeas corpus actions in U.S. District Court and

eventually filing a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Parole

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Commission, seeking the release of numerous people who have not

received a timely and expeditious adjudication of a revocation matter.

Where we are right now is trying to figure out the—what are all

the problems in the system, but currently as we sit here today,

there are still people who are incarcerated beyond the length of

time that they’re supposed to be incarcerated. One such individual

spent an additional year in jail because his paperwork, somewhere

in the system, did not get processed. And the Public Defender Service represented him, and the U.S. District Court ordered that he

be released immediately after spending 1 additional year in jail. So

it’s not yet fixed.

And we’re on the road to fixing it, but it’s not yet fixed. And we

get letters daily from people all over the country saying, I’m being

held. They haven’t had a hearing for me. I need to be released. I

was supposed to be released months ago, and we are trying as best

we can to work through those problems. Some of them we have

been able to work through just by talking to court services and

U.S. Parole Commission. Others we have to file litigation and get

a judge to order that these people be released.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Gaines, by the way, you say you have a class

action suit, which may be—but beyond that, somebody is going to

sue somebody for that year he spent in jail, and we’re going to

incur costs and damages for that sort of thing because of bureaucratic delay. Yes, Mr. Gaines.

Mr. GAINES. Yes. In August of this past year, when we took over

the revocation responsibilities from the D.C. board, we learned

shortly after that there were some 230 individuals who were incarcerated on alleged parole violations that had not had hearings.

Some had been locked up for a number of months, as a matter of

fact. This became a very critical issue for us and actually created

some of the other problems, as far as the backlogs are involved.

We’ve refocused our limited staff resources on those individuals

identified to ones that we could release that we did not feel would

pose a threat to public safety. We ordered the release of some 116

parolees at that time and then put all of our resources—or most

of our resources toward conducting hearings, revocation hearings,

on the other individuals in that group. That caused us to put off

Federal dockets that we had scheduled around the country. It

caused us to delay some initial D.C. release hearings that had been

scheduled. From our viewpoint, it is very much a resource problem.

We are hoping that in the 2002 budget that’s being supported by

the President, if it is enacted, then we will get the sufficient staff

that we need to take care of this backlog.

It is getting better. As Ms. Jones said, it is not corrected. People

are moving through the system at a faster rate. There are no individuals who are simply locked down and not moving through the

process. At some stages we’re at 90 percent timeliness. At other

stages, we’re at 70 percent, but it’s certainly not fixed yet. And

that’s the truth.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Well, we’re going to have to work on trying to

help with fixing, too. There must be some standards and maybe

CJCC could help, because that’s outrageous, isn’t it? I know you all

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agree, and you’re all committed. I want to thank you again for your

patience, but thank you particularly for your expertise and the

thoughtful comments that you made. We will probably be back in

touch with you and hope you feel free to contact us with any suggestions or recommendations that you may have.

Ms. NORTON. I did not ask that this chart be put in the record,

please.

Mrs. MORELLA. Without objection, it will be part of the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I want to thank our subcommittee staff, Russell

Smith, our staff director; Robert White, communications director;

Matt Batt, clerk; and Heea Vazirani-Fales, deputy director and

counsel, minority staff; John Bouker, Gene Gosa, Ellen Rayner, and

all of you again. And so our subcommittee is now adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the record follows:]

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