, they become belligerent in the wake of the deal. the timing that will not escape history is the 144th day of his captivity, the number of days that u.s. diplomats spent in iran to talk following the 1979 islamic revolution. zalan's conviction three days later is the mullah equivalent of mailing a dead fish to an adversary. democrats will be squaring off today in their first debate. washington times front page this morning says this about hillary clinton's last appearance on the debate stage in 2008. mrs. clinton took the stage for a presidential debate, she was against insects marriage and ward behind theira iraq vote. and sherward to tuesday enters as a backer of same-sex

couples, a supporter of tighter gun control measures, admitted her vote for the iraq war was a mistake and is an advocate for illegal immigration. 9:00 p.m.n hosting at et. carol and nevada, go ahead. caller: good morning. , the man who told you he had been incarcerated twice. not three times. you said three times and he said twice. host: apologies. caller: i think to improve the they need to get rid of prisons for profit. where theyist system things to speak them stay, and make

there longer. do isr thing we need to to make the citizens more fair. they give longer sentences for a minority and whites get a slap on the hand. host: regina and oxford, north carolina, tell us your experience in the correctional facility. caller: my son has been in jail two or three times from driving without a license. there, he gets on the work program and does but the minute he gets out he cannot find a job anywhere even on the grounds crew. then the next thing you know he is back in jail. what are they supposed to do when they get out? host: did he have any access to

education programs? workforce programs? any access to that? caller: he just finished his ged, he is supposed to get out sometime close to thanksgiving. i'm just wary. he is 32 now and i'm worried that he gets out and he will run into the same problems he always has. host: how old was he when he first went in? in his lateas teens. when he first got the driving thing. it has been in and out of jail since then. he hasot a bad person, not committed any bad crimes. i feel like i can't help the metal -- help him at all. we look for jobs, but once they see on his record he has been to jail, it's over for him. host: what does it mean for you?

does he come back and live with you in between? money, effort, resources have you dedicated to try to get him help? caller: i take him to the job sites, he ends up just helping out the people in the neighborhood, mowing grass or something like that, but that is not enough to make a living. not enough to become an independent person. he is stuck in a catch-22 with the system. host: dennis regina and oxford, north carolina. we will take a short break. up next, we will go live to montgomery county correctional facility to look inside the corrections system. to go inside and see what it is like for the inmates there. we'll talk to the staff about what they are doing to keep the and to help the

folks that are inside for when they get released. we will talk about all of that coming up. first, during a speech this summer, president obama laid out his vision for reforming the criminal justice system, highlighting the work by the montgomery county, maryland, correctional facility. [video clip] pres. obama: our prisons should trainlace where we can people for skills that can help them find a job. not freedom to become more hardened -- not train them to become more hardened criminals. [applause] like itwant to pretend is all easy. some places are doing better than others. montgomery county, maryland, put

a job-training center inside the prison walls to give folks a head start in thinking about what might you do otherwise than commit crime. that is a good idea. , oneis another good idea with bipartisan support in congress, let's reward prisoners with reduced sentences if they can be -- complete programs that make them less likely to commit a repeat offense. [applause] innovative new approaches to link former prisoners with employers. help them stay on track. let's follow the growing number of our states and cities and private companies who have box on jobban the application so that former prisoners who have done their time and are now trying to get straight with society have a decent shot in a job interview.

[applause] and for folks who serve their tribe -- time, and have reentered society, should be able to vote. [applause] communities that give our young people every shot at success, courts that are tough but fair, prisons that recognize that eventually the majority will be released and seek to prepare these returning citizens to grab that second chance, that is where we need to build. about 30 miles northwest of washington, d.c. is the town of boyds, maryland. the correctional facility is there which houses over 1000

inmates. joining us from there is the former warden, robert green. thank you for your time this morning. let's begin with where you are sitting right now. what is this room used for? guest: i am in one of our housing units at the montgomery county correctional facility. it is a 64-bed direct supervision housing unit. host: what is this room used for on a typical day? guest: montgomery county corrections facility is built around a theory called direct supervision. that is where the officer is resonant with the inmate population 24 hours a day. we have 27 units that are similar to this. 64 individuals that would be housed here and this idea of direct supervision provides us with the opportunity to provide one good safety,

inmatey to the population but also affords the opportunity to bring programming into the units. we have a model called therapeutic community. we are trying to take issues, 64 men or women depending on where they are housed and concentrate on issues that are important to them that have maybe brought them to the facility. one is a substance abuse treatment facility. we are one of four maryland counties. orare not talking about aa na, but we are providing substance abuse treatment. they could be education units or life skills. one of the more complex units for us to run is the crisis intervention unit where we are dealing in quite an increase in the serious and persistently mentally ill coming into the systems. host: it is a maximum-security facility. how do you keep order in an open room like that?

looking at you are county jails and how we generally function, the difference between jails and prisons -- i heard you say earlier, it is very distinct. jails are primarily pretrial facilities. confinement less than 18 months. it is not by the number of staff you have but it is really to a good objective jail classification system. we spend about 40 man-hours using instruments and tools to classify individuals, looking at all of their psychosocial needs. what we can do to benefit them while they are incarcerated here. it is really a science. begins with a physical plan that you want to be safe and designed in a manner that it does not lend itself to abuse or misuse. the big piece for us is the model that we use -- i'm losing

my piece, the model that we use to classify our population and provide them the information. the piece not to be overlooked that all is the well, tuned in, correctional staff. we often think about correctional staff as just officers in uniforms. we have everything here from mental health therapists to case managers to correctional officers and social workers. that whole myriad of staff that you bring to bear on the population while they are here. our focus is to make sure that everybody who leaves the facility leaves better connected and has the resources to exist back in the community that we are sending them to. if you look at the data in america's jails and i think this would hold true whether it is montgomery county or across the country. 90-94% ofetween

individuals are returning back to the streets. often readunity, we with great interest there will be 650,000 released from america's prison system. we know that in 2007 when we began studying it that a love and million people will pass through america's jail systems. we are the deep end of the pool in that context and the programs and how we use the units and the staff that we have -- we can really make a difference. host: tell us about the numbers. how do you know that? how can you prove it? say thatr us, i would dealing with this idea of mass incarceration from a government county has been a marathon and not a sprint. it really started looking across the board of what we could do for our incarcerated population. 1989, we took a look at

things like pretrial diversion. in some areas you don't have pretrial programs. pretrial diversion is the opportunity to really do a risk analysis were you are not looking at bond or monetary bond. the sole issue that keeps an individual in jail. if i were arrested, maybe i am given a $5,000 bond within our state. to some people that may be a low monetary amount to secure my freedom and for some that may be 5 million. montgomery county started looking at pretrial detention. what can you do to manage people in our community? when you look at the statistics, we have 2500 under supervision in our system today. of that number, 71% are under supervision in the community. allowsve a program that

them to work off their sentence in the community. of thosek assessment individuals that we place in those communities. or those programs. today, 678 are incarcerated inside the walls. pretrial.with we try to follow the science. it is not new information. we have known over the last 20 years that focus on education -- i heard one of your colors talking about her son was able to receive a ged. thenow from studies out of a receipt of florida and others on education that if we can get an individual the basic education, they are 43% less likely to recidivate and return back to jail in three years. we know if we can get them past the three-year mark focusing on other things like employment,

education and substance abuse treatment, and making sure that everything we are doing here in the jail has a level of continuity. again, i think that is something that we do so well in montgomery county. it is not a criminal justice system managed just by the director of corrections. i am responsible for it, but we have a very strong, collaborative, working relationship throughout county government. through our communities and nonprofits that provide a service. all of those things make a difference and we are trying to follow the science. look we are taking a inside the correction system in this country with a visit to montgomery county correction facility in boyds, maryland. roberttalking with green, a director for the montgomery county department of correction and rehabilitation. talk about the inmates at the

facility. why are they there? how long do they stay? are they partners in these programs you offer? questionat is a great and one that we receive frequently. the average length of stay here is about 48 days. that is the individual who is arrested by one of our police agencies and comes into the central booking. we receive individuals from all of the agencies in the county. that is an individual that is here maybe eight hours are 10 hours going through the initial intake process and released to an individual that will spent 18 months in the system. i think that the inmate population is a willing partner. one of the first things you have to do is that people have to be safe. we can talk about all of the programs we do here, which i am very proud of, but that is all

built around the aspect of safety and safety starts with an individual coming into a system where they don't feel they will be preyed upon. we have people. i would look at our population as a bell curve. about 20% coming in the door are very motivated to change their life and they want to do it this time and get out the door. 20% on the backend are sitting on the cusp of potentially a life of crime or a career of crime. 60% of individuals that fallen that curve. it is the opportunity that we take for the first time they may be safe or sober in their life. in thesetrate services units. the population is a willing partner.

any given day we have 500 or hoursarticipating, eight a day, some 24 hours a day in this therapeutic community model where they try to change their lives. forve been in corrections 31 years and i started off in a correctional officer in housing unit. if you give them dignity and topect and the opportunity engage something in their life that really has a focus that has held them down and engages the soul, you see change. those that are not ready for the ready toe have to be house them safely and securely away from the population that wants to be involved. we always have to be ready. based on that point in their life. , and opportunity that they know they are ready for this change and we need to be nimble enough to bring them into the program.

they are here for a defined period of time. what we do with them and how we treat them and the opportunity we give them, that is a very important to find period of time. years ofh 31 experience, mr. greene is here to take your questions in your comments. a special line for those of you with experience in the correctional system. walid into one lead -- pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my call. i like what he is talking about. my whole thing, i was on hold before he came on the line, but giving people opportunities when they, the line. people don't want to go back to jail. we don't have opportunities, but what are you going to do? you have to survive. the way that they got in there is probably to get money. a lot of times people are doing things just to do it, there

trying to get a little bit of money. my thing is, give people opportunities and give them respect. i've never been down, but i have been locked up. once i came home from that stint, i got myself together. i have been working by the grace of allah, i have been fortunate. like i said, he is talking some good stuff and everybody needs to do this. these guys are not all bad. give them the opportunity and they don't want to go back to jail. they want to take care of themselves and their families. they're not demons. appreciate your sentiments. it is a perfect lead-in to where we are going. , theat we are focusing on reentry programs.

in 2005, we started really hearing about this word, reentry. the first thing that i want to say is there were great faith-based organizations called the going home programs. we built this facility. the director in the county. that we wouldm help people prepare just for the journey that the gentleman explained. with 94% going back to the streets of our community, how can we make sure we are putting these transitions in place. in 2005 or 2006 we started looking at this idea of reentry for all. reentry prerelease and program that was community-based in montgomery county for 40 years now. we are individuals that qualify and have the appropriate sentence and can live inside a facility and work in the community. and prepare for the journey home. 25% of the about

total population being released. we took this focus of reentry for all. what can we do for the individual that will be here for eight hours, to the individual that will spend six months or a year and prepare them for reentry. the idea was just to start bringing these community services in the door. for all of us, life can be a challenge. down foryou have been six months or a year, losing that community contact, going out the door, perhaps having that reentry requirements from the courts that say, we want you to go to three aa or na meetings per week. we what you to find a place to live and get a job. tickets.our three bus good luck. we decided we were not going to be that kind of a county. but we think we were,

really wanted to focus on the return to the community. that is why we brought the one-stop workcenter. we are told that we were the first. maybe it is a bit sad that we were. i'm glad that we opened the door for others. why waitthis idea of, to engage in employment when you have left out the door -- why not start engage that here? so we put the one-stop workcenter in play that has really focused on preparation for job, interview, for life anding up to an employer being able to look them in the face and you can say i have had a felony conviction, here is what i have done in my life, rather than engage in employment. we really started focusing on the reentry programs. billed did, greta, was reentry programs where -- the

only place you can find them wasn't in jail. we took what already existed in the community and brought it inside. we did not want to jail-based, one-stop, workcenter. we wanted a good program that happened to be in the jail. to be our third site which sets inside the jail. substance abuse treatment programs, making sure the programs they had access to inside our walls was the same program they would engage in in the community. that is continuity making sure we opened our doors to the community providers that want to help, bring them in and let them engage in that population here so when the door opens and they are headed out they have all the tools in their hand to help them get in line. i had an individual as clean one day -- you are putting people to the front of the line ahead of me. that is not factual. what we are doing is trying to teach people how to get in line.

these relationships with montgomery college, our health and human services is one of our key partners in helping connect people to the wealth of programs that they have. and that connection happening here before the doors open is really key. host: are you saying that employers are coming to the jail to talk to these inmates about to be released? how do you convince them to make that trip? -- theit starts with one-stop workcenter, america's job center that we put here in 2005, it has the appearance of a workcenter that you would see in the community. the first piece is showing the dignity and the respect to the person walking in the door to say this is your opportunity. this is what you will see when you leave here.

it is getting them prepared for that initial interaction. spending time there watching individuals go to the interview preparation, watching them go through the preparation and understanding what can they do in life? what are they good at? being able to go through those assessments with our job coaches. they are absolutely incredible. more to the point, we have employers now coming in. we are doing job fairs. hire thisthat want to population and even employers interested in this population. so they can understand what these men and women going through? in preparation to come out and be a good employee? we just had a really good session with montgomery county nonprofit that works with our small business community. they came in last week and the week before that brought a

number of small business leaders in to see what we are doing. in montgomery, we focused on been the box. allowing individuals to get that opportunity to sit in front of not be ruledand out of the process by a checkmark on the application. to sit in front of the employer and let that employer make a judgment based on what that individual is telling them and what they have done in their life. that is a big focus for us. host: the lines have lit up for you. i will get into more calls. foremost, letand me qualify what i am getting ready to say. i was in the first class there in washington, d.c. when it was called the city college. in our fortunate enough prison institution that we had a number of prisoners that came into class with us.

knowany cases we did not they were prisoners, but they enlightened the class. the learning, the education, socially and academically. it was something entirely different. many think that we were naive. today it explains so much and i learned so much from these people. done,ing is, what we have in harming these people after they have served their time. when they get out, they can't get a job, can't get education or housing. can't get welfare and last but not least, they can vote. for all practical purposes they are a man without a country. why don't we treat them the same way that we people -- treat the people walking across the border? let them work. if they mess up then penalize them, but let them get a job. the best thing you can do for a person in this life is to get them a job so they are able to

take care of themselves and their families. indiscretionsul that some of these people have done. right here in tulsa, oklahoma, the have a 16-year-old -- his 19-year-old brother killed five family members. stabbed the mother 48 times, but they are pleading on the mercy of the court because the 16 your was just a youthful offender. at the same time that was a 15-year-old black kid with three joints in his pocket and he is locked up. when he gets rate to apply for a job, what is he going to do? check the box, no we can't take him. the recidivism is created by us as a society. host: i will leave it there because i wanted to share his thoughts. comment within

the intelligence of what is happening in different jurisdictions. i can tell you what works here. i spent time talking to the inmate population, as does our staff. one of the things i mentioned that his key is this element of direct supervision. our staff are in direct contact all the time and they do a great job. an individual as a human being not just one behind that cell wall. that is an important focus for us. the things you have talked about with reentry, that is how we do it, science says it will work. systems.re and more we are at this renaissance moment looking at what will work. well i know is i have a population here for a defined period of time that i do not control. the courts control, and bring to

me. our mission is to do good more -- do more good than harm, and prepare them to go back out the door. i think we do a good job of that. i wish other leaders well. we are open to those conversations. i see a lot of change happening. i see a real renaissance moment in corrections where these programs -- i just had the opportunity, i was with the macarthur foundation in chicago last week. in their program, they are 20 jurisdictions, counties, millions of dollars going into help them really look fromat their practices are incarceration, but what they do inside their jails, andy programs they offer -- and the programs they offer. it is happening. i think it is where we need to be. host: we are live this morning

inside the montgomery county correctional facility, inside one of the housing units there, talking to mr. green, director for the county department of rehabilitation. thomas, go ahead, you are on the air. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is thomas, i limit the i live in des moines, iowa. i am a license therapist. i need to give mr. green credit because he seems to be a sincere individual invested in change. i will value there is enough blame, responsibility, and complicity to go around. blame the inmates, there behavior, from an ethnicity standpoint, wife lame blacks, blacks blame whites, when in reality, there is enough responsibility for both to go

around. the complicity comes around when it comes to the judicial system, there is a factor that we fail to look at. anbecoming incarcerated problematic because there is a financial incentive from the institutions. until i was involved in the correctional system from being incarcerated for a simple misdemeanor, and then be told that unless you take the plea bargain, we are going to put you on a hold, in order to force you to take the plea bargain. on top of that, there is a financial incentive for the judicial system to do that because in iowa, if you spend a day in jail, that is $75. host: i what mr. green to talk about that. is there a financial incentive

jail up?to fill the ge guest: absolutely not. , any not charge a bed fee of that. there is no financial incentive. our population is reducing. we are down 23% over the last eight years. .here is no incentive i will say, in our county, the judiciary is very involved in our criminal justice court in any committee. it is an extremely strong organization of stakeholders -- our attorneys, our judges never miss the opportunity to come and talk about how each element of the system impacts the other. we look at a really holistic solution. there is no financial incentive here. we do not collect a fee inside

yhe system for a day stay. we do not charge a fee for a meal. it is the opposite. our incentive is to appropriately reduce our population, were maintaining the safety of the public, the community, impacting a citizen -- there is no incentive. host: talk about super max versus maximum-security at the facility there. guest: we are not in the super world. that comes out of the prison environment. i do not hear much about super maxes anymore. we are maximum-security based on this definition. behold everyone in a local jail

that has had a crime of theft to individuals, allegedly killed two or three people. we have held individuals here -- i held the individuals here involved in the sniper trials many years ago. we have to be prepared to fulfill that mission across the scope. that is why we are maximum-security, but it is quite a spread of individuals and behaviors. we deal with very serious people as well. some of the not ready for these programs of change. as i noted, we are here when they are. host: jess and myrtle beach, south carolina. you are on the air. andler: i spent 30 years -- i'm retired down in south carolina -- in a massachusetts system. i know it was the state system, so a prison system, not the jail system. all thesebout

wonderful things you are doing, but even my wife, in the gel system, you only have the guys there for 100 or something days. my experience, after they graduate from the jail, and are sent to real prison, they come in, and you have to classify them based on how violent they are. it is not as simple as everyone is going to reenter. they are all going to reenter, but most of them are substance abuse, alcoholics is the biggest , and unless you can correct that, they are not any good to employers. they have to get their ged's, , they haveo go to aa to go to work, even though it is not required. if you are not going to get to the lowest level which would be maximum to minimum --

host: mr. green, what you make of his comments? this is a jail in montgomery county, what can you do if your average day is 50-100 days? how can you correct the haber in that short amount of time? guest: you look at the time you have. it is a snippet of time. if you have someone for eight hours, you can give them something they did not come in with. in eight hours, it is the information and resources available in our community in order to engage it. prison is not my world. i have never worked in a prison. i can tell you this, there are 30 states and the united states that have really started focusing on justice reinvestment. that is at the prison level, where they are looking at and really studying what services jail.ave inside a

justice counsel, and we are in the process right now. 30 other states have actively engaged, and i can tell you what we are looking at in maryland, we are looking at program opportunity, the length of stay. the motivation can be much different for a person who has light at the end of the tunnel and is a year away from release versus the person who is 10 years away from the release date. we are systematically studying that in american prisons and have undertaken that in maryland. if there is an interest by the office if they go to the of gun control website, he can see the work that marilyn has done with the justice thre counsel, and look at work from

other states around the country. that work is truly underway. host: good morning, eric. i used to be a correctional officer myself. i really want to say thank you to director green and what montgomery county is doing. not only for the inmates, but also how they treat the officers . we often forget about the people who spend the most time with the inmates. the police make the rest, the judge makes the sentence, but the inmate spends the rest of their sentence with the officer. usually the officer is not really appreciated. see on tv -- people

look down on correctional someers, and also reflect the on offices. look at the nation's capital, washington, d.c., the d.c. jail does not have proper retirement for the officers being i just wanted to say thank you, director, thank you for the job you are doing. officers are very important in the rehabilitation of inmates. host: mr. green? , as thell staff are gentleman said, do a tough job every day. all the pieces working hand-in-hand, we were able to build a facility that gives them an environment to do quality work. our staff are absolutely

exceptional. in our county, we tried to make sure we compensate our staff well. to those, much is given, much is expected. they do an incredible job. we have great longevity. our staff come, they stay. i cannot give you an average, but out of 524 full-time staff in the department of corrections, we have a considerable number that are business.ars in this we are very fortunate and proud of what we have cultivated. our county has helped us colts of a really great staff and support structure. host: when you look at the figures, the cost of personnel at the jail makes up 90% of the budget. we spoke with a couple of employees at the jail, when we were visiting, and talk to them about what they do at the job center there.

this is what they had to say about why this work is important to them. [video clip] victim of aually a crime. when i was in middle school, my ,randfather was an entrepreneur two robbers came to our home, and they shot and killed my grandfather. i was a victim of a crime. what i want these individuals to see is there is a face behind what you do, there is a victim behind it do. if i can help them go through what the men who killed my grandfather went through which , then i-life sentence am doing what i was placed here to do. >> for me, it is very personal. my dad went to prison when i was 10 years old. he served at 15 year sentence. this is a personal for me. the statistics show that the children of incarcerated tend to jail at alarming

rate. i want to break that cycle. host: two of your employees, mr. green, there, who helped with themes, trying to prepare for life after gel. you think it is important that it is personal for them? guest: i think everybody has their story, greta, and why you do this work. day.es come out every both of those ladies, and how they address the population, the things that they do, the passion they bring to the work. i think we all have our stories. perhaps we don't always talk about them. for me, my story is i have been in corrections for 31 years. looking through the door, at a friend, someone i grew up with, and having him ask a question of me -- i knew your mom, you knew my mom -- why i took my fact that you took your past, now,

what can i do to change that. that was very impactful for me in 1986. why don't we have more programs to help us change our lives so my story looks a little more like yours. -- one,ation comes from watching, and be involved in how we manage corrections over the years, and seized the opportunity to make the change now, and knowing what works. again, everybody brings a story. it is important what motivates you. host: outland, a democrat in brooklyn. caller: it seems to me that there are overlapping trends that can be connected to some recent news. we have a very dysfunctional congress where people do not seem to represent the population for their fair share

of power in the republican house. they cannot alight a leader that represents their voices. at the same time, there is a background of people convicted of crimes and an excessive number of people denied their vote because too many took a plea, instead of going to court, because they could not afford bail. we have an incentive by a government that can lower the apparent unemployment rate by having fewer people looking for jobs, and all the people who are taken off the streets are no longer counted amongst those seeking work. ishave a trade policy that taking more and more work from .hese minorities manufacturing jobs have been reduced. we are creating the appearance that there is less unemployment then there is. oh denial, unemployment, free

trade, congressional dysfunction, all of these things seem to overlap. the "new york times" cover this recently in july -- bipartisan pushed to builds to relax laws. host: do you have a thought on giving judges more discussion? retion? guest: i do see this really strong bipartisan support in this area, this region, that we reside in, we have interest from democrats, republicans, people who want to see a change in how the system works, and the

successes we are having. i see really strong support for outcomes, and not necessarily affiliations. i think that discussion provided to the judges is really an important piece of this change. , an: joe in south carolina independent with experience in the corrections system. what is your question or comment? caller: first of all, i want to tell you how i appreciate your show, and you. can you hear me? host: we can. we're listening. thank you for that. caller: i was in a correctional facility back in 1980, right around there. i was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. i ended up serving less time than he did. anyhow, i got my ged when i was in there.

have out of their and had three or four different jobs. each time, i moved out, i made better pay, i met my wife, i had a family. so, the correctional facility change my life around, actually. i knew i did not want to go back there. also, i went back into service , and i served over in iraq for two tours. my life around. they gave me a chance. i just wanted to tie it in. and i want to thank everybody for the opportunity i had. int: let's move on to john washington, a republican theory go ahead with your comment or question. to labor localg

440 in seattle -- i did belong to it for 30 years. even though progressive is not a nice word anymore, that is what our union was. back in 1982 -- before 1982, our population of our union was guys, and50% white 50% women in my and minorities. i did not work much for a couple of years. a lot of people dropped out of the union. about 1990, our union was taken over by the federal government, second line to the teamsters.

our union was used to go reorganize labor constructors throughout the united states because we had such a fair way of giving everybody a job. host: can i ask you to get to your question or your point here for mr. green. theer: the main point is union, at least 440, was never prejudiced against anybody who did time. if you are willing to be a hard worker, you could come in and work, and maybe even start as an apprentice. we had plenty of women, minorities, and if you did not mind working, we were good with it. ok.: can you talk about the union, is there a union role at montgomery county? unionizedare a workforce within my system.

we have carpenters unions, and other unions, i believe the plumbers union, has worked with some of our workforce development efforts in helping education,training, and programming. i cannot tell you that there were jobs provided there, but they played a role in some of our workforce education. host: we are talking with robert maryland -- void, boyd, maryland. we are live in the correctional facility. we will talk with others, besides mr. green, about what it is like an side, the changes they are making, the programs they have therefore inmates. preparing them for life after jail. we will continue throughout today's "washington journal" with this discussion. republicans, (202) 748-8000. democrats, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 745-8002

a fourth line this morning for those with experience in a correctional system, (202) 748-8003. let's get more of your calls in this morning. before we do that, let's talk about where you are. for a mind our viewers. you are in one of the housing units, that is where the inmates sleep, do their work, and showered. talk about the cells. guest: i am in one of the direct supervision housing units that we utilize. footells are 70 square cells, they are two person cells. depending on behavior, willingness to engage we single cell, as needed. you are out of yourself most of

the day until 9:00 at night, which is the lock-in time for sleep. the next day, the program start all over again. , andu are in a unit perhaps behavior is an issue, there could be more in cell time . our goal is to get as many people as possible, based on how they treat staff and each other, into these therapeutic housing units, where we can really begin to help them concentrate on the issues that they had in their life, and the issues that brought them to our doors. host: do you find that getting these inmates out of their cells helps with behavior? if they are in a cell for hours upon hours, in that small room, that contributes to bad behavior outside of the? guest: it does. i won't tend to say i'm an

expert in that area. there is a whole body of study and solitary -- on solitary confinement. yeah, there are some people there are extremely violent. every daynt to paint this perfect picture. ks have some dangerous fold that we deal with. we need that sell to maintain behavior. it for the time that you need it, when they are acting out. in our system, there is no such thing as solitary confinement, even if you are on a high lock-in status because of the hager, we are still there to deal with the issues. the case manager is present. the staff -- there is no benefit to us, and to the correctional

system. a very few number for us. the benefit comes in therapeutic groups. that is what we really strive to do. host: mr. green, citing studies that have been done on solitary confinement. here is a story about that. at, you are next. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would just like to say a couple of things. , we havest history been locking people up in rural

areas. if you are educated, like me, i because i had smoked pot, and they did not want pot smokers there. if a local cop can take your house and sell it, that is profit for them. to look and see the statistics in the united states, and how may people we , versus howd killed many people are jailed the casa pot. this is something i'm writing a book about right now. this is something i want c-span 2 adjust, why are we shooting people for something they don't die from deco host: were you able to follow that. guest: that is not my industry. follow the police.

we have seen some equalization of marijuana in this county, the state, and across the country. i think that has to bear out. we have to follow the stats. we have reduced some of the incarceration on possession of small counties in montgomery county. all of those things have to be done based on a risk analysis, not just based on the crime, what is the risk to the community. how can we, at the same time, provide some treatment to individuals. the caller's exterior is not my experience. host: sherry in texas. good morning to you. caller: i'm excited this is going on. educate everybody, if they have not heard of it already, the prison program inrial cleveland, texas. my son was incarcerated for drug use and sale.

he graduated from a program in 2007. bringhey do is they people to one unit, interview this,if they want to do and it is grueling. they will go on to a prep program supported by baylor university. they learn to be a man. 95% of the prisoners do not go back during a certain amount of time. there are numerous men who have startedut, and their own business. we support it, financially. there are business people who come in looking for these graduates because it is life-changing. my professor is a perfect -- my husband is a professor at sfa and volunteers. it is an amazing program.

in thet they are doing cleveland unit. they started another unit in estes, texas. it is life-changing, not only for the prisoners, but anyone that gets involved. host: mr. greene? guest: it sounds like a wonderful program, a lot are popping up around the country. i'm not familiar with it, but i assure you, i'm a bit of a junkie for articles of successes in my industry, and i will look the. -- look that up. host: i want to build up another issue and that is mental illness . you had a front-page story recently in "the washington post," "waiting in jail for help and dying." how are you dealing with this

issue? guest: the mental health crisis -- i don't use that word at all lately. more is about 14% individuals in jails with a mental illness than there are in state hospitals and places where they perhaps need to be. it is a crisis in maryland. it is a crisis in many places. we are dealing with a population in a very collaborative manner. we do not create new systems inside our jail. we have a health and human services department that helps us. you will be hearing from one of our staff that works directly with that population. i think we are doing better than most, but not as well as we would like. i talked about a 23% reduction in our population. that percentage that is left, that number that is left, is an extremely acute population.

we are seeing persistent mental illness on a daily basis coming into our central processing unit. looking back over some data, when it was preparing for today, 60 percent of our population is homeless and mentally ill. how we are working to provide housing, as well as treatment, it is a real struggle. hundred 29 people today are taking medications. again, i'm proud of what we are doing. criminal justice coordinating committee, as well , we are looking at our mental health processes in the county, what we can do to be more nimble, and serve this population. as a warden, there are things

that rise to the top of your list they keep you up at night. it is the mental health thatation in our system really does that for me. it is not unusual to have someone who is in a serious crisis. we want to protect them from harm, from harming themselves. it's not unusual to have multiple individuals on a one-on-one status. we have had to do two on one's at times. we are working through what i think is a really tough situation. nationally, we need to look at serious justice reinvestment in

the system. perhaps it is not reinvestment, it is investment and what we can do to help this population. we can talk for a really long period of time about what happened with the institutionalization in the 1960's. it brought a lot of people to the doors of the american jails, and they are still here because the community functions did not stand up. i think we need to caution ourselves a bit. we start talking about mental health and the criminal justice system. there are a number of mentally it is at commit crime -- very low number, but what we are looking at are the number of cases circulating through our system. we look at the number of days spent in jail, escalation. we are trying to not only china from the criminal justice standpoint, and look at it from a crime standpoint, but look at it throughout the continuum of

care, and how we can better assert ourselves into each one of those events to help , and keep them stable. we are getting our arms around it, and have for some time. we are looking at what is the next iteration of things like deflection. we talked often about diversion. divergent is when someone comes in our system, and we can direct them from prosecution, get rid of the charge. deflection is not having the charge to begin with. across the country, we have officers to operate within our police community. our police officers in a verymery county -- large portion of them have that

training. they do great work in the area of deflection. the number of calls they answer for service is continuing to escalate for them. things, looking at the system holistic leave. not just from the jail side or courtside, but community side. we are bringing all of these forces to bear. we will be making, hopefully, some changes in how we manage that population. host: of course, all of that effort takes money. you have an operating budget of 71 million for 2016. as we showed our viewers earlier, 91% of that going to personnel. is federal that dollars and local dollars? guest: the majority of that is local dollars. we get some federal dollars in

.erms of grants on the hhs side all of our staff that are employed, those are local dollars. it is an investment in people. we need people to manage corrections. you need social workers. you need individuals who are really helping to address the needs of the individuals. there is no equating how much money you throw at the problems to how well you fix it. it is how well you distribute those dollars, those people, and really following the science, the research, and the need, and collaboratively bring it together. host: we will talk about how those dollars are just a rear in the montgomery county correctional facility, but we want to thank you for your time this morning and talking to our viewers. we will continue but the conversation. thank you, sir. guest: thank you very much for

having me. thank you for taking a look inside our systems. host: we will continue to do so after this short break. about what inmates go through, and we will continue on with a look at the services for inmates to treat drug, alcohol, and mental health issues. first, during one of our recent visits, c-span's jennifer roth sat down and talked about inmates getting a job after release. [video clip] work source a jobseeking program for inmates housed here. we were one of the first in the country to be housed in the jail, but not the only one. the earlier we can start

preparing someone, the more likely they are to get employment. we begin eight months before the release. >> what we do is go to the units and recruit them. you can come -- you can sign up to come to our programs. what we do is go to the unit and to behe inmate, are soon customers, what they can do. onis eight months or less their sentence. it cannot be pretrial. they cannot have a detainer and another jurisdiction. those are the individuals eligible for our program. weekrogram itself is a 16 curriculum. jobe are six weeks of readiness, six weeks of job search, and four weeks of personal development. our goal here is to get them job ready and life ready. have as much legal

work experience. we don't have to explain that we have a criminal record. sometimes their educational level is not as high as your traditional job seeker. a lot of it is confidence. we prepare them to go and sell themselves and assured to the employer that i can do the job. >> it is good for them to have individuals come from the community and actually work with them. individuals who they can see are willing to help them. it is important for the seeunity to come in and what we are working with. sometimes this can be a scary environment. people will automatically be afraid to deal with ex offenders.

they can come in and see, this is a person that is here, they made a mistake, but now they are working to it opportunities to be of federal taxpaying citizen. that is the benefit of individuals coming from outside. host: we are back inside montgomery county correctional facility, about 30 miles here from the nation's staff oftalking with the facility about what they do at the jail there. it is a capacity of a little over 1000. in one of the housing units, we chum.oined by kendra jo talk about reentry services. when you say that word, what does that mean, and what do you do? what are you offering? guest: reentry services is a really broad way to say any of thefor individual needs that members of our population have.

reentry, by definition, is the process for someone returning back from confinement to the community. it is often thought of when people are returning from a peri incarceration. really, it can mean any time they were included in the custody of police, courts, rial programs. there is a broad way of looking at reentry. essentially it is assisting people with what they need for returning. host: what are some of those needs? guest: commonly, reentry means -- certainly, housing is a problematic and challenging the to address.- need we also look at education and employment. research has shown, over the years, it is not actually the tangibles that make the biggest difference in reducing recidivism, it is looking at

thinking patterns and focusing targeted intervention in the way the person perceives the world, makes value judgments, and choices. host: give us an example of how a program might work. let's talk about a mental health program or substance abuse program. facility, youthe heard director green talk about a number of our therapeutic communities. these units are designed to look focus on certain members of the population that have needs. the program units are focusing in on different skills and developing insight. the program is self would be withed based, combined classes, and also release

preparation. i reentry services unit does not function as a standalone unit. we are throughout the facility. as director green talked about, we tried to reach as many individuals as possible because the majority will be returning back. our approach is different than a structured program. host: we are inside the montgomery county correctional facility. you're hearing the doors open and shut. we are live inside one of the housing units there where you would typically see the inmates out of their cells, doing these isgrams that kendra jochum talking about, whether it is preparation for a job when they leave or getting help with substance abuse. there are over 600 inmates currently at montgomery county correctional facility. they can house over 1000. we are taking your questions and thoughts about what these

inmates need, and what it means for the community. do you work with the community outside the jail? guest: absolutely. with reentry services, you cannot do as a standalone effort within the walls of the facility. reentry is about returning back to the community, making those connections for the individual, and with the individual, prior to the release. we have a number of partners that we work with. montgomery county health and human services is a primary partner. we have a couple of connections with them. montgomery community college is another partner. and, the work source job center is a core partner as well. host: we were showing our viewers a moment ago about some of the reentry services that inmates might need. one of them is food stamps. why is that important? stamps is reflective

of a basic need. we all need to eat. onwhen a person is release, needsave competing further time and priorities. they have one less trip to make, one must appointment to make. through health and human services, we have a benefit specialist to work here full time to meet with individuals who we are working with, and she will assess their eligibility for welfare services including food stamps and medicare coverage. food stamps is important to help with the basic need to eat when they are out. is a challenge for a lot of individuals who have had the impact of incarceration, both for the families on the outside, who are missing income because their loved one is on the inside in the facility, and is also a challenge for when they come out because they do not necessarily have the income coming in immediately with the challenge

of employment. if they are eligible, we want to make sure they are connected prior to release. did: "wall street journal" an article about this, "extra defenders to get benefits." were1986 overhaul, they approved for getting benefits. tender yocum, talk about the benefit of this type of program, but all of the reentry services that you provide. how do you track success of them? tracked verys is simply on who comes back and who does not come back. difficult,is a very

complex formula to think about. we can think about immediate success following someone's release. if they can get past the first 4-6 months, they have passed the initial think or swim -- sink or swim test. long-term, if they can succeed on the 2-3 year mark without coming back into the system, that is the mainstay of reducing recidivism. nationally, two thirds of individuals come back through one system through supervisi or new offenses. totried to stay connected them after release through social media, e-mail correspondence, and phone, as much of their willing and interested in communicating with us. supervision,th they are the ones who take the support strategy and supervision

role as they enter the community. have a better sense of how they are succeeding in the community, or not. host: what you hear from former inmates when they are outside, when they get back out? what are they telling you are the greatest challenges for them? what is the most difficult part of it? employment.r, the challenges they face in applying for jobs, having the stigma of incarceration associated with them, those are frequent things that we hear about. the success stories really come folks were prepared for that challenging came up with strategies and skill building to enhance their possibilities when they are in the community. other challenges they face, certainly housing comes into play. family dynamics is another underlying factor that we tend to overlook when we look at

education and employment. family support is essential in someone's success. often that can be triggering their difficulties or contributing to their behavior and the first place, or just a matter of the support team in place for them when they come home, or the lack thereof. host: leading up to today's program, jennifer roth went to montgomery county correctional facility and sat down with a former inmate, who talks about his reentry into the community just last month. [video clip] >> just to know the people that i know, it was kind of a reaction, he is coming out, but he will fail. everyone was like, don't do this, don't do that, making me .eel like you are going to fail at the end of the day, the reaction was not so bad. for one, the people helping me just like my employer, helping me out getting back in

ing itmmunity, take it easy. dealing with the people where i'm living, they, little by little, we started going out. even though i wasn't locked up years and years, things change a little faster than they did before. little by little, they took their time, and got me back into the community, going to the store, simple things. going to eat together, so i feel comfortable. host: what do you hear therefrom from carlos?re technology changes so quickly, cell phones, paying for things, etc., how do you prepare for that? guest: it is a particular challenge, the longer that someone has been incarcerated and away from the community. for three years, i worked at the local work-release center, and we would have individuals come , and they needed

to know how to use the bus, how to use the cash register when they went to go make a purchase. the notion of smartphones these days, it comes second nature to all of us. these are underlying challenges that individuals may not even realize for themselves that they will need to navigate through. in conversations with their family and friends, if they can stay connected to the challenges on the outside. it is an isolating experience to be incarcerated and then dropped back into the community that you left, but does not necessarily look or feel the same way, whether in family and friend circles, or the actual physical spaces that you go back to. host: let's take some calls. we will go to reginald in houston, texas. you have exceeded in the corrections system. go ahead. caller: yes.

you will see that i am an excavation of -- ex- officer.nal they are handled as commodities here in texas. we lead the nation in prison incarceration and recidivism. i think this program is a very positive program. i was you would go to the state level. obama has changed the federal law. imi am my brother's keeper. we need to change this on the state level. i applaud what they're doing areuse the inmates here treated as commodities by the corrections corporation of america. they will not like the positives of this reentry. that will take away from the investments on the stock market because they are treating these people like commodities. i believe that if you continue what you are doing here, america will be better off with this

prison reentry you are trying to do. i applaud you. host: tender igo come what kind of help do you get -- kendra yocum, what kind of help do you get in your community? guest: on the state level, as the caller was mentioning, there is a distinct difference because of the population that our system works with, versus the local jail and pre-trial that we have. a recent effort that was popular ban the box." they are advocating, in annapolis, to pass this and other elements around , and ways that job seekers can have an even approach, as compared to other applicants, who may not have

that criminal history. i think it is important to keep the conversation going and engage the legislative effort so they are aware of the challenges being faced and the longer-term repercussions. what we talk about justice reinvestment, that is exactly where it comes back into it in terms of supporting the population that is going back into the community so they don't end up being a burden financially on different systems that may be in place. host: paul in maryland, go ahead. caller: i would just like to say, i have been in the correctional system. see articleshen i like congress passing laws, taking away benefits from people trying to be injured, you have to think to yourself, the people who decide the laws, who wrote the laws, they are not affected by this. they have to understand -- are affected in a way of where

are these people going to get food from? they will go back to do whatever they did to begin with, whether it is sell drugs, steel, with things like that. you can't say, we want to help people, and we want these people who are in jail to come out of jail, and do the right thing. they can't vote. they have no voice. host: we will take your point. your thoughts? guest: i think this whole notion of redemption, and the difference between a convict and returning citizen is at the heart of this discussion. when someone views themselves as a convict -- if society views someone as a convict, that isolates their role and ability to participate effectively in our society. identified yourself, or someone else, as returning citizen is intended to remove that label and fully embrace them as a

person first, who has a criminal history, rather than someone who is a criminal history, and that is all they can potentially be. acknowledging that these are want toals, who we come back, and one to embrace to improve and rebuild their lives is at the heart of everything. that is the focus of our work. it is not just a matter of providing what we think sounds nice, and what might be meaningful to us. it is a matter of what is really going to help make successful change possible for that person. host: we will go to new york, ryan, an independent. alex andove on to maryland, an independent caller. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to make a point, and i have see a lot of coverage recently in the news about black lives matter, an issue we are

discussing this morning. i think the effort should be made to address some of the issues before the facts, and not after people have been in prison, and release. i do give you give people opportunity, when they are much younger -- free community college, you know, kind of like that, we could prevent a lot of these things. when people have things to do, when you give them opportunities, they tend to get in less trouble. host: your thoughts? guest: one of the areas we focus on in the facility is our youthful offenders. we identify them as anyone 21 and under. we target content to this generation with the intent, as the caller mentioned, to focus in on angst before they become enterthings before they becom

onto the path of the criminal justice system. incarceration is the endgame. we need to focus on the beginning. that is a community and social effort, not just a matter of the family, or the finances, or education. it is a collaborative partnership to find solutions that we can all support. host: here is a tweet from one of our viewers -- may be returning them to the community from which they came is part of the problem, perhaps a new environment would be better. guest: i think it works with ways. it makes a big difference for people to go back to something that is familiar and so they know the different resources that are available to them. however, if that is where the cho and began, i ae agree that it makes sense to have a fresh start in other places.

host: bob is next in virginia, an independent. caller: good morning. i would like to just ask, instead of it being a community and societal problem, perhaps there is an alternate way to look at it. is there room for having these people come to terms with the choices they make, and also come to terms with the consequences of their actions? host: go ahead. isst: the thing that comes the individual is responsible for the decisions they make. in comments around it being a --ial problem, it is but is it is the individual first. the individual is self determining. we want to empower that person,

educate them, build skills, develop insight into the nature of their behavior. whom he about victims and their experiences and rights they are just as much a part of the criminal justice system as the person accountable for the offense. that is a complex puzzle piece that comes together. programs need to develop that insight. my comments at the beginning, traits,ial personality that is the underlying premise we need to enact change on so that they can make informed and more productive choices. host: we learned that the operating budget for 2015 for the montgomery county jail, a .ittle over $70 million how much money is dedicated for what you do? reentry services? a unique scenario

with montgomery county that we don't provide therapeutic services or reentry services on a contract basis. everything is held as part of our budget. there's not a firm number to place all the programs we combine because we are partnered with private providers as well as county providers. when we think about the figures it is staff teams of upwards of 30 or 40 individuals that put together to provide reentry services so their salaries get combined. the number of work hours combined. --don't have host: sorry we lost our connection with try to get that back. she is the director of the reentrynt -- the services manager for the montgomery county department of rehabilitation. our conversation with the folks going insideity,

the correction system this morning to give you an idea of what happens inside these jails. the inmates that are in there, one of the and therefore and all the challenges in issues the staff has to deal with. one of them is mental health. also, preparing these inmates for life after jail. kendra jochum, she is vital to that, manager of reentry services. it ranges from workforce programs to mental health as well as substance abuse. we got cut off but if you just want to finish your thought for us. guest: we were talking about the .udget for reentry services it is in line with all our program offerings. does not a specific segment dedicated to reentry services because it is a system approach. host: for your resources, i'm

curious about the heroin epidemic many communities are seeing in the united states. one headline from "the washington times," that heroin deaths topped highway fatalities in 2014. for you andat mean what you are trying to do in montgomery county? guest: substance abuse as a whole is a very challenging me to a dress for individuals the criminal justice system and otherwise. my colleague will be coming on shortly to talk about those in more detail. we talk about the heroin epidemic it's unfortunate circumstances impacting individuals. we have a new program we are venturing into and that is something she will more on but it is a grant funded program to the governor's office of crime control and prevention modeled

after several programs in the state. we want to provide education as well as medication support for individuals as they are executing release and returning to the communities to help with physical components to supplement and support some of the other programmatic work they have done to address relapse prevention needs. host: we will go to frank in gainesville, virginia. caller: thank you for c-span. i did four years and a virginia penitentiary. in, i saw was people coming getting incarcerated. so much unnecessary stuff in my life. i was distracted big-time from what was good and law-abiding and what i wanted to do with my life. all the distractions were taken away i could not make decisions

for myself. i began programming. the best thing that helped me when i got out was to not have unnecessary things in my life to keep my life simple. i would suggest the people that run the prison systems, to get rid of entertainment for the convicts. get rid of cake and ice cream and all the unnecessary stuff that they have. keep it simple so they can focus on these programs. they can focus on themselves, the victims. the best thing i did when i got out was to keep my life simple. i've been out for 31 years. i have a beautiful wife. i'm successful. i've four kids. i don't have cable. i listened c-span. we go hiking and camping.

the guys that i have seen that have not gone back to prison, they have done similar things. i would encourage the prison system to keep it clean and -- keep it clean and get rid of necessary -- unnecessary stuff. host: what do you think? guest: i think each individual has their own pathway into the criminal justice system and their own pathway out. i'm happy to hear the caller found what worked for him and i think that rings true for other individuals. it's going to be a matter of what works for that person. what their priorities are. i do agree what he was commenting on in terms of finding out what is going to fill his time and focus when he's in the community. one of the factors we look at is recreation. we are guiding these folks to take out things that are

problematic. who are they going to be spending their time with and what they going to be doing? leisure activities. hiking, that is individual and important as well. supporting positive behavior change goes along with that. commenting on taking away different potentially feel good things within a facility. change change is on the premise of positive reinforcement. noticing -- recognizing pollock -- progress is being made. host: let's go to warren in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. one comment. i know it's not going to be the end-all beetle. .- and all beat all i think the right to vote is expensive to reenter into

society. people have to have a stake in their own lives. if they feel it they have a stake when they get out, they can participate in society, i think it would help. host: two you have any thoughts on that? true. i think it rings in order for someone to participate in our society data before member -- they need to be a full member. i think about someone releasing from the criminal justice system, they are faced with different labels and things they cannot do. as a matter of empowering someone i think that that does need to be fully recognized. having the ability to vote, being able to apply for a job without having additional stigma could potentially limit them firm opportunities and housing as well. talk about the role the private sector plays.

employers in your community. mentionedector green our small business community that had come to visit a few weeks ago. employers, whether part of an organization or not, play a role. willand the box initiative talk about ways they can be a fair interview where it is not one of the initial questions around someone's history if they have had a criminal offense or not. i think having that outlook that we are looking at the skills someone is coming to apply for a position in having that neutral stance plays a key role. one of the underlying elements from our american job center's curriculum is return on investment and it's a matter of training and preparing customers at the center so they are able to offer solid skills and work ethic and knowledge of what employers want so that match can

be sustained for employment long-term. when we talk about the private sure at theng opportunities are available to all different sorts of individuals who meet the same .ualifications otherwise the american job center's curriculum focuses over the course of 16 weeks on job readiness skills development. they can touch base on all the important factors and what is not important about them so that when they do the interview there practicing their skills for those interview sessions that we have volunteer teams that come in and assist them. a combination of those skills which can come more easily than

the larger aspect of personal development. we have two superb coaches who staff our american job center and one of their talking points is that life readiness is often more challenging than job readiness. it's the combination of the job search and workforce development skills in combination with life readiness and personal development, communication relationships, personal appearance, things along that line. illinois.lie, in caller: are the families of the incarcerated as they are getting ready to get out, are they given education to help them? to the have a way of contacting someone? can we get help as he's going down the wrong path? huge part of is a

the reentry process. within montgomery county we have different ways we want to incorporate family in the reentry experience. when someone is incarcerated their family can feel incarcerated with them. about how to engage the family as part of our assessment process here within the tension to -- here within the detention center as well as in our prerelease program we want to solicit input. whether distler sponsorship or they have an ongoing role or just as the initial calls from reentry staff. to have a conversation about what the reentry process looks like and what their goals are going home. what they can agree to work on. we have another partnership with the conflict resolution center of montgomerywhat the reentry ps like county and through mediation, it individuals can

help prepare their plan with family members on how things will be like when they return home. that does not substitute for family counseling or other interventions but it starts the conversation and that is often the most difficult piece to begin with. in terms of communicating, we open our e-mail and our phones to individuals to reach us to pass along information. we are aware of confidentiality standards but we want to engage with family as we have releases of information to do so for our clients. host: the reentry services at the montgomery county department for corrections and rehabilitation. thank you very much. we are going to dig down deeper coming up into mental health and services abuse

available at the jail. joining us now is labor secretary tom perez to talk about what the labor department is trying to do on this front. mr. secretary, you visited montgomery county correctional facility, you so what they are doing. the labor department announced 10 million dollars in grants awarded for jail based employment centers to ready the inmates for the job market before the release. what do you make of what they are doing at montgomery county? why do you feel that it is important to put money toward this? guest: i think the best way to reduce recidivism is to get people the skills to compete the day they get out of jail and to make sure they are connected to the workforce system. i had the privilege of serving in the montgomery county council from two dozen two to 2006. 2006.m 2002 to

it has a tremendous return on investment. aboutality is, while 700,000 people leave federal and state facilities each year, something like 9 million people are leaving county jails and city jails. the focus is to make sure in these communities people ready to learn. wharton grain is one of my favorite people -- gordon green arden green is one of my favorite people. we saw what works and we wanted to take it nationally. roughly 20 communities received grants and they are going can muster. ofhad a tremendous applications because people understand a smart initiative has to involve making sure people are ready to succeed when they leave county jails, state

prisons, federal prisons. host: how will you know it is a success? guest: they are actually pretty simple. you track the number of people who are placed. what they are making, whether they are employed six to 12 months later. you also track credentials people obtained while they are in jail. rdenmember talking to wad green and the number of people who are studying for ged's in county jails continues to be solid. these are the types of measures because when people have more credentials and skills, they are more marketable. another way to track is to see how many employers you're able to engage. if people are getting trained but nobody's hiring them, that is not success either.

i talked to employers all the time. they believe in second chances. they have in many cases a skills shortage. they want welders and other people with talent and they believe in second chances. we've had great success. the largest private employer in the state of illinois is johns hopkins university. if i had ron peterson with us right now, he would tell us this is an act of enlightened self-interest. he would tell you they have former offenders employed at entry-level positions, as phlebotomists, up and down the various job descriptions at hopkins. this is what we have to do across the country. this is a smart initiative by reducing recidivism. host: what would employers tell you about the challenges with

hiring a former inmate? guest: a number of employers have a concern, this person got convicted for theft, what do i do? toolbox tols in the address some of the concerns you have. workforcece, every system in the 2500 american job centers have shared he bonds. will employer says energy to take a flier but what happens if that person steals from me, the answer is to mow we will insure against that. -- the answer is we will insure against that. both a logistical items that need to be worked out and have been worked out and can be worked out. host: the news many saw recently that the attorney general announced that 6000 prisoners will be released from jail to deal with overcrowding. you have concerns?

guest: i think it is being done in a methodical way. we have an over incarceration issue in this country. challenge in the our communities across the country in a way that was akin to dealing with cancer by building more hospitals instead of dealing with cancer by addressing underlying issues. i think it has to be done in the thoughtful way. there are way too many people who are incarcerated who i think could do well in communities and that's why i think what is heartening to me about what we are is there is a bipartisan understanding that we need to be smart on crime. if feeling tool in your toolbox -- if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything nail.s looking like a

host: we appreciate your time. we will continue with our conversation with staff from a gum or a county correctional facility. we are live from there this morning. it is about 30 miles from washington dc -- from a washington, d.c. athena morrow, thank you for your time. what is adult forensic services? of thea section department of health and human services under behavior for health and crisis services. we work with individuals who come into context with the criminal justice system that have mental health issues. host: what is the percentage of population at montgomery county

correctional facility that fall into that group of mental health and substance abuse? guest: the population we are dealing with is about 19% of all inmates who get hooked into our facility. what that means is they suffer from both mental health issues and substance abuse issues. if we were to only look at inmates who suffer from substance abuse issues, the percentage is a lot higher, almost 80%. host: do you find that this trend is increasing? what if you seen over the years? guest: we have seen an increase not only in the percentage of folks coming in with those issues but a tremendous increase in the severity of the symptoms we see. even when we fluctuate as far as the number of arrests in this county, we have seen that the

number of folks with mental illness has been going up. percentagewise, that number has stayed steady even as the number of arrests have gone down. we are dealing with an extreme situation. host: what are the challenges? guest: our challenges are tremendous. we have individuals who come into our jail for minor offenses and that is predominately things like transparency or disorderly conduct. the population that comes in with severe mental health issues. they tend to stay longer in our facility because they may not be able to access resources we have for them being as ill as they are. they also end up staying longer because our judicial system tends to postpone handling those

cases, tried to find a solution for when they're ready to come back out in our community. typically that population and sub staying longer in the jail than somebody without mental health issues for the same type of charge. host: the longer they stay, what challenges present themselves because of that? how do you treat the mental illness beyond therapy? do they have access to drugs? guest: of course. we have a full array. we work collaboratively with the department of corrections and between health and human services and department of corrections we have multiple types of services in the facility. with a full mental health unit we can house offenders who cannot function in general population. we have a full-time psychiatrist, mental health staff, a number of specialized

groups we like provide and supports we can provide for inmates. a levirate reentry planning that starts from the day they get arrested. we start looking for needs from the day they get arrested and we begin planning. the difficulty sometimes with planning in this population, because we are a different tension facility -- a detention facility, it is unpredictable as to when they will leave. summer --ut up this some can post bond, some can stay longer and we never know how to prepare for reentry. we have to begin the planning early on and be as proactive as we can. while we are here, we try to engage them in treatment even if we find that they may not be

engaged in treatment in the community. we tried to offer them options for treatments. host: we are inside the housing 2.4 at the montgomery county correctional facility talking with athena morrow was with the montgomery county department of health talking about the challenges with mental health inmates. we want to get your questions and comments. .epublicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents (202) 748-8002 we will go to brenda in cleveland, tennessee. haser: i have a son who

mental issues and chemical addiction issues for most of his life. he is been in and out medical hospital. in and out of jail. this is going on several years. what president reagan closed all the mental hospitals and put everybody on an outpatient basis it did not work. they are too willing to put people in jail but they are not too willing to get mental health -- mental health long-term. i'll dig we have any long-term facilities will left. my son is a borderline personality disorder. that requires therapy. i wanted to comment on that. but these people get to get mount -- once these people get to come out, will they have long-term services?

is an excellent comment. we find that everybody comes in with different needs. one of the things therapists are trying to address is whether the specific needs of the individual who comes in. combat the history of substance abuse issues as well as the mental health issues . the approach is different depending on what the needs are. we are fortunate in this community to have an array of resources that we can refer individuals to. for substance abuse we have access to 28 day program as well as longer-term facility that we can send folks if they need that level of service. we have an array of outpatient programs as well. depending on the need and intensity of treatment, we are fortunate to be able to refer and provide linkages as the

first -- as the person gets ready to exit the jail. we have an in-house substance abuse program where inmates can live in a separate unit and receive substance abuse services for as long as they are in the facility. we are different and in that very fortunate. host: vicki, you are on the air. visited union correctional institution in raeford, florida for the past eight years on a volunteer basis. my comment would be that at this institution, a medical survey was done about 10 years ago. it found that 90% of the population at this particular prison suffered from severe mental illness. that is a problem. a lot them in dorms for months or years because they cannot

manage their behavior and it is disturbing to me. , in the southe particularly, prisons are rough and harsh and very little compassion on the part of the legislator or the voters to change anything. how can we impact of that so that the general population of voters understands that these people need compassion and rehabilitation? caller: thank you so much for comments. we find that our population, who need special managing, is not as high as you mentioned. it would he along the same level as the rest of the country. we have about a 19% need to separate individuals with severe

mental health issues, and handle them in a special unit. that unit has a lot of special services. mental health workers, psychiatry and psychiatric services that are intensive, and folks can stay in that unit as long as they are unable to handle placement and general populations. we are very fortunate in that sense. during that stay, of course, all the reentry services begin linking them to community services that they need when they will exit. as far as what we could do about compassion, that is one of my favorite topics. i think there is a tremendous tendency to consider inmates as separate from us. in my experience, these are the us.s that walk amongst anyone of us could have committed an act that might, for one reason or another, have landed us in an institution.

this is not a separate population, these are folks just like anyone else dealing with an illness. despite what might have brought them into the institution is a compassionate approach, and a chance to rehabilitate. we try to offer that. in this facility, our officers are part of our treatment team. they have a lot of training in dealing with mental health. we approach individuals with a .ehabilitative motive in mind every time we approach them, we try to offer them options as to how to make different decisions and engage in treatment. host: we will hear from chris, pennsylvania, good morning to you, what is your experience with the corrections system in the united states? caller: i worked in the for 16ent of corrections years. i'm retired. i see a lot of the problems

geared toough as more treatment. when they release people, the .rime goes up the news, you hear about it. it keeps going on. fixing it with treatment is not working. they go to jail in pennsylvania, take a test, sale on purpose, so they get mental health treatment. they don't have no real set program for it. is they get in health and -- mental pennsylvania -- they assault staff, they felt other inmates, and they get away with it, they just the charges. a lot of the mental health people in pennsylvania, they are drug addicts. .hey come to prison

on the street, they functioned ok until they got caught. host: a lot there. what are your thoughts? guest: a lot of times, we see inmates who come in, they stabilize. they are very motivated to do well when the exit. times they accept referrals that we make. sometimes they don't. we cannot force treatment on somebody who exits. everybody has a choice. a court cannot order treatment, unless they convict someone. it is very important to try to motivate as much as we can and engage them in treatment inside the walls, if we can, before the exit. a lot of times, as motivated be, when the may exit, they may fall through the,

crocs, or stop treatment. to thethe return facility, a lot of times. it is a very frustrating cycle that we experience. about gels talk more addiction services. what we visited the montgomery facility,rectional we sat down with a former inmate. he talked about one of the programs available. we want to show our viewers, and have you talk about it on the other side. [video clip] programs called the jas -- gel addiction services. we learn to deal with ourselves, and then afterwards, helped someone deal with this situation, when they first came in. i was appear leader -- a peer leader. as inmates, we take care of each other, we give each other a hand. we do everything we can to make people feel comfortable. we would make sure that they

have the support they need from each other. , talk about morrow why this peer-to-peer help is important, and doesn't work? -- does it work? guest: we believe it does. we call it jas. it is a modified therapeutic community. based on that, we try to engage the resources that we have amongst everyone who comes into that unit. that involves inmates. our inmates have a lot of resources. they have a lot of experience in how to handle addiction. this is an opportunity for them to be in a sober environment, and participate in structured i say bees. they can support each other better than anyone else. of course, we have a full array whoheir fist -- therapists provide guidance and set out

tasks, but we try to use every resource we have. just like carlos said, we find it invaluable for them to give each other feedback, encouragement, and ideas about how to go about solving problems. we also have, in our team approach, the officers. officer who oversees the unit is a final person in our team. a are the eyes of years of the treatment team when the providers are not present. we utilize every resource we ave and find that to be supportive environment. many inmates find that to be one of the first times they have experienced that support, especially in a jail setting. host: hollywood, florida, june, what is your story? in jail. have a son

he was given a 300 date sentence for a misdemeanor battery case. he got into a shoving match with a local bully in florida. prisons we are familiar with here in florida look not at all like the jails they have up there and maryland. what we are learning is if you want to get services from your jail, you need to get arrested in maryland. have withproblem we so many people being in jail is because the district attorneys, and so forth, the people who did pile charges on top of charges. andle with minor offenses of going to jail for a long period of time so the sentences they get do not at all match the crimes that they commit. the other thing is that a lot of the problems we have with drugs country are

committed by our politicians. we, the people of this country, are responsible for this problem that we have with drugs in this country because we have allowed our politicians to allow drugs into this country that have destroyed families and our communities. that is why we are responsible for cleaning up the mess, and not just punishing people who have problems with drugs. host: your thoughts? guest: i think everybody experiences that in every jurisdiction where charges make it compounded, and one thing may lead to another. we find that once the inmates get to a point where they could start a sober and lifestyle, they have to deal with a lot of follow-up with charges. it takes them a while to clean ofcharges, get out

probation. period of getting back. the caller is right. there are a lot of complications when somebody starts getting involved with the drug epidemic that we are dealing with. host: are the services that you what their typical for jails offer across the united states, or is this a new program, a new initiative? are gel addiction services program actually started as a federal grant back in 1999. it is a very old program. at that time, i think we were among the first that were piloting this type of program. since then, i know there has been an increase of facilities across the country who are adopting this way of dealing with the sus abuse issue. abuse issue. i still think we are not among the majority. host: how did the grants work? guest: how do grants work, as

far as -- host: how you get the money, how you're supposed to use it? ,uest: we provide a proposal depending what the opportunities are for different grants. in this particular instance, with the gel addiction services program, it is a very old program. we had a proposal for, at that time, treat people with minor offenses. we were able to get a federal grant. ,ince then, our local community our local county council, has accepted funding this program. we were able to sustain it, based on the results of the evaluation. we found that it was effective andeducing some recidivism increasing participation in treatment. host: how effective? found -- now you

are asking me to go back a long time. i recallime, if correctly, we found it was an .ncrease of about 10% actually, a reduction in 10% of recidivism from what was the norm at the time. numbers,uote because it was such a long time ago, but i can say it was a significant reduction. host: from florida, you're next. caller: my question is do you give any kind of skilled mental healthe people? my experience has been, when people have some kind of skill, that helps their mental health, and their ability to be employable when they get out,

which also helps their mental health. if they are just getting psychological training -- help, and no skills, that contributes to their mental problems when they get out, because they cannot do anything. guest: yes. we do, to some degree, work on skill building here. most of our approach year is trying to stabilize folks. if we can engage them, at least in what is appropriate for them, some of them are appropriate for taking medications, some are appropriate for participating in groups. we try to engage them, as a inpping stone, to services the community. we know that managing a mental illness is not something that can be addressed in a short period of time. it is a lifetime issue. we try to do the engaging, motivating, and provide

opportunities for continuing that in the community. host: kansas, david, democrat. caller: i would like you guys to listen to kansas's opportunity they have for people who come in. each criminal, they see if they have any mental problems . if they do, they send them to a into ay that goes deeper program. they put them on a work release program, and they check into the same facility for mental health. after they go through a couple of years, if they see they can function in society, they let them go ahead.

they have halfway houses to put them in. they also have it for people who are in jail, they send them to minimum-security. you cannot have a serious crime, like a violent crime. they will take those individuals, and put them into -- it is the kansas department rehabilitation corrections. artie got, you have through evaluation from the court, and the court sees, yes, you are smart, but you do not have a trade. you can go to this location, they offer college classes for every kind of industry we have -- electronics, heating, , a bigg, automotive

lineup. you go through this process each day. with most of the classes, you have to take a test each morning . they give you assignments to do at night, when you go from school back to your room. you have to do the assignment. when they come in the next morning, they make you take a test. if you don't pass the test, you .on't get out of the room other people who put the time out and doy, they go the train that they are actually trained. host: i will have athena morrow jump in. what do you make of what he is talking about? guest: if i understand correctly, i think the caller is talking about services for people who may not have a substance abuse issue. that is something that my colleague spoke about earlier. this whole institution is focused on rehabilitation. we have an array of options for folks.

inmates are encouraged to .articipate in this program they get incentives. they have access to vocational programs here, access to getting ged, access to college classes. they have a number of opportunities for learning skills that will be useful when they get out. i think that is what the caller was alluding to. host: jim, texas, republican. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] prisonsld jails and look like if they would lock up people who are obese? it is a burden on our societal cost.

i apologize to jim, it was very difficult to understand that phone call -- breaking up a bit. we will move on to the next caller. good morning. caller: i would like to speak on the problem before it begins. it usually begins with the youth learning to drink, smoke, and then they graduate into the drug .cene they graduate into the drug say because they are taught the jury came. alcohol is fine, it is ok. you go to the churches, even the catholic church, they teach -- they say drinking is ok, a little bit of wine don't hurt you. these things are destructive. only religion that is teaching that this thing is wrong is islam. islam teaches you from the beginning that if you get involved in this type of

lifestyle, you will find getting further and further in violence. these things are destructive. they will destroy not only the individual, the family, the neighborhoods, the world. host: athena morrow, how do you deal with people's history with alcoholism, the relationship to it, or other substances, and that addiction to it? i'm not sure i understand your question. how do we deal with folks coming in -- , and asth their past the caller was alluding to, the culture that people grow up in. maybe how they view alcohol, or other substances. , in the amount of time that they are there, drill down?

initialhen we do our assessment, we tried to be very culturally sensitive. we try to understand the history of addiction. everybody has their own way of coming into addiction. sometimes, like the caller said, he can be a cultural influence, or not. it can be an influence from the family of origin. could haveriends started earlier or late. it depends. that is part of our initial assessment. as we identify the factors, we try to address them. relevantre culturally factors that we need to address, we are sensitive to that. i can't tell you that we specialize, and have a different intervention, but we try to be sensitive. if someone has a religious affiliation that we can help reconnect with, we try to help them do that. host: what is the assessment process like when someone first

comes into the jail? guest: as soon as someone gets booked into the jail, they get a pretty elaborate questionnaire about their involvement in substance abuse and mental health. any of the responses there are positive, that result to a yes, someone has had a history of hospitalizations, or is taking medications, generally, they are referred to our staff, who evaluates further within 24-48 days, that individual for their needs. we try to do a couple of things at that time. we try to identify substance abuse and mental health needs, to see if someone would qualify for divergence. we work closely with our assesses ift, which that person would be a threat to the community. obviously, we try to take the

factors into consideration. if the person stays in the jail and divergent is not one of our options, we try to that match whatever we found out, whatever the needs of the person are with the needs in our -- with the services in our institution. what is divergence? guest: divergence is an opportunity that an offender has, different junctures to have access to create services -- to community services, instead of waiting while incarcerated to get access at the time of release. for example, if someone comes in with, let's say, a minor offense, and they are appearing before a judge to set their bond within the first 24 hours, if we a treatmentem with

agency in the community, we recommend that to the judge. the judge may be able to lower their bond, release them to the community with the condition that they participate in the program. that would be a post booking divergence. host: henry, tell us your story. caller: good morning. i have 18 years working in the federal and state system. , from myon is observation, inmates who came in and our core order to complete a treatment program were more motivated. moreere a way we can get to be court ordered to complete the programs? host: athena morrow? guest: we have found that is a

very effective way to motivate folks, especially those who battle addiction. that is a population that responds very well to court orders to participate in treatments. it is not full proof, of course, but it does help in providing some leverage that seems to be effective in motivating substance abusers. it is not necessarily an effective way to deal with mental health issues. sometimes severe mental health issues do not respond well to those pressures from the courts. host: we are spending our morning at montgomery county jail, about 30 miles from washington, d.c. you can see them out there on your screen. there is a population of about 643 inmates at this facility. 570 males, 73 females. they keep them separate. the average age, 18-30 years old. 60% ofs approximately

the population there, minorities. the majority of charges, androlled substance abuse distribution. we are talking with athena morrow about how the jailed deals with mental illness. we will go to tony, good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. your question or comment? from the have retired georgia department of corrections. i was a counselor there for many years. the problem i have found is most of the inmates, they all come from a single family home, they all have no education, and they have no work experience. workdon't want no experience. they have all flunked out of school. we tried to get them into ged's,

but they want to gain bank, and bang, that -- gaing and all of that kind of stuff. they don't want to participate, they want to be on the streets. guest: that is not my overarchingas in experience. there may be some individuals that are not interested, but the majority of individuals we have haveotivated, and incentives. they have a lot of barriers to overcome. host: what are the barriers? guest: some of the barriers are social support, the lack of education, lack of leisurely activities that involve staying away from people where drugs are involved. it sometimes involves a change in lifestyle. as we know, those are not easy changes to make.

you can provide opportunities, but it takes a while, and becomes a lifelong management issue. they need support in the community to change their life. host: you say they are motivated in jail to change. ton they get out, do you try stay in contact with them? what are you seeing? which depending on programs they get involved with, we have different programs. sometimes we refer folks to residential programs or outpatients. there are facilities involved with monitoring their compliance. facilitiesnce abuse have analysis that is part of their protocol. they also, of course, involve them in various forms of treatment. the treatment providers are the ones that follow up with the inmates that we refer to them. host: we will go to jeff in caller: st. petersburg. good morning.

what are your thoughts? caller:i am from st. petersburg, florida. i'm wondering what percentage of areland's prisons privatized, and what they think about the difference between her job being done in a privatized system, versus being in a state run system? host: go ahead, athena morrow. the firstannot answer part of the callers question. i'm not sure. we have athat long-standing partnership among our departments here locally. our services are funded by montgomery county government. we have this deep collaborative relationship, and have been able to build on those over the years. i cannot speak to the state system. host: what is your day like on a daily basis? why did you get involved in this

work? guest: i have been involved in yearsork for about 26 with montgomery county. it is a population that i am aboutvery passionate helping. i believe when folks come in contact with the criminal justice system, it is an opportunity, as they are in crisis, to provide them with hope. at ag able to offer hope time, when someone comes in, feeling the impact of various environmental impacts that they is theen involved with right time. when there is crisis and opportunity, at the same time, the potential for change is higher. i find it to be a very dynamic area to work with. i find that folks are very interested in change. to beimportant

compassionate, and offer options to this population. it is something that has always interested me. host: athena morrow with the montgomery county division of health. if you want more information about what you learned today, visit them online. that is the website on your screen to learn more. we want to thank athena morrow, and all the folks at montgomery county correctional facility, very much for your time this morning, and allowing us to come inside the correctional facility them, and hear from all of on what they do on a daily basis and how they prepare inmates for life after jail. thanks to everybody there. that does it for today's "washington journal." we want to thank everyone for calling in as well for your questions and comments. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern time. enjoy the rest of your tuesday. ♪

[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] >> we are taking a live shortly here to a speech by republican presidential candidate, jeb bush. he will be talking about the alsodable care act, and talk about his vision for replacing obamacare. democratsco" reports, are ready to make the case that his record in florida is nothing to emulate. you can read more at politic o.com. jeb bush, making his health each shortly here. yesterday, in manchester, the labels" hosted a

number of candidates, both republican and democrats, including jim webb. let's take a look at what he had to say yesterday. ♪ >> i have the privilege of introducing a fantastic .entleman, a hero i will just say a couple of words that i feel describe him. navy,r, secretary of the a journalist, a husband, a

attorney, vietnam veteran, a marine, i think the most important word, and i think he would absolutely agree with this man is a soldier. he has a lot of respect. home foren to our dinner. we have had dinners where he has spoken, and you have a lot of veterans onative his bandwagon. latest in gentelman, one of the most endearing people i have met, senator jim webb. [applause]

i'm very impressed with what your realization has been able to do today. rrors mymuch mi career. i spent about half the time in public service, and about half doing things independently -- a writer, author, and so prle proprietor. i think we set something of an example in new hampshire earlier this year, when rene sponsored a lunch for me. at that lunch, in order to discuss the issues facing our country, we had about half the room, republicans, and half the room, democrats. we talked about how to work together. it was one of my big missions as a leader.

working with renee, and also having worked with joe lieberman, i was very grateful to an editorial that he wrote dispatch"ichmond talking about the types of things we were able to accomplish when i was in the senate, breaking away from this calcification that has affected our governmental process and getting things done. i know this is the big issue being discussed today, problem-solving. how do you bring problem-solving into the very complex world of getting things done in our governmental system? the first thing i would say to only haveot intentions in this area, if i

have the right support to become the next president of the united states, i have a record, that i hope people will look at. what i would like to do in the few minutes that i have with you today is talk about two examples, case studies, if you would, about the approaches we took when i was in the senate to actually get things done, and move things forward. senators, fellow during my tenure, who would come to the end of 5-6 years, and say they were not able to even get an amendment that they introduced to a vote on the senate floor. i will take two cases to show you the way we were able to do this. the first is on the post-9/11 g.i. bill, which i think is the greatest educational program in our history. i started speaking about the bill well real g.i.

before i even decided to run for the senate in 2006. i come from a family that has a citizen soldier tradition. world warserved in ii. i grew up in the military. my son left college and enlisted the marines, and was in the war. we kept hearing over and over again, this is the greatest generation. if you say this is the next greatest generation, why don't we give them the same shot for .he future that we have had they had their tuition paid for, they had their book spot, and

they had a monthly stipend. after i was elected, and before i was elected in, i have been on the legislative counsel before. we've wrote -- we wrote the post 9/11 g.i. bill. i introduced it my first day in office. people were saying, one day in the senate, why should we pass this comprehensive veterans educational program that has not generated out of the veterans committee itself? there were others, quite frankly, the bush administration, and some of my very good friends like john mccain, who were opposed to the idea. generous a that program to the veterans, they

will want to get out of the military. it will affect the number of retention. i spent five years at the manpower.i worked in my view of this was the other way around. if you can incentivize people coming into the military, knowing that at the end of it, they will have this kind of an educational opportunity, you will actually expand the recruitment pool. it will not affect the retention pulls. 16 month period where, in our office, we worked with the veterans groups closely, listening to them with the different portions in the legislation, taking their suggestions to improve it. leadershipeloped a model, in terms of a prototype, if you would, in terms of how you get things done in the united states senate. senator -- a for

four senator group that we use, in terms of talking to the democrats and republicans. , i actuallyen served on his stuff when i was a 25-year-old marine in the pentagon. >> you can watch the no labels because online anytime in the c-span video library. we will take you live now to new hampshire with remarks from jeb bush on health care in the united states. introductions are underway right now. >> i would like to thank the kevin harrington student ambassadors that help to run the institute and make every event's success. jeb bush served as governor of florida from 1999 to 2007. as governor, he enacted reforms that helped businesses save hundreds of dollars of money per

year. he made florida's economy work for its residents. governor bush championed reform and his -- in his government. after he left office, he returned to the private sector, where he reestablished his career as a successful businessman, entrepreneur, and investor. finally, and most importantly, jed and his wife, columba, are proud parents and very proud grandparents to four grandchildren. please give a warm welcome to jeb bush. [applause] jeb bush: thank you. thank you to this great university. this is my third or fourth visit.

the primary season is young. .'ll be back, i'm sure it is a joy to be with you all. i'm here to talk about something that is really important. how to return what we have into a 21st century health care system? not just insurance, but the system altogether. how can we envision what a health care system can look like in 2025, rather than protect the version of 1975, which in effect is what we have now. america, really if you think about it, is a place of discovery and innovation. if we fix a few big things, we can transform ourselves because we are the most dynamic country in the world across the spectrum of policy to make policy better for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. this will require a new approach on how we allow people to stay healthy, healthy reward that -- how we reward that.

let me give you some personal anecdotes. next week, or the week after next, on the 20th anniversary is an event that my wife, columba, and i have been involved with o fight cystic fibrosis. with, if you are born cystic fibrosis, there are medicines that have been discovered in the last 3-4 years, and more on the way, that will ultimately allow someone with cystic fibrosis to live as long as everybody else here are grandchildren, being born today, if we get this right, will live way beyond 100 years. it creates challenges, but it is also an opportunity to transform our society for people to purpose andf meaning. we cannot stick with the status quo. we cannot leave this up to the lobbyists and politicians in

washington, d.c. the system we have today, obamacare, in its current form, was written by the special interests for the special interests. let's look at what was promised and what we got instead. president obama promised that premiums would fall for families. it is estimated, by the president's own team, that they will increase over the next 10 years. right here, in new hampshire, based on the rate filings that have taken place, next year premiums are expected to 20%-50%.anywhere from president obama promised universal coverage. afteron projections, even ofnding on trillion's dollars, there will still be people without insurance. being onout that medicaid is not necessarily a better deal than being

uninsured. onks inse policy w at crowd, you should look the oregon study that analyzed people with insurance, and those receiving medicaid. they found that those who did not have insurance ask a got better quality care. the notion that access to insurance yields better results may not be the case if you look at the poor quality of medicaid that is tied down massive amounts of regulations and rules imposed by washington, d.c. the obamacare website, one of modernssic disasters in history, has now been overhauled at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. two thirds of the people who got an obamacare subsidy found out later that they owed an average of $730 to the irs. up for an oldned

obamacare plan are fighting that one third of the doctors and hospitals are not in their networks. the number of people jumping out of the plan, according to "the new york times" story that i read yesterday is growing as people realize that they have to f pocket cost, and it is better to pay the fine. you could not escape this even if you wear where on medicaid areuse the mandates creating impositions for private companies. all of this is being done with the largest tax increase in modern history. businesses and american workers. he opposed these roles that require companies to reduce hours for workers. markets work this way. the minute you create some sort , marketsr imposition adjust. that means millions of men and women hours are gone. it is quite a legacy, if you

think about it. when you consider the wreckage, it makes you wonder, how could anybody support this now? well, hillary clinton supports it, and so does bernie sanders, and other demographics. the debate tonight in las vegas will probably prove that they will be strongly supportive of that is-down program stifling our ability to rise up. for the democrats, this is what they want. this is what they like. they like the power deciding these things from up above. i believe the top down approach is not the one for our country. whether it is energy policy, health care policy, across the board, we are a bottom-up nation. we do much better when we empower people to make decisions for themselves, rather than get in line, and be told what to do. that is what obamacare is. there is no way to fix it, to be honest with you. you cannot fix something that was a failure from the start.

we have to start over. when i become president, i will work to repeal and replace obamacare with a system that looks more like the successful enterprises and systems of our great country. let me tell you how i will get it done. i will focus on how health care should look like. we need health care system for 2025 not 1975. positive disruption should be our friend, not our adversary. we should liberate our system to allow for more innovation to take place. think about it. we have smartphones that can video chat with our doctors and caregivers. medicine.nomic we have 3-d printers. .edicine has changed it is constantly changing. we have to get washington out of itsway, stop micromanagement, so we can have

an explosion of dynamic responses to the great challenges we face, and turn them into opportunities, not just for our better health, but for economic progress for all of us. i believe, as i hope you do, lives are saved by bold innovation. we have a moral obligation to make sure washington does not get in the way. if we rely on the regulators of washington, d.c. to decide what health care we should get, we will continue to get frustration, higher cost, and a .ot more complexity, or worse look at the v.a. scandal that has taken place throughout our country. president obama and many on the left have used the v.a. hospital system as a model for a government controlled health care, bragging about how great it is. speaklays and deceptions for themselves. we have been warned. if that is the best that washington can do, i think we need to move in a different direction. we need to unleash the power of

millions of americans, doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs, who are inventing the future of health care. only requirenings the state of a finger. treatmentsicine, so match each person's physiology. your smart phone that calls a doctor to your door, just like it does a card to pick you up. i what all of us to embrace this change so we can answer these questions with confidence. did the patient get the care he or she needed? did her health improve? was there a more efficient or affordable way to get to the best result? my plan, therefore, focuses on five key steps. first, repeal obamacare. that means all of its mandate, penalties, new spending, the arbitrary picking and choosing

of the parts of the law that are implemented, and the ones that don't. all of that goes away. especially the new taxes on medical devices, drugs, and insurance, all of which drive up the cost of health care for middle income americans. second, instead of punishing innovation, we will double down on it. i plan would aggressively support groundbreaking work at the nih and our country's fineness researchers. if we started from scratch, if we did not have a system of how we allocate the resources for the research that goes on, and if we start from scratch with the fda, i can promise you more strategic. that is what we need to do. medical record keeping efficient, shareable, and secure. the president had a golden opportunity to do this, but the simple fact is the information

technology funding, through the stimulus, was not focused on making a shared platform for all of us to benefit. we have huge complicity -- complexity in information technology, and that is not shared. we need to improve the process of drug production and approval reachential drugs can patients more safely and quickly. i believe we need to create a consensus, as we did in the 1960's, when john f. kennedy suggested we launch a man to the moon. i think we need to do the same thing as we create an aspirational goal to investigate and explore the brain. think of all the challenges that exist in our community today because we lika behind on understanding how the braing operates. autism, alzheimer's, mental illness.

all of these illnesses in a country like ours with an abundance of resources like ours , we needwere strategic to be significantly more aspirational and strategic and how we go about doing this. innovation led by the private sector will be at the center of everything we do. that is the only way we can get better care at lower cost. we need to sex where the intern -- we need to fix isth where the government paying for health care. in my side, we would propose tax credits to those without employer coverage so they can pay for affordable and portable insurance that provides preventative care and also comprehensive coverage for major medical evidence. this will help middle-class households who do not currently

qualify for obama care subsidies and have been slammed by higher premiums out about my obamacare. we will make it user for small businesses to get coverage. today, as a small business person, it is either or. either you provide coverage, or you don't. a better approach would make it easier for lower cost businesses to provide care, but if they wanted to provide support for people who wanted to get their own care in a less meditative form of access to care, they should have the right to do that, and that should be a tax write off for them. we will give people the support for need for make it easier andr out of cost pays co-pays. the system would work far better. name a system where you do not have the consumer engaged in making decisions, you get a good

result. that is not how it works. the best system is one where the people are totally engaged, where we have transparent information for them to make decisions about themselves. where there is support for them to have the kinds of insurance that will allow them to grow and prosper, along with a health savings account, so they are rewarded for healthy decisions they make going forward. where ever they don't spend, they should be able to say. we will give them real transparency to decide which health care provider will provide the best value. will beare providers more accountable for results, and they will really compete to to delivernew ways care. this will require some major changes on how we regulate health insurance. state, rather than washington, d.c., are much better equipped to set the standards. here is what i propose. we will open up state insurance markets to much broader

competition and choice. right now, obamacare locks in a small handful of one-size-fits-all mandated policies engineered and washington, d.c. we need to break up the monopoly and allow people to decide what they actually want. for example, an individual who might want to buy a high deductible plan for unexpected evidence, the true form of insurance that should be the norm, but maybe they would want also to have one that adds preventative care and diabetes management with no cost carry at all. or, physicians may want to develop a plan that uses preventative medicine that identifies a cure for cancer. the possibility for innovation are endless if we trust the marketplace to do what it does so well. if people are informed, and they make decisions based on the proper information that they is much moresystem transparent, the providers of

insurance and care will respond with a significant amount of innovation. plans to protect you in case you get sick, and plans with a focus on certain conditions like heart the norm.uld become plans that are perfect for different stages of life, whether they are single, whether they have a family, or whether they are retired. let me be clear. everyone will have access to the tax credits that will help them buy insurance that protects them from losing their life savings from major medical evidence. that should be the national focus, making sure that people have catastrophic coverage so their lives are not turned upside down by an adverse event that could have tragic results for their family. whatever they want insurance to cover, p they should buy that. frankly, that is one of the most egregious part of obamacare, the idea that you are forced to do things against her own conscience.

we would get rid of that. there are certain things that we will ensure. we will expect that affordable americans, regardless of how much money they make, get the care and outcomes they deserve. hillary clinton says that will happen under medicaid. let me tell you something. i was governor for the state of florida, i think we have the fourth-largest medicaid land. i can rob us you that states are extraordinarily frustrated with the state partnership that is medicaid. spending more through a broken system is not the answer. let's try a new approach. let's let the states create a 21sty net for the century, and hold them accountable. if we took the money that goes to medicaid, and to the subsidies that go to obamacare, chip in the mix, i can promise you we will get a better result. you know how i know? i did a version of that in our state of florida with our

medicaid plan. we had a pilot plant in fort lauderdale and jacksonville. premiums, tiered where we empower them to make choices. this notion that people living in poverty do not know what is right with their families -- we ought to start rejecting that. do this right,t this top-down believe that some people are smart, and some people aren't, i reject it, and i hope you do as well. i medicaid plan that empowers people to make decisions for themselves, will get far better results. imagine a system where you healthy lifestyle decisions by allowing people to have more money to make healthy lifestyle decisions next year, where there is competition, choices where people takes the plan for them. maybe the have a child with

asthma. they are empowered to make more choices because they get more for the premium dollars that they had. a system that is focused on people, rather than on government, will yield a far betterthe net result of this wat we didn't at a lower cost than the old medicaid plan. we did it with higher quality. the efficiency is based on outside observation study suggested that it was far better for them. i believe the states are the places will happen. washington has had its chance. it has failed us miserably. trying to get any change with washington, it nearly takes an act of god. we begin to solve these problems in a better way. i will not accept the strawman argument that they have been saying that the opposite of obamacare is no care. there is a better way. it does not