stop the programs that don't work and support the programs that do. second, we need to expand access to education, give students more options. in other words, we need accredit addition reform. -- accreditation reform. sounds dry but it's a huge difference. my friend, senator mike lee of utah proposed. we need to bring competition to the college cartels. let other schools in on the action and keep reforming job are training programs.

if employers can design their own curriculum then workers will know just what skills they need. third, we need common sense criminal justice reform. we need to give people the opportunity to earn a second chance in this country. luckily, my colleagues have done a lot of good work on this front. senator mike lee, congressman raul labrador and bobby scott introduced a very good piece of reform of the sentencing guidelines, would give the jumps more discretion with low-risk, nonviolent offenses. they don't have to give the maybes sentence everytime. there's no reason to lock anyone up longer than necessary and we also have to tackle this recidivism. about half of our ex-cons are re-incarcerated win three years of release. think about that. but we know there are programs that work. that get people out of the life of crime.

that's why congressman jason -- and bobby scott introduced the public safety enhancement act. as long as they complete a program with a proven track record. here's the point. nonviolent, low-riecks offenders, don't lock them up and throw away the key. get enemy counseling, training, help them rejoin and contribute to our society. great focus there. finally, we need to cut down on bureaucratic red tape. people are trying to get ahead but washington is getting in the way. propose a very simple rule for future regulations. i if you're a federal agency and you want a regulation that would unduly burden low income families you have to go to congress. if they want it, they have to fight for it on the record. it's your government and you tee

serve a voice and a vote. all of these are good ideasment they're just the start. what we're really -- we're calling a discussion draft because this is meant to start a discussion. we want to hear from people. we want people to send us this ideas. we want constructive feedback. to please e-mail us at expanding opportunity at milhouse.gov. when i was in milwaukee or denver or minneapolis, nobody asked me what party i belonged to. they welcomed anybody who was there, who was willing to listen and learn. that should be our approach in washington. enough with the politics. let's talk solutions. because this is really isn't a republican or democratic issue. it's an american issue. as a matter of principle, we need to build a society where hard work is rewarded and every

american has the opportunity to succeed regardless of birthplace or background. and to do that, everybody has to get involved. everybody has to pull in the same direction. if we all work together we can build a healthy economy, we can fix this, get this done, and that's what the good people of this nation are expecting of us. that's what they deserve. thank you very much and i look forward to this conversation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we're going to turn the podium over now, virtually to robert dore at aei, has join us in the past six months, is expanding aeis poverty focus greatly and we're delighted to

have him host the next panel. >> thank you, arthur and as congressman ryan said, let the discussion begin. we have an outstanding panel today of experts in the field who are well-known to many in the audience so i'll keep the introductions very short. starting on my immediate left is ron has skins -- haskins, a senior fellow in economics program and codirector of the children and families at the brooking institution, and from february to december of 2002, haskins what the senior advice for the president for welfare policy at the white house. well known, extremely well-respected in this field and we're very honored to have you here with us today. i next to ron, stewart butler, a distinguished fell explore a director for the center of policy. charged with designing innovate testify solutions to some of america's toughest challenges. before taking the hem of cpi he guided heritage's domestic

policy research for 30 years as vice president for domestic and economic policies. stewart, we're glad you're here as well. and finally, bob woodson on the far lest, next to congressman ryan, founder and president of the center for neighborhood enterprise. [inaudible] >> bob's social activism dates back to the 1960s when he coordinated national and local community development programs and directed the national urban league's administration of justice. later he served as a resident fellow at the american enterprise institute, an alumni of this institution. welcome back. we're honored to have you to to start the discuss we'll have ron go first and then stewart and bosh, then congressman ryan will respond and then i'll ask a question. >> i'm going to make four points. first, this is sweeping proposal. this is worthy of the think tank. it's full of references to social science, things are

justified. are explained. it's a spectacular document and i emphasize sweeping. opportunity grants. eitc for workers-education at all levels-criminal sentencing and other reforms. i have not seen -- this from an individual member in many years introduced in congress. second opinion, results-driven research. so, if you need to sleep, now would be the time base people don't pay much attention to this but it's one of the most important thing inside the country right now. we're at last learning, that our programs don't work, and that they can be evaluated and you can use evaluations to improve them. the bush administration was huge on this. obama is even bigger, and so this creates a real possibility for bipartisanship and a focus on results which we should do in all our programs. third this opportunity grants. by narl the most controversial part of dismiss the part i think i hope doesn't get all the attention but i'm afraid it might, because it's the part that is the most controversial.

it gives flexibility and authority, as paul explained, and i hope as bob woodson will emphasize, what i like most about block grants -- they are called opportunity grants but it's something that gives flexibility to the state which democrats have been charry about. so the point is this is a way to get money to the local level and platoons of society, civil society, can benefit from some of the money, be funned to do things that government just can't do, like tell people, you got to stop that. you have to stop that. and i've heard many people say with bob and bob himself says the same thing. so the opportunity grants are crucial. if you were a republican and you believed opportunity grants and flexibility and block grants are the way to go you could not improve on paul's proposal, because it's not national. it's not changing the statutes or food stamps and tanf. they remain in place, but five

states, seven states, some number of states will affect the experts and we'll find out if these ideas play out and if that money does get down to local level. that's exactly the way to go about and it it's a compromise right from the beginning. finally, to politics of the situation that we're in now. first off, i hope paul will excuse me for observing that almost everything in this proposal is possible for bipartisanship. it is really a bipartisan proposal from the very beginning. if the media focuses on the controversy that is a huge mistake. you're missing the story. there are very few republicans who would have the courage, especially in this situation we now face, to introduce such a bipartisan reasonable proposal, and this raises the question of second question about republicans, about politics, and that is, if they'll have the sense to support this. in 1996, republicans reform in a way that had never been done before and it was because they were united. republicanned and the house and

senate, and a lot of fights behind the scenes but publicly everything was agreed upon and eventually the president a greed with us and a majority of the democrats. if we take the senate and the senate introduces something along these lines and the house and senate pass it we can put something on the president reside desk that will become law. [inaudible] >> already partisanship. come on. >> i think our late and mutual friend, jack kemp, would call this an audacious proposal. it's bold, it's -- it shakes up thinking-has the potential of bipartisanship, as ron said, and it raises lots of questions that have to be discussed and considered in terms of turning this into a major proposal. so i'm very supportive of this

approach, and i public the congressman for putting it forward. look at some of the elements. i want to raise some issues and some questions about the proposal. while supporting very much certainly the opportunity grant idea. it is absolutely critical to see innovative public policy in this country to give incentives to states and to localities and nongovernment organizations to try out ideas to be innovative and to learn from them, and that's the heart of the opportunity grants proposal. i think it's very important that somebody that has been very much devoted to the idea of federalism myself for many years, not be roman take about states and this proposal isn't romantic about states and recognizes you have to push innovation as well as giving incentives for innovation. so the conditions that paul ryan mentioned in his remarks are very, very important. it is critical that, as part of the opportunity grant idea, that

work requirements are core elements of that approach. we have work requirements to some greg in the welfare system right now. they were never as widely placed into the law as they should have been in 1996. but they should be extended, will be extended by this proposal. it's very important, too, to go beyond the state bureaucracies. as i'm sure bob would woodson you found around the country. often innovative groups are held back by the frustrations of rules and regulations and bureaucracies. this proposal directs the states if they want to get the green light to show in very clear ways how they're going to reach past the bureaucracy and enable these organizations to play much greater role. it's also critically important to have evaluations as the congressman saidment we have had so many politics in this country that sound good, look good, but actually do nothing or very little. and so building in systemic

evaluation is absolutely essential to see if innovations are true, and to enable the key elements to be exported elsewhere. and it's very important to have states to have some financial skin in the game. i'm not sure that the pure opportunity grant has enough to encourage states to have skin in the game and see the -- the 1996 legislation gave states a very powerful financial incentive to get people out of welfare, and into independent work. i don't see that in this, and i think that's an element that has to be looked at more carefully. in terms of the earned income tax credit, it is clearly better to get people to work and to be able to get higher take-home earnings than to increase the minimum wage, which very often actually cuts jobs for people who are very low-skilled and just starting from school. much more targeted. but there are design issues to get this right.

and these will have to be part of the conversation that follows this proposal. one of the issues is fraud. we have a lot of fraud in the eitc currently. so in tandem with expanding it, it's very important to look at better ways of rooting out that. it's also very important to look at perverse incentives that can occur. if a young man has a larger eitc and is working today, under this proposal, then marries a woman who is also obtaining eitc you can have a situation of a very strong marriage penalty. if that tops out and if the total amount tops -- goes above the total amount under the rule you can final find financial penalties for getting married. i if we undermine major that it would be a terrible thing and i think when you look at the design stage, it's really important to look at those incentives. as well as potentially perverse

incentives discouraging year-around work. if you increase the eitc, we may see people not working full year, so it's very important to look at design changes that will encourage year-long work, and i think the work requirements in combination with itc would be dozeó- that. thirdly, and the accreditation -- i echo what you said, congressman, if you look at what is necessary to enable people to get the skills, to command real wages, good wages, in the work force, then getting college or college equivalent is critical. today we have enormous financial barriers. i think the way we'll see a solution to that problem is dramatic reductions in the cost situation. you now have college for america, part of the southern new hampshire university, offering $10,000 degrees. all of these highly innovative

approaches to delivering low-cost but effective higher education, accreditation. accredit addition protects the existing providers. protect third large expensive universities, and you're right, senators lee and others put forward proposals that would allow states and other institutions to credential courses and accredit institutions. that is an absolutely essential feature of this proposal. and then fortunately, i would just echo what others have said. looking at the issue of sentencing and alternative sentencing, dealing with the that get in the way of ex-cons rule in lansing obstacles need to be looked as as well as alternative sentencing and you mention this in the proposal and that's a very important part. so i said with jack kemp, it's audacious, hope it provokes the

type of bipartisan conversation it should do and i hope will do, and i think we should all be part of that conversation, and i'm very grateful to you, congressman, for taking the steps of introducing a proposal like this. >> thank you. it's celt include important we have a dialogue that goes beyond money. for the past 40 years, the antipoverty expenditures, $15 trillion, 70 cents of every dollar spent or poor people goes to not the poor but those who serve poor people. these professional providers ask not which problems are self-able but which ones are fundable. so we have created a commodity out of poor people with perverse incentives for maintaining people in poverty. we wonder why it expands. so it's important for us to

recognize that this control has to change, but in addressing poverty, it's important that we -- we tend to make the mistake about general rising about poor people. not everybody is poor for the same reason. i identify four categories of poor people. there's -- the first category, people just broke. they lost their job or a bread winner died or there's a temporary illness. but the person's character is in place and for them they use welfare and assistance the way it was intended, as an ambulance service, not as a transportation system. and then you got category two, a person that confronts perverse incentives for maintaining -- staying on welfare. for instance, the single mom in milwaukee, many years ago, who saved $5,000 on welfare to send her daughter to college, only to be charged with a felony. so she concluded, well, i'll

just -- her character is in place, so perverse incentive. category three would be someone who is physically and mentally disabled but category four that concerns most of us are those who are poor because of the poor choices they made. the character flaws they have. the drug addicts. they have serial out of wedlock births. just giving money to people like that injures with the helping hand, and so it's important for us to disaggregate this population of the poor. people on the left tend to look at poor as if they're all category one. and people on the right tend to look at the poor as if they're all category four. and so it's very difficult when we do that to have a meaningful dialogue because, as paul's proposal identifies, you need a strategy to address the needs of each of these groups. and the center for enter prize we concentrate on all people in

category four. 80% of my best friends are ex-something. and these are the people that i have taken paul around the country to see. the point is, these are the new poor. those people on the left and right have missed about the poor. people on the left, when they look at poor people they see a sea of victims. people on the right see a sea of aliens. there's an old african proverb that when bull elephants fight the grass loses. so what we believe, and i tried to show paul, is that the real solutions for poverty and people in category four are the people who are in the community experiencing the problem. they are the healing agents, the antibiotics, and so it's important to go into the those communities -- the qualities that make them effective makes them invisible. so you got to feel like a geiger counter and go in and seeing them out, and what you'll find

is -- what makes them effective is they are -- provide character coaching and moral guidance to the people that they serve. they witness to people by their example that they can be restored and reclaimed and redeemed in the midst of poverty. so, paul has gone to some crime-ridden, drug-infested neighbors and has witnesses redemption occurring among the most fallen, the most broken people you can imagine. it's important that any antipoverty approach takes into account these real antipoverty experts that are resident in their and so what we intend to do is take this proposal to our whole network of 2,500 grassroots people in 39 states. so for the first time, grassroots groups, who are suffering the problem, will have a seat at the table so their views, their opinions, on what

should be done to address poverty, will be factors into whatever deliberations we have. only when you allow people suffering the problem to provide their own input do we have change. final point is that also i think this -- we have to destroy this false dichotomy that somehow if we spend more, we care more. if we spend less, we care less, and that is -- what we have demonstrated this in our programs around the country, that you visited in milwaukee, wisconsin, where we have for the past eight years an antiviolence effort where we hire young adults from the same cultural and geographic zip code as the children experiencing the problems and we put them full-time in the schools as character coaches and moral mentors, and as a consequence, the kids are re-directed away from lives of pathology and

we're able to russ crimes and violence by 25% in just three months. we started with one school, now we have expanded to 12, and this is an initiative, paul, we want to take throughout the country. and also, the running rebels organization has a very unique program where, for the past eight years, young men, who are violent offenders, instead of being sent to 22 or 30 years in prison are given community-based detention where they're supervised by other people, every two hours they have to make a contact with their mentor, usually someone who has been in prison himself, but as a consequence of -- we have had 800 young men come through the program with 80% success rate, and the program gave a mock check to the milwaukee county commissioners for $63 million. this is the money that the county saved as a consequence of

keeping these young men out of prison. so that's another example that demonstrates the point that if we invest more wisely in creative community-based poverty warriors, that we can help more people at lower cost and expand opportunities for everybody. thank you. >> congressman, want to respond to those comments? >> first of all -- [inaudible] >> now we got it. thank you very much for that feedback. as i mentioned the whole opinion of this is to start this conversation, and i just touched on a few of the ideas that are contained in this proposal, as the gentleman here mentioned there are a lot of others in here. i would just go -- i wrote your comments down and i'll try to be as quick as i can to open it up. both ron and stuart sort of used block grants. this isn't really exactly a

block grant. it's not your garden variety black grant where you cut a check to the states and call it's day. it's very different because as stuart mentioned there can be abuses with that. this opportunity grant is designed to streamline funding streams into one grant that is there to have customized and personalized aid to each person. so to bob's point, each person has a different issue. there are different kinds of poverty. unfortunately this washington one size fits all no it best first in washington approach, treats them as if they're the same. so you have to bring this down to the local level and have a customized personalized form of aid, and it's not as if this is a new idea. this is actually working out there in the country if it's ever been applied, or where it's been applied. i can just point to in wisconsin alone, catholic charities, america works, lutheran social services, where they in spite of the federal government, offer

very holeisic services where they have a person that works with the recipient, to come up with a plan for their lives, to help them meet their benchmarks and with car rots and sticks, accountability and rewards, and this to me could be so much better delivered and accelerated through the opportunity grant. the problem we have here is you look at these things, marginal income tax rates -- economists look at this stuff. right now we have such a disjointed system, which inadvertently makes it less likely a person will leave assistance and go to work because they lose so much money. so we want to remove those disinsendtives to work, remove disincentives which are people making rational decisions to get on to a better life and the flexibility of the opportunity grant, combined with work requirements and flexible time limits, and remember, work requirements means work-related activities, working, looking for work, or getting prepared for

work, it's more than just, i'd say, a block grant. ron mentioned results, driven research. we spent the last year and a half in our committee, lots of committee hearings, staff research, trying to find metrics. and there's just so little out there. and we don't do a good job of measuring success. so, if i had to take a 30,000-foot view of this proposal, it is basically this. our approach to fighting poverty has basically been, let's measure by inputs. how many programs we create, not another results. how many people are getting out of poverty and staying out of poverty? and so we need to do a better job of understanding how effective our policies are by measuring them better. that's why we have a pro posed commission for clearing house of data and have to get ahead of the privacy issues that are inevitable in the 21st 21st century. so that's one proposal. then remove the barriers.

the accreditation reform is a key with a of getting at tuition inflation, lowering the cost of college, making it easier and more successful. licensing reform. this is not a federal issue but a state and local issue. there are barriers to entry that are making it harder for people to get into professions whether it's somebody with a felony who wants to get a commercial driver's license to drive a truck 0, whether it's somebody who just wants to be a buoy particulars or a basher -- be a beautician or a barber. we need to do licensing reform at the local levels. you also talk about, stuart, crowding out civil society and local organizations. i think this is among the other big points we're trying to make here. the federal government, inadvertently, has basically come into our communities with strings and rules rules and duplicating programs and archaic formulas and has crowded out what we call civil society. economists -- talk to rajed chey

or others they'll tell you this is social capital. cultural, social aberdeen ash antibodies of people in our communities who want to make a difference in many cases the federal government's roll has been to crowd them out, push them to the side. the government needs to respect its role. and the federal government here can provide resources. the federal government can man the supply line but the people on the front lines, the people who are fighting poverty, eye-to-eye, soul-to-soul, person-to-person, they're the ones who make the difference and are actually achieving something, and if you bring the federal resources behind them in this way, we can focus on a more results-oriented approach. that's really important. there's so many other points you mentioned. but i think the key here is, let's stop focusing on treating the symptoms of poverty. let's stop propping up a poverty management system. let's get to a results-oriented system, and let's integrate,

bring the private sector and public sector and charitable sector together, integrating, pulling in the same direction, not competing with one another so the focus is on results. are we getting people out of poverty, and we have to know, when we do that, there are different kinds of poverty, different kinds of needs. xet's %k >> we have 92 programs in dire need of reform. congressman, as you know, i was an administrator when all these

programs for mayor bloomberg for the last seven years and there isn't any question there's a great deal of frustration among administrators in the incoherence of the various federal streams and lack of connectivity. so i think you're tapping into something important there but the biggest program that you are putting in the opportunity grant seems to me is the food stamp program, and you're offering states, it looks to me, an option of being able to not necessarily have that be a voucher and have the benefits associated with food stamps go for other needs in the household, and i wonder if you would you address that issue and what it is you saw in your investigation of this issue that led you to believe this really long-standing program -- this would be a big change -- is in need of that kind of at least opportunity for experimentation. >> the critical part of this, the reason for that, is to combine it altogether so you can design an aid package that is necessary for this person's feeds. neighbor she needs more for transportation or maybe she needs more for child care. right now you have a structured

program that don't recognize her unique problems and unique needs so that your case manager can actually adjust the benefits. if stat wants to they can make it a -- eave the ebt card designed win the opportunity grant. i also think that having the carrot and stick approach, having work or training requirements, with the time limits that apply to the person's particular needs, is really essential so that this is known not as a permanent condition but as a helping hand for the able-bodied to get them up and on with their lives. that's an important part of it. the states can design it however they choose to whether they want to put it on an ebt or cash assistants that a person's case manager works on. >> thank you. now, want to open it up to questions from the audience and see what we have. first row. we want questions, not statements.

>> my name is caleb. aisle an intern at the u.s. house of representatives. now there's some policy scholars, including eii, who have advocated for a wage subsidy. and congressman ryan you -- could you guys discuss the merits of a monthly paycheck that comes to the wage subsidy versus the annual lump sum of the icc extension. >> if agree with jim roz points and i forgot to mention this, the eitc reform. this is something the ways and means committee needs to get into. there are some fraud issue wes need police and do a better job, and i believe ultimately it's a good idea to get the eitc to become a mom system so that you see it in your paycheck everything month. i think by reforming and working win the eitc structure, that's a more successful outcome and more likely reform than -- the wage subsidy is a good idea just

think we can take the attributes of the idea, we have a program with a good success rate that needs reform, monthly going after fraud, the other thing is it works. this is one -- i think uncle milty -- conservatives call milton friedman uncle milty. this has been practiced in society that show outside it does pay to work and it's -- here's the other point. 20% of americans between the ages of 20 and 21 are not working or not even in school. and so we need to pull people into the work force. we when you take a look at our labor force participation rates, it's the worst in this category. a childless adult who is 21 to 25 years old. and these are people who are in the prime of their lives, need to get into the work force and

on the marriage point, i would just respect respectfully say to stuart, shows if you have a job you're more likely to get married. if you're able bodied and working, you're more likely to have a stable life, a stable marriage and a stable family, and so i think applying eitc to childless adults is actually going to help facilitate marriage. it's going to be good for the family. >> okay. next question. right there in the mustache in the back. sorry. in the mustache. put that on this morning? >> congressman, you and several panelists mention college and nothing about vocational education. is it your view that the college s trump in terms of vocational -- >> you say trumped? >> yes, more important than vocational playing.

>> if you go into the report, i just -- i'm doing the cliff notes version here. in the report, voc-ed is very important and it's primary. it is not -- i think we overemphasize in america, you got to go to a four-year degree and get english, and where i come from, vocational education is fantastic. if we can work on our resurgence of our manufacturing industry, whole other issue -- we are'm need high-skill worked earning great paychecks, family supporting wages and vocational education is important. that's why we talk about job training reform, talk about flexible job training reform at individual base that goes to the individual so they can take the aid and go to provider of their choice, be it an employer who is setting aside 50,000 square feet to teach people how to get a welding degree or a c & c machine tool and die degree or

vocational technical college or whatnot. that's why we put emphasis on job training reform. just didn't mention it in my opening remarks. >> we should also look at enterprise formation as one strategy, too; for instance, paul met a man in indianapolis, curt moore, who spent 13 years in federal prison and came to himself and came to christ and came out to start washing cars in people's driveway. now he has 15 employees of other ex-offenders and just established his business because we connected him to some business leaders in the community, who partnered with him so we have a conservative enterprise partnerships and they're about 12 other entrepreneurs in the communities with curt's profile that need the kind of help that we can provide. so, that would be another strategy to provide incentives and remove the barriers for

people like curt moore to start a business and -- >> that brings up one important point. we have a lot of silos and divisions within our society that are isolating the poor from the rest of our communities. and that -- we need to owe integrate that and the inadvertent design of the federal government's approach has been to basically reinforce this idea that is it government's responsibility. if there are poor people in your community and you're worried about them, just pay your taxes and government will fix that. don't get involved. we need to break down that mythology, and i think this approach -- it tends to basically do that. so that we localize, personalize, customize, and integrate. one thing we're trying to do in milwaukee is hook up employers and manufacturers with people who are in need of skills and jobs, together. we're getting suburban charges working with -- poor community churches to help bring all the tools and the things they have,

to help make a bigger difference, and this is -- long with voc-tech is an important area so getting everybody pulling in the same direction and not just these relationships we have today, you're going to make a big difference and see a thousand flowers bloom, and see what call force enablers that will help make this outcome-based approach really successful. >> we have time for one more question. and we'll take this lovely lady in the front row. >> so i'm with the philanthropy roundtable and that's going to give you a clue as to my question. seems to me that this -- well, i wasn't going to do that but since you said that -- >> i see you -- seems that this program, which is amazing, and i congratulate you on that -- opens the door for a new and expand role for private philanthropy at the local level, at the state level, and possibility he national level. so, what about incentives for private philanthropy? we are looking at tax code,

looking at possibilities, provisions that were in the draft. i think you know how the recollection has been from the sector. what can we do to ensure that private philanthropy remains as healthy as possible and engamed with the boots on the ground? >> we will not solve these problems and get people out of poverty in the lasting way without private philanthropy, without private charity, without good works, and so digressing for a moment on the ways and means side, if you noticed that draft, the one thing it did preserve of owl the expenditures out there was donating to charities, private philanthropy. that a very important distinction that i think needs to be noted. there are some other good ideas, like letting people file -- take their donations that occur up until april 15th to claim on their tax return. a lot of innovative ideas will

help pull money interest the charity sector, and tax policy is a big way to do that. the right kind of tax policy can help integrate and expand civil society by encouraging giving, but the other thing is, i think a lot of the problems we have is the federal government is displacing and crowding out and competing with private charity in many ways. the purpose of this is to stop that competition, and respect the good works being done by people on the ground, experimentation occurring. what the federal government can do better is provide resources. what private charities, public charities, nonprofit, to profit, can provide expertise, boots on the ground and customization, and so by respecting these various roles we can big grate the rules so they work better at the end of the day, and that to me is -- what we ought to do if we want to truly get everybody working the same direction and focused on an outcome-based,

results-based policy. and i think tax incentives like we have in the code are something that ought to be preserved. so that we keep this part of civil society or social capital going. >> thank you, congressman ryan, i wish you all would stay seated while congressman ryan leaves. >> we have come to the end of the session. very grateful to congressman ryan to our panel, and to all of you for giving us your time and joining us in the war for america's poor. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> this weekend on booktv's after words. >> i thought it would be compelling to tell the story of

a white family and a black family with the same name, who come from the same place, and follow them from slavery through the civil war, reconstruction, jim crow, civil rights movement, up until today. and compare and contrast. >> columnist and author chris tomlinson on his family's slave-owning history in texas, and how he legacy of slavery still affects american society. he talked with la vair tomlinson, the brother of ladanian tomlinson, about their family's lineage as former slaves from the hill. saturday night at 10:00 eastern on c-span's after words. >> next month on book tv's in depth. former republican congressman and presidential candidate ron paul has written more than a dozen books on politics and history, with his latest, the school revolution, on

americans' education system. he will take your calls, e-mails and tweetses live for three hours, sunday, august 3rd, and tune in next month for francis bearry and court sessions are discussed. and michael corda is arrogation in -- our guest. >> the house judiciary overcriminallization task force has been looking into the growing number of federal crimes with the goal of recommending ways to streamline the federal justice system. in the past five years, congress has created 400 new criminal statutes. this task force hearing included testimony by the former president of the national association of criminal defense lawyers, and a georgetown law

school professor. this is an hour. >> task force will be in order. we have to get this hearing in before the votes start between 11:30 and noon. even though it's notice for 10:30, i think the time for opening statements will burn up the time between now and 10:30, so we can get to the witnesses. i would like to welcome everyone to the -- the judiciary committee's over criminalization task force. the tenth and final hearing with criminal phoneses on ñhe book roles the judiciary committee sure disk plays on this issue -- jurisdiction plays on the issue. thec task force has examine end many important topics in this area. gabeed valuable perspective on the issues from a number of highly qualified witnesses, two of which rejoin us for today's hearing. i anticipate that they will be able to provide this body with meaningful insight, into the

subject of today's hearing, and i appreciate their continued cooperation and the furtherance of the goals of the task force. despite at the fact it is generally accepted the federal government does not possess a general police power, recent studies concluded the number of federal criminal offenses on the books has grown from less than 20, which were directly related to the operation of the federal government in the years following this nation's founding, to nearly 5,000 today. which cover many types of to be left to visit states by the framers. at the count rate the congress passes an average of over 500 new crimes every decade. this surge is highlighted bay particularly telling statistic. nearly 50% of the federal criminal provisions enacted since the civil war have been enacted since 1970. the sheer number of federal crimes leads to a number of concerns. issues of notice and fairness

where legal practitioners not to mention the general public have difficulty in determining if certain conduct violates federal law, and if so, under which statute. the disorganization, decentralization and duplicative nature of the federal collection of criminal laws needs to be addressed. if have introduced legislation to do just that and the criminal code modernization and simplification act. this will would cut a third of the existing criminal code, re-organize the code to make it more=- user-friendly, and consolidate criminal points from other titles so the title 18 includes all major criminal provisions. there are likely a number of reasons for this rapid expansion of federal criminal law, including the fact that many criminal statutes are draft evidence r evidence herredly in response to pressure from the media or public and often duplicate offenses already on the books and omit critical elements such as the valid mens

rea or criminal intense. interpretation of the house rules that is possible and not uncommon for new criminal legislation to make its way to the house floor without ever receiving proper scrutiny from the judiciary committee. this committee is comprised of lawmakers and professional staff with expertise in drafting criminal provisions in the able to avoid redundancy through situational awareness of the entire body of federal criminal law. as we move toward wrapping up the business of the task force in addition to other potential recommendations, we should consider pursuing an amendment to the rules clarifying the jurisdiction of the committee with respect not only to criminal law enforcement but criminalization and criminal offense legislation as well. again, i would like to thank our witnesses for appearing today. would also like to thank the members of the task force for their service over the past year in the coming month is hope we

can begin to come together to address many of the concerns over criminalization, that have been identified. before i introduce mr. scott for his opening statement, i would like to ask unanimous consent to include from -- for the record a memorandum dated july 21, 2014, from he office of the house parliamentarian and a crs report entitled "subject updated criminal offenses eneighted from 2008 to 2013," dated july 7, 2014, into the record and without objection it is so ordered and now my pleasure to introduce the gentleman from virginia, mr. scott. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, we have created the task force in recognition of the need address the explosive growth of the federal prison population and the dramatic expansion of the u.s. criminal code. the five decades congress has

increasingly addressed societal problems by adding a criminal provision to the federal code, too often in a knee-jerk fashion, charging ahead with the same failed, tough on crime policy and addressing the crime of the day, instead of legislating thoughtfully and with the benefit of evidence-based research. when it comes to criminal law on only those matters that cannot be handled by the state need to be served by the federal government. what purpose creating crimes at the federal level if if the duplicate crimes in the state. why is there a federal carjacking statute. state and local law enforcement investigate it and prosecutor carjacking effectively for years, long before congress made it's federal crime. two weeks nothing testimony before the task force, judge irene kelly reamended us of the following recommendations made by the judicial conference in 1995. regarding five types of criminal offenses deemed appropriate for federal jurisdiction.

offenses against the federal government, or itself inherent interests, criminal activity with stance shat multistate or international aspects. criminal activity involving complex commercial or institutional enter prizes most effect effectively prosecuted using federal resources and expertise, and serious wide-spread state or local corruption, and criminal cases raising highly sensitive issues. we ignored these recommendations earlier this month, a congressional research service of the library of congress informed us that 403 criminal provisions were added to the u.s. code between 2008 and 2013, for an average of 67 new crimes a year. of those 403 new provisions, 39 were not even referred to the judiciary committee. the past several years we have estimated there were 4500 federal crimes. now the new estimate from crs is

approximately 5,000. in addition to the 5,000 crimes in the u.s. code there are approximately 300,000 federal regulations enforced with criminal penalties. several witnesses have testified that many of the -- lack a criminal intent or mens rea requirement to protect those who do not intend to commit wrongful acts from prosecution. witnesses suggested enactment of a defull mens rea as well as legislating the rule of lenity as an appropriate fix for exiting statutes and regulations. also heard concerns about federal agencies promulgation of regulations that carry criminal sanctions. it's time for congress to put an to end that practice, reclaim that authority, and retain sole discretion in terming which actions are criminal and what sanctions are appropriate when dep police vacation of one's liberty is at stake. regulations can still by enforced with civil penalties

but when criminal penalties are considered congress should be involved. the result of decadeds of more and more activities has been the growth of the federal prison population from 25,000 in 1980, do over 200,000 today. making the united states the world's leader in incarceration, seven times the international average. the pew center on. the states estimates incarceration rate over 350 per 100,000, the crime reduction value diminishes because you have all the dangerous people locked up. also learned from the collateral consequences that more than 65000 -- excuse me -- 65 million americans are now stigmatized by the criminal convictions, bombarded by over 45,000 collateral consequences of this conviction, making re-entry and job prospects dim. s' in spite of the research that

over 350 per 100,000 population yields diminishing returns and the pew researcher in also said that anything over 500 per 100,000 is cars counter-producttively. the united states leads the world in over 700 per 100,000. that's because unnecessarily locking up people wastes money that could be to better use, families disrupted and making the next generation more likely to commit crimes, and we lock up well over 700 per 100,000. the testimony received during this hearings has constantly told us that longer sentences are not the answer, yet we continue to create more times, increase sentences and add more mandatory minimums. mandatory minimums have specifically been studied, extensively and have been shown to disrupt rational sentencing patterns, discriminate against minors, weather taxpayer money,

do nothing to reduce crime and often require judges to impose sentences that violate common sense. a code is defined as a systemic and comprehensive compilation of laws, rules, regulations consolidated and classified according to subject matter. our criminal code is not a criminal code by that definition. federal criminal offenses are spread all over the 5 titles of the u.s. code, making it virtually impossible for practitioners not to mention an ordinary citizen to make any sense out of it. it's time not only to move all criminal provisions into one title, title 18, but clean up and revise it as recommended by witnesses in previous task force hearings. we no need to consider how to proceed. we also need to how to proceed and whether or not this should be done by congress itself or by an appointed commission. it's time we consider evidence-based research and make wiser policies in our sentencing.

we're wasting billioned of dollars in crime policy that has been failing for for decades and it's time we look for more reasoned approach to the issue of incarceration, understanding that not every offense requires a long sentence of incarceration. mr. chairman, while this is a final task force hearing, there's still much more too do and i look forward to working with you in drafting a consensus report, printing presenting it to the full committee and making the necessary actions to improve our criminal justice system. >> the time of they has expired. without objection all members' opening statements will be placed in the record at this point. it is now my pleasure to introduce the witnesses. first is dr. john s. baker, jr., who is the visiting professor at georgetown law school, a visiting fellow at oriole college university of oxford, and emeritus proffer at law at alsu law school also teaches short courses on the separation of power for the federalist society with sprem court justice

antonin school a ya. dr. baker previously worked as a federal court clerk and assistant district attorney in new orleans and has served as a consultant to the u.s. department of justice, u.s. senate judiciary subcommiteye on separation of powers, the white house office of planing, usaid. he was a fulbright scholar in the philippines and a fulbright specialist in chile. dr. baker served as law clerk in federal district court and assistants to the stir district attorney in yourself. while a professor he has been a consultant, of the state department and the justice department, he has served on the aba task force, which issued the report, the federalization of crime. he received his bachelor of arts degree from the university of dallas, his jd from the university of michigan law school, and his ph.d in political thought from the university of london.

mr. steven d. benjamin is the president of the national association of criminal defense lawyers. the nacdl is a professional bar association founded in 1958. its members include private criminal defense lawyers, public defend efforts, active duty u.s. military defense counsel, law professors and judges, committed to preserving fairness within america's criminal justice system. he is in private practice at the virginia firm of benjamin and deport. he serves a special counsel to the virginia senate courts of justice committee and is a member of the virginia board of forensic science and virginia indigent defense commission. he previously served the president of the virginia association of criminal defense lawyers. i would like to ask each of you to confine your remarks to five minutes. you know what the red, yellow and green lights mean.

without objection, your full written statements will be placed in the record, and dr. baker, you're first. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr. ranking member and members of the congress. i testified here twice before and i appreciate -- >> turn your mic on. >> push. >> i've testified here twice before and i thank the committee for -- task force force allowing me to come back. actually i'm coming back on the issue i started out on, on my own, which is counting federal crimes, and i have to concur with everything that i've heard before the the problem of federal courts and i began with the numbers, and while numbers are not everything, they do tell a certain story. i want to do three things quickly. one, talk a little bit about what the numbers are. two, where are we going with the numbers, and, three, what is the significance of these numbers. when i testified on the november 13th i mentioned the tremendous number of federal crimes and really the unknown

number of federal regulatory offenses. after that, this task force asked the congressional research service to conduct a doesn't from 2008 to 2013, which is where my last count left off, they came up with the number of 403 new federal crimes. that's not counting regulatory offenses. that's just from the u.s. code. and it's important to say that the counts from crs, my count, and the department of justice counts, have used fundamentally and that is important for it seems to me, is what this says about the average number of crimes and the total number of crimes. when i did the count in 2008, as of 2008, there were 4,450 crimes at least.

crs has noted we have an additional 403 crimes. at that time brings us up at least to 4,853 crimes, almost 5,000 crimes. it means that essentially, congress is passing 500 new crimes a decade. now, the aba task force i served on back in the nine's, the notation was that since the civil war, 40% of all federal crimes since the civil war have been passed since 1970. from 1970 until about 1996. well, when you add what has again on since 1996, we're close to -- we're approaching 50% of all federal crimes ever enacned this country have been en, ad since 1970, and that was the beginning of the war on crime, which we haven't been winning that war too well. what does this mean for the future?

well, the rate of crimes appears possibly to be increasing. when i did my count it was 56-point 5 crimes a year. crs count shows 67-point something per year. now, that number may be skewed because in 19 -- 2008, congress passed 195 crimes. what is the significance of all this? well, if you talk to an assistant u.s. attorney -- and i've debated a number of former assistant u.s. attorney, they will tell you the numbers mean nothing. they don't use all these crimes. and they're right. and in a certain sense they don't mean that much to the prosecutor or to the judges because they're only so many cases that you can bring in federal court. but where they're really important is in law enforcement. that we have plenty of law enforcement agencies out there that do searches and seizures and arrests in cases that never actually get even indictment, much less trial.

given the broad array of crimes there's virtually nothing that you can't get a basis for probable cause on, which is the basis for arrests, search and seizure. there's a lot of concern in this country,j ó rightly, about pri. but i think people ought to be focusing on the fact that surveillance is not just a matter of, quote, privacy, it's a matter of the police power. the federal government, which the supreme court has stated twice in recent years, has.#y o general police power. in reality de facto it has complete police power and we're going to see it in see surveillance. people have been focusing on nsa but think about drones. there is nothing a drone can't search, basically, because there's every possibility for coming up with the basis of it. and some of the federal agencies will conduct raids that will never result in an indictment,

or if it does result in an indictment, will not result on those crimes. it's easy to couple up with a rico charge, and a money laundering charge and seize somebody's property. that is the reality of where the real power is. i think that this task force has done amazing job of bipartisanship, and coming together and identifying the problem. now it is necessary for your colleagues, in both houses to understand what the problem is. you're taking this tremendous power and dumping it in the executive branch, with various agencies that in reality have their own agendas. i'm not saying they're bad agents, but their agendas, and there's really lack of control over what is happening out there in the field. thank you for allowing me to make this statement. >> the, dr. baker. mer benjamin. >> mr. chairman and members of the task force, i'm steve benjamin, the immediate past president of the national association of criminal defense lawyers, this country's

preeminent bar association, sad vaning the goals of justice and due process for persons accused of crime. on behalf of nacdl i commend the house judiciary committee for creating the overcriminallization task force and congratulate they task force for its impressive work over the paste year. i'm especially grateful for the leadership and port of two members of my own congressional delegation, whose work on this critical issue demonstrates the danger of overcriminallization transcends the traditional ideological divide. this problem is real and it affects us all. the sheer number of federal offenses, 4800 at last count, with 439 new enactments since 2008, competes only with our number of prisoners, a number greater than any nation on earth, as the most visible consequence of overcriminallization; but the consequences of this problem extend far beyond the number of those imprisoned or stigmatized.

one such consequence is the difficult diof being a law-abiding citizen. criminal law is enforced by punishment, fairness and reason require adequate advance notice of conduct that is considered criminal. adequate notice of prohibited conduct permits people to conform their conduct to the law. and at the same time, justifies punishment when they cross a clearly drawn line. notice is especially important in a legal system that presumes a knowledge of the law, before punishing someone for breaking the law we should ensure the law is knowable. this is especially true where the conduct is not wrongful in itself and the offense requires no criminal intent. criminal laws must be accessible not only to laypersons but also to the lawyers whose job it is to identify those laws and advise their clients. the problem, however, is that the federal statutory crimes in the 10,000 to 300,000 federal

regulations that can be enforced criminally, are scattered throughout 51 titles titles tite and 50 chaptered of the cfr. nacdl does not have a position where all criminal statutes should be organized into a single title. common skins would dictate that most criminal provisions should reside in a single title unless clear evidence exists a particular criminal provision belongs elsewhere. fair notice goes beyond being able to electric indicate statutes. it includes clarity in drafting, precise definition, and specificity and scope. with rare exception the government should not be per midsted to punish a person without having to prove that she acted with a wrongful intent. and criminal law should be understandable. when the average citizen cannot determine what constitutes unlawful activity in order to confirm her con doubt the law that is unfairness in the most basic form. unfortunately when legislating criminal offenses congress has

failed to speak clearly and with specificities, hat failed to determine the necessity of new criminal provisions and failed to assess where targeted conduct is already prohibited or better addressed by state law. while the cause of these failures are not clear the exclusions are. congress should approach new criminalization with caution, and ensure that the drafting and review of all criminal statutes and relations is done with deliberation and specialization with and expertise. this committee has a the broad perspective required to properly draft and design criminal laws is this congressional evaluation should include judiciary committee consideration prior to passam. this could be guaranteed by changing congressional rules to require every bill that would ad or my criminal offenses or penalties to be subject to automatic referral to the relevant judiciary comet committee.

these members are far better suited to encourage members to seek judiciary committee review of any bills containing new or modified criminal offenses. hopefully such oversight would stem the tide of criminalization and result in clearer, more specific, understandable criminal offenses with meaningful criminal intent requirement and would reduce the number of times criminal lawmakerring authority would be del gated to un -- del gated to unelected regulators. these comments are limited to the issues i was invited to address. the problems overcriminallization or pervasive and the measures necessary to reform go beyond -- fur they ever discussion is contained in my written testimony. thankwe'll continue to support d assist you however we can. >> thank you very much, mr. benjamin.

the chair is going reserve his questioning to the end of the questions, assuming we still have time before the bell rings and the chair at this time recognizes the gentleman from alabama, mr. backus. i thank the chair. i was looking at mr. benjamin's testimony, both your testimony but i think we're to the point where we're ready to act, hopefully. we know the problem. it's been reinforced several times. we have gotten the message, and i think the key is, what do we do? and on page 9 of your testimony, mr. ben gentleman pin, you -- benjamin you suggest four things -- i know congressman scott has mentioned one or two of these -- one is changing congressional rules to require every bill that would add or modify criminal

offenses or penalties be subject to automatic referral to the relevant judicial committee. and i think that's very important. because as you say this is the committee with the expertise. two, enact a statutory law establishing a default criminal intent requirement to be read into any criminal offense that currently lacks one. three, -- it says this requirement should be protective enough to prevent unfair prosecutions and should apply retroactively to all or nearly all existing laws. and actually know that's a rall radical idea but i believe in that. and i think there ought to be something where you can go before a judge and present evidence or go before a board,

particularly some of these environmental crimes. i mentioned several cases of where people discovered hazardous waste on the property and reported it, but they weren't -- couldn't afford to dispose of it fast enough, and a lot of these cases -- i talked to a former congressman, energy in commerce, was dealing with this and he said we had a lot of these cases in the '80s, and early '90s we kept trying to do something but couldn't figure out what do and maybe that's because it wasn't judiciary. the next thing -- and the -- on strict liability. your association urges strict liability, not be imposed in a criminal law as a general matter. where strict liability is deemed necessary, the body only

employed only after full deliberation and then only if explicit in the statute. i think that we ought to say if it's not explicit in the to statute, there's no strict liability. we could -- the fourth one is that i did not know this, but -- i'll say this to members of the panel -- the bottom of the pain he says, supreme court has cautioned against the imposition of strict liability in criminal law and has stated that all but minor penalties may be constitutionally impermissible without any intent requirement. we have said several times in our deliberations and witnesses have, that without an intent requirement, i can see a minor fine but when you're talking about putting someone in jail for a year and a day, that's pretty scary. but i would just say -- i would ask both of you to give us five

or six specific statutes that we can do or your association can -- and even draft some just as a model, and we could look at them. and i think that would be particularly helpful. i really appreciate your testimony, and, dr. baker, you have been here before, and this to me is such an important thing because i think we have seen travesties of justice. we have seen people with no criminal intent. and if anything else, the government can use that power to force them to do things just with the threat. they don't have to get a conviction. they can just -- and you could really -- it could be used in a way that we see some countries around the world that use the judicial process simply to put people in jail that stand in their way of whoever -- whatever

their goal is, and i hate that on certain cases people with agendas have maybe done that here. it's a shame because that's not a america. that's not what our constitutional forefathers envisioned. my time is up. ... >> even today most cases the overwhelming numbers are prosecuted at the state level. it is more or less on a state bases that prosecutors pick cases.

sometimes there is conflict with local law enforcement in terms of where the jurisdiction is fighting over high profile cases. other time it is based on money. when i was prosecuting in new orleans we had longer offenses than the federal. so the federal drug cases, the federal agents would steer into our courts because of the longer sentences. some states, the drug people will steer the case still into state court if there is a tougher i am not sure what you are trying to do. would it overwhelm the state? is that what you are talking about? >> so we want to defer to the state as a general matter. one of the previous witnesses said in ascertaining and you go

through the list ofthi things you consider the penalties wasn't on their list of things that were legitimate to consider. do you agree with that? >> no. >> that you can pick and chose your jurisdiction? >> absolutely. we did it. >> well, yeah. and we did it in richmond and people brag about the project exile worked >> i have an article against project exile. i will show it to you. >> without pointing out the crime rate went down because of project exile but in other cities without project exile the crime rate went down more. >> exactly. i pointed that out in my article. mr. benjamin, you mentioned notice, how do you -- if you have mens ray you had criminal

intent, but how else do you get notice so the people know they are committing a crime? >> well, you make the laws accessible. now, if someone wants to determine in advance whether their conduct is criminal, they have to hire a lawyer to answer that question and then the lawyer has to find the statute within the 51 titles of the code. it is nearly an impossible task and that is why we hedge our bets. few lawyers are going to say you can do that. it is because the law permits such uncertainty. it is so ambigously written that it is impossible to know whether proposed conduct is lawful or unlawful. >> is that why the rule of linty is so important? >> that is exactly why. >> can you say a word about the overlapping crimes in state and federal and what it does for the

so-called trial penalty? >> i certainly can. the trial penalty is the penalty for going to trial. meaning that if you -- let me back up. because i think it is a unique and cherished american value consistent with freedom and liberty that if the government accuses itself of a crime and threatens to take away our freedom we have the right to stand up to the government and not only deny it but make them prove it to say, oh, yeah, prove it. but we have completely lost that right because if we go to trial, either because we want to make the government prove their allegation or challenge their constitutionality of a dubious statute or because we are innocent, we can no longer do that, because if we lose our bid to challenge the government, then we face staggering

mandatory mim me sentences that stack against us and beat us into guilty pleas. >> are there problems in consolidating all of the codes in the title 18 or would it be better to have them spread around where the crime goes with the subject matter like the agriculture code? >> well, first of all, when the proposed federal criminal code came before the judiciary committee committee the real problem was in organize the code, people didn't pay attention to the many provisions. in one sense it was a code but in another sense the federal government shouldn't have a code. a code is a comprehensive

statement of federal law. if you believe that congress has only limited powers and has to justify it on familiar anumerated powers than it is difficult to create a code without expanding federal power. my main concern is even with an attempt to limit power it would end up expanding power. >> mr. conyers. your time is now. >> this is our 10th hearing and both of you have been here before. this is a good place and a good point to begin with and that is how do you see the cumulative

effect and impression and understanding that we have gleamed from the ten hearing this year and last year. dr. baker, why don't you start us off than that. >> if i compare back to trials from when i was a law clerk and federal trials now the shift of power is what stands out and how the power shifted toward federal law enforcement to the point where, not everyone, but there is a certain arrogance that prevades the prosecutors. and it goes with the territory unfortunately. when you give anybody too much power they will use it. and i don't mean they are using it for what they perceive to be bad things. they believe what they are doing is the right thing. when they resign and become

criminal defense attorneys they get a different perspective and they realize maybe we were too aggressive. i have been on panels with former asas and they have said that. there are three perspectives: the prosecutor, the defense, and the judge/jury and they are not the same perspectives and there has to be a balance and i think the balance is too much in favor of federal prosecution. >> but state crimes are far more numero numero numerous than federal. >> here is the difference. you know from detroit i can tell you people trying to arrest people are running around dealing with crimes they have to.

you have the target and figure out what you can nail them on. that is not the way local federal prosecutors work. >> attorney benjamin, would you weigh in on this decision, please. >> i agree with dr. baker. the most striking facet of the current state of the criminal justice system and the most dramatic change when i first began 35 years ago to defend criminal cases is the overbalance of power. federal criminal defense now is all about negotiating a resolution. that is all it is. it is no longer about guilt or innocence. guilt is presumed by the prosecution at least. and they have the tools

available to compel the guilty plea so that is not a question even. it is all about snitching out, cooperating, doing whatever you have to to get the leniencey and fair treatment that you seek. >> so what then do we bring to our full judiciary committee and had house of representatives in terms of these ten hearing that we have had this your and last year? i mean, what can we take and i want to commend the chairman and ranking members for having put this together as they have. but where do we go from here? >> i think the immediate thing is reform of the mens raya

problem. the immediate band aid that is necessary is a default rule where none appear in criminal statute and a rule of construction that applies this to all material elements. >> a single mens ray standard? >> no, uniform standards. clearly defined across the board. >> and what would you add, dr. baker? >> i have been trying to draft the statute and it isn't easy because of the way federal crimes are drafted and how differently they are. i would add to those two things i endorse cheer definitions of crime. what is a felony and misdemeanor

and non-criminal offense is a way to deal with this. this is the in the model penal code but not many states adopted it. you have a provision for non-criminal offenses and that strict liability is limited to those. if you thing they need to be prosecuted, fine, but the stigma of crime isn't on there. >> the gentlemen from georgia mr. johnson. >> as i listen to the testimony and did reading, i was impressed with the fact that dr. baker in your paper you site statistics showing that in 1983 it was estimated there were 3,000 criminal offenses in the code.

and in 1998, you cited doj figures of 3,000. >> one was by doj, the first one. and the other involved the same person but different methods were use and that is why the different numbers. >> i see. but it doesn't indicate there was no growth in the number -- >> there was growth but -- >> it may or may not have been 300. >> it was more than that. >> that is a modest assessment. 3300 as of 98. and between 1998-2008 that 10-year period saw a rise for

44, 050. >> the 1998 figure isn't reliable because it didn't follow the method -- >> you think it was higher? >> it was much higher. >> the doj i used by e-mail told to me by the person who conducted it. we explained that method to crs and they followed that. but in the 1998, they didn't break particular statutes down into the various crimes within one statute. they simply counted the statutes. >> i see. and between 2008-2013 you say there is an addition 303. it puts us according to the report close to 5,000.

and it looks like 1983-2008 was an ex explosion in the number of human beings we have implies in the country. and at the same time we have had the growth of the conservative movement in the country calling for less government and taxes. when you put on top of that the fact that you are needing more prisons, more jail space and prisons, you have seen a growth in the private prison industry. in fact, 1983, 3,000 and 2013

close to 5,000. 1984 it should be noted is when the corrections corporation of america, which is the largest private prison for-profit corporation, that is the year that was founded. 1984. and since that time they have experienced exponential growth to the point where they, along with another big one -- i forget the name. gpc or something like that. those corporations are publically held corporations selling stock on wall street. what connection do you see between the growth of the private prison industry and the

amount of contributions they make to legislators, including on the federal level, and the growth in the prison industry. the growth in the prison industry and lobbying and the growth in statutes putting people in prison. what connection do you see? >> i can draw a connection between the growth and certain things. i represented a sheriff in louisiana who built the largest public prison system and the whole thing was funded by federal dollars. he took in federal prisoners because the federal rate was much higher than the state rate. there is a connection in terms of the growth of prisons but on the conservative side, especially in texas and louisiana, they are understanding this is bankrupting the states. so you have some conservatives flipping and calling for a

reducti reduction in state criminal penalties even because they realize the growth of and the expenses are unsustainable. >> mr. chairman -- >> the gentlemen has expired. >> can i make one last statement? i would imagine we will see a rise in lobbying cost that are incurred by the private prison industry. >> the gentlemen from new york mr. jeffries. >> thank you, mr. chairman and let me thank the witnesses for your presence and continued contributions to the efforts of this panel. attorney benjamin you mentioned something that was troubling and dr. baker you agreeed. federal criminal defense has

simply become negotiations efforts toward resolution. that seems inconsistent with the notions that have served to underguard our criminal justest system with the presumtion of incense. it seems once someone is investigated or indicted by our government that the only real option available to someone who in theory should be presumed innocent, is to negotiate the most favorable resolution which likely results in a sanctions and/or jail time. so the question is how do we unpack this dynamic in a way that allows this task force, the house, this congress, to make a meaningful impact? i would suggest, and i would like to get the observations of

both of you, that it seems to me there has to be a way to rein in the inappropriate exercise of prosecution decision making. you referenced the term arrogance that exist and perhaps among prosecutors and i believe the majority are operating in good faith. but who has the capacity to oversee the prosecution behavior and the decision making and what consequences are there when inappropriate public policy is being made? >> the power of oversight and rein in federal prosecution presides with the doj or the u.s. attorney for a given district. the reality however is that

rarely will these individuals want to interfere with career prosecutors who are on the line. to make take a look at the tools being used to produce the result and the biggest problem is the existence and the expansion of m mandatory sentence. they can in their charging decision threaten 10, 20, 30 lifetime mandatory sentences. if someone is convicted, we say i understand you are innocent and maybe you have a triable case but if you lose you will get a life sentence. >> dr. baker, i want you to respond but i want to add this

observations. federal prosecutors have absolutely immunity in the context -- >> as long as they are not getting out of prosecution. sometimes they get involved in the investigation. >> in the context of the prosecution they have absolute immunity. law enforcement has qualified immunity. is that something we should explore? >> i guess as a former prosecutor i liked absolute immunity when i had it. i have not given it enough thought. i think that there is a reason for immunitimmunity. the assumption is that a prosecutor is under the control, to some extent, of the judge in the way law enforcement is not. >> that is the assumption but the testimony we received is that is no longer the case.

article three federal judges even lost control. >> but the real responsibility is with the president and the attorney general. the political reality is i don't care what party you are talking about it depends on the particular u.s. attorney and how they got appointed and whether they have a senator protecting them. >> one last observation. the problem we confont is to rectify the damage done but also how we can return to a cycle that isn't endless statute being added to the book. it is often the case elected officials react to the public and that is the constitutional charge to the house of representati representatives. but when you rerespond to the

public, that results in perhaps doingthi things that are not in our best interest. and i would encourage all of us to think about that dynamic as we move forward. >> thank you very much. the time of the gentlemen expired. >> let me recognize byself for five minutes to wrap up and this is more comments of looking at the last year and what we have been able to discover. first of all, i want to thank the witnesses for appearing. the two authorizations have scratched the surface of what needs to be done. the congress and agencies have been putting more and more layers on the onion and we are beginning to peel off the ones on the outside and that just asks more questions. looking at how we got to this i

think in order to stop this from getting worse we have to very figerously pursue a change in house rules. and some of the lapses that allowed other communities that don't know much about the criminal law to make criminal law is the fact that the judiciary committee hasn't been very figerous in asserts its jurisdiction and that has to stop. once we lose jurisdiction because we didn't claim it then it is much harded to get it back and they will forget us about when they refer bills. exchanges of letters and further legislation is necessarily. we will need help in developing a default statute. that means when there is not a

specific criminal intent there will be one. if there is a specific one, the default statute doesn't apply. and you have to have a criminal intent as one of the elements in terms of obtaining an inindictment or conviction. in order to get at the proliferation of criminal penalties some of them are statutory and some are done administratively. i would like to see the judiciary committee draft and get past and enact into law a s sunset provision of all administration criminal penalties. the committee could then ask each agency to come in and justify which of the criminal penalties they wish to have continued on the statute books

and why. and if they can not justify that in order to get a reenactment through the congress then those administrative penalties would vanish and we would not have to worry about them anymore. i think a way to stop on the anti-duplication provisions of of the code is to start scrubbing the bills of this congress and the two proceeding congresss which were designed to reorganize the code and put sense into it so you can see what activities were criminal in nature without having to go to a lawyer who can never give them a definitive answers because no matter how hard the lawyer tries they will never be able to find what statutes are involved in that. and i know that in the few days

we have left in the congress none of this is going to be accomplished. however, i would hope as we prepare to start the next congress we will be able to, in a bipartisan manner, which is certainly permiated this task force to pick up each of the areas to figure out what we can do and get enacted into law. i think while the american public will not see an immediate change in how we approach criminal issues, that there will be something that will be long-term that will deal with many of the results of our over criminalization. i want to thank the witnesses and the members of the task force for putting in a lot of time and doing a lot of good work. we have probably the first to two layers off the onion but there are many more we have to go.

so without objection this subcommittee hearing is adjourned. dhttp://www.okcupid.com /profile/philomath28?cf=search_ overlay dot d

is not trying to second-guess the policy maker but do some work to help them look over the horizon to see zero i will confront five years or 10 years from now and how i will think strategically into the future.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning fed hearing will come to order refocus on iraq u.s. policy to fully examine the crisis in iraq and the broader context across the region. earlier this year i held a hearing from the spillover

from the syrian conflict and how it would impact the neighboring countries. now we would see the danger is is so with the sectarian violence and isis and any real border dissolution and the designation by isis across syria and iraq turning to pay a security vacuum in the heart of the middle east while today's hearing will the focus specifically on the regional threat posed by isis or u.s. syria policy i want to take this opportunity to restate my long-held position that we must enhance our support to the moderate syrian opposition the only ones willing to challenge isis and other al qaeda affiliates. at the end of the day supporting these forces is one step of a broader policy in the region. noah should be surprised

iraq is a victim but we should be extremely concerned by the rapid expansion of isis with iran's clear involvement and we should be dismayed by the convenient alignment of syrian interest in response to recent developments and at its core this is about self preservation betsy to maintain power to destabilize the others to keep the weak government susceptible and in my view of iraq does not have to proceed down this path and it is up to the leaders to chart a different course for their country. i am deeply disappointed after years of investment and time and resources sale loss of american allies and the commitment of billions of dollars to support the political developments with irresponsible or cable security force they deserted

the communities they were responsible for protecting and fled. at the same time isis expansion across sirach and the community and tribes would not have been possible except for the accumulation of years of corrupt policies from baghdad. iraq has the potential to be economically process -- prosperous model for others in the region and leaders have focused on the interest for too long at the expense to build up the iraqi. now it is said the leaders to form a national unity government truly represented with the recent progress to nominate a speaker and today's promising news that a president has been named directors iraq's leaders to finalize the government for

all iraqis allowed it forms the next government the department of defense completes the iraqi security forces of afford to hearing the recommendations provided by u.s. advisers going forward to counter the threat. let me take a moment to highlight the dangerous situation of minority communities in iraq and iraqi christians i recently joel ain't as senator in a meeting with archbishop with the description that isis has conflicted is truly horrifying and i hope witnesses today we'll share the steps administration is taking to looking at the situation of iraqi christians. she has asked i submit letters for the record which

i will do without objection and afford to work from her with this issue. also want to of knowledge of the iraqi ambassador to the united states is an attendance today and we will come hand here. i received a letter from the ambassador asking that congress and the administration make the u.s. commitment to iraq clear by providing support in assistance to turn the tide began its isis of the government take steps to broaden the base to a accelerate the formation of the government. without objection i will submit this to the congressional record i hope to hear from the witnesses today whether or not they believed iraqi leaders are capable or able to form a representative government what is required to turn the tide against rises if there is a new government what

should redo touche demonstrate support? >> thank you, mr. chairman thank you to the witnesses for being here in and i iraq seems to be disintegrating as the terrorist organization isis now controls the second largest city and fallujah and others all those is difficult vietnam bird isis managed to over whelm entire divisions of the iraqi army many removed their uniforms and ran an isis has claimed credit for recent string of bombings in baghdad and responsible for system hypersecretion of christians and being forced to flee their homes under penalty of death.

the reports that last month was the deadliest since 2008 with the iraqis killed two-thirds were civilians. for those of us that were here during the debate of the surge it is hardly the outcome that could have been imagined back then and the intelligence picture in iraq is inadequate this situation does not surprise us for two reasons. the crisis is connected to the disaster in syria which our country is largely ignored. isis militants have long enjoyed freedom across the of border across the embar province and was in control of fallujah four months prior to said takeover a in mosul. since 2009 maliki has

systematically politicized the entire structure of their iraqi security forces replacing competent commanders with incompetent and loyal commanders to create a more sectarian institution that scarce that average of iraqi. despite the connection to syria is important to know it is not just innovation. isis simply cannot hold this much territory while maintaining operations without hope on the ground was there we can look at this does the civil and sectarian war exacerbated the exploited by their growing terrorist threat. another signal how badly prime minister maliki has the population even if he leaves without political reconciliation amongst the key communities no amount of military support can make a

difference. on the other hand, if we do not help the iraqi government survived to hold territory now there is a possibility we will not be discussing reconciliation in a few months because the country could break apart. i hope we can confront the dilemma head-on to identify the right mix of security assistance and political steps to help give the country -- get the country back on track i hope to work with the administration to determine what we can do as a nation to show our up reconciliation among the leaders. want to thank you for being here today and look forward to is this hearing and on we believe is the most important steps moving forward. >> let me introduce our first panel with us today mr. mcgurk to assist return

from a six week trip assisting the embassy team in iraq and ms. slotkin has experience rating from intelligence community and the national security council to the state department now the defense department. let me remind both of you your false statements will be included in the record without objection i will ask you to summarize so members of the committee canning gauge with a dialogue and we will start with you mr. secretary. >> if morning. i think you for inviting us to discuss the situation with the focus on u.s. response with the attack on mosul seven weeks ago. why this matters it is al qaeda it may have changed the name more broken was senior leadership but it is al qaeda and the doctrine

and a threat to u.s. interest should there be any question of the intentions simply read what the leader says commit is important to pay attention because we cannot rest to underestimate the goals it capacity in breach of the organization. to eulogize the death of the osama bin live in and promised a violent response and many training camps are named after him and he regularly issues threats against united states promising a direct confrontation ended the feud with al-zawahiri and to lead the coble jihad. isil is a logger terrorist organization but a full-blown army through said tigris and euphrates valleys and now controls meese -- much of eastern syria now is in control of fallujah on

june 10th it moved into mosul. i arrived 80 kilometers east and i will begin there on june 7th. local officials and kurdish officials received early indications that isil was moving from syria into iraq two-stage forces. we asked and received permission in to deploy a force is on the eastern side but does it city of baghdad refused the appointments and iraqi military commanders promised to send forces in response but we thought they may not be arriving in time. the situation was tense and we urged additional security forces to protect against attack in the early hours isil had a suicide attack over the bridge about the resistance that totally collapse that led to a

snowball effect through the city's. of the results was catastrophic and in the approach to baghdad was under threat. that first thing she knows people we are safe and working with the iraqis. my written testimony sets forth the crisis response and reasserts and that people would be safe including contractors working at bases outside of baghdad with the help of the airforce. then we rebalance the staff to bring in the additional resources to secure the facilities and the president's direction and shoot will get the surveillance flights to a joint operation centers to deploy forces to assist a around the capital.

these initiatives were undertaken with regional diplomacy led by secretary kerry to focus on the threat. we've finally stock -- thought to stabilize the process thinking it took place at the most vulnerable moment after elections the prior to the formation of a new government. chosen last week. he is a moderate sunni arab elected with the overwhelming support from all major components in the new iraqi parliament. today, just about two hours ago, the new iraqi parliament elected a distinguished kurdish statesman to serve as the next president of iraq. he too was elected overwhelmingly with support from all major components in the newly elected parliament. iraqis are now proceeding along their constitutional timeline to choose a prime minister. which must happen within 15 days. as a president has said, it is not the place of the united states to choose iraq's leaders. it is clear,