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79–890 PDF 2002

S. Hrg. 107–473

NOMINATION OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR.

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON THE

NOMINATION OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR. TO BE DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA COURT SERVICES AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY

APRIL 11, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Staff Director and Counsel

JASON M. YANUSSI, Professional Staff Member

JENNIFER E. HAMILTON, Research Assistant

MARIANNE CLIFFORD UPTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel, Oversight of

Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia Subcommittee

RICHARD A. HERTLING, Minority Staff Director

JOHANNA, L. HARDY, Minority Counsel

MASON C. ALINGER, Minority Professional Staff Member, Oversight of

Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia Subcommittee

DARLA D. CASSELL, Chief Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening statement: Page

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 1

WITNESSES

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2002

Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Delegate in Congress from the District of

Columbia ............................................................................................................... 2

Paul A. Quander, Jr., to be Director, District of Columbia Court Services

and Offender Supervision Agency;

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3

Biographical and professional information ..................................................... 9

Pre-hearing questions and responses .............................................................. 15

(1)

NOMINATION OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2002

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:12 p.m., in room

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Durbin presiding.

Present: Senator Durbin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

Senator DURBIN. The Committee will come to order. Good afternoon and welcome. My apologies for my schedule. Delegate Norton

can empathize with some of the problems we face.

Welcome to everyone. Today the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs holds a hearing to consider the nomination of Paul

Quander, Jr. to the position of Director for Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia.

CSOSA was established by Congress as part of the 1997 D.C. Revitalization Act. It combined under one helm the previously disparate local functions of Pretrial Services, Parole, Adult Probation

and Post-Conviction Offender Supervision, following 3 years of operation as a trusteeship. CSOSA was certified as an independent

Federal agency within the Executive Branch on August 4, 2000.

CSOSA, with 950 employees, an annual budget of $132 million and

responsibility for monitoring 21,000 pretrial release defendants per

year—that is about 8,000 at any one time—and 15,338 post-conviction offenders on probation or parole, has been guided under an appointed interim director awaiting confirmation of the President’s

designee. So this marks the first opportunity for the Senate to advise and consent on the President’s nominee to fill the CSOSA Directorship post.

On October 18, 2001, Paul A. Quander, Jr. was nominated by

President Bush to be that director for a term of 6 years. Mr.

Quander has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for D.C. since

1994. From 1989 to 1994 he was Deputy Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections. From 1982 to 1989 Mr. Quander served

with the Office of Corporation Counsel in the Juvenile Section, the

Civil Division and then in the Correctional Litigation Section. He

is a graduate of Virginia State University and Howard University

School of Law.

I am certain this is going to be a special day for you, Mr.

Quander. I understand you may have some family members who

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are with you in support, as well as colleagues and friends. Would

you care to introduce some of them at this point in time?

Mr. QUANDER. Thank you very much. At this time I would like

to take the opportunity to introduce my mother, Roberta J.

Quander; my wife, Charlene Quander; my oldest daughter and a

sophomore at Hampton University, Candace Quander; and my

youngest daughter, Katherine Quander, who will be attending Florida A&M this fall.

Also I would like to acknowledge and recognize three lifelong

friends who are present: Charles Cobb, Anthony Giles and Steve

Young. There are also former colleagues from the Office of the Corporation Counsel, the Department of Corrections, and current colleagues with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and there are a number of

staff members from CSOSA that are also present that I would like

to acknowledge as well.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Quander.

And let me at this time welcome my friend, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton with the District of Columbia who is here to

offer an introduction on your behalf.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, A

DELEGATE IN CONGRESS FROM THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. May I begin

by thanking you for your kind and very expert attention to the affairs of the District of Columbia. I know of no one who has been

more helpful to this city.

I am pleased to come this afternoon to recommend Paul A.

Quander, Jr., to be Director of Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

Now, Mr. Chairman, you and I helped get through the Revitalization Act that transferred these functions, these State functions

for criminal defendants to the Federal Government, but I do not

think you or I should take any responsibility for this name. It is,

barring none, the most cumbersome name of an agency perhaps in

the Federal annals. I have thought of putting a bill in to change

it to something simple, but its mandate is indeed complicated, and

it will take, I think, a candidate of the experience and the extensive law enforcement background that Mr. Quander offers to make

sure that it continues on its excellent course.

After receiving his degrees, undergraduate and law degrees with

honors, both with honors, he has spent his entire career in law enforcement in this city in the Corporation Counsel’s Office, in the

U.S. Attorney’s Office, at the Department of Corrections, all three

in high posts. His experience is important because he will be working with State-level inmates released after having committed serious crimes or been accused of serious crimes.

Mr. Chairman, you might think this a thankless task. The people

over whom Mr. Quander will have jurisdiction are statistically

most likely to commit or recommit crimes. But this office has functioned splendidly, and is responsible for a large part of the reason

that the crime statistics in the District of Columbia have come

down so rapidly. Mr. Quander, therefore, has a running head start

as he takes over this agency. That is not always the case as one

comes into a new post.

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1The biographical information appears in the Appendix on page 9.

Pre-hearing Questions and Responses appear in the Appendix on page 15.

And because of your own work in getting this bill through and

because of its importance to the residents of the District of Columbia, I would just like to leave you with a few statistics on this

work. CSOSA now supervises 16,000 offenders and 8,000 defendants. In the last 3 years the number of parolees rearrested has

dropped 63 percent because of the work this agency does. We have

profited mightily by transferring our offenders to an expert professional supervision agency. It has done so not because it holds tea

groups, but because it uses serious kinds of measures, including

anger management, work that has resulted in drug abuse and alcohol abuse being reduced. I mean when you reduce it by things

like—not just sitting around and doing counseling, but by monitoring these inmates so that, for example, with urine tests and the

like, so that when the period of supervision is over, they come back

into our community no longer ready to be involved in crime. They

have done extensive job referral and job training work. Among a

representative sample of offenders who completed treatment in fiscal year 2001, positive drug results were down 50 percent. As you

know, it is drug offenses that lead to crime in large cities like Chicago and New York, so I cannot emphasize enough the importance

of this position to public safety in the District of Columbia.

The experience and background that Mr. Quander brings to the

post shows he is well qualified for the job, and I am pleased to recommend him to you this afternoon.

Senator DURBIN. Well, Delegate Norton, your commendation goes

a long way with this Committee, and we are glad that you are here

today. And I also know that you have a pretty busy schedule, so

if you can stay, you are certainly welcome, but if you have to leave,

we certainly understand that too.

Ms. NORTON. I thank you for excusing me, Mr. Chairman.

Senator DURBIN. I thank you for joining us.

Mr. Quander, it is customary in this Committee to swear in witnesses, and if you would be kind enough to stand and raise your

right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about to give is

the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you,

God?

Mr. QUANDER. I do.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you. Let the record indicate the witness

answered in the affirmative.

Do you have any opening remarks that you would like to make?

TESTIMONY OF PAUL A. QUANDER, JR.1 TO BE DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT SERVICES AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY

Mr. QUANDER. Very briefly. I would like to thank you, Senator

Durbin, and the other Members of the Committee and staff for this

opportunity. I am honored and humbled by the nomination and the

prospect for working for an agency and leading an agency that has

the mandate that it does.

This agency touches the lives of many people, many people that

have had contact, all of them had contact with the criminal justice

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system and may be down. But I look at it as an opportunity to

help, number one, the public as far as public safety, but to help the

individuals as well as they try to turn around their lives and to become reintegrated with the society, this society, the District of Columbia of which I am native. So I am thankful for the opportunity

and I am thankful to be here this afternoon.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much. Your nomination was of

course received in the Senate, and you completed a thorough biographical questionnaire, and we have certainly reviewed it, as others have as well, and I have reviewed the response as of yesterday,

and note that you have an extensive and exemplary record of service, which certainly qualifies you.

Now, there are three standard questions asked of all nominees,

which I will ask first, and then get into particulars about your specific responsibility. Is there anything you are aware of in your

background that might present a conflict of interest with the duties

of the office to which you have been nominated?

Mr. QUANDER. No.

Senator DURBIN. Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from fully and honorably

discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you have been

nominated?

Mr. QUANDER. No, I do not.

Senator DURBIN. Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would in any way prevent you from serving the full term

for the office to which you have been nominated?

Mr. QUANDER. No.

Senator DURBIN. Let me ask you about your background then.

After the standard questions here, let us get into things that are

perhaps a little more relevant to the particular appointment.

You have a successful career as a prosecutor and significant experience on the corrections side, but a big part of this job goes beyond what you have done to deal with offenders after they have

served in the Department of Corrections. If you are confirmed for

this position, what experience would you draw upon to enable you

to assist offenders and reduce recidivism?

Mr. QUANDER. Well, the first experience will be what I gained

with the Department of Corrections, because the Department of

Corrections, during my 5-year tenure as the Deputy Director, we

not only had responsibility for the prisons, but we also had responsibility for the halfway houses and transitioning those individuals

who were in the penal institutions into a halfway house and back

into the community. So we spent a lot of time, and I spent a lot

of time, on trying to provide services and a forum, so to speak, so

that inmates, both male and female, when they transition out of

the penal institution, will have a place that they can go where they

can transition back into the community.

Once they are in the community, it just doesn’t stop there. We

had experience because part of our responsibility was not only to

house the inmates, but to a certain degree to keep them in the

community. So I have some exposure on the back end in corrections. The other experience that I do have is in the U.S. Attorney’s

Office. I handled a lot of the major narcotics and gang cases, and

you come into contact with people that have been in the system,

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that have been on probation, that have been incarcerated, and you

get to spend time with them, and you get to see what works in

their minds, what is effective and what is not. So you develop an

understanding, you get a feel for what programs may be successful

and what won’t be. You also get a sense of what motivates people

to succeed, and I think that will be very helpful as I move forward

with CSOSA.

Senator DURBIN. So based on your personal experience, if you

had to come up with some general observations, what would you

point to as the reason for failure in most cases? Why do you think

some who have emerged from this corrections experience end up

back in jail again?

Mr. QUANDER. I think the largest issue is substance abuse, which

is closely intertwined with just economics. When an individual returns to the community, that person, male or female, has to make

a living, has to have a way to survive, and often the lure of fast

money that drugs and narcotics presents is sometimes overwhelming, and people are willing to take that risk. If there are alternatives and if people know that people are going to be watching,

and we’re going to be talking not only with CSOSA but with the

Metropolitan Police Department, which is done right now and that

we’re going to be targeting and we’re going to be looking very, very

closely.

So I think it’s a staffing issue because you want to have an appropriate ratio of community service officers to the people that are

on supervision, and it’s also offering alternatives to try to get people to make those lifestyle changes that will get them off of the

drugs, get them away from the lure of the fast money, which just

means in a matter of time they’re going back, and get them in to

something whereby they can get up and go to work the regular 9

to 5 job, and then get into what we consider and society expects

of them, just a good solid citizen.

Senator DURBIN. I do not know that you would be familiar with

the city of Chicago, which I am honored to represent, but it turns

out that in one congressional district in the west side of Chicago

there is just an overwhelming percentage of formerly incarcerated

people who come to live there because of the various programs and

opportunities on the west side of Chicago. And I recently attended

a meeting there, and one of the things that I was surprised to find

was that some of those who had been incarcerated ran into problems right away because of a reason they had not anticipated. They

were turned loose out on the street without any form of identification. And so the Illinois Department of Corrections now has a program to issue photo ID cards to those who are leaving the Department of Corrections, so that they can prove their identity. It will

be probably some time before they will have a driver’s license or

some other form of identification. Do you know if Washington, DC

has that problem or has responded to it?

Mr. QUANDER. I had a recent experience with a young man who

was just recently released from a period of incarceration from a

California facility. And he was a cooperating witness in a case that

I had, so he came to see me. And he indicated that he had the

same problem. I do know what CSOSA has in place a number of

programs and a number of meetings and things of that nature once

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a person is released, and they’re required to meet with a supervision officer. I am not sure what is in place right now to address

that, but I do know that one individual did have that issue of not

having a valid piece of identification.

Senator DURBIN. When you are successful in this nomination,

and I trust you will be, if you would please look into that, and if

you think there is something we can do by legislation that might

be helpful, let us know. Otherwise, if D.C. can take care of it, I am

a big believer in home rule. So if you could take care of it, more

power to you.

Mr. QUANDER. Very well.

Senator DURBIN. Can we talk about halfway houses?

Mr. QUANDER. Certainly.

Senator DURBIN. Because I know that they’re used quite a bit,

quite extensively, aren’t they, in the District of Columbia?

Mr. QUANDER. I believe they’re used extensively, so much so that

I believe now we’re running close to being at capacity. And there’s

a significant need for additional halfway house space. CSOSA has

done a good job of getting out there, talking to the community, trying to locate halfway houses, and it’s a tough process, but it’s something that needs to be done on both ends. I believe that a person

that is being released from a period of incarceration needs a—he

needs a safe home. He needs or she needs a transition setting.

They need a place where it will be easier for them to make that

adjustment, because in prison you’re told when to get up, when to

go to bed, when to eat. When you’re out in the street, you don’t

have those issues, and sometimes it’s kind of easy to run afoul of

the rules and the regulations. If there is a place where you can get

your bearings, be strictly indoctrinated into what is expected of

you, then I think people have a successful period of transition.

On the other end, the Pretrial Services Agency for individuals

who are pending trial, halfway houses offer an alternative to incarceration. There’s a constitutional right to be presumed innocent,

and for your nonviolent offenders, halfway houses oftentimes will

offer a viable alternative for even some of your violent offenders.

The space is needed. I believe it can be well run. I believe it can

perform a service that will benefit public safety, so I believe halfway houses are key.

Senator DURBIN. One of the other things that seems to be critical

is caseload ratio, and I know Delegate Norton talked about some

of the improvements at this agency, but some of the statistics we

have are dramatic, where the number of prisoners assigned to each

one of the supervising officers declined from 180 or 200 to 64. That

is a substantial decline to about one-third of previous levels. Still,

it is a little higher than what they have said should be the maximum, 50. Do you see that as part of your responsibility to reduce

that caseload even further?

Mr. QUANDER. Absolutely. I think for public safety you need to

have a manageable caseload. If not, you just can’t do the job that

is required by the citizens of the District of Columbia. You’re going

to miss some things. And it’s just too important. We have basically

a public trust. We have asked the community to let these men and

women come back into the community and we will watch them. We

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will provide. We will be your eyes and ears, and we have to have

a caseload that allows us to do that.

CSOSA has done, I believe, a great job in moving the supervising

officers out of the offices downtown and into the community. There

is a, for lack of a better term, a regional center not far from where

I live on Good Hope Road and Minnesota Avenue. There’s another

one on South Capitol Street in Southeast, and I believe there’s another in Taylor, so community service officers are right there in the

community, and it gives them a visible presence, and the individuals who are under supervision know that their officers are nearby

and available if they need them, or available to come by to do a

spot visit and to check, which just helps lend credence to what we

do, and that is public safety.

Senator DURBIN. One of my friends and heroes in the Chicago

area is a Father Clement, who is an African-American priest, who

started a number of programs on a national basis. One was called

One Child One Church, where they were asking churches to try to

bring in a child who might otherwise have no guidance in their life,

and the other was One Convict One Church, where churches would

try to reach out and mentor and assist those who were recently incarcerated and try to get them back in society. Is there such a program under way in D.C. that you are familiar with?

Mr. QUANDER. Yes, there is a faith-based program that is under

way, I believe. Hallem Williams was recently appointed to lead

that effort in CSOSA, and essentially what we are trying to do is

to mirror that program in that there is a large faith-based community here that is willing to work with us and to assist, and we are

trying to match up and to get individuals who have been recently

released from prison connected with the church and have a church

sponsor, and help that person with the transition, not only just initially, but permanently, to give the foundation.

Senator DURBIN. Great. My staff is all over this one. They just

handed me an article from the Washington Post of January 12 involving the faith community partnership. It specifies Faith Tabernacle of Prayer in Southeast Washington as one of the cooperating

churches.

Mr. QUANDER. Yes.

Senator DURBIN. So I think that is an excellent program, and I

hope that we will find ways to work together to expand it.

I do not have any further questions, and I would like to thank

you, Mr. Quander, for your responses. They were certainly encouraging. I want to thank your family for joining you, as well as your

friends today. The next step in this process will be the prompt consideration of your nomination in a full Committee markup and reporting to the full Senate for final action.

Let me note that the record of this hearing will remain open for

a period of 1 week to permit other Members of the Committee to

submit statements or questions for you to consider.

With that, nothing further on my agenda, and I thank you again

for being here.

Mr. QUANDER. Thank you.

Senator DURBIN. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the Committee hearing was adjourned.]

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