mr. jerome dillard. he served as the director of voices behind bars, a group and it helping former prisoners transition by offering employment and computer classes. thank you for traveling here from wisconsin for your testimony. mr. dillard: thank you, senator johnson. i would like to think the committee for having me. thank you, senator johnson, and my other senator from wisconsin tammy baldwin, for having me sit before you today. i sit here as a former incarcerated citizen who served time in federal and state prison systems. my crimes were not violent driven by a long history of drug addiction. while doing time in prison i witnessed a system that was ballooning with predominately young african-americans serving long prison sentences. 10, 20, 30 years for drug crimes. this was troubling, seeing so many young then losing the prime of their lives to the criminal justice system. it was while doing time that i made a strong determination i would do all i can to stay out of the prison system. i have been out

mr. dillard, same question. one great example. piper has given us one, give us one as well. mr. dillard: i feel like the work is on the offenders themselves. when i met a lifer who rated difference in my life, throughout my prison sentence i realized how the older inmates tried to encourage the younger ones. i still feel like you cannot leave formerly incarcerated citizens out of the equation. mr. ofer: i will give two quick examples. there are states that have reduced the risk of solitary confinement without the risk to staff and to inmates. in colorado, 2011 placed 7% of its incarcerated population in solitary confinement. in 2011, colorado place solitary confinement at 7%. today, it's about 1%. we have seen a dramatic decrease in the use of solitary by banning the use of solitary against people with mental illness. the second example is bail reform. what we've done in new jersey and what other states are looking at -- we had 10,000 people sit in jail awaiting their trial because they cannot afford a few thousand dollars in bail. we have completely revamped that system. now, yo

mr. dillard as well. the other women in prison, in general, were they there for just basically drug crime. >> in both state and federal systems but overwhelmingly in the federal system women are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses and property crimes. in the federal system, i think if any member of this committee had the opportunity to meet the hundreds of women that i did time with, you would probably walk away from getting to know those women with a deep feeling that their confinement in a prison cell or a prison facility was just a colossal waste and not an appropriate way of intervening in the things that put them into the criminal justice system. >> thank you. mr. dillard, obviously we met in discussions about the difficulty of reentering society after you served your time. talk about the challenges. i mean, you were talking about the huge debt levels. you're sitting in prison. your child support just continues to build. and then you get out. it's very difficult to find a job. one of the things

mr. jerome dillard. he is the jail re-entry coordinator for dane county wisconsin and served as the voice for voices beyond bars and offering employment and computer classes. and i want to thank you for traveling here from wisconsin for your testimony. please. >> thank you senator johnson. in opening, i want to thank this committee for having me. i want to thank you, senator johnson, and my other senator from wisconsin, tammy baldwin for having me sit before you today. i sit here as a formerly incarcerated citizen who served time in both federal and state prison systems. my crimes were nonviolent. driven by a long history of drug addiction. while doing time in prison, i witnessed the system that was ballooning, where prodominantly young african-americans who were serving long prison sentences, 10, 20, 30 years for drug crimes. this was troubling to me, seeing so many young men losing the prime of their lives to the criminal justice system. it was -- while doing time, i made a strong determination that i

mr. dillard: thank you for your observation. trauma informed care is truly something that is needed if we are going to be preventive. i can use myself as an example of someone who had trauma's at the age of 12-13 years old. when i was diagnosed, i had been severely depressed most of my life. one reason i self medicated was illegal drugs -- had i been diagnosed, maybe i could have been given legal drugs and avoided the criminal justice system. the fact is, we never look at the cause, we just look at the effect. many, many, many of these women and men who i've encountered have tremendous traumas. we are working as a pure organization to help them work through that. to avoid walking around as hurting people because we know hurt people hurt people. if we do not address those early on, further down the road after recidivism, we are still going to be paying a much higher cost. mr. ofer: i will give a perspective informed by the fact that i spend a lot of my time in newark, new jersey. a city that is plagued by poverty. in certain comm

mr. dillard. >> thank you for your observation senator heitkamp. trauma informed care is truly something that is needed if we're going to be preventive. i can use myself as an example of someone who had traumas at the age of 12, 13 years old who walked around with them for 35 years, never addressed and i'm just bearing them. when i was diagnosed, i was severely depressed most of my life. one of the reasons that i self-medicated with illegal drugs, had i been diagnosed maybe i could have been given legal drugs and avoided the criminal justice system. the fact is we never look at the cause, we just look at the effect. and many, many, many of these young men and women who i encounter in the work that i do today have tremendous traumas. and we're working as a peer organization to help them work through that. to avoid walking around as hurting people because we know that hurt people hurt people. and if we do not address those traumas early on then further down the road after recidivism and recidivism and we're still going to be paying a much higher kauf

mrs. wilson to give up this plan. peggy dillard: so, mrs. wilson was very concerned that her husband would not get better if he did not have something to engage his mind, that he would just deteriorate if he was forced out of the presidency. while president wilson was ill it has been speculated widely among historians that mrs. wilson essentially became the president. peggy dillard: we have one document here that sheds a little bit of light on that. it is a telegram from henry morgenthau who is the ambassador to turkey and he's writing to dr. cary grayson asking if the president has any objections to a citizens' meeting to protest against turks being left in control of constantinople. and morgenthau has been asked to speak at this meeting and so he's asking basically permission. he doesn't want to embarrass the president so he's asking for advice. and on the --at the bottom of this telegram, there is a handwriting that is edith's handwriting. we're familiar enough with edith's handwriting to recognize it as such. and at the bottom she writes