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these points of interest markers pet hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an ideaed and den washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. hele deitch, a lecturer in prison and jail innovation lab director at the university of texas at agood mo. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: can you talk about the prison and jail innovation lab? what you all about? guest: the prison and jail innovation lab, il, is that the lbj school of public affairs at the university of texas. we work to improve correctional oversight and ensurehe safety, health, and dignity of people in custody. we are a bridge between academic

research, practice on those kinds of issues. you can go to pjilst: since werm the same linkage can you describe the difference between prison and jail? guest: prisons are state run institutions for people who have been convicted of crimes and sentenced typically for longer than a year. they are operated by the state. they are large facilities. they tend to be in more rural pas jails are run most typically counties, by local agencies. they include a number of different types of folks. when you hear about people arrested and bood our pretrial, they are going to jails. people are intended to stay there for a short period of

time. a matter of hours or days. usually not more than a year, except in unusual circumstances. host: i'm looking at a chart from the prison policy initiative breaking down the number of people in state prisons versus lo jails versus federal prisons and jails. the overwhelming number of incarcerated people being in the state prisons as opposed to local jails. even within the local jails you have a big portion of those folks who are notwhereas in thes obviously folks have been convicted with a big chunk being violent offenders versus those with property cases or drug cases or public order. can you talk a little bit about the overall number of people within the u.s. jail and prison system and how that compares with the rest of the world?

guest:■ ( let about that. although jails have fewer people in them at any given time, because people turn over in jail all the time you have about 10 million people a year passing to the doors of jails. they are kind of underrecognized as a major part of our system. in fac■v■yt,eople in this country who are locked up --roughly 2 million people -- that dwarfs any old. the u.s. has roughly 25% of the incarcerated population in the cwo 5% of the overall population. our incarceration rate in this country is far outpacing any other■ country. we have roughly 664 people per country -- per 100,000 locked up

here. upcountry -- our country relies heavily on incarceration. there are a lot oferything you e affected by what happens inside our prisons and jails. host: to get a sense of the global another chart from the prison policy initiative looking at global incarceration rates. the united states is literally off the charts compared to some of these other countries with the closest being the united kingdom with 129 people 100,000 people. the united states over here at 664 people per 100,000 people. what are some of the biggest problems in the state and federal prison systems right now. guest: where toan issue that crl

the lack of transparency about what happens inside these places. prisons and jails are some the most opaque institutions in society. we get veryppening inside them. there is very little opportunity for effective oversight where an outside party can go in and expect -- inspect and find out what's happening inside and how people are being treated. from the information that does come out we know there are a tremendous number of conditions issues. facilities all over the country are understaffed. it. they are too many people for the number of staff that exists. these facilities are also overcrowded. many facilities are operating with many vacant positions. the staff that are there are working overtime or just simile are not enough staff to supervise everyone adequately.

there are people not trained as correctional officers being roped into doing that role to have a warm body in that space. many present agencies ar that, d mention the understaffing affects every aspect of life in it's a huge safety issue. it has affected the delivery of programs and services. all over the country. an people dying from suicide, homicide, overdoses. even natural deaths. sometimes we think those are not preventable but in fact it is for medical care that is sometimes leading to deaths. mentald hh. you cannot talk about jails in this country without talking about health. jails have become the largest institutns health simply because those services are not available in our communities.

there are environmental issues to thinkbohow prisons, many facn the south have extreme heat issues. not air-conditioned. there is a lack of clean drinking water in the facilities. many people inside are exposed to toxic chemicals and other ronments and conditions. -- environmental conditions. solitary confinement is a big issue. they goes by manmeof people in restrictive housing. they are locked up 23 hours a day in a■z space the size of a parking space. maybe getting out up to an hour a day for some kind of exercise or shower. no human contact. host: that is quite a list. i want to focus on one component, the deaths you are referencing. here's an article from nbc news talking about suicide deaths specifically. the bureau of prisons failed to prevent nearly 200 deaths by

suicide, i department of justice watchdog finds. the inspector general said numerous operational and managerial deficiencies contributed to many of the deaths reviewed, over half of which were suicides. this is looking specifically at the federal bureau of prisons. the federal prisons, which the department of justice has failed ■sto prevent the deaths of 187 inmates who died by suicide over eight years according to the justice department's watchdog. the report led by the justice department inspector general michael horowitz found accommodation of recurring policy violations and operational failurese to inmate suicides. it is based on a review of 344 inmate deaths from the 2014 to 2021 fiscal years. he said numerous operational and managerial decisions he --

deficiencies crated conditions that contribute to many deaths with proper protocols and resources in place inmate suidpreventable, experts say. i want to get reaction to that from you in a moment. i want to hear from collette peters from the federal prison -- bureau of prisons who spoke about this on the deaths and suicides in the federal prison system. here are her comments. [video] >> we worked to combat contraband to reduce homicides and overdoses. this includes drones, monitoring or terminating cellular can indications, and continually monitoring intelligence and gang activity. to harness all of this intelligence we are creating a new chief inspector position to identify systemwide patterns and problems, including that that

woul prevent deaths in custody. on a department to level the deputy attorney general has formed a working group of exi want to be perfectly clear. our employees are our everything and fully staffed institutions and well-trained employees save lives. it is no secret our agency is in crisis as a relatecruitment and. we are aggressively recruiting and utilizing incentives to maintain the employees we have. while our efforts over the past year have gleaned results, we are still faced with an inability to compete with the private sector and other law enrct ci a federal prison an hour outside of boston a correctional officer recently with better pay. b the better offer, working at the local grocery store. on the law enforcement side, an

w york city subway is advertising city correctional officers can make around $130,000 after a few years on the job. in the same amount of time our officers after we have implemented the 35% retention bonus would be making about $90,000. the story is the same throughout the country. we need resources to carry out our mission, implement our vision, and reach our goals. host:■3 what is your response to that? how much of this is really a staffing issue? guest: staffing is absolutely related to issues of safety inside. she is right about that. if you don't have enough you are not properly supervising people and you may not be observing signs people are at risk. you may not get to them quickly enough ithey are attempting suicide. it is not everything. it is not the only■ explanation.

there needs to be appropriate protocols for screening people who come in, making sure people with mental health conditions are not inside prisons or jails more specifically where they don't belong. there are very high risks in thoseetputting people in solitay confinement is a huge risk factor. overuse of that kind of setting is very dangerous. how we treat people once they are identified as at risk of suicide matters. supervision and staffing absolutely are a crisis. something that needs to be dealt with. people need to be appropriately trained. ithost: we have special phone lines for the segment today. we are doing regional as well as folks who haveprison system. in the eastern and central time zones, the number is (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time

zones, (202) 748-8001. if you have experience with the prison or jail system and have comments or queson, (202) 748-8. you can reach us on social media or by text. let's start with delroy, ohio, who is in the eastern time zone. go ahead, jean. caller: i wanted her to maybe comment on a case that happened in the atlanta, georgia metro area. a mentally ill man was bitten by bedbugs on a cot with no sheets. you can see the condition online. he died from his injuries. it was like, i don't know, no bithe feeling in our country and the jokes that are made when a younger prisoner or any prisoner is sent to jail, that they will

be sexually assaulted regularly. that is part of their punishment. i would like her to comment on that please. thank you. host: before you respond, a few more details on thatas that the caller was referencing. georgia's fulton county has reached a settlement with the family of the man who died in a bedbug infested cell in the county jail psychiatric ward. that was back in august of 2023. he died in september, three months after being booked into the fulton county jail in atlanta. settlement. his death gained public attention in april after harper released photos of his fandy co. the was department of justice cited thompson's death when announcing an investigation into jail conditions in fulton county

that was back in august of last year. go ahead, michele. guest: thank you for raising that. that incident,g the man of the fulton county jail, there is no excuse for anything like that. it was an absolute horror story. think it is reflective of very deep-seated problems in the fulton county jail. the lack of supervision and frankly the lack of caring. yeah. just horrible. as for the comments people make about sexual assault, is also thoroughly unacceptable under any circumstances. fortunately in this country there is a changing where corrections professionals understand this is not except of. we have the prison rape eliminatn over the country. it has sought to really change the way we protect people inside. we identifyally

assaulted, those at risk of being perpetrators. there are no protocols on how to deal with that. that said, there is far too much sexual assault going on inside our facilities. one example. federal prison in dublin, california has become known as a rape club because of the numbe y staff. the warden, the chaplain, and many staff have been convicted of raping then there. i can't imagine the horrors those women have experienced. host: jack in hawaii, the mountain time zone. go ahead, jack. caller: i would like to have two questions i would like to ask michele. i would like to see c-span set her up with the conditions in el salvador and go on youtube and

show a bit of the conditions sa. those people that they rounded up down here are coming up here. we have just one. ms 13 people. she knows who they are. michele related to the prison or jail system specifically? caller: what is her thoughts on what el salvador is doing to round up all those gang members =!that are coming across the border. host: you have any thoughts on that? guest: i would like to respond to one piece of this, the reference to country clubs. anyone who has ever spent time in any prison or jail in america would never describe them as a country anthony in albany,

georgia, and has some experience with the prison system. can you tell us about your r question for michele? caller: i went to prison back in 1999. the criminal justice system treated me as iwa guilty before it was proven. my only way back home from jail i had never been locked up that. i am 58 right now. the criminal justice system has treated young black men more eae

them and not rehabilitate them and house them for a lifetime. then you have to worry about them for their whole life. at 20 years later, i look back and i see president joe biden and the chairman of the judicial committee during 1995 during the clinton administration and he had the agreement with black preachers because of the crack epidemic to justify what was done to us. i'm so broken. i'm so hurt. behind worse than we found it. it is all because of■

i just wanted to make that comment. i'm glad i got the opportunity to call in. i started watching c-span way back in the early 1980's. host: sharing that experience. michele, i imagine you have heard stories like that before. guest: absolutely. there are three pieces of what anthony said that are so important. highlighting the incredible racial disparities in our prison system. they are undeniable. deep. another issue has to do with how people do plead guilty in jails. in large part because the conditions are so awful that anything they can do to get out of those conditions leads to them sometimes pleading guilty even if they are not. the third point is the trauma thatom people who have been incarcerated.

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