<DOC>
[107th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:76090.wais]
COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACTIVITIES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 11, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-20
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
76-090 WASHINGTON : 2001
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland, Chairman
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ------ ------
------ ------
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Russell Smith, Staff Director
Matthew Batt, Legislative Assistant
Jon Bouker, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 11, 2001..................................... 1
Statement of:
Kellems, Margret Nedelkoff, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety
and Justice, Government of the District of Columbia; Kathy
Patterson, chairperson, Committee on the Judiciary; and
Rufus King III, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District
of Columbia................................................ 54
Ramsey, Charles H., chief of police, Government of the
District of Columbia; Kenneth L. Wainstein, acting U.S.
attorney, District of Columbia; John L. Clark, Corrections
trustee, D.C. Office of the Corrections Trustee; Cynthia E.
Jones, Director, Public Defender Service of D.C.; Susan W.
Shaffer, Esq., Director, District of Columbia Pretrial
Services Agency; and Michael J. Gaines, chairman, U.S.
Parole Commission.......................................... 89
Stana, Richard, Director of Justice Issues, General
Accounting Office, accompanied by William Jenkins, Jr.,
Assistant Director of General Government Division, GAO;
Mark A. Tremba, Senior Analyst, Justice Issues, GAO; and
Steve Harlan, chairman, the Council for Court Excellence,
accompanied by Samuel F. Harahan, executive director, the
Council for Court Excellence............................... 17
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Clark, John L., Corrections trustee, D.C. Office of the
Corrections Trustee, prepared statement of................. 121
Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 14
Gaines, Michael J., chairman, U.S. Parole Commission,
prepared statement of...................................... 155
Harlan, Steve, chairman, the Council for Court Excellence,
prepared statement of...................................... 41
Jones, Cynthia E., Director, Public Defender Service of D.C.,
prepared statement of...................................... 135
Kellems, Margret Nedelkoff, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety
and Justice, Government of the District of Columbia,
prepared statement of...................................... 57
King, Rufus, III, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District
of Columbia, prepared statement of......................... 79
Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 4
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Representative in Congress
from the District of Columbia:
Chart on parolees arrested on new charges................ 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 175
Patterson, Kathy, chairperson, Committee on the Judiciary,
prepared statement of...................................... 69
Ramsey, Charles H., chief of police, Government of the
District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 92
Shaffer, Susan W., esq., Director, District of Columbia
Pretrial Services Agency, prepared statement of............ 145
Stana, Richard, Director of Justice Issues, General
Accounting Office, prepared statement of................... 20
Wainstein, Kenneth L., acting U.S. attorney, District of
Columbia, prepared statement of............................ 98
COORDINATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACTIVITIES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
----------
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance A.
Morella (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Morella, Davis, and Norton.
Staff present: Russell Smith, staff director; Heea
Vazirani-Fales, deputy staff director; Victoria Proctor,
professional staff member, Subcommittee on Technology and
Procurement Policy; Matthew Batt, legislative assistant; Robert
White, communications director; David Marin, professional staff
member, Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy; Jon
Bouker, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant
clerk.
Mrs. Morella. I will call the Subcommittee of the District
of Columbia to order.
Good morning. Welcome to all of you. It is a pleasure to
welcome everybody, witnesses and interested parties, to the
second hearing of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
in the 107th Congress.
I want to recognize the members of the subcommittee who are
here with us today. We have our ranking member, Congresswoman
Norton, and we have Congressman Davis, who is the former chair
of the subcommittee, and Mr. Platts is expected to join us
soon.
Mr. Scarborough has indicated that he cannot be with us
today.
I do want to make a special mention of our witnesses, all
of whom have outstanding credentials, and over and above that,
they are professionals who have dedicated a major part of their
lives to the justice system.
Of course, I want to recognize the work of the General
Accounting Office that we have seen in their comprehensive
report, the D.C. criminal justice system, ``Better Coordination
Needed Among Participating Agencies,'' as it is entitled. That
sets the foundation for this hearing.
I am going to remind people that the rules of the Committee
on Government Reform require that all witnesses be administered
an oath prior to testifying. I will administer that later.
Also, I want to encourage opening statements and witness
statements to be presented in about 5 minutes or less. This
should be as efficient as this criminal justice system should
be. Of course, you may summarize your statements, and this will
give us more time to dialog with each of you. Your entire
prepared statements will be entered into the record in toto.
So we are here today to examine the role that Congress can
play in helping the various Federal and local agencies that
make up the District of Columbia's criminal justice system work
together to reduce crime, impose justice, and make our citizens
and visitors to the Nation's Capital safer.
Before we begin talking about possible solutions, I just
want to take a minute to illustrate the problem that this
hearing is convened to address.
Setting aside the more than 30 law enforcement agencies
with a presence in the Nation's Capital, there are 13
governmental agencies that have a direct role in criminal
justice activities in the District, from arrest and booking to
trial to correctional supervision.
Four of these are city agencies, such as the Metropolitan
Police Department; six are Federal agencies, such as the Office
of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; and finally,
there are three agencies, Superior Court, Defender Services,
and Office of the Corrections Trustee, that are local in nature
but are funded by the Federal Government.
There is plenty of evidence, including recent reports from
the Government Accounting Office and the Council for Court
Excellence that we will hear from today, that these individual
agencies of the District of Columbia's criminal justice system
are not always working in concert, and as a result, efforts at
reform have sometimes stalled.
The Police Department loses millions of dollars a year
paying overtime to officers who are waiting for court cases or
waiting to consult with the U.S. attorney's office. This is not
the height of efficiency.
The agencies use 70 different information technology
systems, but they are not linked to one another.
Most tragically, miscommunication among agencies has led to
mistakes in correctional supervision, sometimes with fatal
consequences. Most notable is the killing of Bettina Pruckmayr,
who was robbed and stabbed 38 times in 1995 by a criminal named
Leo Gonzalez Wright. Wright was a convicted murderer who should
have had his parole revoked on a drug charge, if not for the
failures of the criminal justice system.
Today we are going to have GAO and the Council for Court
Excellence shed some light on why these problems persist, how
deep they are, and what we can do to change this situation. We
are also going to hear, I hope, some suggestions from the
policymakers and the agency heads who have direct
responsibility for the District of Columbia's criminal justice
system and for making it function smoother.
We also will be examining the future of the Criminal
Justice Coordinating Council, which was created a couple of
years ago by the D.C. Financial Control Board as a way of
bringing together the various criminal justice departments. It
has realized some successes, but unfortunately, the Council is
down to a lone staff member who is being paid through a grant.
With proper funding and structure, I believe the CJCC can
be a very useful tool in fostering interagency cooperation. Not
only can it assist in making more efficient the day-to-day
functions of our various criminal justice agencies, but in so
doing, the CJCC can help ensure the broader policy goals, such
as reducing violent crime and meting out justice more swiftly.
We can assure that is done, also.
The questions facing us are: Who should fund the CJCC; at
what level; how should it be structured; and what should its
responsibilities be?
Mayor Anthony Williams and the city Council have proposed
providing $169,000 in funding for the CJCC in fiscal year 2002.
GAO has suggested that Congress fully fund the CJCC to ensure
that the Council will retain its independence, with no formal
link to any of its participating members.
I think $169,000 is mighty low, but I am interested to hear
from our witnesses today what they believe is the most
appropriate as we continue to reform our criminal justice
system.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella
follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. I would now like to yield to our
distinguished ranking member in the District of Columbia
Subcommittee, who is in the District of Columbia and who
represents the District of Columbia, Congresswoman Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mrs. Morella.
May I first express my thanks to my good friend, the
chairman of the committee, Representative Connie Morella, for
initiating this hearing on the coordination of criminal justice
functions in the District of Columbia.
For the record, I would like to thank, as well, the former
chairs of the District of Columbia appropriations
subcommittees, Representative Ernest Istook and Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchinson, who commissioned the GAO report in the
fiscal year 2000 D.C. Appropriations Act.
Crime and criminal justice continue to rank among the
highest priorities for my constituents. However, coordination
of governmental functions among 13 agencies divided between two
independent jurisdictions poses a unique management challenge.
The agencies include D.C.-funded D.C. agencies, such as the
Medical Examiner; federally funded D.C. agencies, such as the
Superior Court; and federally funded Federal agencies, such as
the Bureau of Prisons [BOP]. No other jurisdiction in the
United States interfaces with an entirely different and
independent jurisdiction in order to carry out indispensable
functions.
Poor coordination cannot help but adversely affect law
enforcement in the District up and down the line of responsible
agencies.
The District and the Control Board deserve our
congratulations for the important achievements of the Criminal
Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC], during one of the most
difficult periods in District of Columbia history. Our Police
Department, under Chief Charles Ramsey, deserves primary credit
for the sharp decline of crime in the District after a long
period of sustained high crime rates, but the CJCC agencies and
the coordination among them deserve some of the credit, as
well.
In addition, Mayor Tony Williams and Deputy Mayor for
Public Safety and Criminal Justice Margaret Kellums, whom the
Mayor promoted to Deputy Mayor as a result of her work on the
staff of the CJCC, have a sophisticated understanding of what
it would take to help create the seamless criminal justice
system this mission requires.
While I welcome this hearing, there are criminal justice
issues included in today's hearing under our Federal
jurisdiction that need special attention. Among the most urgent
is a hearing I hope we can soon have on halfway house
operations.
Presently, D.C. residents are confused and concerned about
the new Federal system of halfway houses. Before the Federal
Government took control of the system, halfway houses over many
years had garnered poor reputations in city neighborhoods,
leading to wholesale opposition to the placement of halfway
houses today.
Residents have not learned of improvements instituted by
the Bureau of Prisons and the Court Services and Offenders
Supervision Agency [CSOSA].
For example, because of rigorous management and deeply
interventionist and helpful probation programs in halfway
houses, CSOSA has been able to reduce recidivism among
probationers released from prison remarkably by almost 75
percent since they had control of this program.
Now, with more inmates--this graph shows what the
recidivism rate was when they got the program, and the
reduction since they have had the program.
Now, with more inmates being released from prison, more
halfway house space is needed. However, neighborhood opposition
to such facilities is widespread, at least in part because
residents lack information concerning the improved Federal
operation of halfway houses by CSOSA, and have no information
on the reduction of crime because of halfway house programs.
Consequently, the BOP has been forced to release discharged
inmates on probation who are now unable to submit to the
rigorous halfway house process because of a lack of halfway
house space. The results are heartbreaking to me, as I believe
they would be to residents and to CSOSA.
After bringing down recidivism dramatically among newly
discharged inmates when CSOSA had halfway house availability,
we are now releasing inmates from prison who do not go through
the halfway house process. As a result, crime by newly released
inmates has begun to climb again. Without immediate action, we
may well see the rise in crime rates in the District that the
city has greatly reduced only with monumental effort.
I also will be particularly interested today in testimony
concerning police overtime. I have repeatedly asked that this
issue receive priority attention, yet this costly problem
remains unresolved.
As the GAO report indicates, the equivalent of 23 full-time
officers were devoted to court appearances in 1999. I'm sure
that the agencies involved have explanations from the
perspectives of their missions. However, after years of
insufficient attention and incalculable losses of funds, patrol
time in our neighborhoods, and probably even injury and loss of
life for residents, I am going to insist today that the
relevant agencies, especially the courts, the U.S. attorney,
and the MPD, submit at least a preliminary plan to the CJCC
within 60 days and to this subcommittee within 90 days.
Finally, I appreciate all the work and the findings of the
GAO, but its recommendation for a new Federal entity to
coordinate CJCC functions in the future is not likely to be
effective in the District of Columbia.
Perhaps this proposal is intended to encourage funding from
the Congress, but if so, that is an insufficient reason to set
up an independent Federal entity that, in my judgment and
experience, would find it difficult to gain the confidence of
local officials and the people of the District of Columbia.
I would prefer a more detailed analysis of the pros and
cons of all the possible alternatives before fixing upon a
single option, especially one that does not appear tailored to
meet the unique circumstances and nuances of these functions in
the District of Columbia.
The problems raised by the GAO report are very challenging,
but the District has shown that it knows how to design
approaches to solve problems equally, if not more challenging.
I have no reason to doubt the ability of the home rule
government and the Federal agencies working together to create
the necessary partnership.
I will be interested to hear the views of the agencies
concerning how the coordination function should be structured.
Again, my appreciation to the Chair for this hearing, and
my thanks to all the witnesses for their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Ms. Norton.
I am pleased to recognize for an opening statement Mr.
Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Good morning.
I want to thank Chairwoman Morella for organizing today's
hearing about the current state of the criminal justice system
in the District of Columbia.
I also want to thank the witnesses for coming to discuss
this critical issue with the subcommittee today.
The fiscal year 2000 District of Columbia Appropriations
Act required the GAO to conduct a study of the city's criminal
justice system. GAO recently completed the study, which
analyzed the structure of the criminal justice system and
assessed its effect on the coordination of activities between
relevant agencies.
It also reviewed the current initiatives for improving the
system. In 1997, the District of Columbia was making great
progress in overcoming the spending and management crisis that
had driven it to near bankruptcy just 2 years earlier.
In order to encourage stronger management practices and
alleviate the financial burden in the fastest growing parts of
the city's budget, such as the criminal justice system,
Congress passed the National Capital Revitalization and Self-
Government Improvement Act of 1997. It restructured and
improved the complex relationship between the Federal
Government and the Nation's Capital.
Its essential elements included the Federal assumption of
some governmental functions that are normally performed by
State governments. Therefore, several D.C. criminal justice-
related agencies were brought under Federal funding.
The act also placed certain programs, such as felony
incarceration, under the jurisdiction of the Federal
Government, which was better equipped to handle those services.
Unfortunately, GAO's report indicates in the area of
criminal justice that some inefficiencies still persist. GAO
found an absence of coordination between key agencies in the
system. This is alarming because of the potential impact on
public safety. Currently, agencies do what is in their best
interests, instead of operating as a part of the whole. Our
objective is to have a well-oiled machine, with all parts
working in tandem.
I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses today
to learn their ideas about how to best identify and implement
the reforms recommended by the GAO to ensure operational
efficiency. GAO reported that we need to assess the current
efforts to coordinate among the agencies.
We also need to determine what incentives can be
established to encourage the agencies to cooperate in their
efforts, thereby ensuring a smooth and efficient process.
However, there are some basic impediments to achieving our
goal. GAO has identified several factors that complicate
coordination efforts, including the agencies' different funding
structures, organizational perspectives, and data collecting
systems. In fact, GAO found that there are over 70 different
computer systems in use. Information technology and data base
management are clearly among the first areas I think that need
to be reformed.
The report also found the agencies' competing interests
preclude them sometimes from performing and pursuing reforms
because they are also perceived as non-beneficial or
financially burdensome. Unfortunately, the agencies cannot even
agree on the nature of the problems that need to be addressed,
so the system suffers.
In 1998, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council was
created as an independent entity. Agencies could rely on it to
identify and address significant coordination issues and reform
initiatives. Until this year, it was funded by the Control
Board, but now CJCC has been reduced to one staff member funded
through a grant.
The CJCC has made progress in addressing some coordination
concerns, particularly in the area of data-sharing among
agencies. But there is still a lot of work to be done. I look
forward to hearing our witnesses' opinions about the benefits
of maintaining CJCC as recommended by GAO.
I am also interested in hearing about the obstructions that
the agencies themselves have identified and the solutions they
propose to overcome the challenges facing the coordination of
the city's criminal justice system.
Your testimony will help us determine what, if any,
congressional action may be needed to facilitate critical
reform efforts.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
On our first panel, I am pleased to recognize Mr. Richard
Stana, Director of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office,
accompanied by Mr. William Jenkins, Assistant Director of
General Government Division, GAO; Mr. Mark Tremba, Senior
Analyst, Justice Issues, also the GAO.
We also have Mr. Steve Harlan, chairman of the Council for
Court Excellence, accompanied by Mr. Samuel F. Harahan,
executive director of the Council for Court Excellence.
Thank you, gentlemen. If you will rise in accordance with
the policy of this committee and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Morella. The record will reflect an affirmative
response.
Again, as I stated, so that we have an opportunity to ask
questions and hear our other panels, too, if I could ask you to
try pretty much to confine your statement to 5 minutes.
Whatever you have submitted in toto will be included in the
record.
We will start off with you, Mr. Stana.
STATEMENTS OF RICHARD STANA, DIRECTOR OF JUSTICE ISSUES,
GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM JENKINS, JR.,
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION, GAO; MARK A.
TREMBA, SENIOR ANALYST, JUSTICE ISSUES, GAO; AND STEVE HARLAN,
CHAIRMAN, THE COUNCIL FOR COURT EXCELLENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY
SAMUEL F. HARAHAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE COUNCIL FOR COURT
EXCELLENCE
Mr. Stana. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the
results of our review of the District of Columbia's criminal
justice system.
With me at the table are Bill Jenkins, Assistant Director
on this assignment, and Mark Tremba, the lead analyst.
As you know, the criminal justice process from arrest
through correctional supervision in any jurisdiction is
generally complex and typically involves a number of
participants, including police, prosecutors, defense attorneys,
courts, and corrections agencies.
Coordination among these participants is necessary for the
process to function as efficiently as possible within the
requirements of due process; that is, all involved agencies
need to work together to ensure proper and efficient system
operations, identify any problems that emerge, and decide how
best to balance competing interests in resolving these
problems.
Our report and my prepared statement discuss in detail the
structure of the D.C. criminal justice system, the mechanisms
that exist to coordinate its participants' activities, and
current initiatives aimed at improving overall operations.
In my oral statement, I would like to highlight three main
points. First, the D.C. criminal justice system has a unique
structure that blends Federal and D.C. jurisdictional
boundaries and funding streams. As shown in table 1, the D.C.
criminal justice system consists of four D.C. agencies
principally funded through local D.C. funds, six Federal
agencies, and three D.C. agencies principally funded through
Federal appropriations.
Seven of the 10 agencies of the D.C. criminal justice
system require coordination among agencies funded by different
sources. Over 30 law enforcement agencies, other than the
Metropolitan Police Department, operate in D.C. This unique
structure creates coordination challenges not found in other
locations.
My second point is that all participants have not always
taken a coordinated approach to identifying and addressing
problem areas that balances competing institutional interests.
One reason for this is that the costs of coordinating
activities and taking corrective actions may fall on one or
more federally funded agencies, while any savings may accrue to
one or more D.C.-funded agencies, or vice versa.
In the absence of a single hierarchy and funding structure,
agencies have generally acted in their own interests, rather
than in the interests of the system as a whole.
For example, as shown in table 2, as many as six agencies
need to be involved in processing a case before an arrested
person's initial court appearance for a felony offense can
occur. Unlike many other major metropolitan jurisdictions that
would rely on written reports and data base entries to decide
whether to pursue a case, prosecutors in D.C. require an
officer who is knowledgeable about the facts of the arrest to
meet personally with them before they determine whether to
formally charge an arrestee. This meeting is commonly referred
to in D.C. as papering the case.
In addition, prosecutors rely on the officers to perform
various clerical tasks associated with case processing. During
calendar year 1999, these activities required the equivalent of
at least 23 full-time officers, ultimately reducing the number
of officers available for patrol duty by an equal amount.
Another example lies in the initiatives underway to improve
the criminal justice system. As of November 2000, the agencies
involved in the D.C. criminal justice system told us they had
initiatives for improving the operation of the system, 93 of
them. We found numerous instances where participating agencies
did not agree on such fundamental things as initiatives, goals,
status, starting date, participating agencies, or results to
date.
This lack of agreement underscores a lack of coordination
among the participating agencies that could reduce the
effectiveness of these initiatives.
My last point is that the Criminal Justice Coordinating
Council [CJCC], has been useful and should be continued. CJCC
is the primary venue in which D.C. criminal justice agencies
can identify and address interagency coordination issues. Its
funding and staffing have been modest, about $300,000 annual
with four staff.
According to many criminal justice officials we spoke with
during its nearly 3-year existence, CJCC has had some success
in improving agency cooperation, mostly in areas where all
participants stood to gain from a coordinated approach to a
problem.
In problem areas where a solution would help one agency
possibly at the expense of another, CJCC has been less
successful, mainly because of lack of authority to compel
agencies to address the issues.
On balance, however, the CJCC has provided a valuable
independent forum for discussion of issues affecting multiple
agencies. We are recommending that Congress consider funding an
independent CJCC with its own director and staff to help
coordinate the operations of the D.C. criminal justice system,
and to require CJCC to report annually to Congress, the
Attorney General, and the D.C. Mayor on the results achieved
and the issues that require further attention.
We are also recommending that participating agencies report
multiagency initiatives to the CJCC, which would then serve as
a clearinghouse and highlight those initiatives that warrant
further discussion and coordination.
This concludes my oral statement. We would be happy to
address any questions the subcommittee members may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stana follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. That is pretty succinct for such a full and
thorough report the GAO did. Thank you.
It is now a pleasure to recognize Mr. Harlan, who knows
very much about this whole issue and was responsible for its
genesis.
Mr. Harlan. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman,
Congresswoman Norton. We are delighted to be here today to
testify before you on this very important issue of coordination
of criminal justice in our city.
The Council for Court Excellence has had a mission of
focusing on the workings of the justice system within the
Washington area for many years. The Council is a nonprofit,
nonpartisan civic organization that has worked to improve the
administration of justice in local and Federal courts related
to agencies in Washington, DC, for nearly 20 years.
The Council for Court Excellence is a unique resource in
our community, bringing together members of the civic, legal,
judicial, and business communities to work with common purposes
to improve the administration of justice.
In March of this year, 2001, the Council for Court
Excellence completed a 15-month research study under the
direction of the District of Columbia Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council. We worked in concert with the Justice
Management Institute to examine the resource management issues
within the District of Columbia criminal justice system, with
special emphasis on criminal case flow management and
Metropolitan Police Department overtime.
This project entailed working closely with over 10 separate
criminal justice agencies that have already been identified
here this morning. Our formal statement is really grounded on
the work that study produced, as well as my experience from
1996, and on.
In 1996 we founded what we then called the MOU partners,
which were all of these agency heads, and ran that. I was the
vice-chairman of the D.C. Financial Authority. In 1998, the MOU
partner organization became--changed its name; it had the same
makeup, the same mission, but changed its name to the Criminal
Justice Coordinating Council.
Let me say that this report, which is attached to our
testimony here today, had some very startling findings. We
found, for instance, during our test period that on average,
there were 670 police officers in the courthouse a day, off the
streets, away from community policing; 45 percent of those
officers were in prosecutional hearings, and 55 percent were
involved in court hearings.
That is a lot of police officers off the streets,
particularly when you consider that 60 percent of the cases
scheduled for trial during our test period did not go to trial.
In other words, these police officers were there and not
called.
There is a further great difficulty in that, on average,
six to eight officers were called for each case, but even when
a case was called, only two would testify. So we have a lot of
cases not being called, and you compound that, count that up,
and it is just a huge manpower off the streets and not doing
police work, as such.
The core conclusion of the Council for Court Excellence
research is that the agencies of the District of Columbia need
to work together to overhaul the case management systems from
the point of arrest all the way through to the final
disposition of the case. Unless this happens, this will not be
able to be fixed. The Police Department cannot fix it by
itself, and any given agency cannot fix it by itself. They must
work together.
Where do we find ourselves today? Well, certainly we
believe that the principal conclusions of the GAO report are
accurate and should be adopted. As you know and as you
mentioned, the city Council has enacted legislation in the 2002
budget that would fund the Criminal Justice Coordinating
Council to the tune of $169,000.
Most of the agencies are under Federal control and were
federally funded, as has been pointed out several times this
morning, every now and then I think we have to remind ourselves
how that came about in 1997. The Federal Government took over
some of these agencies from the District in exchange for the
District not receiving $680 million worth of Federal payments.
We urge the U.S. Congress to enact authorizing legislation
to create an annually funded independent D.C. Board, the
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, for the express purposes
of encouraging, supporting, and facilitating interagency and
intergovernment cooperation across the District's criminal
justice system.
The proposed council should be comprised of the leaders of
the many criminal justice agencies; not delegated down to staff
or lower people, but be comprised of the leaders of the local
and Federal agencies involved.
The CJCC should be supported by a staff responsible to the
Council. Properly funded and organized, we believe that this
coordinating body can exert substantial peer pressure on member
criminal justice agencies, both Federal and local, to adopt
more efficient and effective strategies and policies which
ultimately will benefit the entire system and, in turn, the
community at large.
We recommend that Congress ensure the independence of the
CJCC through legislation. We urge that you recognize that there
is an ongoing congressional responsibility to provide annual
funding and oversight.
We also believe that time is of the essence. If needed D.C.
criminal justice reform such as those set forth in our recent
report are to be addressed, it needs to happen now.
Madam Chairman, the last point I would like to make today
concerns how best to assure interagency accountability across
the District's criminal justice system. Such accountability is
sorely lacking today, as the GAO study documents.
The authorizing legislation creating an independent CJCC in
the District of Columbia, we believe it should specify that the
CJCC be required to publish an annual public report to the
District Mayor, the D.C. Council, the Congress, and the
community at large. The report should be done in the spring of
each year so that the annual appropriations hearings can be
influenced.
The CJCC annual reports should explain what actions have
been taken over the past year to improve public safety and
justice, and what are the plans for the next 1 to 5 years. We
would hope that Congress would use this annual public report by
leaders of the criminal justice coordinating effort as a means
of assuring a greater accountability.
I would be happy to answer any questions that you might
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harlan follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much, Mr. Harlan.
I must say, this first panel has moved expeditiously and
come up with some very specific recommendations which we want
to explore further.
I am going to try to keep us to 5 minutes each, each round,
but we can go back and forth for more than one round.
I will start off with the GAO, Mr. Stana.
The various agencies, the Superior Court, Pretrial
Services, Defender Services, Sentencing and Felon
Incarceration, Community Supervision, previously funded by the
District Government, are now funded by the Federal Government
as a result of the Revitalization Act.
I want to ask you what the impact has been of this change
in the criminal justice system. Do you think things are getting
better, or not? How do you think Congress can help to improve
the operations?
Mr. Stana. As was pointed out earlier, the crime statistics
seem to show that things are going in the right direction.
Homicides are down, assaults are down, thefts are down, arson
is down.
What I don't know is whether this is owing to the
Revitalization Act and the changes made there. What was called
for in the act, seems to be moving on schedule, but for the
purposes of this report, we did not do the work that would
allow us to answer the question that you asked.
Mrs. Morella. Could I ask you, the CJCC appears to be an
important component in the coordination of the operations of
the D.C. criminal justice system.
Would you have any comments about whether or not you think
Congress should fund the CJCC, and what reasons would you have,
yes or no?
Mr. Stana. The short answer is yes, we believe Congress
should fund the CJCC. There are a number of different models to
use when considering its structure and budget.
For example, Montgomery County, MD has a CJCC. There is no
specific funding for it, but rather, the members of the
criminal justice community there donate staff and time and
detail individuals to accomplish what the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Committee there has to accomplish.
One difference in the District, however, is that you have
Federal and local funding streams. You have over 30 different
agencies operating here. There is a blend of interests and
there is a blend of organizational hierarchies that, frankly,
exists nowhere else in the country.
When we discussed the CJCC with agencies involved in the
D.C. criminal justice system, one thing they pointed out to us
is that it is extremely important that an organization like
that be perceived as independent, and the CJCC, under the
Control Board, was perceived as independent.
We were told that in order to preserve that independence,
it was critically important that it not be perceived as an
instrument of one agency, the District Government or of any
agency, any member participant.
Mrs. Morella. You are right, it does pose some incredible
challenges that other jurisdictions do not have in terms of
coordination jurisdictionally.
I noticed also that you did say in your testimony that you
felt that there should be the annual report. This is exactly
what Mr. Harlan also stated.
Mr. Harlan, I particularly appreciate your participation in
our hearing today. First, I want to thank you for your services
as the former vice-chair of the Control Board. In that capacity
you are known to be the driving force of the original
Memorandum of Agreement Group, the predecessor to the CJCC.
You also served as the first chairman of the CJCC, which
was principally established to improve the criminal justice
system.
How has lack of funding affected the effectiveness of the
CJCC? And then, please, get into the concept of Federal
funding, if you would, sir.
Mr. Harlan. All right.
Initially, the CJCC activities were funded through the
Control Board, as has been pointed out. That was true up until
I believe this current fiscal year. Each year the amount of
funding since 1998, and I have been away from it, so I don't
know the exact dollars--the Control Board had funding in 1999
and the year 2000, but it is my understanding that those were
reduced from the budget we had.
In 1996, 1997, and 1998, we spent a lot of money looking at
the system early on. One activity that has gone on, and it is
my understanding it has gone on quite successfully, even though
the funding in the current fiscal year for the CJCC is zero--it
has gone on through Federal grants and support. It is this
system that has been identified, I believe it is called
Justice. It is based on a criminal justice system that is
operational in Pennsylvania.
The system takes these 70--it takes several of these
systems in each of these stovepipe agencies', if you will,
computer systems, and overlays new, advanced technology so it
can reach down and get information to share with other agencies
and the organization as a whole.
Well, technology and working-wise, it is an excellent
system. The problem comes in as far as the voluntary nature of
it. There is one agency, which is a major agency involved in
the criminal justice program here in our city, that has opted
out, decided not to participate. As a result, the system, while
it will work for those that are participating, there will be a
big hole. It is that kind of thing that causes major problems
and restricts even great success from being truly recognized.
So going forward, it is my understanding that to fund just
that system, staffing, handling, monitoring the data, making
sure the security is there and all that, it is going to take
about $2 million a year. So the $169,000 will not come close to
even handling that one system.
Mrs. Morella. I think you said you feel the Federal
Government should be taking----
Mr. Harlan. I believe that this is a joint effort and must
be recognized as a joint effort.
The local government is proposing local dollars. The
Federal Government has the lion's share of this. It should put
up Federal dollars. So with local dollars and Federal dollars,
I believe the leadership should be determined on an equal
basis, that sort of thing.
If it is perceived, as the GAO has pointed out, that one
group is taking over, it will not be very effective. But if we
can figure out a way to make it a cooperative organization,
independent, and not championing one particular agency or
funding source, I think it can be fantastically cooperative and
be a model for the country.
Mrs. Morella. I know my time has expired, so I will now
defer to Congresswoman Norton. We will be back for another
round. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The problem that the GAO is confronted with and that Mr.
Harlan has elaborated upon is a problem fit for one of my law
school classes. It is an unprecedented constitutional law
problem, and I see the problem. I caution us not to simply move
forward with the kind of normal cause and effect, because I
don't see the answer.
Let me address a question to GAO, the GAO representative.
The responses in the report from the District surely
require some response. First of all, let me ask Mr. Harlan,
what agency has opted out of the process?
Mr. Harlan. The Bureau of Prisons.
Ms. Norton. One thing this committee could easily do is to
require that agencies participate in the process. That it seems
to me could be dealt with. But the responses surely are
troubling, and require some response from us.
For example, when I look at the report, that the agencies
needed to feel ownership of the body in which they operate,
there was concern about--particularly with agencies that must
enjoy independence, like the courts, about a superagency over
them.
Listen to this, just listen to this, if you are a local
jurisdiction. The nuance that will be required to fashion
something is important. Listen to what the report says.
``Consider requiring that all D.C. criminal justice initiatives
that could potentially involve more than one agency be
coordinated through the new independent entity.''
The city questions, or one of its representatives in your
report questions, ``Given the interrelatedness of agencies in
our system, it is difficult to think of any initiative, no
matter how limited in scope or application, that would not fit
that definition and require review by that entity.''
I don't see how you would avoid putting the criminal
justice system of the District of Columbia under the Federal
Government, which is precisely what the Revitalization Act
intended not to do.
Now, I see the problem of leadership, but I want your
response to these responses that I found in the report itself.
Mr. Stana. OK.
Let me take the second one first, and the second one was
running the coordination initiatives through the CJCC.
What we found among the 93 initiatives was that in about
two-thirds of them, fundamental misunderstandings existed about
who was the leader of the initiative, what it was intended to
do, what goals and responsibilities were assigned, and so on.
What we had in mind here, and what our report is aiming to
do, is to use the CJCC as a clearinghouse, not as a directive
body, but as a body that pulls these initiatives in, studies
them, and points out these kinds of shortcomings to the members
around the table, to discuss how are we going to address them.
What can be done to address these disconnects? And that the
members themselves would say, well, I did not mean that, or
yes, I could be involved in this, or yes, that is the leader, I
am not the leader. Let us see if we can measure our goals. It
is not a directive body, but it is intended to be a
clearinghouse and a helpful body.
With respect to trying to Federalize the District of
Columbia's criminal justice system by having the CJCC federally
funded, I don't know if that would be the intent of Federal
funding. I think what Federal funding does is ensure that the
most participants possible appear at the CJCC table and work
with the other members of the D.C. criminal justice community.
Ms. Norton. We are beginning, I think, to focus in on how
to make this thing work. The word ``clearinghouse'' is very
important to use.
Here you have two independent entities. The District of
Columbia is an independent jurisdiction. When we wrote the
Revitalization Act, we were at great pains to keep those
jurisdictions, the Federal Government and the District
Government, in their independent status.
Just because somebody is funding something, or just because
our prisoners go to the BOP, does not change the relationship
between the District government.
Yet, you raise a critical point. It seems to me--you help
me in what you have said. This is an entity that cannot
function except by consent of the governed.
Mr. Stana. Right.
Ms. Norton. It may be in fact possible--and, if I may say
so, despite what the District said, there is a supremacy clause
problem. The Mayor and the District of Columbia cannot order a
Federal entity to do anything. There is still the Constitution
of the United States, and he does not have that jurisdiction,
and certainly no agency of the District government has that
jurisdiction.
If we are talking about a clearinghouse--that is why I
think we need to think about this before we decide what we are
doing here. I would like to see a lot more analysis here.
If we would talk about a clearinghouse operation with
matters done by consent, then the funding would not matter,
because you have already said that these folks are funded now
by a Federal grant. So the funding is not a problem. The
problem is leadership. The problem is making sure that every
agency, BOP and everybody else, understands that it is a
Federal obligation.
I would ask the D.C. government to pass a comparable
statute saying it is the obligation of every D.C. agency to
fully participate in this matter, and leave it to--here I am
thinking off the top of my head, based simply on what I have
heard from you, because I learned a lot from you; and if there
was failure of cooperation, then the leader, the real leader
would have the obligation to see to it that particular agency
in fact fell into line.
We could get toward something in which everybody maintained
his sense of who he really is, and yet had an obligation to
participate fully in this coordination mechanism.
Mr. Stana. Yes, and that was the goal of our third
objective.
What we found when we compiled and analyzed these 93
initiatives was that, No. 1, this had not been compiled before;
and No. 2, many of the other participants did not realize what
the other had thought--what was supposed to happen, or who was
in charge, and so on. So bringing these kinds of matters to the
coordinating committee would be very useful.
Our second recommendation about reporting to the Congress
and to the D.C. government and others is intended to let the
funding sources and the hierarchies of each member know what
has been resolved and what hasn't been resolved.
As one participant said, sunshine is purifying, and if one
funding source realizes that, well, my person or my
organization is not cooperating and I am not happy about that,
then they can take that individual to task over that and find
more out about it.
What we found in talking with the different participating
agencies is if the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee
becomes dictatorial and exercises powers that are inordinate
with its real responsibilities, that many members would not be
around that table for very long.
Ms. Norton. That's right.
Madam Chair, can I say that one suggestion I would make to
the Chair is that we might ask some of the distinguished
lawyers in our own D.C. Bar Association to look more closely at
this matter, maybe the Council of Court Excellence, so these
issues we have fleshed out, the consent, the responsibility of
the leaders of the sectors, the Mayor and whoever would be
designated for the Federal sector and the clearinghouse notion,
and that any notion that got put into effect be put into effect
as a pilot first, because it is so unusual, because it is
unique, and we would not want to go willy-nilly into something
that simply did not work for us.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you. We will be discussing that.
Continuing with our questioning to Mr. Stana, in your March
2001 report on the criminal justice system, you reported that
the criminal justice activities in D.C. are not effectively
coordinated. We have talked about that, longstanding problems
not addressed.
We suggest that some of the real causes of the problems are
the lack of agreeing on the goals of the initiatives and the
turf issues between participating agencies. I wonder if these
are the root causes of the problem. Will the establishment of
the federally funded or in-partnership D.C., Federal, etc.,
funded CJCC address the root causes of the problem?
Mr. Stana. Our report points out that many of the causes
for the lack of coordination are systemic: different funding
streams, different hierarchies. That is not to say these are
insurmountable. By coordinating activities and having a
mechanism to coordinate, we can take care of basically the
three kinds of problems that we service.
One is the interagency difficulties with the 93
initiatives, where participants did not know the fundamentals
llike which agency was in charge and what are the goals, and so
on.
The second involved papering. We have discussed the
papering issue quite a bit in the report. I'm sure you will
talk about it a lot more on the third panel.
There are some fundamental issues there that have to be
dealt with, and they just haven't been, and a coordinating
mechanism is needed to do that.
The third involved the Leo Gonzalez Wright case that I
believe Ms. Norton mentioned, and that is just a series of
errors that happened over years, that we believe some sort of a
coordinating mechanism or some sort of a way to discuss
individual problems would have helped that case considerably.
Mrs. Morella. That leads--in fact, I think I mentioned that
case, but that leads to that question of, even if there is a
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, when there is a
stalemate among the members in resolving the problems, as is
the case now, how do we ensure that the problem is resolved
correctly?
Mr. Stana. Well, one of the problems with the current
coordinating committee is that they could agree to disagree,
and that was the end of it, and nobody else knew about it. And
what we're hoping is, that by having a reporting mechanism back
to the Congress and to the administration and to the D.C.
government, that by putting a little sunshine on these areas of
disagreement, the Congress, the administration and the Mayor
and the city Council would be in a better position to act from
their viewpoint.
Mrs. Morella. I'd like to address that very same question
to Mr. Harlan for any comments he may have on it, how to
resolve the stalemate.
Mr. Harlan. Yes. I agree that--and what--our recommendation
is very similar to the GAO's suggested report, because of just
bringing the clarity of the sunshine to the issue, sometimes
the fear of having to stand up and defend some action that an
agency leader has taken that blocks other agencies, he or she
would have to stand up and explain that to you if you held
hearings on it and had a report.
So we believe that an oversight responsibility is required,
but I also think that cooperation is the key to this. And
unless we find a magic cooperation here, as an agency head, he
or she can find 1,000 ways to block progress if they really
wanted to. I mean, that's the reality of operational
leadership. Not that they would but we've all seen it, and if
the people don't want to cooperate together, it's very
difficult to make them. It requires sunshine. You give them
marching orders, and they still don't do it. So they have to
want to do it, and it has to be a benefit to all.
Sometimes--it has to be a benefit to the whole system, and
sometimes my agency may have to take it on the chin a little
bit. I have to fund something I really didn't want to fund for
the benefit of the whole system. People have to work together,
and that, to me, is the critical aspect of this thing, finding
a joint way for the Federal leadership and the local leadership
to help these agencies work together and then provide
accountability, mandatory accountability. Maybe it's you or--
reaching an agreement with the local leadership that you will
jointly oversight. I don't know. But something of that nature
is going to be required.
Mrs. Morella. Which is another reason why I note that both
of you have stressed the leadership quality--leadership----
Mr. Harlan. That's right.
Mrs. Morella [continuing]. Commitment, working together.
Well, we'll continue to discuss that.
I think I have another minute or a minute and a half left.
So to Mr. Harlan, we discussed this in our opening comments,
but in the recent study on case processing and the use of
police resources, it was reported that $1.5 million in overtime
was paid to offices who had to go to the prosecutor's office to
swear legally that reports they had filed were true, and you
gave us some incredible statistics about the kind of time
that's spent, you know, in the courtroom by police officers.
What do you believe is the greatest impediment to addressing
the longstanding problems of case processing and case overtime?
Mr. Harlan. Let me--if I may, just to make sure I've got my
good adviser here, Sam, would you help me with that, please?
Mr. Harahan. I'll be happy to. I think your biggest
impediment is tradition. They've always done it one way.
They're going to be very reluctant to change. We documented
that 25 or 30 other urban jurisdictions do not require the
police officer to come the next morning to eyeball the
assistant U.S. attorney or the prosecuting attorney. We've
always done it one way.
There will be 40 reasons given to you as to why the U.S.
attorney's office possibly can't do this. They will do a pilot
project, four or five cases in the next 6 months. But the truth
is, in major cases there's going to be a great reluctance to
change the way it's being done today.
Mrs. Morella. We really can't accept the way it's being
done today. And I want to get into----
Mr. Harahan. It's not rocket science, ma'am.
Mrs. Morella. Right. Why do you think the papering issue
that has been posed, why has it festered over a decade without
being resolved? Is that also traditional?
Mr. Harahan. Well, I think it's the point that the GAO are
making about the lack of incentives that exist in the system
today for people to change the way in which they are
practicing.
Mrs. Morella. We would kind of like to look to what these
incentives might be. But I'm going to defer to Ms. Norton and
then pick up that great question with you again before we
terminate the panel.
Ms. Norton. Just to comment on Mr. Harlan's notion about
cooperation being the key to this coordination notion, and of
course it is, because this is--we know that there are systems--
when there are problems, you can put people in charge if you
have compulsion all the way down the line, but that is not our
system. To make you understand what I mean, when Russia was
part of the Soviet Union, there was very little AIDS. There was
very little crime. Everybody had health care. There was no
Russian Mafia. When freedom came, you got the same kind of
chaos you have in democratic societies.
In thinking through this system, we've got to assume the
freedom of all the parties involved and then ask ourselves, how
do you get people who are free actors to do the right thing on
time? That requires deep thought. We could put the Federal
Government in charge. That wouldn't do you any good in the
District of Columbia. It wouldn't do any good anywhere in the
United States, but especially in the District of Columbia would
it not do you any good, not given the resentment in this city
to having us in charge, this committee, all of the Congress in
charge and then for the Congress to say, here's an entity and
you're in charge. That's why I'm very pleased at the way you
describe how this could be put together. I think it may well
take Federal legislation, but I think it's also going to take
district legislation.
I'd like to ask about the problem that has troubled me ever
since I've been in Congress and the one that the GAO shed
special light on that Mr. Harahan just spoke about, and he said
tradition is the reason. Here is a classic case of where
everybody is in charge and therefore nothing happens, and this
is why--and I want to reiterate what I indicated in my opening
statement, 60 days, everybody, 60 days, try to do it in less,
have--this is a test as to whether consensual cooperation can
work within 60 days.
The U.S. attorney, the courts and the police, marshals may
be involved and there may be others, must have a new system, a
proposal for a new system. May I suggest that you might
consider taking it off the shelf from the many jurisdictions
that know how to do this?
The GAO has indicated some of the things that could be
done. The report would have been more helpful to me if there
was some indication of who in the region, for example, has
learned to do this. And the first thing I would ask is that the
city and Federal agencies involved not to invent something from
scratch but to look and see how it is done first in the region
and perhaps in some even better way nationally.
Mr. Stana. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Yes. Please respond.
Mr. Stana. May I add something there? I think tradition
plays a big part in this, and I think the cost does. And you
talked about the papering process, and we need to get on top of
that issue somehow.
Simply put, there are eight steps in the papering process
that involve D.C. policemen, and the police who are trained to
be on the street to fight crime. Of those eight steps, the
majority are strictly clerical, making copies, making file
folders, and so on. That in our view is not what policemen
should be doing, but in order to change that some other agency
has to assume the cost of doing that and it's not going to be
the police. So, yes, there's tradition involved, but there are
other things involved, and we think that cost is a big factor.
Ms. Norton. So who assumes the cost of doing that?
Mr. Stana. The police make the copies, the police assemble
the file folders, in addition to speaking with the U.S.
attorneys and screening officers. Now, if the policemen weren't
to do that, arguably it would fall on the U.S. attorney's
office to do those clerical tasks, or it would fall on the
court to do those clerical tasks. But why you have a trained
police officer earning overtime to do those kinds of clerical
tasks needs explanation.
Ms. Norton. If you forgive the pun, that's criminal. When
you consider what crime rates in the District of Columbia are
and the way in which our police are overtaxed--I mean, I've
gotten a bill that has gotten through that is being implemented
now to give assistance to the District of Columbia police and
Federal police officers precisely because they are so
overtaxed. I am very pleased with how that is working, but
those people, by the way, are going to be bringing in--what do
we call them--arrested people as well. Let's see what happens
when the Federal police are confined to clerical work.
But this is very--the cost issue--what you've indicated is
it's not just turf; it's cost. And so that's going to make it
really difficult in these 60 days. And I don't care how
difficult it is. We've got to start somewhere. And I said a
proposal. I didn't say in 60 days you have to have something in
place, but we really do have to begin this process, and perhaps
the Chair will find when she receives it that she will want to
have hearings at some later date, but we've got to get
something in place.
Could I ask whether in this--we've had difficulties in
technology in the district. You speak to some of the technology
problems here. It seems to me this becomes really difficult,
then, if the District is having trouble, not so much with its
technology but with the interplacing of the systems within the
District of Columbia, do you believe that working through the
criminal justice--some kind of coordinating mechanism, this
interface--this now double interfacing will take--can be done,
or is that going to require a whole new project, a whole new
way of dealing with technology once the coordination mechanism
is in place?
Mr. Jenkins. Well, let me answer that. I think there are a
couple of things there. I think it has worked relatively well
to date, partly, as we point out, because in the justice system
most of the participants view that they stood to gain from it
in terms of access to information that would help them do their
job better.
I think to date one of the reasons it's succeeded is
because of the leadership of the person on Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council is perceived by those people who he's
working with as being competent, knowing what he's doing,
listening to people, listening to concerns that the
participants have. He has not tried to dictate a solution. He's
tried to listen to things, identify what's doable in the short
term, which is one of the reasons they have sort of chosen the
solution they have.
So I think it's possible to use the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council for that, and this particular effort, has
shown that it can work if it has certain conditions. But, as
Mr. Harlan pointed out, if somebody says, there's not enough
benefit to me to participate and I'm opting out, then you do
have a big gap; and, therefore, it reduces the benefits that
the other participants get out of it when you have a major
player that opts out of it.
Mrs. Morella. We have other questions we'd like to ask you,
but I am most concerned about our time and the fact that we
have two other panels. We would like very much to submit
questions to you within the next few days for your responses.
I want to thank you very much; and I want to thank you, Mr.
Stana. I want to thank your colleagues, Mr. Jenkins and Mr.
Tremba. I want to thank you, Mr. Harlan; and I want to thank
Mr. Harahan for being here. We value very much your statements;
and we'll be following up with you, too.
So I'll ask the second panel, then, to come forward, too.
Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, who is the Deputy Mayor for
public safety and justice, the government of the District of
Columbia; the Honorable Kathy Patterson, who is the Chair of
the Committee on the Judiciary; and Rufus King III, who is the
Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Maybe as you get to your designated spots, you could
continue to stand so I can administer the oath. If you would
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Morella. I heae affirmative responses, which will be
so recorded. Again, we'll try to keep to the 5-minute rule.
We'll start off with you, then, Ms. Kellems. Thank you very
much for coming, and thank you for being patient, too.
STATEMENTS OF MARGRET NEDELKOFF KELLEMS, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR
PUBLIC SAFETY AND JUSTICE, GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA; KATHY PATTERSON, CHAIRPERSON, COMMITTEE ON THE
JUDICIARY; AND RUFUS KING III, CHIEF JUDGE, SUPERIOR COURT OF
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Ms. Kellems. Good morning. Good morning, Chairwoman
Morella.
I'm Margret Kellems, the Deputy Mayor for public safety and
justice. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you
today on the coordination of criminal justice activities in the
District, particularly the past successes and future plans of
the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Mayor Williams is a
staunch supporter of the CJCC, and as Deputy Mayor for public
safety and former executive director of the CJCC, I am
especially committed to seeing the organization become an
institutionalized part of the District's justice system.
I am intimately familiar with how the CJCC can be and in
fact has been an effective tool for integrating the activities
of our fragmented justice system. Background on the evolution
of the CJCC from 1996 to the present is found in my written
submission. My written testimony also includes greater detail
on the staffing and organization during fiscal years 1999 and
2000.
For now, I would like to briefly discuss some of the CJCC's
successful projects and the city's plan for continuing those
successes in fiscal year 2002.
The mission of the CJCC is to foster systemic change in the
justice system, serving as a forum to identify issues and their
solutions, proposing actions and facilitating cooperation that
will improve public safety and the related criminal and
juvenile justice services for the District of Columbia,
residents, visitors, victims and offenders.
During its brief existence, the CJCC has undertaken a
number of ambitious, successful projects. I will briefly
highlight two to demonstrate some of the valuable
accomplishments of the organization, accomplishments that I am
quite certain would not have been achieved without the CJCC's
existence.
Each criminal justice agency in the District relies on the
other agencies for basic management information. However, the
current information systems maintained by the justice agencies
within the District are not integrated. It is difficult and in
some circumstances impossible to access necessary information
in a timely manner.
In 1999, the CJCC envisioned a solution to this problem,
the District of Columbia Justice Information System, to serve
as a central information-sharing facility. In partnership with
the District's chief technology officer, the CJCC undertook to
implement this solution; and in December 2000, the proof of
concept for the system was completed for approximately
$750,000, a fraction of the cost of similar systems in other
jurisdictions. The project is now in phase 2 and will be funded
with Federal grants through fiscal year--I'm sorry, fiscal year
2001 and fiscal year 2002.
A second project, which came to fruition just last month,
is a pilot project called Papering Reform 2000. This project,
under way in three police districts, will get more officers on
the street and enhance the quality of prosecutions by
eliminating some of the administrative duties currently
required of police officers.
For example, officers will no longer be required to appear
in person to present charges to a prosecutor before a decision
is made on pursuing a case. Instead, the officer can swear to
the charges in their district station or other unit of
assignment and return to patrol. The corporation council
prosecutor will then go forward with the charging process
without the officer being present.
The CJCC supported this project through 1999 and 2000. The
Metropolitan Police Department and the corporation counsel have
sustained this valuable project since the CJCC lost its full-
time staff. When the program is fully implemented, District
residents will enjoy the benefit of greater police presence on
the street as a result of these efforts.
These are but two of the many projects supported by the
CJCC. Experience has shown us that without this neutral body,
without resources dedicated to identifying and proposing
solutions to problems of coordination among criminal justice
agencies, systems improvements in the District's justice system
would be difficult to achieve.
Consequently, the Mayor has fully supported the activities
of the CJCC and believes it is in the interest of the residents
of the District of Columbia to institutionalize this body and
bolster its efforts. The fiscal year 2002 budget proposed by
the Mayor and approved by Council includes, as you noted
earlier, $169,00 in earmarked resources for staffing the CJCC.
But, additionally, the Mayor is committed to providing
additional resources through block and formula grant funding to
support specific projects, just as were used with the
Information Technology Development Project and the Council for
Court Excellence report, both funded by Federal grant dollars.
As has been the practice, member agencies will be asked to
devote staff to specific projects as needed. We believe that
these resources will allow the CJCC to continue its current
projects and expand its efforts in fiscal year 2002.
Additionally, related legislation establishes the CJCC
formally and codifies its duties to coordinate crime control
activities, identify systemic issues and develop solutions,
participate in grant planning and establish and report on
measurable goals and objectives for system improvement. In the
next 60 days, the CJCC will conduct planning sessions to
identify the priority project areas for the coming fiscal year.
Additionally, during these planning sessions, the group
will be able to consider and clarify the member's obligations
to the organization and its projects. If necessary, the CJCC is
prepared to further define the organizational structure and
administration, for example, by creating a separate agency for
staff support, if it is determined that would best serve the
interests of autonomy and independence.
The CJCC can and should continue to serve as a mechanism
for identifying problems, developing the solutions and imposing
accountability for the results that our citizens deserve. With
the support and cooperation of all of the local and Federal
partners, I am confident that fiscal year 2002 will prove to be
an effective and productive year for the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council and for the citizens, visitors, victims
and offenders in the District of Columbia.
Thank you again for this opportunity. I'd be happy to
answer your questions.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much, Ms. Kellems.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kellems follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Now Councilwoman Kathy Patterson.
Ms. Patterson. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Morella,
Congresswoman Norton.
I am Kathy Patterson; and, since January, I have been
chairperson of the D.C. Council's Committee on the Judiciary
with oversight responsibility for the major public safety
agencies and criminal justice policy in the District.
I appreciate the opportunity to comment today on the report
by the GAO and on prospects for improving criminal justice
coordination through the work of the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council. I would like to give you an overview on
legislative actions taken recently by the Council and also some
major issues pending before the Judiciary Committee.
There are two general themes that I would bring before you
today--the strong need for collaboration among Federal and
local partners and the need also to review certain governance
issues that affect partner agencies within the CJCC reflected
in legislation before the District Council.
As has been mentioned, the District Council recently
approved the Mayor's proposal to provide funding in fiscal year
2002 and also to approve additional language spelling out the
responsibilities and functions of the CJCC.
I would like to highlight two of the cross-jurisdictional
issues that require the collaboration of member-partners.
Issues of this nature make the case for continuing efforts to
sustain and enhance the work of the CJCC.
The first is the issue of court overtime, researched most
recently by the Council for Court Excellence, and those
findings were shared with you earlier this morning.
I would only add that court overtime is not a new problem.
The Judiciary Committee budget report, which you have received,
provides a summary of earlier reviews of police department
overtime issues.
One such review that I found particularly disturbing was a
1993 report by the Court Liaison Division detailing nearly 300
court appearances by police department officers that supposedly
occurred after charges were dismissed. These appearances were
nevertheless compensated based on reports filed by officers and
corroborated by assistant U.S. attorneys.
This particular finding I mention today because it
underscores the fact that, while policy and procedure reforms
are needed and can be advanced by the CJCC, also necessary are
good management and vigilant oversight by responsible agency
leaders.
The second example of the kind of systemic issue that
requires shared evaluation and coordinated action is one
mentioned by Mrs. Norton, the placement of detention facilities
serving the District's criminal justice population, both
pretrial detainment and halfway houses for those released from
prison.
The successful reintegration of individuals returning to
the District from Federal prison is likely to be more or less
successful, depending on the kind of transition opportunities
that policymakers provide and fund. How and where we locate
pretrial detainment and halfway houses for released felons
requires coordination by local and Federal entities. It also
requires a healthy dose of public education on the need for and
merits of detention and a similarly healthy respect for and
acknowledgment of the needs and concerns of residents in
District neighborhoods on the part of both local and Federal
partners.
I'd like to comment on the specific policy recommendations
made in the GAO report, specifically that the Congress enact
legislation to create, define and fund the CJCC. The GAO report
does note the CJCC has provided a valuable, independent forum
for discussions of issues affecting multiple agencies. I would
suggest, based on that, that the CJCC is not broken and
therefore does not need a Federal fix. Coordination and
collaboration occur when equal partners agree to coordinate and
collaborate; and, as has been noted in the previous panel in
the discussion, mandates have questionable value in such a
context.
At the same time, I think the GAO's suggestion that the
CJCC have distinct reporting requirements is useful, and I
foresee adding reporting requirements to the Council language
when we revisit this issue in June. Reporting can keep you
informed and can also provide a check on the performance of an
entity that will again be receiving District taxpayer dollars.
It's my view that the District dollars earmarked for the
CJCC in fiscal year 2002 represents a basic level of support
that we can sustain. At the same time, when equal partners come
to any table, it is useful for them to be equally vested; and,
for that reason, I would suggest that the Federal member
agencies provide a modest sum toward the operation of the CJCC
and would recommend that the fiscal 2002 budgets that the
Congress enacts for the Federal member agencies incorporate
such modest sums. This is an issue on which the D.C. Council
has not advanced a view, and I therefore speak for myself.
There are two other issues touched on by the GAO report
that have been addressed by the D.C. Council in the Budget
Support and Budget Requests Acts.
First, we approved a line item of $100,000 in the
Department of Corrections' budget to support the Corrections
Information Council called for by the Revitalization Act in
1997. In addition, I am pleased to say that we are moving
forward with names to populate that Council, and I hope to see
the CIAC in place over the summer and able to hire professional
staff this fall.
There's a second issue that derives from the 1997
Revitalization Act and is reflected in the Budget Request Act
that the Congress will be receiving. As you know, this law
sought to transfer financial responsibility for certain State-
like functions from the District to the Federal Government,
including the financial responsibility for incarcerating
convicted District felons. The Council is asking that the
Congress revisit this issue and clarify that, in fact, the
Bureau of Prisons will pay the full cost for convicted felons,
which is not the case today.
There are other major legislative issues pending before or
anticipated by the Council of the District of Columbia. Very
briefly, one has to do with local selection of judges. A second
has to do with an election of a local attorney general. These
two will be the subject of a hearing shortly.
A third piece of legislation I anticipate we will shortly
have before us would be to comment on Judge King's plan to
strengthen the family division of the D.C. Superior Court, and
I look forward to being able to share with the Congress the
views of the D.C. Council.
Finally, the Council has before it legislation introduced
last week to create a centralized, highly trained,
competitively compensated Office of Administrative Trials and
Hearings, similar to a panel that was put in place in the State
of Maryland in 1990.
I appreciate having this opportunity to appear before you,
look forward to working on these joint issues, and I would be
happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Councilwoman Patterson. You
certainly got through a lot of material, and I know there's
even a lot more here in the written testimony. I appreciate
that.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Patterson follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Judge King, we're pleased to hear from you,
sir. Thank you for being here.
Judge King. Chairwoman Morella, Congresswoman Norton, thank
you for the opportunity to discuss the coordination of criminal
justice activities in the District of Columbia among our
several agencies.
Over the past several years, the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council [CJCC], has provided a valuable forum for
discussion of criminal justice issues in the District and has
fostered a spirit of cooperation which has enabled it to
accomplish several successful projects and initiate others. The
key to the past successes--and I won't enumerate them in view
of the lengthy discussion of them before me this morning--has
been the voluntary cooperation among the independent agencies.
Moreover, the interests of justice demand autonomy for many
of the criminal justice agencies. For public defenders to
function effectively, they must be independent of police and
prosecutors. Requiring the courts to seek approval from the
Mayor or another agency for projects and initiatives, should
the CJCC be funded through the District, could undermine the
crucial independence of the District's judiciary.
The Superior Court strongly recommends a continuation of
the CJCC as an organization of independent criminal justice
agencies, financed to provide staff and resources for
interagency initiatives.
We envisage the CJCC as an independent agency with an
executive director selected by the CJCC members and then a
staff. The executive director would seek grants for system wide
projects and administer appropriated funds for criminal justice
initiatives.
The executive director would also provide annual reports to
the CJCC and to Congress and the city, the Mayor and the city
Council on accomplishments, progress and areas where
improvement is needed. Placing this responsibility on the
executive director preserves the principle of separation of
powers within the District government and the independence of
local and Federal agencies in the criminal justice system.
While the CJCC would continue to manage funding for some
projects itself, it would also coordinate budget requests from
the various funding authorities for projects whose costs and
benefits fall unevenly among different criminal justice
agencies. For example, where costs of procedures to benefit the
Metropolitan Police Department,with reduced overtime expense
might fall on the U.S. attorney's office, the CJCC would work
to strategize the budget requests, so that the entire criminal
justice system could realize savings.
This potential for system wide gains without
disproportionate costs would provide the incentive needed for
criminal justice agencies to work more cooperatively together
to resolve issues for which solutions have proven elusive in
the past.
In summary, the court believes the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council is an invaluable forum for discussion and
interagency problem solving. The essential feature for its
success has been the autonomy of the criminal justice agencies.
The court strongly supports continuing an association of
independent criminal justice agencies with the resources to
staff projects and launch new initiatives.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on these important
issues, and I would welcome any questions.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Judge King; and thank the three of
you for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Judge King follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. It's great to have the three of you together
at the table, too, because there is some differences of opinion
with regard to the CJCC, whether it should be funded, how to
keep it independent, if it should in fact be totally
independent.
I guess I would ask you, Judge King, how should CJCC be
funded in order to maintain its independence? Should there be a
partnership? Should there be funding through the Mayor's
office? I mean, the Council has, as was mentioned by
Councilwoman Patterson, feels that the $169,000 would be
adequate, and it should be totally through the local office,
and there is no need for the CJCC. Would funding by the
District government or other participating agencies affect its
independence?
Judge King. In my view, without having really thought
through the mechanics of how it might be funded, I think in
general it would be better to have it come through the city.
But less important than the actual mechanism for the funding is
that the funding come not encumbered by any kind of
governmental or bureaucratic strings. In other words, I fully
support the notion that there should be accountability through
an annual report. And that obviously is going to play out in
the discussions here, whether through the agencies or directly
through the Federal Government in funding discussions for that
year.
But the most important thing is that the CJCC itself remain
an autonomous sort of federation-like council; and where the
funding comes from is less critical, in my view.
Mrs. Morella. Have you looked at the amount that might be
necessary to adequately----
Judge King. I think $169,000, I believe it is, is certainly
a good start. It's going to take more than that, in my belief.
It should be--the core funding to operate the CJCC should
remain rather modest. What will drive it up somewhat is the
funding necessary for projects.
For example, the justis system needs--and I can provide
accurate figures, which I do not have at the moment, if that's
of interest, but it will need at least several millions more in
order to complete the phases 2 and 3 to bring all the agencies
in and to fully enhance the data-sharing capabilities that we
contemplate. So I think the funding to operate the CJCC is
rather modest, more than is out there now but rather modest.
The funding for particular projects or initiatives may go up
from there, but obviously would be planned as we go along.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you.
Let me ask Ms. Kellems how many meetings there have been of
the CJCC and who the current Chair is.
Ms. Kellems. The current Chair is Mayor Williams. There
have been--since the beginning of the fiscal year, which was
October 1st, I believe there have been three. I'm not certain
about that. It should be a monthly occurrence. It was not the
first couple of months of the fiscal year, and I believe there
have been three.
Mrs. Morella. There have been three since----
Ms. Kellems. Since----
Mrs. Morella. Since October----
Ms. Kellems. Since we lost the----
Mrs. Morella. Have the principals been showing up? We heard
from our previous panel about the need for the leadership.
Ms. Kellems. Yes, ma'am. They always have. One of the best
characteristics of the CJCC has been the commitment of the
principals themselves, with a few exceptions. There's--some of
the members are a little less interested in appearing every
single time, but a vast majority of the time it is every member
who appears.
Mrs. Morella. I guess to all of you, should the CJCC have
the ability to compel the submission of information from the
member agencies?
Judge King. No, in a word. The system that we have--for
example, in the data-sharing system, what we have done is to
invite participation. That's not to say that there shouldn't be
compulsion, perhaps, to participate, but if it's a particular
agency that is not participating, the political and
bureaucratic access to that agency ought to be the means by
which compulsion takes place.
So if, for example, it is an agency that's under the
command of the Mayor, it would be to the Mayor to reach out to
his agency head and say ``You need to participate in this,''
rather than make the CJCC a compulsory forum which would then
lose its strength of providing a forum for a free-ranging
discussion of initiatives and approaches and preparing
initiatives with the best kind of buy-in and voluntary
participation.
Mrs. Morella. Just--my time has expired, so just a yes and
no from Councilwoman Patterson and Ms. Kellems on whether or
not the CJCC should have the ability to compel information----
Ms. Patterson. Should not have it statutorily but should
have sufficient skill to be able to compel partners to
participate.
Mrs. Morella. That's a good answer.
Ms. Patterson. That's the answer.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.
Yes, I recognize that all kinds of legal issues could be
raised by compulsion to share any and all information in a
criminal justice system.
I do want to take note of part of Ms. Patterson's testimony
in which she indicates that, despite the Revitalization Act--
and I'm going to say despite some urging here on my part--there
remains a large inequity embedded in that act that has
defunding implications for the District of Columbia, and that
is when an inmate becomes a Federal prisoner.
Now, you know this notion of making the District government
spend--of saying--of taking credit for taking over these
functions, now we--you know, big, big, big Federal Government--
now we have all the responsibility for paying for these
prisoners while saying, well, not really, not until they've
been designated a Federal prisoner, not until we found a bed
for them. That--considering that they're now going over to the
BOP, now it might not be so bad.
What I would ask this committee to look closely at is that
if, since felons are facing additional charges, then the
District of Columbia is required to pay for that inmate to
remain in the District of Columbia. That is at cross-purposes,
indeed that is in conflict with the Revitalization Act, and I
would like--I wonder if either of you have any information on
the cost to the District of Columbia of that part of Mrs.
Morella's testimony on page 5, the designation, retaining
control and, therefore, containing--you don't so much contain
control. What you do is contain cost control.
Ms. Kellems. I don't have information on the cost with me.
I'm happy to provide that to you.
On the next panel, I think John Clark, the D.C. Corrections
trustee, will also address a different organization called the
Interagency Detention Work Group that is working on
specifically that problem to try to minimize the amount of time
and the cost associated--that the District continues to bear
before they're designated.
But I agree with you. It's not working the way it is right
now, and the District is bearing a disproportionate share of
the cost.
Ms. Patterson. My recollection is the dollar figure is
somewhere in the range of $20 million; and, again, the issue is
that these decisions are not ours to make. If someone violates
parole or if the U.S. attorney wants someone held for some
reason, they're not--those decisions to incur the cost are not
the District's to make.
Ms. Norton. So there's nothing the District can do but pay
the piper. We've got to do something about that. It's just not
fair. You can't take it over and then continue to give us
costs.
What issues--first of all, I note that the CJCC is not now
funded. What issues--could you give me examples of issues that
are under consideration by the CJCC at the present--at this
time?
Ms. Kellems. I will speak a little generously for the rest
of the group.
I would imagine that several issues that will continue to
be of concern would be substance abuse treatment for folks in
the justice system. Treatments are--drug abuse and substance
abuse have continued to be an enormous driver of crime and
something the CJCC has really struggled with, made some
progress with in the last couple of years but hasn't been able
to give as much coordinated attention to. Officer time in court
is certainly one of the highest priorities. It's part of a
larger issue that the CJCC grapples with, which is the resource
drain on all of the agencies, not just the police department.
Ms. Norton. So what you're giving me is an agenda. I'm
asking for issues now in the process of coordination.
Ms. Kellems. I'm sorry. Ones we are currently working on?
Ms. Norton. Uh-huh.
Ms. Kellems. The several large ones would be the court
calendaring issue that relates to police overtime as well. The
technology integration is also another one that we're actively
working on.
Ms. Norton. Go ahead, please. I don't want to stop you.
Ms. Kellems. We continue to focus on the management of
pretrial offenders, particularly halfway houses. There's a
whole range of issues surrounding that, and a group of people
continue to work on that.
Those are three of the primary ones.
Ms. Norton. But there is no paid staff for the coordination
council as such. So people simply borrow staff, I take it, or
use their own staff?
Ms. Kellems. We use our own staff. There is one staff
member who is paid by grant who manages the technology piece.
He was paid by a grant before as well. There's a staff member
detailed from the Metropolitan Police Department that also
works on the technology piece. The rest of the staff is the
staff of the agencies that continue to work on projects.
Ms. Norton. Well, I ask the question, because, first, I
want to thank Ms. Patterson, because Ms. Patterson has sent a
letter. She's a member of the Council. I don't even think she
would be a member of the coordinating group, but on her own
initiative she has done something that it seems to me the CJCC
should have done.
She has sent a letter, and I want to thank her for it here,
to ask for all the representatives--I have her letter of May
4th to one of the representatives from the court services to
ask them--now, here's a member of the city Council having to do
this, and she's sending this to Federal agencies as well, of
course, as to District agencies, asking them to meet on
Thursday the 24th in order to discuss the detention issues,
precisely the halfway house issues that I mentioned in my
opening statement.
These issues are flaring--and I know Ms. Kellems and I have
had numerous discussions about them, and I know of your concern
to get moving on this, but it is some indication to me that, if
the Coordinating Council exists, it must exist on an ad hoc
basis. Because if there was any issue that a member of the
Council should not have had to coordinate but should have been
coordinated under the Council, surely it would have been this
issue where there is no neighborhood in the District of
Columbia now that wants to accept halfway houses. And your
crime rate, despite anything that our police chief can do, is
just going to go up, because these are the people--the
residents of our city who are most inclined to commit crimes if
they are left on their own without any help.
So I don't know why this is being done by a Council member,
except she saw the need--she sits on the Council and sees the
problem, but it concerns me that it's not a problem on the
front of the agenda for the Coordinating Council.
Ms. Kellems. That is a very good example of what I think
the panel before us and the panel after us will also focus on.
That is an interagency multijurisdictional problem that
requires someone who can focus across all of the agencies.
There are individual pockets of activity related to halfway
houses that will involve one or two people, and they try to put
staff on it. But each of the agencies is responsible for their
own individual mission, and that's what they tend to go back
to--what is my role in this. They all recognize that there is--
--
Ms. Norton. So you tell me the Coordinating Council still
exists. So if it still exists, there ought to be some mechanism
that by now would have pulled these agencies together.
Ms. Patterson, do you have anything to----
Ms. Patterson. I would just say I appreciate you bringing
this up, but a year ago or a year from now this briefing that
you mention on May 24th probably could have been a briefing
between the CJCC and members of the D.C. city Council who are
policymakers who need to be up to speed on these issues. And
it's the fact of the lack of staff and the lack of regular
meetings and so forth for this interim before we get up and
running fully again that caused it to be generated by me but
knowing full well that it's primarily CJCC members that we're
inviting to the briefing.
Ms. Norton. Well, you know, I can only thank you for taking
up the slack.
May I ask you, Ms. Patterson, first if you know why the
control board did not fund the CJCC in its own 2001 budget,
since it was still had jurisdiction over your budget, and why
you believe that $160,000 was the appropriate amount.
Ms. Patterson. I do not know why the control board did not
fund the CJCC a year ago, and I can also not explain why the
Council and Mayor did not take the initiative a year ago to
fund it as we are doing now. I wish we had done so. That's my
20/20 hindsight speaking.
I think the $169,000 that the Mayor proposed and that the
Council affirmed is basically seen by me anyway as seed money
and the District's share. It would be my hope that other
partner agencies could either provide some additional funding
or, as has been mentioned, project funding on a per project
basis. I think we could use a larger dollar figure, but I think
that was viewed as the District's contribution at this point.
Ms. Norton. Could I ask the opinion of each of you on the
kinds of things we're beginning to flesh out here?
You can see that there is a supremacy clause problem here
with the Federal Government and the local agencies involved.
There's also a 10th amendment problem, because, you know, local
police departments and local agencies operate on their own
jurisdictions and not under the Federal Government. So we
establish that in order to have any legislation that would have
jurisdiction over the Federal agency it would have to be
congressional legislation.
You've heard me say I think there should be comparable
legislation as well for the District of Columbia. Suppose there
was congressional legislation, established in a kind of
clearinghouse notion, where the agencies had to operate on a
consensual basis, but the leadership, the Mayor and whoever
would be designated by the Federal Government, had
responsibility for ensuring cooperation and funding could be
through the Federal Government or by Federal grants. Do you
believe that kind of legislation would be acceptable to the
District of Columbia?
Ms. Patterson. For myself, again, not having had this
affirmed by the Council, I would prefer to see, if there is
congressional legislation enacted, that it address itself, as
you indicate, to the Federal partners to basically say,
``Federal agencies, you will participate in such an entity as
this'' to give them both the authority and the direction to so
participate as Federal partners.
Ms. Kellems. I agree.
Judge King. I agree. Essentially, I think we need to create
some entity that can be funded and operated. Now it's run by
MOU still. That could be by city Council legislation, just to
create the physical entity of some sort of corporate body. But
then the need for legislation is really very minimal.
Ms. Norton. So--excuse me, if I could just--so you think
maybe the whole thing could be done by an MOU? Could the whole
thing be done by an MOU with an MOU between the Federal
Government and the District government?
Ms. Kellems. The issue that I see where we have an MOU is
if we wanted to create something that could receive money, and
the MOU cannot create an entity that can receive money. The MOU
can only create the sort of board of directors, the CJCC
members itself. That's what would require additional
legislation if we got to that point.
Judge King. We can do the partnership but not the body that
receives the funds and disburses them.
Mrs. Morella. That's very helpful.
I'm just going to ask one final question so we can go on to
our next panel, to, I guess, Councilwoman Patterson. The
District of Columbia has proposed funding, as we've discussed
over and over again, for CJCC for fiscal year 2002. I'm
wondering organizationally that, under that concept, where
would CJCC be located?
Ms. Patterson. I think, as envisioned in the budget, the
funding would go to the Office of the City Administrator to be
part of the staffing pattern, I assume, within the Deputy
Mayor, Ms. Kellems's budget. That's insofar--again, as the
District dollars are concerned, that would be, as I said, seed
money. That would be where you would start from. But I could
foresee--as the nonlawyer on the panel here, I could foresee
some entity being created that could then use that funding and
add to it.
Mrs. Morella. It seemed to me that one of the difficulties
may be the independence that we've heard over and over again,
if you in fact have it. So then the Office--as your draft
legislation states, the Office of the Chief Administrator, that
it appears to me that it might take away some of the need for
independence.
Would you like to comment on it, Ms. Kellems?
Ms. Kellems. I'd be happy to.
That is certainly the concern that some of the members
have, that if the funding comes through any one agency, whether
it's the Mayor's office or others, that those staff people will
be influenced by the individual interests of the agency paying
their salary. I think that's a very legitimate concern, and I
understand it.
My only--I can only speak from experience. At the time that
I was executive director--and I had two staff people--we were
funded by the control board. They paid our paychecks, but we
did not work for them. We quite clearly worked for the Criminal
Justice Coordinating Council, and that was the control board's
contribution to it.
In the same way, we've made the commitment that the funding
that's earmarked in the budget for the CJCC will be controlled
by the CJCC, whether that's a--that's the formality that we've
put in the budget with that language. But I understand the
concern, and I think that's legitimate.
Mrs. Morella. Do you feel that--would Federal funding be
appropriate, do you think, for the CJCC, Ms. Kellems? And I'm
going to ask you, Councilwoman Patterson.
Ms. Kellems. I've struggled with this issue a lot--of where
the funding should come from. I'm not opposed to it. I think
because so much of our system is Federal and there's so much
Federal obligation, then there's certainly some cost to be
borne.
As Ms. Norton pointed out, it's difficult to put the
District in the position of saying we're taking away your
responsibilities, but we're leaving you with costs of--that are
associated with those responsibilities.
The reason that I think I have some confidence about the
upcoming fiscal year is because I know how much of the CJCC
activities in the past were funded through grants, and the
administration has made the commitment, working with the CJCC,
to use grant dollars extensively in this year.
Mrs. Morella. Right.
Ms. Patterson.
Ms. Patterson. Thank you. I think my preference would be
for Federal funds to come from Federal agencies, as opposed to
some kind of a blanket grant, because then I think that--if a
U.S. attorney or whoever brought money to the table, if you
will, I think that helps to vest those partners in the end.
Mrs. Morella. Judge King.
Judge King. I think I essentially agree that if we had
clearly earmarked funds, so they had to come in, it would be
helpful to have them come through the several agencies. So it
brings everybody to the table as a participant.
Again, I don't think that's the crucial issue. And as Ms.
Kellems said, if it's clear that the funding comes to the CJCC
for administration by the CJCC, it's less critical where it
comes from, but it would be helpful to have it come from the
agencies.
Mrs. Morella. I want to thank the three of you for being
here. I hope that you will respond to additional questions we
may have, but also feel free--since we've had this discussion
this morning, feel free to send us any other suggestions as a
result of this hearing today.
Thank you, Ms. Kellems--I guess I should call--what do you
call the Deputy Mayor, Mayor?
Ms. Kellems. Margret is fine.
Mrs. Morella. Councilwoman Patterson and Judge King, thank
you.
So our third panel, we have the chief of police, Charles
Ramsey, chief of police of the District of Columbia; Kenneth
Wainstein, acting U.S. attorney, District of Columbia; John
Clark, Corrections trustee, D.C. Office of the Corrections
Trustee; Cynthia Jones, director, Public Defender Service of
D.C.; Susan Shaffer, director of the District of Columbia
Pretrial Services Agency; and Michael Gaines, chairman of the
U.S. Parole Commission.
Boy, that's a big panel.
Again, I will ask you, when you are so assembled, if you
would continue to stand so that I could administer the oath. If
you would raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Morella. The affirmative response is recorded.
So, again, if we'll continue as we have for the others with
condensing your comments to 5 minutes or less, it would be most
appropriate. You have sort of the benefit of having heard what
we had already said. We will try not to repeat too much, but
you've also had the pain of waiting, and so I appreciate that,
too.
We'll start off with the chief. Thank you all for being
here. Thank you, Chief Ramsey.
STATEMENTS OF CHARLES H. RAMSEY, CHIEF OF POLICE, GOVERNMENT OF
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; KENNETH L. WAINSTEIN, ACTING U.S.
ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; JOHN L. CLARK, CORRECTIONS
TRUSTEE, D.C. OFFICE OF THE CORRECTIONS TRUSTEE; CYNTHIA E.
JONES, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICE OF D.C.; SUSAN W.
SHAFFER, ESQ., DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PRETRIAL SERVICES
AGENCY; AND MICHAEL J. GAINES, CHAIRMAN, U.S. PAROLE COMMISSION
Mr. Ramsey. Thank you and good morning, Madam Chair,
Congresswoman Norton. I appreciate the opportunity to be
present here this morning and to present this statement
concerning coordination in the District of Columbia's criminal
justice system. For your information, the text of my remarks is
available on our Department's Web site, MPDC.org.
This hearing comes at a time of continued progress and
tremendous promise within the Metropolitan Police Department
and the entire D.C. criminal justice system.
This year, as in the 5 preceding years, crime in our city
is down and down significantly. Thus far, in 2001, index crime
has declined 6 percent when compared to the same time last
year. Homicides are down 34 percent this year, after reaching a
13-year low in the year 2000. Lower crime rates, in turn, have
translated into increased public confidence in the police, the
justice system and the entire District government and new
investment in housing, jobs and the city's physical and
technological infrastructure. Enhanced public safety has been a
major factor, I believe, in the rebirth of the District of
Columbia.
The reasons for the continuing decline in crime are many
and varied. There is no one specific program or trend that we
can point to with complete certainty. Still I'm certain that
our success in reducing crime and improving public safety does
revolve around one basic principle, and that principle is
partnerships.
If the history of law enforcement in our Nation has taught
us anything, it's taught us that the police are most effective
and successful when we work in partnership with other
individuals and entities that have a role in public safety in
our communities. That lesson has served as the foundation of
the community policing movement in our Nation over the last
decade or so, a movement that has brought police, other
government agencies and citizens together in new and meaningful
ways.
I do not believe it is mere coincidence that the current 6-
year reduction in crime in the District of Columbia began right
after our city first implemented community policing in the
summer of 1997 or that our record of success has continued as
we have updated and expanded our original model into the
current strategy known as policing for prevention.
When people think of community policing, they often focus
on partnerships between police officers and residents. These
partnerships are certainly critical to the success of community
policing, but they represent only two sides of what we call the
partnership triangle.
The third side, one that is critically important but
frequently overlooked, represents other government agencies and
service providers, especially other agencies of the criminal
justice system.
In policing for prevention, we take the third side of the
partnership triangle very seriously. Working with our city and
Federal partners in the criminal justice system, we have put
together a number of innovative partnership strategies and
incorporated them into our larger community policing strategy.
For example, I believe D.C. is fast becoming a national
model for the emerging concept of community prosecution. Today
in our city, assistant U.S. attorneys and members of our
corporation counsel's office work hand-in-hand with our police
community PSA teams, often using office space in our police
district stations to target their prosecutorial efforts on
those crimes that are of greatest concern to the community.
As such, the criminal prosecution of cases flows naturally
and smoothly from the problem-solving process initiated at the
neighborhood level.
In the area of probation and parole, our officers are
teaming up with adult probation and parole officers to
strengthen supervision and enhance offender accountability. It
sends a powerful message to the offenders on supervision and to
the community when MPD officers and probation and parole
officers work side by side.
In addition to increased supervision, these teams are
developing networks in the community to assist probationers and
parolees with training and educational opportunities, job
placement, substance abuse assistance, and critical life
skills.
Another example of enhanced coordination, under the
leadership of Congresswoman Norton, the MPD has now executed
four Police Coordination Act agreements with Federal law
enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction in the District.
These agreements expand the jurisdiction of these Federal
agencies, allowing them to assist our Department in patrol and
other law enforcement activities.
In communities such as Capitol Hill, where the U.S. Capitol
Police have a longstanding agreement with the Metropolitan
Police Department on expanded patrols, our Federal partners are
part and parcel of the community policing and problem-solving
process.
These Police Coordination Act agreements and the MOUs are
in addition to the numerous very successful task forces
involving the MPD, various Federal, State, and local agencies,
the U.S. attorney's office, and others.
In short, I believe the level of cooperation and
coordination in the D.C. criminal justice system is strong and
getting stronger. Community policing has provided an umbrella,
a guiding philosophy, if you will, under which this
coordination can take place. I believe all of us at this table
share in a commitment to seeing this spirit of partnership
continue to grow and develop.
That said, the District of Columbia, like States across the
Nation, continues to face coordination issues that are almost
inherent in the way criminal justice is structured in our
Nation. Our situation here is somewhat unique in that the
entities involved are a combination of local agencies, Federal
agencies, and local agencies under some form of Federal
oversight.
But the underlying challenge is much the same here as it is
elsewhere: to be efficient and effective; to act as a true
system, working toward the common goal of justice. We must
ensure that coordination occurs not just on a case-by-case,
project-by-project basis, but rather, we must strive toward a
smooth and seamless system of working together.
In recent years, under the leadership of the District's
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council [CJCC], we have been able
to identify, research, and analyze some of the critical,
systemic issues facing our criminal justice agencies.
For example, on the continuing matters of papering reform
and court overtime cost, the CJCC funded a comprehensive study
by the Council for Court Excellence, a study that documented
the shortcomings in the current system and offers a number of
common-sense reforms. The Metropolitan Police Department is
committed to doing our part to ensure these recommendations are
implemented in a timely and efficient manner.
We recently began a pilot project with the Office of
Corporation Counsel to authorize so-called officerless papering
and other reforms in a variety of misdemeanor quality-of-life
cases prosecuted by that office.
We continue to work with Chief Judge King and the U.S.
attorney's office in developing similar reforms in the
processing of felony cases, as well.
In this and other key areas, the CJCC has proven to be an
invaluable partner in identifying issues that cut across
multiple agencies and in presenting recommendations from a
system-wide perspective.
I strongly support the continuation of the CJCC, and
recommend that its scope be expanded. For the CJCC to be truly
effective and for our criminal justice agencies in the District
to form a more unified and effective system, the CJCC must have
the resources and the responsibility not just to raise and
discuss these issues, but also to provide leadership and
impetus for ensuring action and affecting change.
The CJCC's role will be especially critical as our system
tackles the continued problem of drug abuse and drug-related
crime, youth violence, illegal weapons, and cyber crime.
The CJCC will be equally important in coordinating our
response to such promising new endeavors as papering reform,
new information technology, and restorative justice, just to
name a few.
I applaud this subcommittee for examining the crime and
public safety problems in the District of Columbia from a
holistic perspective, and the Metropolitan Police Department
looks forward to an era of even greater cooperation and
coordination with our sister agencies as we continue working
toward our common goals of safer streets, stronger
neighborhoods, and justice for all.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Chief Ramsey.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ramsey follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. I am pleased to recognize Mr. Kenneth
Wainstein.
Mr. Wainstein. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Congresswoman
Norton. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you this morning.
The U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia is
pleased to participate in this hearing on the important issue
of coordination of criminal justice activities in the District
of Columbia.
The U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia for
years has been involved in and at the forefront of efforts to
facilitate enhanced coordination and cooperation among law
enforcement agencies in the District of Columbia.
It is in this spirit that we support the creation of a
permanent and independent Criminal Justice Coordinating
Council. To that end, we offer several principles that should
guide or that we believe should guide the design and operation
of a permanent CJCC.
First, independence. Given its Federal and local agency
composition, the CJCC should be, in our view, an independent
agency that is beholden to no member or political entity. The
CJCC should, however, be prepared to issue periodic reports on
the status of its findings, objectives, recommendations, and
initiatives for review by all interested entities.
Second, principals. The CJCC should be comprised of the
principals of the various agencies or entities involved in the
criminal justice system. While there may be times when a
particular principal cannot attend a regularly scheduled
meeting and must send a representative in his or her case,
these instances should be rare. It is our perception that
interagency efforts of this type succeed only if the principals
make a personal and an institutional commitment to them.
Third, coordination. As its name connotes, the purpose of
the CJCC should be to coordinate those efforts which involve or
affect more than one agency in the criminal justice system of
the District of Columbia. The CJCC cannot and should not have
the power to require an agency to take any particular action
that agency believes to be contrary to its mandate, to its
statutory, constitutional, and ethical responsibilities, or to
the integrity of its internal operations.
While the CJCC can urge, cajole, or otherwise attempt to
persuade its members, it must not have the authority to order
them to adopt any course of action. Ultimately, the success of
the CJCC, in our view, will be built on mutual trust among its
members, the recognition of mutual self-interest among the
members, and the establishment of a track record of successful
cooperative initiatives.
As the staffing, the staff of the CJCC should report to the
CJCC and not to any individual agency or entity. The staff's
role should be to gather information and data, draft reports
and recommendations, seek funding for joint projects, manage
joint projects as appropriate, facilitate the meetings, and
provide other support services to the CJCC members.
Structure. Because the mission of the CJCC will be defined
by the members, we believe that the members themselves should
be given the opportunity to develop a governing and an
operational structure for the CJCC that will best serve its
mission.
We believe that because of their expertise and firsthand
knowledge of their needs, the members are in the best position
to establish these structures.
Project facilitation. The CJCC is uniquely positioned to
facilitate the design and implementation of those information
technology projects that involve the participation of multiple
agencies in the criminal justice system.
The GAO report and our own experience tell us that the
absence of integrated information technology and communications
is the single most significant barrier to effective
coordination in our criminal justice system.
Time and again, we have been stymied in our efforts to make
improvements to the criminal process by our inability to
transfer information efficiently, to provide accurate reports,
and to track the progress of cases and criminal defendants.
We can envision information technology projects that would
benefit greatly from cooperative management by the CJCC. As the
GAO report cited, the papering process is an area in need of an
integrated information technology system. We would realize
significant savings of time and resources if we had the
technology that would permit the police to prepare arrest
paperwork electronically instead of by hand, and transfer that
paperwork electronically to the U.S. attorney's office and the
other agencies who use that information to perform the
subsequent steps in the process of charging and of presenting a
criminal defendant in court.
Such a project requires the commitment of the agencies
involved in that process, and highlights the need for a
coordinating body that can bring those agencies together and
help them mold a plan that would achieve the systemic objective
while taking into consideration each agency's particular
concerns.
We believe the interagency coordination and collaboration
among the agencies involved in the District of Columbia
criminal justice system will inure to the benefit of our
victims and witnesses, the criminal defendants and their
counsel, and the District of Columbia community at large.
Therefore, the U.S. attorney's office stands ready, as it
has been since the institution of the current CJCC, to
participate as an enthusiastic and an active member of a
permanent and independent CJCC.
We thank you for this opportunity to express our views
about the CJCC. I will be happy to answer any questions that
you may have. Thank you.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much. We appreciate your
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wainstein follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, and good
morning, Congresswoman Norton.
It is a privilege to appear before the committee today to
discuss what I consider to be very important issues. Though I
feel very strongly about these issues, in view of the hour, I
will try to be brief, stressing just several points from my
written statement.
First, it has been my experience over the last several
years as an official in the District that a great deal of
effective work is going on by the agencies represented here
today, and by others in the District, to improve the quality of
the criminal justice system. I think you have heard a number of
examples mentioned already.
But by the same token, there are also significant
inefficiencies in the system, as was detailed by the Council of
Court Excellence report, including, certainly, the need for
greater coordination and collaboration.
Next, I strongly endorse, as have a number of others, the
thrust of the GAO report on the need to formalize and
strengthen the CJCC as the most effective vehicle for that
improved collaboration, though I do, as a number of others,
oppose giving it any authority to mandate changes in internal
policy or practice by the member agencies.
Quite simply, there are no quick, easy fixes or solutions
which can be mandated to these difficult issues. These issues
seem to be more susceptible to good planning and dogged,
sustained attention.
Regarding the manner of structuring the CJCC's
administrative apparatus and staffing, I do support formalizing
it, but as an independent District agency. However, if the CJCC
is to be fully effective--if it is, in other words, to be more
than a mere discussion round table--it also needs significant
resources, or some resources, certainly.
I cannot emphasize enough that it needs a sustained, stable
stream of funding, first for staff, and second for projects and
initiatives such as those required to implement the various
recommendations of the report by the Council of Court
Excellence.
In that regard, the CJCC is currently off to a modest but
solid start on several projects, some of which have been
mentioned already, including the papering reform, making use of
the $1 million that Congress made available this year to the
CJCC through the budget of our office at the corrections
trustee.
That kind of substantial funding, to my mind, needs to be
sustained, and hopefully in the future that kind of money which
came through our office, would come directly to, in some form
or fashion, directly to the CJCC.
Further, I strongly endorse the thrust of the GAO
recommendation that the CJCC issue an annual report. This
requirement would provide for public accountability and would,
I think, promote the sense of urgency and focus for the CJCC.
Finally, on a somewhat different note, I am pleased to
point out to the subcommittee a lesser known success story in
the District in terms of coordination; namely, the significant
progress made by a parallel coordination group previously
mentioned by Margaret Kellums, the Interagency Detention Work
Group, which is composed of about 15 agencies and court
offices, including Judge King in the Superior Court and most of
the agencies at this table.
For the past 18 months, we have been meeting monthly,
working in six committees. Two documents detailing the very
concrete progress of that group have been made available
already to the committee.
With those brief comments, I will close and will be eager
to discuss these important issues with the subcommittee.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Clark follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Mrs. Jones.
Ms. Jones. Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you today on behalf of the Public Defender
Service for the District of Columbia.
It is the mission of the Public Defender Service to provide
quality legal representation to indigent people facing a loss
of liberty in the criminal justice system, in juvenile
delinquency proceedings, and in mental health proceedings. We
share the responsibility for providing legal representation
with the Superior Court. The court makes appointments under the
Criminal Justice Act.
In addition to litigating cases in the local and Federal
courts on behalf of indigent people, the Public Defender
Service is also devoted to ensuring that sound criminal justice
policy decisions are made.
The D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council is an
effective forum for this function. I have been working with the
CJCC since its early creation, first as the deputy director of
the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency, and now as the director of
the D.C. Public Defender Service.
I know firsthand that the CJCC has been effective in
bringing all criminal justice agencies, local, independent, and
Federal, to the table for productive interagency collaboration.
In short, the CJCC works.
Just recently, the Public Defender Service, the Superior
Court, the Pretrial Services Agency, and the corrections
trustee worked to create the Options Program, a community-based
mental health treatment program for nonviolent mentally ill
defendants. Each agency contributed its resources and expertise
to the creation and successful implementation of this critical
program. This level of collaboration would not have been
possible without the forum of the CJCC.
We all look forward to expanding this program over the
course of the next year to provide even greater services to
this vulnerable population.
How can the CJCC be improved? First, the Public Defender
Service supports the efforts underway by the D.C. Council and
the Mayor's office to further strengthen and institutionalize
the CJCC. While we have made great strides, we have much more
work to do.
Second, the CJCC does, in fact, need a small, permanent
staff to research best practices among criminal justice
agencies around the country, establish an annual performance
plan, and set priorities for the CJCC. The CJCC has been most
productive when it is properly staffed with skilled
professionals who are solely dedicated to the implementation of
CJCC initiatives by providing research to assist the group in
making informed decisions.
Finally, the success or failure of the CJCC will depend
largely on the level of coordination and cooperation of the
CJCC members. The CJCC members do not always agree on the best
course of action to achieve the best criminal justice reforms.
That is to be expected with the diversity of perspectives we
represent. But we are all at the table. We have all willingly
and voluntarily assumed the responsibility to collaborate.
Most importantly, we all recognize the fact that productive
collaboration is not optional. The missions of each of our
respective agencies are so inextricably intertwined that we
must cooperate or we will surely fail.
There are many, many problems in the criminal justice
system that are of great concern to the Public Defender
Service. These issues will no doubt always keep PDS at the
table.
Foremost on our agenda is ensuring that the poor receive
fair and equitable treatment by the police, the court system,
and all those charged with supervising and incarcerating adults
and juveniles. PDS will continue to work to ensure that there
is adequate medical and mental health care for incarcerated and
institutionalized juveniles and adults. I continue to believe
that the CJCC is and should be the starting point for
addressing these very serious problems.
Where do we go from here? I very much look forward to
working with the CJCC over the course of the next year in
establishing a mental health diversion court in the District of
Columbia. Mental health treatment in the criminal justice
system has received a great deal of attention across the
country lately, and mental health treatment and diversion
courts are rapidly increasing in number.
In order to successfully implement such a new program, the
U.S. attorney's office, the D.C. Superior Court, the Public
Defender Service, the Pretrial Services Agency, and others will
have to collaborate and compromise and participate. I am
confident that we will do that.
I also look forward to working with other CJCC members to
create a comprehensive community reentry program for offenders
who are returning to area communities after lengthy periods of
incarceration. In order to implement this project, PDS will
have to cooperate and collaborate with the Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and
the D.C. Department of Corrections.
Again, I am confident that this level of collaboration will
occur.
In sum, the District of Columbia criminal justice system
needs a strong CJCC, and it has one. I am sure that all of the
other member agencies will agree that we have a great deal of
work to do, but we have already made some progress, and we have
all made a very strong commitment to working together.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mrs. Jones. Excellent testimony by
all of you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Ms. Schaffer.
Ms. Shaffer. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and
Congresswoman Norton. Thank you for inviting me to appear
before you today.
I am the director of the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency.
Pretrial Services assists both the Federal and the local courts
in determining eligibility for pretrial release by providing
background and criminal history information on arrestees in the
District of Columbia.
We are also responsible for supervising conditions of
release for approximately 24,000 defendants a year, and
reporting on compliance to the U.S. District Court and to the
D.C. Superior Court.
The Pretrial Services Agency would like to emphasize its
support for some of the central underpinnings of the GAO
report: One, that the CJCC is the primary venue in which D.C.
criminal justice agencies can identify and address interagency
coordination issues; two, that the CJCC has had some success,
and in fact, some notable success, in improving agency
coordination, particularly in areas such as data sharing;
three, that the CJCC should be an independent body with its own
director and staff; four, that the role of the CJCC is to help
coordinate but not to mandate control of the operations of the
D.C. criminal justice system; and five, that an annual report
on the results achieved and issues that require further
attention would be a sufficient way to provide a spotlight on
areas of disagreement and continuing concern.
I think this report could be a very strong incentive for
all agencies to cooperate, as it will highlight the cooperative
efforts, or lack thereof, in a very public way.
Pretrial Services does respectfully disagree with one
finding in the GAO report regarding the extent of disagreement
between agencies on goals and participants in various
initiatives, initiatives that in many instances were just
beginning to be put together, quite honestly, when the GAO
report was written.
From Pretrial's perspective, there was really no major
disagreement on who should participate in various initiatives,
but basically, there was occasional uncertainty about which
agencies wanted to be at the table. This was really because
many of these projects were just beginning.
There was some disagreement about goals, and that generally
related to different goals connected with the particular
agency's mission. So it was not so much that the members could
not agree on the overall goal of the committee, but some of the
writing that was done to support the various initiatives that
were drafted by different agencies reflected a slightly
different slant on how they looked at it.
We don't believe, however, that there is any lack of
commitment among the agencies to try to resolve issues of
common concern. We believe that participation on the CJCC
should be voluntary. We believe that agencies should come to
the table because they see the clear, mutual benefit in doing
so.
Over the years, Pretrial has successfully participated in a
number of very good collaborative efforts which we have
enumerated in our written testimony. They include the highly
successful D.C. Superior Court Drug Intervention Program, many
halfway house initiatives, the CJCC-sponsored justis system,
and the new Options mental health programs that Ms. Jones
described.
With these many successes, however, I do caution that it is
imperative that a dedicated staff of an independent CJCC
support these continuing collaborations. This will allow
ongoing collection and analysis of multiagency data, as well as
independent consideration of policy choices presented by the
data, including alternative ways of doing business that could
enhance the entire criminal justice system.
I thank this committee for taking the time to bring
attention to these issues. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shaffer follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Ms. Schaffer.
Now our last panelist, Mr. Gaines.
Mr. Gaines. Thank you, Madam Chair, Congresswoman Norton. I
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf
of the U.S. Parole Commission.
The Revitalization Act gave the U.S. Parole Commission a
unique role in turning over the District of Columbia parole
responsibilities previously handled by the D.C. Board of Parole
to it. It is not totally unlike one State being given the
parole authority of another State, and I am certain it is
something that has never even come even close to happening in
the past.
It is vital for the Commission to succeed with these new
responsibilities, that there be the highest possible level of
coordination among the several participating Federal and local
agencies that make up the system. The Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council is effective and can play a vital role in
the future in that regard.
The Commission was pleased that the GAO report included
major initiatives undertaken by the Commission since August 5,
1998, to improve the parole release, supervision, and
revocation functions transferred to the Commission by the
Revitalization Act.
Chief among these initiatives was the securing of adequate
background information concerning offenders who are considered
for parole and for parole revocation.
It has required major effort on the Commission's part to
build a system whereby the necessary documents are regularly
provided to us by the courts and various agencies involved, and
I would note that without cooperative efforts by everyone
involved, it would have simply been impossible.
We are also pleased that the GAO report included the
violence prediction scale developed by the Commission in 1998
to guide its parole release decisions. We believe the use of
this scale in parole decisions has resulted in a better use of
prison resources to protect the public from those offenders
most likely to engage in violent recidivism, and has also saved
tax dollars by avoiding the unnecessary incarceration of
offenders who are most likely to be law-abiding citizens upon
their release; again, citing the cooperative part of this,
given the supervision that they receive from CSOSA, one of our
major partners in this undertaking.
The GAO report does identify an area of concern for the
Commission. It accurately notes that we, as well as some other
Federal agencies involved in the D.C. criminal justice system,
receive our appropriations from the Commerce, Justice, State,
and Related Agencies Subcommittees.
The President's proposed fiscal year 2002 budget for the
Commission provides badly needed additional funding for
conducting parole revocation hearings for D.C. offenders. The
Parole Commission has taken extraordinary measures in the
current year to meet difficult challenges presented by the new
responsibilities we have received under the Revitalization Act.
In particular, the Commission has had to cope with limited
hearing examiners and support personnel to conduct revocation
hearings within applicable deadlines. If anything, the GAO
report understates the difficulties that we have encountered,
including a major backlog of parolees overdue for revocation
hearings that were inherited by the Commission when we took
over those responsibilities from August of last year, as well
as difficulties in coordinating with the D.C. Department of
Corrections over matters such as notification of arrests and
appearance of parolees for scheduled revocation hearings.
Although the Commission has been able to put the revocation
process back in reasonable working order since experiencing a
near breakdown situation last October, the situation does
continue to be very serious.
The Commission staff is working diligently, given serious
staffing limitations, to meet demands for statistical reporting
and information requests that we receive, as well.
Many of the problems that we have encountered we have dealt
with on an ad hoc basis. As Congresswoman Norton knows, we had
a halfway house situation back in the fall, and only through
her efforts, I think, of bringing together the parties involved
were we able to come to a resolution of that.
It turns out that is how we have dealt with a lot of
problems that we have encountered during the revitalization
process, simply by doing it on an ad hoc basis. I think the
CJCC, if adequately established and funded, could provide the
proper mechanism for dealing with those types of problems in
the future, and I think that would be--I know that would be of
very great benefit to the parole commission.
Thank you very much. I would welcome your questions.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much, Mr. Gaines.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gaines follows:]
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Mrs. Morella. Thank you all. You were all great in the
testimony that you submitted and that you gave orally.
I do want you to know that I have looked at the testimony
you have submitted, and for many of you, you submitted far more
information than you had an opportunity to relate orally.
I am going to ask you all maybe one question. First of all,
I understand all of you believe that there is the need for the
CJCC. You all believe it should be independent. That has been
emphasized over and over again. You all believe that there
should be an annual report, you know. You all believe that
nobody should be coerced or required to submit or to be
involved. We should not be forcing entities, there should be
leadership.
Now let me ask you, each and every one of you, do you think
that Congress should legislatively authorize the CJCC, and how
do you think it should be funded?
Anybody who wants to start off.
Ms. Shaffer. I will start, since no one else is jumping up
here to speak.
As to how it should be funded, I am really not in a
position of authority to answer that, as it pertains to Federal
funding. Let me address your question about whether it should
be formally institutionalized by Congress, regardless of the
funding issue.
I think there is a strong sentiment, which you have
probably picked up on today, among the agencies that because we
all, even the Federal agencies, serve a local criminal justice
community and have a local mission, that the CJCC would most
appropriately be established by the city Council.
We have heard today that the city Council has taken steps
recently to endorse the existence of the CJCC, and has
established limited funding. I think many of us believe that
additional action is now needed to formally establish the CJCC
and its administrative support structure.
As to whether the District will finally establish it and
adequately fund it or whether it will want or expect
contributions from the Federal Government, I am really not in a
position to say. I think that it touches on what Councilmember
Patterson addressed this morning.
Mrs. Morella. That is good getting us started on that.
Mrs. Jones.
Ms. Jones. I would say that currently we have a CJCC where
no one is compelled to participate, yet everyone does. No one
is required to be at the table, yet everyone is. I don't know
that Federal legislation to create it is necessary. If the
District of Columbia establishes an independent District of
Columbia agency called the CJCC, I think it will have the same
amount of participation.
I do believe it needs to be adequately funded, and probably
$169,000 is not enough. As a practical matter, I believe that
Federal funding may be necessary to fully implement all of the
goals of the CJCC, but again, I would emphasize that I don't
know that there needs to be Federal legislation to create a new
entity in the District of Columbia to achieve the results this
committee is looking for.
Mrs. Morella. Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark. I think there has been a real good discussion of
these issues previously in this hearing.
I heard Congresswoman Norton mention that it might be--I
identify with some of the remarks of Mr. Harlan, that it might
be beneficial for the Congress to at least acknowledge the
existence of an agency which may have been, and hopefully will
be, more formalized in its creation by the D.C. city Council,
especially since there is so much Federal participation, and
since I think an acknowledgment by the Congress of the
existence of the Council would give more focus and more
motivation, possibly, to the Federal partners and federally
funded partners.
So I think that makes sense to me, and I think that it
probably would be helpful in focusing attention, and would be
helpful if there was some indication of the intent of Congress
for these agencies to seriously participate.
On the funding, again, obviously, I am in a position where
I requested $1 million in this year's budget. I have another
request for an additional $1 million for next year, which has
been endorsed in the President's budget, for money to flow
through our office to supplement or to fund CJCC projects.
So certainly I think in the practical reality of things
that if these kinds of initiatives and projects are going to go
forward, the local funding needs to be supplemented with some
Federal funding.
Mrs. Morella. Mr. Wainstein.
Mr. Wainstein. Thank you.
I am not going to stray far from the comments of the last
two witnesses. I would echo what Mrs. Jones said about
participation from all the agencies. I believe all the agencies
to date have established a track record of willing and active
participation. The principals have been appearing at the
meetings. I think we can have more meetings and rejuvenate the
CJCC to some extent.
But in terms of our--our being the agency's--the members'
willingness to participate, I don't think that is a concern.
That being said, I would also echo what Mr. Clark said, that we
do need secure, sustained funding for the CJCC to be effective.
We have all commented so far on the small staff, I guess a
staff of one. And if we want the CJCC to be able to undertake
the kind of initiatives that we envision, it will need the
funding. If that requires proportional funding from Congress
and from D.C., that seems like that would be a wise construct.
If that would, in turn, require Federal legislation at least
acknowledging the existence of the CJCC, then I guess that
would be necessary.
But the bottom line is for the CJCC to undertake the things
that we want it to undertake, I believe it will need sustained
and secured funding.
Mrs. Morella. You would agree that maybe an acknowledgment
by Congress of its existence and importance might help?
Mr. Wainstein. I will say, at least for this agency, we
won't need that to be an active member of the CJCC. We will be,
regardless of whether there is an acknowledgment. It certainly
could not hurt.
Mrs. Morella. Chief Ramsey.
Chief Ramsey. I think my opinion differs slightly on this
issue. I think there needs to be probably a combination of both
local and Federal legislation around this issue. I will tell
you why.
It is true that to date all the agencies have voluntarily
participated, but it is also true that we all acknowledge that
we are in a crisis, if you will, and that has really prompted a
lot of participation.
If we want CJCC to succeed into the future once we start to
resolve some of these issues, then I think it is very important
that critical agencies, both local agencies and Federal
agencies, be mandated to participate in this. Otherwise,
participation of a key agency could, in fact, fall off, and it
could harm us in the long term, and we could find ourselves
right back in the position that we are in right now.
Our local government, our Council, has already taken steps
toward passing legislation around the CJCC, but the reality is
that we have no authority over any of the Federal agencies that
are participating. So I think there is a need for something at
that level in order to make sure that all the people who are
key players continue to participate.
I also think that in terms of funding, it ought to come
from both sources. I think there is a need for both local and
Federal funding. We need to take advantage of grants.
We have a lot of serious problems. It really has not been
mentioned very often, at least I don't recall hearing it, but
we have a lot of our problems centering around technology and
the lack of integrated systems. It is going to take a
tremendous amount of funding in order to correct a lot of those
problems. I don't know where that money is going to come from.
Not only do you have to create the system, you have to be able
to maintain it over the long term. Technology, as rapidly as it
changes, obviously there are going to be upgrades to the
systems, and there are going to be all kinds of things that we
need to take into consideration. There needs to be some way in
which we can do that.
I also think that when all is said and done, there is going
to have to be oversight of this body. I think that our city
Council certainly will provide some oversight in this area, but
there needs to be some at the Federal level as well. Because
again, my experience, and I have been part of this for 3 years
now, from when it was MOU partners and now CJCC, that we all
are in agreement on certain changes. However, the reality is if
that change is painful to any particular agency, there is
nothing that really forces them to have to implement the
change. Sometimes it is a philosophical difference that may
make an agency reluctant. Other times, it could be a strain on
the budget.
It is one thing to say we want to change something, but it
is another issue when it comes to budgeting for that and making
it happen when there is a shift in costs from one agency to
another. That is a legitimate concern.
So there needs to be some oversight where, when these
issues are laid out and the annual report is written, that
there is a gathering like this where questions are asked and
people are held accountable for their actions are in looking at
the larger picture of the system as a whole, and just how it is
functioning.
Mrs. Morella. In fact, in your testimony you mentioned
expanding the scope of CJCC. Was that articulated by some of
the comments that you now----
Chief Ramsey. Yes, ma'am. I think right now we are kind of
in a crisis mode. I think a lot of the issues we are looking at
are simply because of the immediate urgency of some of the
issues that we are dealing with.
But the potential of CJCC is just enormous. I think we need
to really think about the potential that this group has. It may
be a while before we begin to realize some of that, because we
are still correcting many of the things that have been wrong
with the system that plagued us for years.
But there is going to come a point in time when we can be
very creative and proactive in a way in which criminal justice
is administered here in the District of Columbia. I would just
not like us to get too narrow in our thinking and really just
leave the door open for a lot of other possibilities.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you.
I am pleased to recognize Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. I appreciate the answers
you have just given to Mrs. Morella's questions. I hope these
answers and her questions and other questions have helped to
stimulate you to think about what is a very difficult problem.
I think that the question of funding should almost be put
aside. The Federal Government can fund 100 percent a local
entity, and does, or by some formula do the funding issue. I
still--the notion that Mr. Wainstein raised about how--I don't
think there will be any problem of people's willingness to
participate, certainly there is no problem in the willingness
to participate. The problem is how do you get Federal agencies
to participate in something that has been--where the only
statutory obligation is in legislation from a local entity.
I would just like to invite hard legal thinking on this
question. Everyone knows where I am on the home rule question,
but this is more than that.
Mr. Clark, when he said some acknowledgment of Federal
responsibility in legislation might be necessary--again, I
think this is not the kind of thing right off the top of our
heads we can think about it, but the kind of answers that you
have given, it seems to me, show how fertile the issue is. I
very much appreciate them.
I would like to ask, I suppose beginning with Chief Ramsey,
now--this is a chart that I used before. Perhaps it can go up
again. What is not on that chart is the line I have now drawn.
Chief Ramsey, the line was drawn about March, and then you
see stuff beginning to go up here. We have reached a low point.
When they took over, when the Federal Government took over the
halfway house operations, there were 158 people arrested who
were on parole, out of jail. They got it down to 40. Now, the
most recent figures have it up to 66. This thing is climbing
again. This is the kind of thing we have to catch before it
catches us.
I wonder, Chief Ramsey, if you are aware of increased
arrests of recently released inmates yourself.
Chief Ramsey. Yes, ma'am. There has been a slight increase,
and certainly this chart begins to show that. Whether it will
remain over time, I don't think anyone knows, but I think you
are absolutely right, now is the time to be concerned and to
really find out the reasons why that is, and to take steps now
to see to it that we once again get it back to lower levels,
because we don't want to once again reach those high levels
that we were at just a couple of years ago.
I think more and more inmates will be getting released. I
don't know exactly what the figures are, but I know that many
people who were sentenced back in the seventies and eighties
under determinant sentencing are now beginning to come to the
end of those terms, and they will be coming back into our
communities. If we are not careful, we will have a problem with
people once again engaging in criminal behavior.
So there are alternatives to that. Obviously, what we
really have to work toward is working with these people as they
come out of jail and helping them reintegrate into society.
Ms. Norton. The alternative is they are out without all the
services provided. I must say, I am very, very impressed with
what happened in this. Let me give some considerable credit to
Mr. Clark. For all of the talk about coordinating, Mr. Clark
has shown that with one man, you can have a one-man
coordinating system.
Because when people began to walk away from these halfway
houses, and I read about it, frankly, in the Washington Post, I
asked everybody to come, every single agency, just to find out
how in the world--so this is where some of the fear developed
in the community, because they were reading in the paper that
these folks are out and they are walking away from the halfway
houses.
I asked Mr. Clark, who had no--who was a peer and had been
meeting with all these agencies--if he would take charge of
this. Then I spoke to the deputy assistant attorney general to
ask if he would reinforce that, and he did. He indicated that,
yes, Mr. Clark would coordinate this.
I would like to ask Mr. Clark about what halfway houses
did--what do they do so that you get this kind of reduction in
crime by people recently released from jail?
Mr. Clark. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton, for those
comments and for the question.
First of all, I would like to help the committee understand
a little better this chart that you have displayed, and how
this came about.
It wasn't, I will have to say, solely because of a new
Federal responsibility kicking in. What happened in 1998 was
several of us, including the Parole Commission and the Court
Services, got together with the director of the Department of
Corrections, at that time Margaret Moore, where there was a
situation where she was kind of out on a limb because of
previous criticism, and did not feel she could put any felons
coming out of prison in halfway houses.
We said that we will all get together and help you with the
public responsibility and the public concern on this. So the
program that went into effect in June 1998, which I think
everyone acknowledges has had a significant impact on the
rearrested parolees, for the most part was implemented by the
D.C. Department of Corrections. These were that were coming out
of D.C. prisons, out of Lorton or Youngstown and so on, and
they were coming through halfway houses, Hope Village and
Effect and so on.
Along with that, we had the court services supervision
officers, committed by the Court Services Agency, to have
offices in the halfway house. So not only was there the halfway
house placement with job assistance and so on. We had a
situation where the parole officer was right in the halfway
house helping with the transitional services there.
So to me, this is an example that occurred kind of on a
parallel track with the CJCC, where several agencies got
together, and I think had a real effect on the public safety in
the District.
These issues with the halfway house I know, as you have
mentioned, are difficult in terms of neighborhood concerns
about the safety in that particular neighborhood. But the
safety of the whole community is enhanced if we are able to
bring these folks out through the halfway houses.
In addition to public safety, I think the economic
development of the District is enhanced. If we do not have
parolees, who are the most at-risk population in the District,
getting rearrested and getting in trouble, then there is going
to be an increased perception of safety, and then the economic
development of the District is going to be enhanced.
Ms. Norton. I think it is important--these parolees do not
have to go to a halfway house, isn't that right, under the law?
Mr. Clark. Under the law, they don't. There was great
encouragement from the U.S. Parole Commission once they took
over responsibility from the paroling authority for the
District to go ahead and get in line with the policy of the
Federal Bureau of Prisons of bringing all these cases through a
halfway house.
Ms. Norton. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does this as a
matter of practice, not of law, is that right?
Mr. Clark. That is correct.
Ms. Norton. So I just want to know how important this is,
because what we have here is a kind of social service
responsibility that the District would never have had. Do these
people get tested also for drug use while they are on parole?
Mr. Clark. They get tested regularly in the halfway house.
In fact, the policy in the Federal halfway houses was adopted
as part of this problem. If there is one dirty urine, they go
back. Their parole is delayed and they go back into a treatment
program for about 60 days, and then they are placed again in
the halfway house.
Ms. Norton. You can get all the way back to prison, I take
it, with dirty urine and whatever else?
Mr. Clark. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. The incentive here is extraordinary, especially
since you have job counseling. You have to get a job, don't
you?
Mr. Clark. Within 14 days.
Ms. Norton. If you are on parole from BOP, what is the job
responsibility that the recently released person has?
Mr. Clark. Typically, in the halfway houses, it is the BOP
policy that the releasing prisoner should be employed within 2
weeks. Sometimes they are not able to do that, but typically,
it is my experience that when you tie that to some privileges
of going home and seeing your family for a few hours on the
weekend, and some of those other kinds of privileges, that
people are motivated to go out and obtain employment.
Ms. Norton. Could I have comparable information about
pretrial detainees?
Ms. Shaffer. Certainly. Your Honor, the pretrial work
release defendants are actually released into the community but
are ordered by the judges to return to the halfway house in the
evening. They go out during the day to jobs. If this works out,
they secure passes to go home on the weekend. They are actually
not detained in the halfway house. It is a little different
situation.
Ms. Norton. How about the rearrest rates?
Ms. Shaffer. The rearrest rates for violent or dangerous
crimes is extremely low. In fact, it is going down. It is
actually lower than that for the general pretrial population.
It is still the case that about 75 percent of the rearrests
that do take place are for not coming back to the halfway
house. There are still a number of people every month who come
back late or don't come back, who just walk away from it. They
don't like the conditions of the halfway house, and they leave.
We request bench warrants on them right away to bring them in,
and they tell their story to the judge about the problems they
had at the halfway house. Many times they are then stepped back
and detained in the D.C. jail after that.
Ms. Norton. Could I ask both of you--and this is maybe the
most important information that came out of this hearing, when
you consider that now we are forced, according to CSOSA--
because the law says you have to release people. If you have
not got the halfway house, the person is out there, on us, at
our expense.
I have to ask you, given the wholesale opposition in the
District, what have you done to make this information known to
residents in the District of Columbia?
Ms. Shaffer. I think not enough, is the answer. Not enough.
Mr. Clark. Could I just mention one thing? And I think the
committee should be aware that for the last 2 years, since the
series of articles or one of the series of articles in the
Washington Post that you mentioned created somewhat of a
crisis, frankly, within the whole system here about the halfway
house walkaways, under the leadership or guise of the CJCC
there was established a standing committee on especially the
pretrial halfway house situation, and all the agencies here,
except the Parole Commission, who are not dealing with pretrial
cases, came together with a number of other agencies and formed
the Pretrial Services Subcommittee.
Judge Michael Rankin is currently the Chair of that
committee. We met within the last 2 or 3 days. We typically
meet every month. We appeared before the Citizen Council to
brief the Citizen Council. I think a little over a year ago, a
panel of, I think, eight or nine of us appeared at that time
before Mr. Brazil, the Chair. We were influential, I think, in
helping the Council reshape the Bail Reform Law within the
District to tighten up a number of cases that were being--that
have been problematic in being placed in halfway houses.
But on the other hand, I will agree with Ms. Shaffer, that
there is a lot more that needs to be done to help the city
Council help the citizenry understand this critical issue.
Ms. Norton. I recognize, Madam Chair, that I'm over my
time, but I would ask your leave, because I have a couple more
questions that I would like to ask.
Mrs. Morella. And I would like to call--to adjourn the
hearing close to 1 o'clock if we could, but, you know, I never
gave you a chance, Mr. Gains, to respond to that question that
I asked the rest of the panel. It occurred to me that----
Mr. Gaines. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Morella. That was an omission on my part.
Mr. Gaines. I could only, I think, echo what the other
panelists have said. I didn't hear a single thing, I don't
believe, that I would disagree with. The critical thing is that
there be a sufficient structure and funding there to deal with
whatever the issues are you take on. You can take on the big
issues, as the chief was talking about, which are very
critical, but once you come to an agreement there, then you
have the nuts and bolts issue that may require two or three of
the participants. It may require committees and subcommittees
and working groups and whatever, but you need the structure and
the funding there so that you can take those problems and take
them all the way to the resolution rather than just coming to a
general agreement.
Mrs. Morella. Uh-huh. I thank you. I remember in the last
Congress we worked very hard with the District of Columbia for
the compliance with Y2K computer glitch to remedy it, and the
discussion was after--after that worked out fine, did you learn
something from it? And I remember the Mayor said, oh, yes, we
have updated our technology, and we've learned a great deal
about that. And I find in so many areas there is a need for
updating technology and the people who work with it. And this,
as you have said, Chief Ramsey, is an area where it's kind of
surprising we don't have the coordination that will come about
through technology with all of these agencies coming together.
And I would ask you, do you all think that the need for
integration that would come through technology and looking into
the whole technology situation is a vital part of what we're
trying to do?
Ms. Jones. I would say yes. I've seen the justice system
that the CJCC is working on, and I believe all of the
agencies--most of the agencies at the table have participated
in that data base which takes data from all of our different
agencies and coordinates them into one system. It's a major
step in the direction of providing the interagency
technological coordination that you're speaking of.
Mrs. Morella. Is it the technology or training the people?
I mean, is the technology there?
Ms. Jones. Yes. There is a software package that has been
developed and all the agents are provided with----
Mrs. Morella. So you're talking about training people,
basically, to utilize it?
Ms. Jones. It's--yes, although it's fairly user friendly to
operate. Everyone seems to be happy with the product so far.
Ms. Shaffer. The one caveat I would add is it's not
realtime information. I mean, it is a vast improvement, because
we'll be able to look at each other's information, but it is
not realtime. So there may be a 24-hour delay; for instance,
there may be a police officer on the street who's looking into
the WALES mainframe to see what the release conditions are for
a particular defendant to see whether he can arrest the
defendant for being in violation of a stay-away order. The
officer cannot really rely on that information because he
doesn't know if in the last 24 hours these release conditions
have changed. So there still is--I don't want to be misleading.
We are very excited about the justis system, but there is still
a tremendous amount of work to do to get to an integrated
realtime information system for the district.
Mrs. Morella. Right. It certainly should be an aim.
Mr. Ramsey. Yes. And I think that's a very important point
here. Our systems, for the most part, many of them are still
very old. The integration just isn't there. So there's an awful
lot of work that needs to be done. The justice system is a
positive step, but it's not going to solve all of our problems.
There's a need for a huge investment in the technology
infrastructure needed to really support information sharing
between agencies in our area.
Mrs. Morella. This may be something we also want to
monitor. I'm going to leave the last question to Congresswoman
Norton, but I'm curious on the D.C. parolee's chart. Sixty-six
out of a body of what? Do we have any idea of what the entire
body is? Is it 66 people?
Mr. Clark. I think the number of the parolees in the
community supervised by court services, who are in the room
somewhere, is somewhere in the range of 4,000, but I'm----
Mrs. Morella. I mean, I just wondered if that had increased
enormously with the----
Mr. Clark. No. In fact, it's been fairly stable.
Ms. Norton. Parolees includes people, you know, who have
been out for--you're not just including new----
Mr. Clark. No. Those are clients who may have been on
parole for 5 or 6 years or whatever. Those are not just new
parolees----
Mrs. Morella. So the number is even much larger in terms of
the number of parolees.
Ms. Norton. He's saying just the opposite. He's saying that
the 4,000 figure, will you explain what that figure involved,
Mr. Gaines.
Mr. Gaines. The total--our understanding is that the total
D.C. parolee population is about 3,200 currently.
Ms. Norton. But that involves people who have been out for
a very long time and people who are recently arrested. So we'd
have to know--in order to answer Mrs. Morella's question, we'd
have to know how many recent parolees we're talking about,
because the longer you're out, the less likely you are to be
arrested in the first place.
Mrs. Morella. I think the chief would like to add
something.
Mr. Ramsey. Well, what I'm trying to really--I think is a
point--and please someone correct me if I'm wrong. There's
another issue that needs to be laid out here. Over the next 18
months or so, there is a large number of people who will be
released from the Bureau of Prisons and will be coming back
into D.C.
I've heard that figure was as high as about 5,000. Now, I
don't know if that's accurate or not, but that is certainly
something that we need to be thinking about now, because we're
looking at these numbers as they exist today. But within the
next year and a half, another 5,000 or so people could be added
to that, and that's going to certainly cause a lot of problems
and issues.
Mr. Clark. The number that are anticipated to be released
is--it's somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 a year coming out.
Some of those have come out on parole. Some of them come out on
a mandatory release with some supervision, and some of them max
out their term, so to speak, and come out with no community
supervision of any kind.
Mrs. Morella. My point was the 66 is an even greater
progress, given the entire body of the additions that have been
made through the years, particularly when you look back at May
1999. So it's even bigger.
Thank you. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. If I could clarify, the importance
of the chart is the 158 figure. That is the importance of the
chart. That would seem--that is a high point, and you look at
the high point, and you go down to 40, and you don't--and you
want to keep going down no matter what the overall numbers are,
and I think that's how we're going to hold all of you
accountable.
Could I just ask this question? In other jurisdictions, how
do you--how does the Federal Government fund States or local
jurisdictions who are holding felons for the convenience of the
government? Mr. Clark, Mr. Wainstein might be able to help me
on that one. Who funds--in Maryland, you're Montgomery County.
Who funds you if the Federal Government asks you to hold
somebody who has been convicted? Who funds the locality?
Mr. Clark. I think there's a term of art called the primary
jurisdiction. Not being a lawyer like some of those on the
panel, but----
Ms. Norton. Speak in English.
Mr. Clark [continuing]. It's my understanding--yes--that
whichever jurisdiction has, for instance, arrested the person,
owns that--to speak in English, I guess, owns that body, that
person until there is a conviction and then if--for instance,
if the local government has--authority has arrested the person,
they've been convicted, tried, sentenced in the local circuit
court or whatever, they're sentenced when they're ready to go
to State prison, they would go to the State prison. If the
Federal Government--if the U.S. attorney's office at that point
had another case that they wanted to prosecute, at that point,
they would--there would be typically a detainer filed, and they
would take over primary jurisdiction of that case. And they
would stay in the local jail at the cost of the U.S. Marshals
Service.
Ms. Norton. So at the cost of the Federal Government, then.
Mr. Clark. On the other hand, if the case was prosecuted by
the Federal Government and sentenced and ready to go as a
Federal responsibility and the local jurisdiction, in this case
superior court--there was a case in superior court, and the
U.S. attorney's office in this case being the local prosecutor,
wanted to hold the case if it was in another jurisdiction, and
it was the State's attorney that wanted to hold the case, then
the State jurisdiction would have to sort of borrow that person
by filing a detainer. And at that point, they would become
financially responsible. So if that----
Ms. Norton. It's reciprocity, then, of funding?
Mr. Clark. Correct.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Wainstein, you talked about papering as a
kind of technological problem, and I understand that problem
there. I'd like to ask you why you require face-to-face
multiple meetings with policemen and whether you could, at
least as an interim matter, release our police into the
communities by finding some shortcut to the enormous amount of
time they now spend with prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's
office.
Mr. Wainstein. If I may, Congresswoman Norton, I'll answer
that sort of in reverse order. We are actually working with MPD
and the courts to try to reduce the number of----
Ms. Norton. For as long as I've been in Congress, you've
been doing that, sir.
Mr. Wainstein. I know. We right now are actually engaged in
a couple of efforts that would reduce the number of officers
that have to come down for papering, specifically papering. I'm
setting aside court calendaring, which is a completely separate
issue. But as for papering, as I believe Chief Ramsey
mentioned, they are working with corporation council on an
officeless paperless pilot program right now.
That's something that we actually initiated with MPD back
in 1989 and because of a host of reasons, why the actual
project--the pilot project that we initiated did not get
going--did not get into full swing, and we've actually
explained that in one of the attachments to my testimony here
today. Those reasons that derailed that project are what
they're working through right now in citation cases, which is a
very different animal than what we deal with.
We deal with cases where people are locked up and are
brought in. So we have a time clock. Citation cases that
they're working on right now in this pilot project, the person
gets a citation and then appears, whatever, 20 or 30 days--I'm
not sure what the timeframe is, but well down the road, giving
corporation council and the police time to work through the
paperwork and electronic issues.
Ms. Norton. Look, you've heard me previously say, you know,
all parts of the system we're now talking 60 days for a
proposal to come to the community--to the Coordination Council,
90 days before it comes to the Congress.
Final question. We had a terrible situation to arise--Ms.
Jones and Mr. Gaines may be most familiar with this--where
people were actually held in prison because of backlogs at the
patrol commission. This seemed to me to be absolutely
dangerous. People were--had served their time, you know, had
legally done what they thought they were supposed to do, and
somebody says because the bureaucracy cannot process your
paperwork, you'll remain in jail. The kind of rage that must
build in somebody who has served his time is probably hard for
any of us to imagine. Therefore I have to ask you what has been
done about that, and what has been done and what are you doing
to make sure that it does not occur in the future?
Ms. Jones. A few things have been done, but the problem
still persists. It's a problem at every stage of the process.
There are people who are eligible for parole. For example, if
you got a 5 to 15-year sentence, at the end of 5 years, you're
eligible for parole. There has been delay in making the initial
eligibility determination. So you are sometimes not quite
getting a timely hearing. There's been delay for people who are
in the reparole status; and then the revocation status there
have been a tremendous amount of delays, which results in the
Public Defender Service filing a series of Federal habeas
corpus actions in U.S. District Court and eventually filing a
class action lawsuit against the U.S. Parole Commission,
seeking the release of numerous people who have not received a
timely and expeditious adjudication of a revocation matter.
Where we are right now is trying to figure out the--what
are all the problems in the system, but currently as we sit
here today, there are still people who are incarcerated beyond
the length of time that they're supposed to be incarcerated.
One such individual spent an additional year in jail because
his paperwork, somewhere in the system, did not get processed.
And the Public Defender Service represented him, and the U.S.
District Court ordered that he be released immediately after
spending 1 additional year in jail. So it's not yet fixed.
And we're on the road to fixing it, but it's not yet fixed.
And we get letters daily from people all over the country
saying, I'm being held. They haven't had a hearing for me. I
need to be released. I was supposed to be released months ago,
and we are trying as best we can to work through those
problems. Some of them we have been able to work through just
by talking to court services and U.S. Parole Commission. Others
we have to file litigation and get a judge to order that these
people be released.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Gaines, by the way, you say you have a
class action suit, which may be--but beyond that, somebody is
going to sue somebody for that year he spent in jail, and we're
going to incur costs and damages for that sort of thing because
of bureaucratic delay. Yes, Mr. Gaines.
Mr. Gaines. Yes. In August of this past year, when we took
over the revocation responsibilities from the D.C. board, we
learned shortly after that there were some 230 individuals who
were incarcerated on alleged parole violations that had not had
hearings. Some had been locked up for a number of months, as a
matter of fact. This became a very critical issue for us and
actually created some of the other problems, as far as the
backlogs are involved.
We've refocused our limited staff resources on those
individuals identified to ones that we could release that we
did not feel would pose a threat to public safety. We ordered
the release of some 116 parolees at that time and then put all
of our resources--or most of our resources toward conducting
hearings, revocation hearings, on the other individuals in that
group. That caused us to put off Federal dockets that we had
scheduled around the country. It caused us to delay some
initial D.C. release hearings that had been scheduled. From our
viewpoint, it is very much a resource problem. We are hoping
that in the 2002 budget that's being supported by the
President, if it is enacted, then we will get the sufficient
staff that we need to take care of this backlog.
It is getting better. As Ms. Jones said, it is not
corrected. People are moving through the system at a faster
rate. There are no individuals who are simply locked down and
not moving through the process. At some stages we're at 90
percent timeliness. At other stages, we're at 70 percent, but
it's certainly not fixed yet. And that's the truth.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Morella. Well, we're going to have to work on trying
to help with fixing, too. There must be some standards and
maybe CJCC could help, because that's outrageous, isn't it? I
know you all agree, and you're all committed. I want to thank
you again for your patience, but thank you particularly for
your expertise and the thoughtful comments that you made. We
will probably be back in touch with you and hope you feel free
to contact us with any suggestions or recommendations that you
may have.
Ms. Norton. I did not ask that this chart be put in the
record, please.
Mrs. Morella. Without objection, it will be part of the
record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6090.105
Mrs. Morella. I want to thank our subcommittee staff,
Russell Smith, our staff director; Robert White, communications
director; Matt Batt, clerk; and Heea Vazirani-Fales, deputy
director and counsel, minority staff; John Bouker, Gene Gosa,
Ellen Rayner, and all of you again. And so our subcommittee is
now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the record follows:]
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