especially encountering terrorism. first, how do we ensure the security of communication's and give communities the access a need under court orders? to protect our country and people? you have many countries coming in with many different sets of conditions. have how do we protect our networks. the same sets of messaging that can be used for communications can also be used to penetrate networks. you have two sets of issues that have to be looked at and debated. way henated with me the talked about it. i think he is right. we have to have the private sector, silicon valley, to sit

down and say, can we do both? what about our allies and other countries? that is the debate. it is not an easy answer. you can see both sides of the issue. aside.e to set that one we have to solve that problem. without it, we are going to have something bad happened. security, that is a different issue. how networks are secure. we should talk about that. it is not the same as communication's. if i look at that particular use case. what it tells me, security issues are only going to become more and more personalized in our society. the situation where you have terrorist organizations recruiting people on twitter. ofis a pointer to me

technology becoming a more personalized aspect of our lives. in particular, the upcoming generations. i think is going to be important for us, not just a focus on what is happening technology becomes more personalized and a part of what we are doing, we have to think around what are the indications of that from a policy perspective. a security perspective. communications. i don't want to wait until it happens. suzanne, i thought one of the great challenges of al qaeda was they had gone to using couriers to talk to each other. if the opposition is using the internet, is in that plane to our favor? playing to our favor? suzanne: not if they are taking advantage of christian

technology. that is the -- of encryption technology. the director talked about it. not a problem that government is going to force a solution to. he acknowledged it is something we need to consider in a granular way. not one problem. it is a range of technologies. if we try to solve it as if it is one problem, we are going to solve the hardest part first. that is inevitably what happens. let's take the easier technology first. work our way through. we do need to rebuild the trust that has made those conversations so difficult to have. find our way forward on this. to some degree, we need to a knowledge it may only be a

delay, delaying the inevitable. sectoran have a private conversation that buys us time, how we deal with a world where we don't have the access we once had, that is meaningful. i i will not belabor it but believe knowing who is talking to who is viable. -- invaluable. we no more than we might. i don't know if this happened on was watch, but i believe -- funded by the u.s. government. in that a mistake retrospect? christopher: i am not familiar tor. the origins of o

izes communications. i'm not sure with the original idea, some of them are good. you think, that makes sense under some conditions and not others. it depends how they are used. this is an issue of setting up policies and procedures which become difficult in an internet not easily governed. you think, if you want to anonymize for these reasons, it is ok but not if you are a bad guy or terrorist because we want to catch you. if we could get them to that deal, we would be ok. [laughter] tor was largely funded by the office of naval research so spies could communicate securely. let me use it to walk in the

question of crypto. last night, there was a pleased to find a compromise. are there ideas, first from a ofhnical side, to sort square the circle. protect privacy and make those things that law enforcement needs accessible? are there new ideas? christopher: -- keith: encryption is not new. we are talking about old techniques for protecting medications. what worries me is we are going to get focused on how the government can actually get betweeno communications

legitimate communications. a lot of what we see happening regularly, communication patterns will move. if we get too focused on if we worry about a specific translation following a set of guidelines, we will have to push the traffic elsewhere. abelieve we will have to take step and say, we have allergies to protect legitimate indications. -- communications. how do we step back and say, how do we get at and we are trying to solve? issues where some of the around information sharing, defining standards and norms, makes a lot of sense.

the administration have a single point of view on this? suzanne: there point of view is we support strong encryption. especially in the department of homeland security, we understand the value to cyber security, protection of diversey. advancing human rights. we also have a law enforcement mission. we understand the challenges presented. if you cannot access the communication's that our public policy says should be able to access. we are of one mind that is our position. answer isnow with the

or solution is. i agree with chris. conversation needs to be broader. partly i think because we need to think long term. even if we can come up with for some of these technologies short-term ways to buy some time, ultimately what we are looking is how do we use technology to be more safe and secure? it does have to be a broader conversation and that helps us get some of the technology folks to be table. john: the last time we had the conversation, the nsa was a big player. this time, the ball has been carried by the eia so far. is -- the fbi so far. i think clearly the leaks and issues on the table. it most impacts the fbi right now.

what the director talked about, all the threats he sees in the country and the problem ith encryption and not being able to see with the medications are. let's say you get 1000 the stooges. -- 1000 messages. that if the people cannot encrypt it. that is where the debate needs to go. table,can put on the other countries can create encryption's we cannot use. what does that do to this? chinao nationstates like -- and that makes it a complex

problem. there is no easy solution. unit, and mike can correct this later, this is a huge submission to protect this country. ones who stuck the new york city subway plot because they could read that communication. if not, that would have been huge. that is a discussion we have to have. the first part is, there is not an easy answer. the second part, that is a debate. i agree if there is a unique solution, it will come from some in our techators community. that is what we should put on the table. all the problems. see, does anybody have a good solution we could live with?

john: is there anybody in silicon valley who has technical solutions that would move the ball forward? noistopher: there are shortage of companies trying to race after this problem. i do think one practical solution we are not talking enough about, everybody would agree we have a shortage of cyber security expertise and professionals. even in silicon valley, i cannot toe good experts fast enough build the product we need to help customers on the ground with issues they have. one solution we can get after today, we should have a cyber court. -- corps. we should be training a larger group of people to deal necessarily geopolitical issues but the issues affecting citizens in the u.s..

it is almost equivalent to a cyber national guard. i worry very much about the citizen. he should assume his or her permission has been customized. when you add up the breaches, numbers, the average citizen has been compromised. we don't have enough people helping enforce against these issues or defend in the organizations holding a sensitive information getting out there in the first place. john: is a private sector problem? christopher: i can get is a private and alexander problem. imagine if he is having trouble recruiting, the challenge for the government. when i talk to folks like him, i want to make a deal. work with us to build the pipeline. we will take them right out of

school. give them a lot of response really fast, a sense of mission. you will lower them away with offers of big-box. -- big bucks. and then when they have made a lot of money, maybe they will miss the mission and come back. christopher: that is exactly what i want to do. a lot of our team is like that. people with military backgrounds, intelligence. we just don't have enough. we don't have enough people to make a dent in this problem. walter had the idea for the cyber corps, bringing in young people who serve one year. you get them training. they get the service and missions.

and then off to intel for big-box. back after a year. i think that is a good thing. notnne: even if they did end up going to work, having a is a of trained citizens good thing. keith: the reason that resonates about whaten i think are doing, they are often the fight for no reason at all for doing with the nation is asking. in 2013, in the midst of the snowden things, i got called down to the white house. it was called down. i sat across from the national security advisor. said, we have decided to do

a review group. i said, that is a great idea. they said, we have already selected the group. many pushes something across the table, that is not a good news. i read the first one. board member of the aclu. i'm not proud of this, i said you have got to be shitting me. they said, the president had already decided. we briefed the team. we had a big table. the guy from the aclu looked at me like i was darth vader. luke. i looked at him somewhat askance. he had ideas about how he could fix nsa. i gave him the briefing. we all left. for the next five weeks, our young people did the job.

100% transparency. later, he came around the table. to attack he is going me. he shook my hand. he said, you and your people have the greatest integrity of any agency i have ever seen. i was stunned. i said, don't tell me, tell the people of nsa. the white house and the american people. he said, i will. he wrote a set of things. he said, they are stopping terrorist attacks and acting with integrity and following the rule of law. it, a boardsigned member of the aclu. that really made the press. in this case, it is easier to vilify people and sell papers then put the facts out there.

[applause] perspective, this is a debate for the good of our country. these are great people working there. they are doing what we asked them. they hold themselves accountable. review, notths of one person was found doing anything wrong with the data. that is a good thing. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a debate. what it does mean is, you have to put the facts on the table's fax onamerican people -- the table so the american people can understand. it was a privilege and honor to serve with them. those are the same kinds of folks at dhs and other places. we come up on the outside come have got to help them. john: i wonder if there's a thought toward the encryption

problem. our system of government is based on checks and balances. can we change it so there are multiple parties accountable for the key? suzanne: it is something proposed and something experts have said is not adequately sufficiently secure. it does present a vulnerability. hnicalt enough of a tec expert but i think although these ideas need to be out there. -- iof the discussions to have a lot of smart creative people look at all kinds of answers.

, it has beenhelps presented as a debate of absolute sometimes. this absolutely secure technology. do to permit you access is going to make it completely insecure. neither of those things is actually true. what you are looking at is a spectrum. john: didn't you just try to have a 30 day sprint? what did you get to and not get done? suzanne: it was focused on identifying the high-value assets. this is basic cyber security framework. key assets, do risk assessment, and we started identifying the high-value assets in the government.

basic practices to protect those. make sure we can detect, respond, and recover. the 30 day sprint did that. we were participants in going after agencies with the highest value assets. scanning those. looking at the scorecards. making sure some of the basic steps, departments and agencies had put those in place. there were a number of things and it was an intra-agency ever. -- effort. we did not at the end of 30 days say, mission of published. -- mission accomplished. is the beginning of an ongoing process.

john: is your goal to have multifactor authentication and how close are you? suzanne: multifactor authentication is one of the most important things. we talked about access, privileged users, those with the ability to do a lot in your system. moving to unprivileged users. we have dashboards, and i think it was one of the most successful things. bringing folks up to where they needed to be. john: one of the problems with data is you cannot secure it. if we secure data come we secure it from ourselves. christopher: this is where we are investing heavily, for example, in analytics capabilities. you can actually process larger

and larger amounts of information asked her. -- faster. intel did a big partnership and made an investment in a distribution provider. are literally working closely with companies to be able to excel or rate all the analytics. accelerate all the analytics. ofcessing large of amounts data more quickly. shoot at getting the same performance on the same amount of data but do it at a lower cost. that is something intel and our partners are investing in. prevent opmou do to types of situations? sf86 kind of information.

talk to her private sector about the basic cyber hygiene. there are basic steps which were ourkly not in place across federal departments and agencies. notral cyber security is where it needs to be though it is better than it was. as i say to our private sector folks, basic cyber hygiene can prevent depending on which research activity you look at 80-90% of activity you see. do defense in depth. that is a big part of our mission. ofviding a baseline technology and practices. set ofe a perimeter

tools that allow you to know what is coming in and out. iteration, the einstein suite of tools, allows you to block known signatures. we are rapidly developing the technology, working with the private sector, to detect and block things we have never seen before. things that look risky for a variety of reasons. there is that. that is never going to be perfect. you have to assume they are going to get into your system. have a suite of tools working with the private sector. diagnostics and mitigation. is it configured properly, etc.. phase will tell you who

is on your system. the third phase will tell you what they are doing on your system. those are ways to address vulnerabilities but also for detection. we had to get faster. we have to know they are going to get through. we have to detect them quickly. are working on more effective response and then you have recover and be resilient. christopher: first, sony. everybody would get to the point where sony should not attack back into north korea for a variety of reasons. that is an inherently government response ability. here's the problem. the government could not see sony was being attacked. there is no way for a

government, like you do for aircraft flying over the country, to know something is that is hitting a commercial entity. it has to be the government that steps in. you can't say to the commercial -- i want to take this one step further. we can do this. the big banks are the best at the world at securing your enterprise. if jp morgan gets hacked, we have a problem. the approach we are taking is not sufficient. imagine if we did this. every table was an individual entity that could share cyber security data about when they are eating probed. when jpmorgan was probed, six other banks were being probed at

the same time. went to the firewall logs, very difficult to share. what if it was shared? they would have known these actors were going after them. what that does is bring you to a point, if they can share it with in a sector, they can share it with the government. now sony would have had a way of ,elling the government, help us and the government could have helped them. suzanne: the other advantage to what he is talking about is it does allow you, if you have a network like he described, imagine these tables are all connected, whether they come in or not, the important thing is they are sharing information. a world wheree the adversary can get away with something once, but only once. as soon as it comes in, it is detected and rapidly shared with

the filters are in place to talk that. that would be a huge advantage. john: let me ask in a different way. best practices, but we have a set of isps with a broad view of the internet. it is well-known they are not doing everything they could because it would cost money. amplification attacks. there are hardware's you could install and it has not been done. keith: the isps become a key part of it. where actually commercial industry, the financial sector and energy sector, health care sector, could each build their own. part ofome a critical that because they are serving

communication's. they can do things undistributed on distributed attacks, but that is not what is turning people up. that are exploitations still the and is difficult to read that is where the power of we can allt is what see. if you bring that together, do it publicly so everybody knows what is on the table, what you end up with, instead of one bank protects it self, 7000 banks help and protect each other. suzanne: part of the way they are doing that is machine to machine. effort we have underway that the secretary has directed us to complete. should be ready in a few months. to both send and receive. we have developed the language and protocol for machines to

threatanguage with indicators. that is why we are anxious for congress to enact this legislation. you started by asking for sources of optimism. , interestingly enough, is a source of optimism. they past five cyber security bills. a congress that does not do a whole lot has made progress in cyber security in a bipartisan way and i commend the leaders of the committees for the progress. they are moving forward on information sharing legislation and authorizing the suite of tools i talked about, einstein. our third legislative item is a

national breach notification law. john: i wanted to ask you one last question. this is a network built with no thought of privacy or security at the outset. there are a couple of efforts around the world to start over. they are very interesting. are any of them practical? are we going to be settled with this particular network? keith: if technology doubles every two years, it is can you refresh without compromising things? you can't easily change everything at out. we ought to come up with ideas that put in civil liberties, privacy, and security. say, how do we build to that.

time.going to take with windows, and think, i did not know it was supported anymore. it is not. christopher: that is a big part of the problem. one of the reasons we are seeing so many breaches, there is debt that has not been paid. as a guy that has been doing this for many years, we used to be a back office function of i.t.. all of we are in the board room. the oval office cares. that has happened in few years. you have a technical infrastructure still running mainframes and old systems. we have to protect that. when you add that all up, it is

not going to be about replacing what we have today with something new. it will be about migrating to some of these newer architectures so we can get some of the best where we are balancing privacy and security. we have to pay attention to legacy and we are going to have to pay down the debt. it is not free. john: questions from the audience? why don't we start their. to do when in the purple shirt. politico.aterman from recently thesk, threeovernment promoted piece time norms for cyber security. attackll not

infrastructure, -- suzanne: there are actually four. >> could you comment on that? is that realistic? general alexander, you said we cannot unilaterally declare this a civilian's own. -- civilian zone. to be done tohing put in place basic rules of the road? in my opinion, yes. you have to have a defensible architecture where you can ensure you can stop that. there isuzanne and i?, an opportunity to make this more defensible. first we have to get there. i think this is going to be much like the nuclear race.

you have to have the ability to stand up right now and we do not. our infrastructure across the board is susceptible to exploit. it is difficult to enacted that when those countries that seek to do us harm can do it one of two ways. cyber and terrorism. they will reach out and try to do it stealthily to matter what. we have to fix those and come up with a way of holding them accountable. i don't think we are the point where we can hold them accountable or prove they did it. suzanne: i would disagree slightly. for the first time here. i think if you have a perfectly network, we don't need norms of behavior. we need those because offense has outstripped defense across the board.

this discussion about these piece time norms reminds me, back in the 70's when there was a lot of talk about, couldn't we have an international treaty on counterterrorism? we couldn't. it was too hard. today, there are fundamentally different views. not everybody agrees. there are fundamentally different views. what we did is bit off the pieces where we had consensus. jacking treaty on air -- aircraft hijacking. these norms are attempting to do that. we are not succeeding and coming up with a big, grand consensus but maybe we can say cyber security incident response teams are kind of like ambulances coming to the rescue.

we have an international consensus we should not attack ambulances. they are kind of like command and control in the nuclear context where we had an agreement you don't go after it because we need a way to pull things back. we all understand we are all to attacks against infrastructure that are critical to providing services for the public. maybe we can take those off as legitimate targets. to add to the disagreement, i don't do get is actually a disagreement. to defend ourselves, we have to have a defensible architecture. everybody agrees to that. it will not be perfect. our government needs to know when we are under attack and today we do not read step one is, i think our nation would be the best in the world. attack usy chose to in cyber or physical space, if

we knew that at network speed, more meaningful to everybody. they are going to look at it and say, this country is going to defend themselves. we are not going to do that. take it off the table. if we do it without fixing infrastructure, there are going to be so many gaps that we will not ever get there. those countries on the other side of the argument will say, but mean no. to takewhy we have steps, and legislation is hugely important for our nation and our allies. >> i am from the center for security and social progress.

general out mention the high speed of technological -- general alexander mentioned the high speed of technological progress. ago, imposium tenures ago heard the statement, you must never forget that technological progress occurs faster than human and sociological progress. at suggests many people may be afraid of high-speed technological change. source of ae a driving source for terrorism in general? cyber terrorism also? suzanne: there certainly has been -- there are scholars in this room better equipped to address this but i have read in their works.

there is some thought that the rapid pace of change and modernization have contributed to some of the groundswell of nature for destructive of terrorism. keith: if i could just add, i think it is a education problem. you look at how many people understand the internet. four generations working me,-by-side, write me, call e-mail me, text me. we can take these generations and educate them on what could be. that would be beneficial to our nation, so we can understand why this is important. john: one last question in the back. brian from the los angeles

times. a cyber weapon that would act as a cyber deterrent, something like the cold war, that would be so powerful that any state after would , andare the pitfalls should the u.s. the investing? keith: chris? [laughter] suzanne: i am not touching that one. keith: there is a significant criminal element. there is a lot of criminal activity to be dealt with, and it is not going to deal with a problem. women, citizens, men and that are affected by what is happening.

i want to make sure we are balancing the discussion between what goes on with nationstates and what is affecting people in our society. that is an important piece. honesty, i think we should recognize that all countries are racing forward in this area. ever sateetings i have in at the white house, both administrations, show great concern for doing this right. i think every nation will create offensive and defensive capabilities. the nice part about our country, there is civilian control for how we use it. i think the president said that in his 2009 thing on cyber. anyone who attacks us, we will look at the full spectrum. i think the military objective is to provide the options to the president and civilian leadership and choose how they

want to respond. john: our hour is up. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: on the next "washington journal," the washington times talks about a recent article on the 114th congress which examined congressional gridlock. then myron abele and jeremy simons look at the obama administration's clean power plan. plus, your facebook posts and tweets. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

this month, c-span radio takes you to the movies. here four supreme court cases that played a part in popular movies. concern mr. chief justice, in the can of worms argument, we extract one little worm with a pair of tweezers and quickly close it. from the movie, the people versus larry flynt. --if jerry falwell consume can sue then, so can other public figures. announcer: the watergate case from all the presidents men. >> who were the five men arrested in watergate? , they have their

own counsel. it's unusual. >> it is unusual. >> do you know the name? >> some country club type. announcer: the landmark civil rights case. >> what kinds of things that can only be done together by man and wife that they cannot do in virginia. >> it is a major civil rights case. >> that is a right. to wake up in the morning, or go to sleep at night, knowing that the sheriff will not be knocking on their door or shining a light on their face in the privacy of their bedroom. four supreme court cases that played a part in popular movies, saturday in august at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span radio. listen at 90.1 fm.

online at c-span.org, or --nload our c-span radio at app announcer.: president obama will speak about the iran nuclear agreement here on c-span. we will also cover a hearing on the of locations lifting the sanctions on iran as part of that deal. up next evil hear conflicting testimony on how women are treated in the federal prison system. charles samuel testifies that the system does not practice solitary confinement. one former inmate, hyper kerman, author of "orange is the new black," tells a different story.

senator johnson: good morning. this hearing will come to order. let me just say, i am really looking forward to this one. i was telling the witnesses, i have read all of the testimony, and i generally do that to the best of my ability, sometimes the testimony provided before this committee can be a little dry and as i'm reading late at night will put me to sleep. not so in this case whatsoever. i think the testimony was fascinating, partly because i am somewhat new to this issue. somewhat new to this issue. i will keep my opening statement somewhat brief, because i know senator booker would like to make an opening statement. i am happy to have him do so because he has been involved in this issue longer than i have. i just want to make a couple of brief remarks. being a business guy i am pretty data driven. the data, the statistics, on this particular problem -- the severe prison sentence with a

high level incarceration rates -- are pretty stark. in 1980, there were 25,000 people in the federal prison systems. today there are 29000, a 736% increase as our population has only increased 40%. in total, there were 500,000 people in prison in 1980, today there are 2.3 million. america has the highest level of incarceration in the world. in 2013, 716 people per 100,000 in the population. the next closest country was rwanda with 482. canada is 418. my primary comment is when you look at those stark statistics and you see, and i met with jerome dillard from wisconsin.

he is part of a group of individuals, some of them are ex-offenders, trying to help other people reenter society. i remember during the meeting, how many times did i wince as i was being told the stories of how unbelievably difficult we make it for former offenders to reenter society? the purpose is to lay out the realities. you understand what the bureau of prisons is dealing with. it is a difficult and complex problem. the testimony by charles samuels, the current director, is also powerful and lays out a little bit of the problem in terms of the dual mission of the bureau of prisons. let me read from the testimony. the dual fold mission is to protect society by confining

prisoners in a safe and cost effective and secure facility. and second, to make sure that the prisoners are actively participating in programs to make them better law-abiding citizens when they return to society. that is a tough task. i wish i could say i could look at the statistics and say we were really nailing it, we have the problem solved. we are a long way from it. the testimony in the federal system, we have only a 41% recidivism rate. in state and local it is a little over 60% . we may be doing better in state and local, but that is a long way from a successful result. i'm sure you will agree with me. i will not steal the thunder from mrs. kerman's testimony, but i want you to pay attention to the quote she provides from thomas mott osborne.

it will lay out the issue and ask the question we should be asking as a civilized society. with that, i will turn it over to the ranking member. senator carper: i would like to thanank senator booker for holdg this hearing. and i would like to thank all of you for coming as witnesses. my day job before i came to the u.s. senate was i was the governor of delaware for eight years and was actively involved in the national governor's association. in delaware we do not have county or city jails, we have the state correctional system. we have one for adults and one for juveniles. in my second term as governor general barry mccaffrey came to delaware. at the time he was the nation's drug czar. he wanted to visit the program in the city of wilmington, because we were doing a good job with the recidivism rate. about 75% to 40%.

he wanted to find out how we were doing it. he brought an abc camera crew, as well. i will never forget -- before he went into the prison and looked at the program to see how it worked, we met with about 50 inmates. we met in a room smaller than this. the guard, general mccaffrey, and myself. i had been to middle schools, grade schools, churches, ballgames, and they knew some of them and they knew who i was. i said before we got started on the program part of the tour, the inmates were mostly 19 to 22 years old, i said what happened in your lives or did not happen that led you here? five or six guys spoke up before we took the tour and told stories that were very similar.

very similar. i was born when my mom was young, never knew my dad, when i was in kindergarten other kids could read, knew their letters and numbers, i could not. i got into first grade and fell behind. in the second and third grade and fourth grade i fell further behind. one guy said i realized if i was a nuisance in class the teacher stopped calling on me. so he put his head down. he said, eventually, i was put out into the hall. by the fifth or sixth grade. when i was in the seventh and eighth grades i was suspended. i liked that because i was no longer embarrassed by how little i knew.

he said, in ninth grade i was expelled. i found myself on the outside in the world. everyone wants to be popular. he said if you are a good athlete you can be popular in school. if you are smart you can be popular in school. if you are good with girls, you can be popular in school. i was none of those. on the outside i wanted to feel good about myself, and the only way was to take drugs or consume alcohol. when i did that i felt good about myself. i did not have the ability to pay for those things and ended up in a life of crime. i ended up in this place. everyone told the same story. same story. the commissioner of corrections at the time, stan taylor, a wonderful guy, used to say to me, 95% to 98% of the people incarcerated in our state would

be released into the society, we can send them back is better people, better parents, or better criminals. he said it is our choice. it is also a choice of the inmates themselves. we are big on root causes in this committee. if we take young men and women, not so young men and women, and do something about their addictions while they are incarcerated that is helpful. if we do something about the lack of education, it is helpful. if we do something about the lack of work skills so they have a job to go to, that is helpful. all of the above. we can learn a lot from one another. today, we will learn from you. we look forward to this. cory, i would like to thank you for suggesting that we be here. let's have a good hearing. thank you.

senator booker: thank you. i would like to submit my opening statement to the record. with that, senator booker. i would like to express my gratitude to the ranking member and chairman for having this hearing. it has been the best experience i've had in the united states senate since i began to find such bipartisan willingness to deal with issues of justice in our country. it is extraordinary from my meeting yesterday, to be able to sit with you today and to be able to see this willingness to confront the wrongs in our country that surround criminal justice. senator johnson: let me interject. we talked about this earlier. i was going to do a field hearing in milwaukee on high levels of incarceration. we did not do it on that subject because it was complex and was difficult to design the hearing so it was not inflammatory.

i appreciate your working with me so we hold this first one here. this is the first in a series. instead, we held a hearing on school choice, which starts the beginning of this time spectrum in terms of not providing a proper education, and it ends up leading to this result, in terms of prison. i appreciate your willingness to work with me on this, and i hope that we can move this discussion into different areas. one of them would be in milwaukee. senator booker: i'm grateful to you. we have had countless conversations about criminal justice reform. your eagerness, willingness, and sincere desire to do something about it has been really encouraging to me in my early months in the senate. it is a movement in our country to do something about it when we have a president of the united states willing to visit a

prison. we see that as a part of our culture. as a christian, it says in matthew 25, when i was hungry he gave me something to eat, when i was thirsty, you gave me something to drink, when i was in prison, you came to visit me. the understanding that the criminal justice system is not about fear and retribution, but should be guided by principles of justice, fairness, and ultimately redemption. to me, that is the american way. unfortunately, we have gone in a way against our values and ideals. this age of mass incarceration is violating our core principles in many areas. to have, as we proclaim to be the land of freedom and liberty, but have one out of every four imprisoned people on earth in the united states, although we only have 4% to 5% of our population -- it runs contrary to our ideals. to do this at such a massive

expense to the taxpayer, it is an unnecessary egregious expenditure, a quarter of a trillion dollars a year, incarcerating human beings. it runs against our values. when we see our infrastructure crumbling, yet we have the resources between 1990 and 2005 to build a new prison in the united states every 10 days, it runs against our fiscal prudence and values as a nation. when we see poor people being ground up into a system because they do not have the resources for their liberation, we have a modern-day debtor's prison in our country. that runs contrary to our values. we are at a point where we have literally almost one out of three americans with an arrest record. if we went back to revolutionary times and told them there would

be a government that would seize the liberty of one out of three people, we would have sparked the revolutionary spirit. now is a time when we need a revolution when it comes to issues of crime and punishment. the chairman was clear that this is a narrow hearing about one specific aspect to begin a process of looking for reforms. if you look at the bureau of prisons, our federal prison population has expanded 800% since 1980. the bureau of prisons has 200,000 inmates, and 35% to 40% over capacity. it employs 40,000 people. in fiscal year 2014, the bureau of prisons active budget totaled an astonishing $6.9 billion. just working on transportation and commuter rail, seeing that fraction we are debating over

when we are spending this much -- this is 25% of the department of justice's discretionary budget. in my first meeting with then attorney general holder, he talked to me about the urgent crisis that the bureau prisons is squeezing out of the budget and taking money away from things we should be investing in for homeland security for our protection overall because of the massive explosion. the bureau of prisons is so large that it is critical that we in congress exercise our oversight to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, especially in light of what states are showing that you can reduce prison populations dramatically, and save taxpayer dollars, while lowering crime at the same time. make no mistake -- as a mayor i learned that you have to make sure that when a crime is committed there is a punishment, and that people get a proportional punishment, but i am troubled by the practices

that are failing to live up to our common values and do not make economic sense. so i'm grateful for this hearing. there are areas that we need to drill down in those small areas where we can make improvements that can make a big difference. one is solitary confinement. it is known in the bureau of prisons as segregated housing units. it is a practice that many people -- medical professionals, human rights activists, civil rights activists and other countries consider torture because of the impact. prolonged use of solitary confinement on an inmate often results in severe psychological harm. in a recent decision, justice kennedy questioned the constitutionality of the punishment saying that the penal system has a solitary confinement regime that will bring you to the edge of madness and perhaps madness itself. the medical community confirms that reality. it is time the federal government acts as a model to end this practice of solitary

confinement. congress gave the court the authority to release prisoners early for extraordinary compelling reasons, known as compassionate release. the bureau of prisons has the ability now to release prisoners if they are facing death or serious incapacitation. the data is clear on this population. they are not a threat to our communities and they are costing taxpayers extraordinary amounts of money. the compassionate release program is properly named and should be explored. then attorney general holder issued guidelines to allow the bureau of prisons to expand the pool of applicants that could be considered for compassionate release. that is something we should look at. finally, i hope we can explore the programming the bureau of prisons provide to those who are often marginalized in our society. specifically those suffering from mental health challenges and drug addictions. now, states across america are struggling to control, for

example, a growing heroin epidemic. many are finding themselves addicted in a federal system that does not adequately treat them. the bureau of prisons must find a way to assist those struggling with addiction and mental health. i want to thank you, chiarman. this is a hearing i have been excited about. i want to thank our witnesses and especially charles samuels who has met with me personally and we have had great conversations. his tenure is coming to an end but he is a dedicated public servant and i know that they are committed to reform and have a record of making progress on these issues. senator johnson: we all want to thank the witnesses. it is tradition to swear in witnesses. if you would rise and raise your right hand -- -- do you swear the testimony you will give before the committee will be the

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? thank you, you can be seated. our first witness is mrs. piper kerman, the author of "orange is the new black," a memoir of her experiences in federal prison. she is also a board member of the women's prison association, which works to promote alternatives to the incarceration of women. mrs. kerman? mrs. kerman: mr. chairmen, ranking members, and members of the committee, i appreciate you inviting me here today. in my memoir "orange is the new black," i recount in detail the 13 months i spent incarcerated in the federal prison system. most of my time was served at the federal correctional institution correctional facility in danbury, connecticut. i have worked with many men and women who are returned citizens, like me, who want to get back on our feet, and reclaim our rights to citizenship, and to make positive contributions to our communities. our experiences are essential to

understanding the reform needed in the criminal justice system so it will provide for public safety in a way that is legal, and humane, and sensible. that is why i am here today. women are the fastest-growing population in the american criminal justice system. their families and communities are increasingly affected by what happens to women behind bars. according to the bureau of justice statistics, 63% of women in prison are there for a nonviolent offense, many are incarcerated due to substance abuse and mental health issues, which are overwhelmingly prevalent in prisons and jails. the rate of sexual abuse and physical violence that women experience prior to incarceration is staggering. female prisoners suffer these problems at greater rates than male prisoners, and these experiences are relative both to their crimes and incarceration.

these issues are not being adequately addressed by the bureau of prisons. the research on criminal justice involving women and girls shows that the risk factors i mentioned require different approaches to reduce women's recidivism and allow for successful reentry. this is not unlike findings in fields like health care where it shows that women experience heart attack systems differently from men and their treatment needs differ. this understanding has saved women's lives. the bureau of prisons should adopt gender responsive correctional approaches that interrupt cycles of unnecessary suffering. states like washington provide a roadmap to do this successfully. when i was locked up in danbury, i knew women trying to raise their children during brief reunions in the visitor's room while fending off sexual harassment, and struggling with addiction, and trying to get a

high school education so that when they got out they stood some chance of surviving despite their felony conviction. i saw women denied necessary medical care and women with mental health issues wait for months to see the one psychiatrist who was available for 1400 women. that is unimaginable in a system where at least 65% of women experience some kind of mental illness. equally shocking were the mandatory reentry classes inmates took to prepare to leave prison. i attended one on housing which was led by a man who worked in construction in the prison. the mostly poor and overwhelmingly minority women in the class wanted to know how someone with a felony conviction and few resources could find safe, affordable housing to live in after release.

instead, we heard about fiberglass insulation, roof maintenance, and other home improvement tips. the reentry health classes were taught by a culinary department officer who had no expertise or information on reproductive health, mental health, or substance abuse options post-release. he had, however, played professional baseball for a brief time. hence his authority on the health topic. many of danbury's policies were questionable, but it was close to home for most of the women serving time there. families could visit her children could see their mothers, many of whom were raising their children on their own before being sent to prison. the doc disregarded this when they converted danbury to the a men's facility in 2013. this sent women beyond the goal

of no more than 500 miles from home, and deprives many of them of programming that male prisoners enjoy like unicorp employment and the residential drug and alcohol treatment program, which is one of the most effective programs, but one of the only ways to earn a sentence reduction in the bureau. it is worth noting that the desire to empty that prison of women caused the bureau of prisons to examine prisoner sentences and exercise discretion granted by the second chance act, signed into law by president bush in 2008, hundreds of women were reassigned to complete sentences in halfway houses or home confinement. while briefly exercised in the case of danbury, the authority has not been used under the act to reduce the federal prison population and return as many prisoners as possible to their communities.

the doc should place all eligible prisoners and halfway houses and home confinement at the earliest possible dates. this would help relieve persistent overcrowding and keep staff and prisoners safer while reducing cost. finally, the bop must be led by individuals who value the role of communities and families in rehabilitation and understand the particular needs of women. we appreciate the service of directors samuels, and he leaves at the end of this year. he should be replaced by a leader committed to enacting these values into policy. i ask for strong candidates that will make this a model system driven by innovation and creativity. i close with the words of the

legendary performer and warden of sing sing prison, thomas mott osborne, who asked, shall our prisons be scrap heaps or human repair shops? today with the biggest prison population in human history in the united states we must insist on a different answer to this question. thank you. senator johnson: our next witness is mr. jerome dillard. mr. dillard is the jail reentry coordinator for dane county, wisconsin. he served as the director of voices behind bars, a group and it helping former prisoners transition into the community by offering employment and computer classes. thank you for traveling here from wisconsin for your testimony. please. mr. dillard: thank you, senator johnson. i would like to think the committee for having me. thank you, senator johnson, and my other senator from wisconsin,

tammy baldwin, for having me sit before you today. i sit here as a former incarcerated citizen who served time in both federal and state prison systems. my crimes were not violent, driven by a long history of drug addiction. while doing time in prison, i witnessed a system that was ballooning with predominately young african-americans who were serving long prison sentences. 10, 20, 30 years for drug crimes. this was troubling to me, seeing so many young then losing the prime of their lives to the criminal justice system. it was while doing time that i made a strong determination i would do all i can to stay out of the prison system. i have been out roughly 19 years and have had the opportunity to share my own journey of recovery at correctional centers, educational institutions,

conferences, and the community -- giving my personal account on how peer support directly aided in the success of my recovery with regards to substance abuse and mental health. we don't think of formerly incarcerated citizens in the work being done to address the issues of incarceration. the power of peer lead groups and organizations provide so any of the assistance needed for the successful reentry of individuals returning to our communities. an in-house prison support network of this type would be helpful for the process of rehabilitation. some of the barriers to creating this sense of community are opposition from the bureau of prisons and the state prison staff, fostering an us and them mentality. real cultural competency

training would be a value in all prison systems. i want to say, in the work i do, i realize the barriers are tremendous. for individuals returning to the community from state and federal prisons, they are often faced with huge amounts of debt, child support, restitution, and supervision fees. they are barriers to individuals who are often times subjected to the lower paying jobs available in communities. i was given an opportunity to work in a mental health aoda prison in our state. it is a unique facility in that they provided mental health and trauma reform care on an individualized basis. what i witnessed there in the programming that went on, i cannot say enough about. traumas are so prominent with

this population. as i talked to these men, i often ask how many men had their fathers in their lives. the majority of the times, these individuals would say, my father was in prison, or i do not know my father, and i was raised by the streets. these are some of the traumas. even that is a trauma that goes unadressed. for our inner cities those are huge. in our time i cannot elaborate on many things i would like to say, but in closing, in working with our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated citizens for over a decade i am seeing a shift in confronting mass

incarceration. it is an issue that both political parties agree on, that america's addiction to mass incarceration is not working. it is costly, it does not restore people, and i feel the climate is right and the ground is fertile for criminal justice reform. the modern war on drugs produced a prison population that remains unprecedented in world history. at the federal level the growth in the incarceration rate has been greater and more sustained than anything in the states. i am encouraged by the initiatives taking place on the local level in many states and counties. in my county, we are working to address racial disparities and reducing the number of those incarcerated at all levels of the criminal justice system. great works are being done addressing these problems.

i feel that addressing these problems will require far more than tinkering with the sentencing policies of nonviolent offenders or revamping prison programs. to achieve a reasonable level of incarceration we need to reduce the number of people admitted to prison and the length of their sentences. making a suggestion, i would like to say to the department, the bop, to continue to solicit feedback from people who are serving time so that they can craft programs to the prisons population. the programming needs to match labor market data about high growth industries and be specific to the region. the bop needs to advocate for laws that allow for more time, early release, and incentives

for good behavior or programs. thank you. senator johnson: our next witness is udi ofer. he is the director of the american civil liberties union. he has formed a blueprint on how to reduce the prison population in new jersey. he worked with governor christie to pass reformations that takes place in 2017, and has reduced the population in new jersey by 8500 inmates. mr. ofer: thank you. my name is udi ofer and i am the executive director of the american civil liberties union in new jersey. it is my honor and privilege to be here on behalf of the aclu, and on behalf of our more than 1 million supporters living across the united states, including in new jersey. this hearing comes at a critical moment when there is a rare opportunity to take bold action on reform.

republicans and democrats are taking a second look at the criminal justice system. republicans and democrats alike are becoming more pragmatic and less ideological in their approach to criminal justice. following decades of punitive policies that have sent millions to prison and devastated communities, particularly low income communities of color, americans are realizing that our prisons and jails have grown too big, and all too often, the people who end up in prison suffer from drug addiction or mental illness and should not have been incarcerated in the first place. we know the story of the growth of the incarcerated population. our prisons hold almost 2.3 million people on any given day. the federal prison population has increased from 25000 prisoners to almost 270,000 today.

this comes at an annual cost the taxpayers of tens of billions of dollars. the costs have more severe consequences than the fiscal expenses necessity to incarcerate 25% of the worlds prisoners in a country with 5% of the world's population. the true costs are human lives -- particularly, generations of young black and latino men who serve long prison sentences and are lost to their families and communities. the fact is, african-americans and latinos are disproportionately engulfed in our broken criminal justice system. it is time for a change. we are at a crossroads as americans recognize the need to reform our federal and state criminal justice systems. with this in mind, i come before you to urge you to seize the opportunity to reform practices, reduce incarcerated populations, and create a system that is

smarter, fairer, and more cost effective. on top of any reform must be the issue of solitary confinement. 5% of federal prisoners are in solitary confinement. 11,000 on any given day people in federal prison are confined to a six by nine cell deprived of human contact, little light, and minimal activity for 22-24 hours a day. in some federal facilities the average time a prisoner sits in continuous solitary confinement is four years. you need to look no further than the front page of the science section of "the new york times"" to get a better understanding of the mental and physical consequences of long-term solitary confinement.

according to a recent independent review of the federal prison system solitary practices there are major problems. federal prisons send thousands of mentally ill individuals into solitary confinement. people who should be receiving treatment, not sitting in the hole. federal prisons use solitary on close to 1400 people who are there for protective custody. they are subjected to the same conditions as prisoners who are in solitary for punishment. what can we do? there are many small yet important steps the bureau can stake today that are outlined in the independent review. the truth is if all we take today is small steps we would have lost a historic moment for bold change. solitary confinement has no place in american prisons.

physical separation may sometimes be necessary for safety and security, but isolation is not. we call on the bureau of prisons and congress to resolve this issue once and for all. it is time to abolish the use of solitary confinement for persons under the age of 18 and for persons with mental illness. senators booker and paul have introduced legislation prohibiting the use of solitary confinement on juveniles, and we support this legislation. for all of the prisons, solitary confinement sentences should not last more than 15 days. we believe this would lead to a smarter, more humane system, and lead to a decrease in the population by reducing recidivism. given the focus of this hearing

on bop practices, the lessons from new jersey are not directly applicable, but there are lessons worth mentioning. new jersey is not a perfect model. we have terrible solitary confinement practices. we do have things we have done well. in 1999 the population peaked at more than 30,00. today it 21,000. a 30% reduction in a decade and a half. we achieved it through numerous policies. the biggest ones are changing a harsh mandatory sentence for drug sentences and a decrease in the number of parolees returned to prison for a technical violation. we recently had a major victory and a bipartisan matter to overhaul our state's bail system, which would lead to thousands of fewer people sitting in jail because they are poor.

the aclu urges the congress to adopt our legislation to increase fairness and justice in every part of the system. senator johnson: thank you. you mentioned the word bipartisan and number of times. it is true. some of this committee has been, in describing problems and looking for agreement, this is something we have broad agreement on. the system is not working. have to look at the facts and admit the harsh and stark reality. mrs. kerman, you have a unique story. maybe people more tied into pop culture understand, but if you can describe what you were put into prison for, and i would

like you to tell me what you think your punishment should have been. mrs. kerman: thank you for your question, senator johnson. when i was in my early 20's, which is a typical risk time for folks to be involved in crime or commit crime, i was involved in a relationship with someone involved in narcotics. i carried a bag of money from chicago to brussels in support of a drug trafficking enterprise. i voluntarily left that situation. good sense kicked in. i was fortunate. i already had a college degree. i had many benefits and privileges. i was able to return to the united states, get my life on track, and put any in involvement in crime behind me. many years went by before i was indicted in the federal system.

i was sent to prison 10 years after committing my offense. i pled guilty very swiftly. i was fortunate to only serve 13 months of a 15 month sentence. one thing that was striking to me on the very first day that i spent in prison, was that so many women i was incarcerated with, who i would spend a great deal of time with, were serving harsher sentences that i was. the days, weeks, and months went on and i came to know those other women really well, and it was impossible for me to believe their crimes were so much more serious than mine. the only conclusion i could draw was that they were treated more harshly by the american criminal justice system that i had been treated because of socioeconomic reasons, differences in class, and in some cases, the color of their skin. i left in 2005.

i had two years of probation, which i successfully completed. when i reflect on the punishment for my crime, i cannot protest it when i think about the harshness with which poor people and, disproportionally, poor people of color are treated in this country. it is hard to believe there was a lot of social benefit to the community drawn from my incarceration. it prevented no new crimes. when we consider the punishment for drug offenses we have to reflect on the enactment of these mandatory drug sentencing laws, generally in the middle 1980's. at that time, i think those laws were intended to curb substance abuse and addiction, and some of the crimes they grow out of substance abuse and addiction.

many decades after we have passed those laws, we have put millions and millions of americans in prison and saddled them with felony convictions. today, narcotics are cheaper, more potent, and more easily available then before we put mandatory sentencing on the books and incarcerated all of those people. in terms of curbing substance abuse i think those laws were a failure. and locking up people for low level drug offenses is a huge waste of time and money. senator johnson: let me go back to the final question. i agree that it is not working. there are two reasons for

people, which is damaging for society. what do you think could be the alternative? mrs. kerman: i think an appropriate part of my punishment, if it was not confinement in a prison, would have been lengthy community service working with people who were addicted to drugs and family suffering on the ravages of addiction. what i experienced while incarcerated were intense and close friendships with women whose lives had been devastated by drug abuse and addiction. that brought home to me the harm of my own actions. i think that is one of the most appropriate ways to deal with that. senator johnson: the other women in prison, in general, were they also there for drug crimes? mrs. kerman: in both state and federal systems, but overwhelmingly and the federal system, women are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses and property crimes.

in the federal system, if any member of this committee had the opportunity to meet hundreds of women i did time with, you would probably walk away from getting to know those women with a deep feeling that their confinement in a prison cell or facility was a colossal waste and not an appropriate way of intervening in the things that put them into the criminal justice system. senator johnson: thank you. mr. dillard, we met in discussion about the difficulty of reentering society after serving time. talk about the challenges. you are talking about the debt levels. you are in prison and your child support continues to build. when you get out it is difficult to find a job. even if you do get a job, a lot of them are entry level and do

not pay a lot. we expect people who just get out of prison to all of a sudden start paying off debts. describe what happens when they are not able to. mr. dillard: the fact is, when you are faced with these barriers, and i too came home faced with many barriers, i had support, individuals who kept me encouraged, and someone to give me an analogy -- put a little bit behind you at a time. i was fortunate to be able to obtain a living wage employment a year and a half after being out. that was helpful. after 13 years i finally got a tax return. that analogy of putting the debt behind you a little bit at a time is something i teach to young men today. the fact is, many of our young

people have ties to the criminal justice systems. there is so much hopelessness that comes with being tied to the criminal justice system that often they feel there is no place for them in the workforce. application after application, turn down after turn down, because, in many instances, of your criminal convictions. individuals lapse into hopelessness. from there, addiction can raise its ugly head. it is becoming part of the norm in many communities that have had to resort to these things. senator johnson: in our meeting, one of the individuals we were talking with spoke about how to not paying child support is a parole violation which lands you back in jail.

it will cost us $33,000 for a male prisoner. is it $50,000 for a female prisoner? there are enormous challenges trying to reintegrate into society, get a job, and when you are unable to pay off your child support -- and we all want people to be responsible and pay for their children -- you'll land back into jail. is that true? mr. dillard: in some cases. child support accumulates while you do time. i had a gentleman who was released from prison after 15 years. $70,000 in debt with child support, along with all of the other things that came. the only employment he could find was working in a fast food restaurant at a minimum wage. after taking home his second paycheck he was like, i cannot make it like this. i just can't.

over 40% of his check was being taken before he got it. that is discouragement for him to continue working at a minimum-wage position and not be able to pay rent or have transportation. senator johnson: thank you. i am out of time. senator carper? senator carper: the chairman said the two reasons for prisons are punishment and deterrence, i would say another is correcting behavior. so that people and they come out with be less likely to commit crimes and return to our prison. i mentioned earlier that i was on the commission of corrections when i was in my second term of governor. the majority of people incarcerated will come back into society and communities.

they can come out as better people or as better criminals. senator booker alluded to a moral imperative that we face, whether people of faith or not, matthew 25. when i was sick and in prison, did you come to see me? i have been to every prison in delaware. we transformed a juvenile prison into a school. i have given this matter a huge amount of time and thought. in the national governors association we would say, and we would have cabinet meetings, during a particular issue i would say, some governor in some state has figured out how to deal with this issue successfully.

we have to find that state, that governor, and who worked on this challenge. a lot of what we are talking about, someone has done something really good and could serve as a model. before we start from scratch, we need to look around our country and say, what are some states that are doing things well. in our state we changed the juvenile systems into a real school in our state. we decided when we had people in prison, why not work with them on their educational skills and create a school in the prisons. to work with them with their drug addictions, and for people to learn about faith, prepare for transformation, and to learn skills -- whether that is working on computers, loading furniture, or learning auto repair and provide maintenance and our prison system.

that way people would have that skill when they walked out. i would like each of you to give us one terrific example, state or local correctional system, one terrific example within the prison itself, or without, because if we do not do a better job on the early side, the early childhood side, and so forth, we are not going after the root cause. what is one good example. it could be in the correctional system or before or after release. thank you. mrs. kerman: thank you. i currently teach nonfiction writing in 2 state prisons in ohio. one is a men's medium security prison. it was built for 1400 men and now houses 2600.

it is led by young warden who was trained as a social worker at osu. he does things differently than any prison i've ever set foot inside. it has more lifers than any other prison in ohio. it is one of two prisons with the lowest violence rate. that is a big change over time in that facility. that warden and his predecessors have done a great job of taking that a much safer prison. that warden and his staff have a tremendous amount of rehabilitative programming of every sort. vocational, educational, spiritual -- one of the first programs ever put into place in the 1990's was an interfaith dorm where prisoners of different faiths would live in the dorm for one year, do a curriculum, and learn to deal with each other and their differences, and go back out

into the general population as change agents. that warden's philosophy, and the philosophy of his staff, one man cannot do it all, his staff needs to be on board, is inspirational. i want to make a note on some of the -- senator carper: i would like to listen to you for the rest of the morning, but i would like for you to hold it right there, then we will come back to you in the second round. one of the things that attracted to me to a program was the guy who developed that and implemented it in delaware was from ohio state. it came out of columbus, ohio. it worked pretty well.

mr. dillard, same question. one great example. piper has given us one, give us one as well. mr. dillard: i feel like the work is on the offenders themselves. when i met a lifer who rated difference in my life, throughout my prison sentence i realized how the older inmates tried to encourage the younger ones. i still feel like you cannot leave formerly incarcerated citizens out of the equation. mr. ofer: i will give two quick examples. there are states that have reduced the risk of solitary confinement without the risk to staff and to inmates.

in colorado, 2011 placed 7% of its incarcerated population in solitary confinement. in 2011, colorado place solitary confinement at 7%. today, it's about 1%. we have seen a dramatic decrease in the use of solitary by banning the use of solitary against people with mental illness. the second example is bail reform. what we've done in new jersey and what other states are looking at -- we had 10,000 people sit in jail awaiting their trial because they cannot afford a few thousand dollars in bail. we have completely revamped that system. now, your bail is determined by your risk assessment and not whether you are a poor or rich. that change will lead to three quarters of the 10,000 fewer

people sitting in jail. before this reform, the average time a person sat in jail awaiting their trial with 314 days. people presumed innocent until proven guilty being treated like guilty. this is a phenomenon all over the country. this is one of the ways we can dramatically reduce our jail population in the united states. senator carper: i talked about moral imperative we have in this country -- we also have a fiscal imperative. the deficit is still substantial. hence the need to find out what is working, do more of that, find out what is not working and do less of that. >> you mentioned my name -- i said that jails -- we jail people to punish and to deter. i also fully mentioned the mission statement of the bureau

of prisons, to ensure defenders are actively participant programs that will assist them in becoming law-abiding citizens when they returned our communities. i strongly hope that our goal is they are human repair shops. senator booker. senator booker: solitary confinement -- can you please describe this? i've had these conversations with friends and others -- people think solitary confinement as a result of someone doing something wrong in prison. why is solitary confinement so commonplace? prisoners are doing things wrong in prison? mr. oder: you've seen a dramatic increase in the use of reliance -- and reliance on solitary -- we do a terrible job tracking, but there is consensus that it is used in response to overcrowding.

prison officials are overwhelmed and they are sending people to the hole. we have examples from new jersey, around the country of people being sent to solitary for things like talking back. at a new jersey state prison in trenton, an inmate in 2013 was a clerk at the library and he wanted to leave the library to go bring some legal papers to one of the other inmates. a corrections officer said you cannot leave. the facts here are disputed, but the worst facts -- mr. washington said mother f'er to the corrections officer. what was the punishment? 90 days in solitary confinement.

those are examples we see all across the nation. senator booker: we know the people are being sent to solitary for many different reasons. some of them have to do with administrative issues and the like. does it work in terms of affecting the behavior of -- is there any productive value in the bureau? oder: some people are sent to solitary for administrator reasons. that is a loaded term. the bureau of prisons and other prisons commonly call solitary administrative segregation. it sounds harmless but it is solitary. people are sent there for really minor reasons. some reasons are for protective custody.

the lgbt community faces harassment from other inmates. they will be sent to involuntary protective custody to protect them from inmate violence, yet they are being punished. we see this happening all the time. the bureau of prisons, according to -- you asked if it actually works. there was an independent review that was released to the public in february of this year by cna that looked at solitary practices in our federal prisons and look at this question -- does inmate behavior change following solitary? their response was absolutely no. senator booker: can we have that report in the record? i want to say that not only lesbian and gay, but transgender -- oder: the report, it looked

at the disciplinary record 12 months before being sent to solitary and 12 months after coming out of solitary. we found virtually no change whatsoever. senator booker: let's get to the consensus of medical experts. what is the damage, the trauma, the effect on an individual being in solitary confinement? i've talked to numerous inmates who have experienced that length of more -- what is the damage done to someone in general and someone who already has a mental health challenge? mr. oder: to use an example that is contemporary -- i think of climate change. there are certain people who deny the science. there is consensus in the scientific community. a consensus about climate change and consensus -- senator booker: please don't

talk about climate change. oder: there is consensus in the scientific community about the harms of solitary confinement. it exacerbates the pre-existing conditions. mental illness that existed before is exacerbated. it produces mental illness and physical illness. anxiety, depression, hypersensitivity to stimuli, bipolar disorder. the list is long and long and i'm happy to provide the committee with citations. senator booker: that would be helpful. i want to say it's extraordinary that you are here with your testimony about what the experience of actual people behind bars -- that is extraordinary. i would like to drill down on something often not talked about, but what's happening as a result of overcrowding.

dan barry was converted into a low security men's facility. you were close to your family. i'm wondering what impact does being in prison in close proximity to love ones has? if you could just hit on those issues really briefly. ms. kerman: proximity to home, family and community is overwhelmingly important for both men and women confined to prison or jail. senator booker: the majority of women in prison have children. the majority of prison people are the number one breadwinners for the family. ms. kerman: absolutely. most of those mothers are the mothers have minor children. who experience a seismic impact when their mothers are incarcerated because a lot of

those moms are single moms. the opportunity to touch your children, to hold your children, to be reassured that their mother or parent is ok is incredibly important to parent and child. the opportunity to see your own parents or family members, to maintain ties to the community to which you will almost inevitably return. the vast majority of people in prison are coming home from prison. those lifelines to the outside community are incredibly -- we cannot overstate how important they are. to public safety, to people safe return home -- when you cut those lifelines by making visits difficult by placing people far from their families or by making

prisons inaccessible in other ways, by making phone calls exorbitantly expensive or many jokes have no contact visits through glass -- jails have no contact visits through glass, those lifelines are cut and the person incarcerated is much less likely to have family support, safe and stable housing, access to networks which might help them gain employment, all of which are primary concerns for successful reentry. that is true whether you are talking about men or women. when we are talking about female prisoners, we know the three things that drive women plus involvement in crime and incarceration are substance abuse, mental illness and that overwhelming experience of violence. sexual violence or physical

violence. 80% or more in the system report that happening to them before they were incarcerated. the problem with incarceration, prisons and jails are harsh places by design. is that for prisoners who have experienced significant trauma like rape, childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence -- many of the commonplace correctional practices are very reminiscent of some of those abuses. that creates a serious, serious challenge in terms of regular engagement with female prisoners. in terms of their rehabilitation. senator booker: thank you for that. senator johnson: thank you, senator booker. we didn't lose bipartisan agreement. we by and large agree that there has been change. >> and vaccines work? is that correct?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i was the attorney general in north dakota. most of the drug task forces were under my jurisdiction. it was at a time when there was a growing concern in 1992 with the drug problem and more and more violent crime -- as a result, we saw incarceration rates skyrocket because of desperation. i will tell you this -- we constantly treat the symptoms but never treat the disease. that's where we are today, talking about how do we treat the symptoms and not how do we treat the disease. i will tell you a story about a wise man -- i did a juvenile justice project. we made it easier to transfer kids into the adult system. i traveled around the state of north dakota with a prison warden. he was a very wise guy.

you could interview every prisoner who came into the prison system and he would sit down and he would say tell me about your life. as we talked, they would say my parents were divorced at 11 and i went to live with my grandma. in his opinion, that prisoner was 11 years old emotionally. that's where we get stuck. a lot of this is related to trauma, a lot of this is related to not understanding trauma and we exacerbate by not only not treating the trauma, but engaging in behaviors that further the trauma, whether its isolation from family, isolation from any human contact at all. let's be honest about the task society has imposed upon the bureau of prisons. none of this should be any judgment on the bureau of prisons. we have given them an impossible task.

they have to maintain some level of security. they are as desperate for solutions as what they can be -- talking about things that are way downstream. we are not here talking about things that are upstream. the juvenile justice system is led by a lot of very enlightened people at the department of justice. it has begun a transformation into trauma informed and trauma-based therapy. looking at what we can do to treat trauma, how can we basically prevent a lot of abuse and a lot of abuses self-medication. a lot of addiction is chemical -- i get it. a lot of it is self-medicating for the trauma that has been experienced in people's lives. i would like to know how we

could design the system of prevention so that we do not see more people -- what would you like to see in communities that would prevent the kinds of outcomes that we are seeing right now in the bureau of prisons? ms. kerman: there is a tremendous amount of recognition that substance abuse and mental health problems contribute to people's bad choices and breaking the law. a significant commitment to handle those health problems in the public health system as often as possible rather than -- >> of the women you worked with and were incarcerated with, how many of them were given a choice of drug court or some kind of intermediate intervention? ms. kerman: that is very rare in

the federal system. much more common in state systems or county systems. there is a program in new york called justice home where women facing at least a year of incarceration, when the district attorney and judge are able to agree, they stay at home with their children and face a set of accountability measures but also get the mental health interventions, substance abuse interventions parenting classes, vocational training, what is very -- whatever is specific to their case to get better outcomes. in york, it costs $60,000 a year to incarcerate somebody. that program costs $17,000 a year. if we threw in the cost of foster care, the cost would amount to ,0