michelle verney with the women's refuge commission and i also share an alternative action team becauset is lots of organizations many of whom are in this room and i want to say we have great discourse with phyllis on the reform efforts and i think those are moving ahead and we've been able to have back-and-forth not so much on the alternatives to detention even though there does seem to be movement on the part of the agency it would be great to have more interaction with those of us who've been working on alternative detention issues for a long time and one thing in particular we are concerned because we hear it repeatedly is the cost issue and just one thing to point out and make sure your considering when you're looking at costs is you're not comparing the average length of stay for those in detention with the average length of the case outside of detention without considering the kind of cases. the kind of cases the shorten the average length of stay in detention are those who wouldn't qualify for alternatives any way and take the stipulated removals' quickly turned around so if you

michelle verney with the women's refuge commission and i also share an alternative action team because it is lots of organizations many of whom are in this room and i want to say we have great discourse with phyllis on the reform efforts and i think those are moving ahead and we've been able to have back-and-forth not so much on the alternatives to detention even though there does seem to be movement on the part of the agency it would be great to have more interaction with those of us who've been working on alternative detention issues for a long time and one thing in particular we are concerned because we hear it repeatedly is the cost issue and just one thing to point out and make sure your considering when you're looking at costs is you're not comparing the average length of stay for those in detention with the average length of the case outside of detention without considering the kind of cases. the kind of cases the shorten the average length of stay in detention are those who wouldn't qualify for alternatives any way and take the stipulated removals' quickly turned around so if y