<DOC>
[106th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:68775.wais]
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION: WHAT WORKS AND WHY?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 27, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-176
__________
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
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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 ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Lisa Smith Arafune, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman
BOB BARR, Georgia PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Sharon Pinkerton, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Gil Macklin, Professional Staff Member
Lisa Wandler, Clerk
Cherri Branson, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 27, 2000................................... 1
Statement of:
Noel, Hon. Thomas E., Associate Judge, Circuit Court for
Baltimore City; Anne Swern, deputy district attorney, Kings
County, NY; Ron Daniel, police commissioner; Stuart Simms,
secretary, Maryland Department of Public Safety and
Correctional Services; Peter Beilenson, commissioner,
Baltimore Department of Public Health; Renee Robinson,
treatment/criminal justice coordinator, Baltimore/
Washington HIDTA; and George McCann, executive director,
Baltimore Addict Referral and Counseling Center............ 47
O'Malley, Martin, mayor of Baltimore; and Dutch
Ruppersberger, Baltimore County executive.................. 9
Taxman, Faye, Ph.D., professor of criminology, University of
Maryland; Ricky Phaison, program participant, project
excel; and Israel Cason, president, I Can't, We Can........ 133
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Beilenson, Peter, commissioner, Baltimore Department of
Public Health, prepared statement of....................... 75
Cason, Israel, president, I Can't, We Can, prepared statement
of......................................................... 151
Hynes, Charles J., district attorney, Kings County, NY,
prepared statement of...................................... 119
Johnson, Judge Ken, article dated June 21, 1992.............. 126
McCann, George, executive director, Baltimore Addict Referral
and Counseling Center, prepared statement of............... 106
Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 5
Noel, Hon. Thomas E., Associate Judge, Circuit Court for
Baltimore City, prepared statement of...................... 51
O'Malley, Martin, mayor of Baltimore, prepared statement of.. 13
Robinson, Renee, treatment/criminal justice coordinator,
Baltimore/Washington HIDTA, prepared statement of.......... 91
Simms, Stuart, secretary, Maryland Department of Public
Safety and Correctional Services, prepared statement of.... 81
Swern, Anne, deputy district attorney, Kings County, NY,
prepared statement of...................................... 114
Taxman, Faye, Ph.D., professor of criminology, University of
Maryland, prepared statement of............................ 140
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION: WHAT WORKS AND WHY?
----------
MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Baltimore, MD.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 730 of the University of Maryland School of Nursing at 655
West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Mica and Cummings.
Also present: Representative Cardin.
Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, chief counsel and staff
director; Gil Macklin, professional staff member; Charley Diaz,
congressional fellow; Lisa Wandler, clerk; Kimberly Hayes,
intern; and Cherri Branson, minority counsel.
Mr. Mica. Good morning. I would like to call this hearing
of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
Subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee of the House of
Representatives to order.
We are pleased this morning to be in Baltimore at the
invitation of my colleague, former ranking member with me on a
number of subcommittees in Congress, the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Elijah Cummings. I do appreciate this opportunity
to be with you.
We have delayed this hearing several times; I think the
last time because of one of the largest snowfalls that we had
in this area. But we are delighted to be with you.
Again, I apologize for the delay in coming into your
community, but thank you for your invitation.
The order of our hearing this morning will be that I will
start with an opening statement, yield to the gentleman from
Maryland for his opening statement, and then we have three
panels to hear from. The first panel is going to be the
Honorable Martin O'Malley, mayor of Baltimore. And just for
public notice, we have also added Dutch Ruppersberger, who is
the Baltimore County executive. So we will have two individuals
on that panel, and followed by two additional panels.
Illegal narcotics are wreaking havoc on our neighborhoods,
schools, and families across America. Drug abuse in America is
tearing at the very fabric of our society. Nowhere is that more
evident than here in Baltimore, MD, a city that certainly has
experienced its share of pain and also the at risk consequences
of illegal drugs. Unfortunately, Baltimore is a microcosm of
what is happening across our country.
The role of this Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources is to examine the effectiveness of
the Federal response to a growing national drug epidemic. We
are here as an oversight committee of the U.S. Congress. We are
an investigations and oversight subcommittee of the Government
Reform Committee.
Part of our responsibility is exercising our oversight and
investigations capacity over our national drug policy. This
hearing is a bipartisan effort. My good friend and colleague,
the Congressman from Maryland, Elijah Cummings, requested this
field hearing to be held in his district in Baltimore because
of his deep concern for the citizens of Baltimore and the drug
problems they face every day.
I can't remember too many hearings that I have attended
with Mr. Cummings--and he has been to almost all of our
subcommittee hearings--when he hasn't put a human face on the
tragedy that has befallen his community and the problems
relating to illegal narcotics here in Baltimore.
Even a recent tragic event here in Baltimore shows the
havoc drugs are wreaking on this community. A 25-year old East
Baltimore man, Raymond Pitchford, was shot to death because he
asked two men to stop selling illegal drugs. The simple truth
is that drugs destroy lives, and drugs are destroying lives
here in Baltimore.
I brought this chart along, and I have used it on the House
floor and in our committee meetings and updated it. This
information is provided by DEA and also some recently by the
Baltimore Police Agency. In 1997, there were 312 homicides
committed in Baltimore. In 1998, 314 people were murdered. Last
year, this city lost an additional 308 lives, and I don't think
the total is in because sometimes people die as a result of
injuries suffered in some type of an attack.
This makes for 10 straight years in which there have been
300 or more homicides, making Baltimore the fourth deadliest
city per capita in the United States which is a very sad
statistic. And 75 percent of these slayings, it is estimated,
involve drugs.
The chief of the control bureau of the Baltimore Police
Department has stated recently, ``We are losing ground on
homicides.'' The situation that Baltimore faces is grave. It is
the hub of a growing heroin epidemic, which has spread to the
nearby suburbs.
According to Baltimore Councilwoman Rikki Spector, one in
eight citizens in Baltimore is a drug addict. That is a quote
from one of the local newspapers. That could translate into an
estimated 60,000 to 80,000 drug addicts. According to State and
local health officials, neighboring Prince George's County has
37,000 drug addicts, second only to Baltimore City in the State
of Maryland.
How did this happen to a great city like Baltimore? What
failed as far as local policies of the past 12 years to contain
the drug program? What contributed to it? We must examine more
effective ways to address the growing problem of illegal
narcotics on our streets and also in our prisons.
All of the witnesses here today have struggled to determine
the best approach to combat illegal drugs and drug-related
crime. What is the right mix of policies and programs to deter
crime and to get repeat offenders off drugs? Developing
alternatives to incarceration is becoming increasingly
important as we draw closer to having two million Americans
behind bars. We must determine the most cost-effective way to
deal with drug addiction and also drug-related crime, both at
the Federal and also at the local and State level.
Sadly, the challenges faced by the newly elected mayor, Mr.
O'Malley, and also by the Baltimore County executive who we
will be hearing from, and other officials in the Baltimore
area, are the very challenges increasingly faced by cities
across America. Cities like Sacramento and San Diego, CA, where
I recently held hearings. We conducted another hearing in
Florida, where colleagues from this subcommittee went to hear
the problems we are having even in my local, rather placid, and
also blessed community as far as employment and opportunity.
We will soon be in Indiana for a hearing, and other cities
across the country, to examine this problem. But there are very
few communities across our national landscape that have not
been affected by this drug epidemic.
This is an oversight hearing that will examine the drug
abuse problem in Baltimore and its area, and also will look at
alternatives to incarceration, what works and what doesn't
work, and why. That has been the subject of our subcommittee's
investigations.
There have been serious proposals across our Nation,
including our Nation's capital and here in Baltimore, on how
best to combat drug violence and restore individual and
community security and reduce overall drug use. These have
ranged from needle exchanges and legalization of marijuana for
medical use to tougher sentencing guidelines.
For its part, Congress has provided local communities with
some new tools, including the Washington/Baltimore High-
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. That is a designation by
Federal law creating what is called a HIDTA, High-Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area. We have also passed legislation relating
to Drug-Free Communities Act, and we have also enacted $1
billion matched by $1 billion or more in donations in a
national youth anti-drug media campaign.
But clearly, more must be done. Individual field hearings
like this help us to understand the plight of individual
communities as we develop a broader national perspective. In
order for the Congress to help Baltimore and cities like it,
from the Federal level we must have a working knowledge of the
problem at the local level.
Armed with these insights, we can better evaluate the
current Federal response to the drug crises in America and in
communities like we are in today and push for needed changes.
The good people of Baltimore and citizens across this country
deserve no less.
We came here today to listen. We came here today to hear a
new administration of the city, particularly headed by the
mayor, and also others from the surrounding area, to hear of
their plans. We came here today also to offer a helping hand
and assistance at the Federal level as good intergovernmental
partners in facing the challenge of illegal narcotics, not only
here in this community but, again, across our Nation.
I might say in closing, Mr. Cummings, I have always felt
that Baltimore is a great city with a great history. It is our
opportunity at this difficult chapter in its history to come
here to help you and also your community.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, my
distinguished colleague, Mr. Cummings.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8775.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8775.002
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for
holding this hearing in Baltimore, and I am glad you ended on
such a wonderful and positive note. We are a great city, and I
thank you again for the sensitivity that you have shown. So
many people on the Hill seem to be of the opinion that drug
treatment does not work.
But the fact is, that you have not only made it possible
for us to move around the country looking at alternatives to
incarceration, but you have concentrated your thoughts on
having an open mind regarding treatment. And I appreciate that.
I also want to take a moment to thank the dean of this
wonderful school, the nursing school, Dean Heller, who is one
of my mentors, for having us here this morning.
As we examine the drug treatment policy this morning, it is
quite fitting that we undertake our work in a place where young
people are taught how to heal. Here in Baltimore, as elsewhere,
drugs and violent crime are destroying our young people, their
families, and entire communities.
We must continue to work together to break this cycle of
destruction. Although there is no simple solution to combatting
the drug crisis, this hearing will provide additional
perspectives on how we can reduce substance abuse and drug-
related crime, and ultimately, on how we can revitalize our
communities.
This morning, we will be working to assess the current
situation in Baltimore and examine programs that combine drug
treatment, social services, supervision, and job placement, as
an alternative strategy to incarceration.
As we examine these alternatives, we are fortunate to have
the assistance of a distinguished panel of witnesses. Baltimore
City mayor, Martin O'Malley, and Baltimore County executive,
Dutch Ruppersberger, and other experts joining us today, have
been major players in our shared effort to rid America of the
drugs and the death that plague us as a society for many years.
From the firsthand knowledge and accumulated wisdom of our
panel, we will be better able to assess the current
relationship between drug addiction and criminal activity in
Baltimore. And it is good that you talked about other areas of
the country, Mr. Chairman, because so often what has happened
is people have thought that drug problems are only based
primarily in urban areas. But the fact is, that they are all
over the country, as I am sure County Executive Dutch
Ruppersberger will testify to.
By doing so, we can better understand the impact of
incarceration and the effectiveness of treatment alternatives.
Our testimony today will indicate that incarcerating drug-
addicted persons has not stopped the cycle of addiction, crime,
and incarceration in Baltimore. Merely incarcerating non-
violent offenders does not appear to reduce crime or drug abuse
either.
In Congress, I am seeking to obtain increased Federal
funding for drug treatment. This hearing will emphasize the
success of drug treatment programs for non-violent offenders
that includes drug treatment, job placement, and social
services components. The success of certain jail diversion
programs that offer drug treatment and employment assistance
provides the criminal justice system with an alternative to
incarceration--a way to break the deadly cycle that dominates
so many lives.
Now, let me caution to add that there are some people that
belong in jail. There are some that are wreaking havoc on our
community. But there are some that find themselves falling into
a trap of narcotics, as Ricky Phaison, a recovering addict
since 1987, will testify. And I am glad that he is here with us
today.
During the hearing, we will highlight diversion programs
that focus on drug treatment, such as the Baltimore Drug
Treatment Court and a New York Drug Treatment Alternative
Program. Diversion programs work on the premise that with
treatment, intensive supervision, social services, and job
placement, offenders return to society in a better position to
resist drugs and crime, and, just as importantly, to contribute
to society as opposed to taking away from it.
Dean Heller, you did a great job of getting the lights on,
and we really appreciate it. [Laughter.]
I told them while you were gone that you are my mentor, so
I saw you rush to the rescue. You know, we really appreciate
it.
All of us agree that the public funds we devote to public
safety and drug treatment must be spent in an effective and
cost-efficient manner. And I emphasize that. One of the things
that we have talked about constantly, Mr. Chairman, is whatever
dollars we spend--the mayor and Commissioner Daniel have talked
about this a lot, we want to make sure that they are spent in a
cost-efficient and effective manner--diversion programs, law
costs associated with incarceration, public assistance, health
care, and recidivism.
Further, they produce taxpayers that can make positive
contributions to society. As a Member of Congress, my goal is
to make Baltimore a more livable community. And there are so
many of us--the people, Mr. Chairman, that sit in this room,
that they spend their days and nights trying to figure out how
to do that. And the person that will be testifying first, our
mayor, is one who has made it clear that he wants our city to
be more livable.
One of the other things that I was so glad that you said--I
wish I had a tape recorder here so I could play it over and
over again--is that you said you came here to help, and I love
that. I mean, you can say that 50 million times, because we do
need help. I don't think there is a person in this room that
would say that we don't. And I am glad that you come with the
helping attitude.
Finally, reducing the crime and drug abuse that afflict our
community and returning our addicted neighbors to healthy and
productive lives are essential steps toward a Baltimore that is
a more livable place in which to live and raise our families.
We are determined to break the cycle of drugs, destruction, and
death. We can achieve that goal by creating a new cycle of
renewed public health, productive employment, and life.
And, again, I want to thank all of our witnesses, all of
you, for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be with
us today. Thank you for being on that front line of making our
community a much more livable one.
Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman.
I am pleased now to recognize our first panel of witnesses,
if those individuals will please come forward, the Honorable
Martin O'Malley, mayor of Baltimore; the Honorable Dutch
Ruppersberger, Baltimore County executive.
Let me, if I may, reiterate this is an investigations and
oversight subcommittee of the House of Representatives. In that
capacity, we do swear in our witnesses, which I will do in just
a moment.
If you have any additional or lengthy documentation,
information, that you would like to be part of this
congressional record of this hearing, upon request, through the
Chair, that will be granted.
Mr. Cummings, I think we have a previous agreement to allow
the record to be open for at least 3 weeks.
Mr. Cummings. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mica. Without objection, so ordered. And since we have
three fairly full panels, and it is impossible to hear from
everyone. There are many people, I am sure, Mr. Cummings, in
this room that could contribute and be a part as an active
witness to this hearing.
With that said, we will leave the record open for 3 weeks.
You can submit, through Mr. Cummings and to the subcommittee,
any additional comments, even though you may not be a witness,
or testimony you would like to be part of this record.
Mr. Cummings. That is fine.
Mr. Mica. All right. With that, I will ask our two
witnesses to please stand. Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Mica. The witnesses answered in the affirmative. I
would like to, again, welcome both of you today. We are pleased
to be in your community at the invitation of Mr. Cummings. We
are anxious to hear from you, and I will recognize first Mayor
O'Malley. You are recognized, sir.
STATEMENTS OF MARTIN O'MALLEY, MAYOR OF BALTIMORE; AND DUTCH
RUPPERSBERGER, BALTIMORE COUNTY EXECUTIVE
Mr. O'Malley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
Congressman Cummings. I want to thank you for coming to
Baltimore and assure you that we will in the future pay our
BG&E bill in anticipation of your arrival. [Laughter.]
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, I
want to thank you for the opportunity to address this topic--
``Alternatives to Incarceration: What Works and Why?'' I have a
number of people from my cabinet, who I think you are going to
be hearing from later, including Commissioner Ron Daniel, who
is the gentleman in the uniform seated behind me, and he has,
coincidentally, a big profile in the Baltimore Sun today, which
he claims he hasn't yet read. So people, please give him mixed
reviews, and maybe he will read it.
We also have with us Dr. Peter Beilenson, our commissioner
of health, seated to Commissioner Daniel's left, and our
criminal justice coordinator, Peter Saar, who is seated back
there, who tries to keep it all together.
What works and why? I would like to thank you for making
this hearing possible. During the last city campaign this last
summer, the people of Baltimore made it very clear that
reducing crime was their top concern. Indeed, in the 3-months
since we have begun this new administration, we have made it
our top concern.
In short order, we have zeroed in on 10 areas of the city,
where we have gone through in a very comprehensive fashion,
putting together not only renewed commitment to enforcement but
also we have put out health experts and knocked on doors and
gotten people the treatment that they need to get off the
street. We have also eliminated the rotation of homicide
detectives to end the brain drain that dramatically reduced our
clearance rate in a once vaunted squad.
We have moved detectives out of headquarters into our
districts to improve intelligence sharing and followup. We have
audited arrest records to get a true gauge of our city's
baseline crime problem. We have replaced our department's
leadership and reorganized its structure.
And we have instituted the means and the method of
improving every week and every day, as we followup on crime,
and that is the Comstat process. This was used so successfully
in other cities like New York, like New Orleans, like Newark,
and now Baltimore, not just to map crime but to anticipate
crime trends, prevent crime, rather than reacting after it has
already become entrenched.
Additionally, we have provided additional resources to the
State's Attorneys Office--the first time in probably 12 years
that the State's Attorneys Office has received a budget
increase in city dollars--so that Mrs. Jessamie will be better
able to prosecute repeat violent offenders.
And we have worked with the judiciary to implement reforms
to restore real justice and a sense of priorities to our
criminal justice system. These changes will allow us to dispose
of minor cases up front in the process and create more
courtroom time to prosecute serious violent offenders.
We have tried to do a great deal in a short period of time,
Mr. Chairman. In the interest of saving a couple thousand
words, I have brought with me two pictures that appeared in the
Baltimore Sun. There is a couple of quotes from the Baltimore
Sun that characterize some of our initial success.
I want to show you first of all--stray from my script--this
is an article that appeared on December 15, 1999, has an
adorable little girl over at Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School
in West Baltimore. Now the headline on this is ``Addicts and
Drug Dealers Overrun Playground.'' And if you look around the
window that this little girl is peering out of, you see what
appears to be a couple of metal doors that are absolutely
pockmarked with bullet holes.
That was on December 15th. It appeared the day after I met
with our Governor and told him, ``We need more money for drug
treatment, Governor.'' I wrote in the little margin of this--I
sent him his own copy framed and matted--I said, ``This is why
we need more drug treatment money. It is not so much for the
addicts. It is not for the people that run the programs. It is
because of kids that can't go outside because of the death and
the violence spawned by the drug trade.''
That was December 15th. Thanks to Commissioner Daniel, and
even though he did not receive any assurance of additional
moneys for drug treatment in the Governor's first budget, come
March 16th this was what appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Mr.
Chairman. It is almost like the Wizard of Oz.
The first one is black and white with the little girl
peering out of pockmarked, bullet-holed doors, and this now is
that same play area--Eutaw-Marshburn--color photographed with a
bunch of adorable little girls. The headline is, ``Crime at
Bay, Pupils Play,'' and a Mom says, ``This corner used to be
wild. I just started bringing my kids out about 2 weeks ago.''
That is what can be done, Mr. Chairman, if we are committed
not to simply arresting our way out of the problem, or to
simply treating our way out of the problem, but to doing both--
to doing both in a concerted and coordinated fashion, and to
improving the quality of life that can lead to the sort of
decline that too many neighborhoods in this city have
experienced.
By upgrading our police department, enforcing the law,
incarcerating violent offenders, and reforming our criminal
justice system, we can and are making our streets safer. But we
also have to recognize that the high crime rate is driven
primarily by an illegal drug trade, which is true in so many
cities across the country.
While noting crime-fighting successes, the articles that
have appeared recently in the Sun also refer to open air drug
markets, which are a scourge in almost every corner of our
city. In answer to your question, what works and why? I will
focus primarily on drug treatment, which speaks to Baltimore's
largest law enforcement problem.
Removing the most violent dealers and enforcers from the
street will help the supply side of the drug trade, but the
criminal justice system and elected officials must also address
the demand side of the equation--the addicts--or new drug thugs
who will take the place of Baltimore's current pool. To reduce
demand for illegal narcotics, we must succeed in providing drug
treatment. More treatment slots are needed to meet this
overwhelming need.
We can't simply arrest our way out of our drug problem, but
we need not give up and decriminalize illegal behavior either.
In order to break the cycle of crime and addiction, we have to
build a seamless system of law enforcement, drug testing,
escalating sanctions, and treatment. Society benefits by
treating an addiction that will, if left unattended, invariably
contribute to more crime.
Additionally, a reduction in trial detention bed days and
incarceration bed days after convictions will also save
taxpayer dollars. The public is protected because the sanction
of jail time remains if a non-violent offender fails to
complete treatment or commits another crime. This system will
leave more room in jail not only for repeat violent offenders,
but it will also allow for more courtroom time to deal with
those who should receive more serious incarceration penalties.
For drug treatment to work as an alternative incarceration,
above all there has to be strict accountability. According to a
report by Baltimore/Washington HIDTA, offenders in treatment
who were there under the threat of criminal sanctions are six
times less likely to drop out of treatment, eight times less
likely to test positive for drugs during treatment, and four
times less likely to be arrested for a new offense.
Baltimore will increase the number of treatment slots
reserved for offenders. Hopefully we will do that with State
help. The threat, and imposition when necessary, of criminal
sanctions can be a powerful motivator for change. But it only
works when treatment slots are available and participation is
supervised.
Treatment should also be provided in detention and prison
facilities as part of that continuum of care for this problem,
which is another push that we have on at the State level--to
allow for some sort of detox capacity over at city jail and
some better linkage with treatment after incarceration.
Finally, alternatives to incarceration also must maximize
the use of community service as penance for minor offenses in
conjunction with drug treatment, mental health, medical, and
job training referrals. Paying back in the community where an
offender has violated the laws gives a visible reminder that
there are consequences for wrongdoing.
For too long in Baltimore, and presumably many other
cities, accountability has been lacking in all aspects of our
anti-drug efforts. But the solution is not to stop funding
treatment or deny that it is a useful alternative to
incarceration. The answer is to demand and document results and
move toward best practices.
One of the things that I told our Governor was that we were
able to have this dramatic success because we had treatment
slots available. So when the police went in, our health
commissioner came in right on his heels, along with people from
Housing to board up the houses. But our Health Department went
in and literally with the easy supply removed from the street,
it made the addicts far more amenable, far more susceptible,
far more willing to go right into a drug treatment program.
Those slots are filled up. We are now at 110 percent, and
that is with putting about $26 million of our own city money
into drug treatment. We are hopeful that through your
leadership, Mr. Chairman, the Federal Government will make drug
treatment a budget priority, that drug addiction and drug-
related crime are critical concerns to our cities and counties
and small towns across America.
It is a national problem. It is not a problem that affects
merely poor people living in cities. If you come out with us on
any corner, Mr. Chairman, in the evening--and sometimes we have
done this, the Congressman knows, when we have had a night out
against drugs--you will see countless numbers of people from
surrounding jurisdictions come in, usually young, white kids,
from the suburbs coming in, making the U-turn, and booking out
when they see that we have closed down the drug market for the
night.
It is a problem that crosses all jurisdictional lines. It
is a national problem. And the course that we are pursing in
Baltimore, I am glad to report, is having some initial success.
And I want to thank you for the opportunity to address your
distinguished panel.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Malley follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mayor.
We will now hear from the Baltimore County executive, Mr.
Ruppersberger. You are recognized, sir.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, thank you, Chairman Mica. Thank
you for being here today, and we really appreciate your coming
to Baltimore to really focus on the awareness of the problems
that we are having here.
Congressman Cummings, as usual, you are always on the front
line trying to do the best you can for your constituents. I
give you credit for putting this issue on the table, and it is
great to work with you in that regard.
To begin with, let me tell you a little bit about Baltimore
County, Mr. Chairman. We are a separate jurisdiction from
Baltimore City, but yet we surround Baltimore City. So we are
impacted by what happens every day in Baltimore City, and then
we have other counties within the jurisdiction. There is no
question that our criminal justice system is failing when so
many individuals who go through the system get right back on
the street.
We have had recently in the last month some unfortunate
situations in Baltimore County. We had a police officer who was
killed, and as it turns out we looked at the background of
those individuals who allegedly killed the police officer, one
of the individuals was arrested over 20 times within the
criminal justice system. And that does not include juvenile
crime. And it was--the system failed, and unfortunately we
weren't able to get to that individual earlier.
This revolving door as far as the criminal justice system
has to stop. And I am not pointing fingers. I think from a
Federal, State, and local level, we have to look at our
criminal justice system, understand that it is not functional
at this point, and there have to be some changes.
We have situations right now where the recidivism rate is a
continual rate, when people are in jail, they get out of jail,
and they continue to commit crimes. We have parole officers and
probation officers that literally don't have the time to
monitor these individuals.
We have individuals who were in jail, and they could be in
jail between 18 months or 10 years, and when they get out of
jail there is very little help from a job training point of
view, or anything of that nature. So these individuals go back
to the community where they committed crimes, and it happens
over and over again.
I know of a situation where an individual was a heroin
addict, went to jail, I guess went through the cold turkey or
whatever, a couple of years later came out of jail and went
right on a methadone program. I mean, these are the type of
things that are happening over and over again.
Now, what can we do to really make a difference? To begin
with, again, a Federal, State, and local issue. But if you are
talking about doing and changing the criminal justice system,
you have to talk about money. I mean, we have to make--we have
to pick our priorities, and, in my opinion, there has to be an
entire reevaluation of where we are in the criminal justice
system, and are we willing to readjust our priorities and put
money where it needs to go.
To begin with, I think that the No. 1 issue is that we have
to capture our children. We have to make sure that we start
focusing on young children before they get to a level where
they are going to make a difference. Now, how do we do this?
I know that in our county, as an example, we have put a
tremendous effort on what we call police athletic programs,
where we have both our recreation and parks and our police
working with children who after school get in trouble. We bring
them into these programs. We have a PAL center in every
precinct in our county right now, and we made that a priority.
We have over 5,000 children in the last 5 years that have
gone through this program. And we can show you, as an example,
in an area of our county called Arbutus, where we put a PAL
program in and within that year period we had a 30 percent
reduction in juvenile crime. If we don't capture these
children, they are going to be the next level.
We also, in our PAL programs, do things to get them in
there. For instance, we provide karate, so we get the young
kids who think they are tough--we get them in, we teach them
karate, and then we also hook them and we teach them values and
homework and leadership. And that does make a difference.
We also have another program called JOINS, where the first-
time offender for a juvenile--a lot of times juveniles
understand they are not going to get in trouble, so they keep
committing crimes. And our police officers aggressively work
with our juvenile justice people to work with these individuals
right away, the first crime they have committed. And we have
shown that if we can get these individuals early, it does make
a difference.
The issue of drugs--we have got to do more as far as drug
treatment is concerned. We need programs that work, not just
warehousing. There are some people, as Congressman Cummings
said, that should be in jail. These people are a menace to our
society, and our police officers have to arrest them and they
have to be put in jail. These are the people who are murdering
on a regular basis.
But there are other individuals who are in jail that should
not be in jail. There is a program in Baltimore County that we
have that has been rather successful, and it is called Right
Turn of Maryland. This is a privately operated residential
program that serves the adult residents of Baltimore County who
are currently involved in the criminal justice system, have a
history of criminal justice behavior, and have a diagnosed
substance abuse problem, and substance abuse is a contributing
factor to their criminality.
Now, this is a long-term program with close monitoring from
both parole and probation, and from random drug testing, to
ensure their sobriety. This is a comprehensive program because
it looks at each individual and tries to examine the cause of
his or her addiction, criminal record, and drug history to
determine ways to improve his or her life.
We have been very encouraged by the results of this
program. It is in its 6th year in operation within our county.
This program combines an atmosphere of minimum security work,
work release setting, and drug abuse treatment program.
Individuals are mandatory sentenced to this program by the
courts for 1 year and 28 days, no less. They spend 28 days in
residential treatment, followed by a 1-year closely monitored
followup program mandated by the courts.
Now, in a followup study of just 250 graduates of this
program, the recidivism rate when they entered the program was
35 percent after 2 years. The recidivism rate dropped 7.4
percent after going through this program. It is important that
we continue to move forward in those type of programs that make
a difference and make a result.
In closing, we need to refocus our priorities as far as
money is concerned. As a local elected official, when we needed
police help, when we received money from Washington directly to
the local government, we were able to put police officers on
the street right away.
So many times when you go through a Federal bureaucracy and
a State bureaucracy, by the time the local government gets the
money, half the money is gone. And I would encourage you to
really look at some of these programs, and if money is going to
be coming bring it directly to the local government who is
working with respect to that program.
And we feel very strongly that if we have the resources and
we are held accountable for what we can do, we can make a
difference.
I have here with us today our Health Officer, Dr. Michelle
Leverett; our deputy director of Social Services, LaFrance
Muldrow; and chief of staff, Terry Young, are also here today
to observe and take part in this.
Thank you very much for coming to Baltimore.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. Let me, if I may, ask a few questions.
And I will start with the mayor. One of the things that has
concerned me about Baltimore is the incredible rate of
addiction. I have various reports that are given to me from
DEA, which estimates around 40,000, which was several years
old, addicts. I have heard repeated 1 in 10 citizens is a drug
addict, and then I read one of the city councilwomen, Ms.
Spector, said it is more like 1 in 8.
The Census Bureau estimates that the city of Baltimore has
a population of 645,593. I don't know if that is current. We
will soon find out. Using her statistics, it would indicate
that Baltimore has somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000
addicts. Something has gone wrong here, dramatically wrong. If
we had this and applied this, even the 1 in 10 figure, across
the Nation, we would be looking at 20 million drug addicts. And
I don't know of too many other communities that have this size
of an addictive population.
Mayor, can you shed some light on how we got into this
situation?
Mr. O'Malley. Yes. Let me try to do that delicately. Mr.
Chairman, I was a prosecutor for my first couple of years as a
lawyer. Before I got this full-time job, I was a lawyer. And I
actually used to work for Stu Simms, who is here, our Secretary
of----
Mr. Mica. I understand also--is your wife a prosecutor?
Mr. O'Malley. She is a prosecutor in Baltimore County, yes.
Mr. Mica. I might have to subpoena her and ask her her
opinion. [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Malley. Good. I would enjoy the opportunity to talk
with her. [Laughter.]
Mr. Mica. It might give you two some face time. [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Malley. You know, one of the things I learned from
the Jesuits when I was in high school is that expectations
become behavior. There was a debate raging about 8 years ago,
10 years ago, and I think many who advocated that felt honestly
that there was nothing we could do about illegal narcotics and
the violence and the despair and the addiction that had spawned
until we legalized it.
Now, imagine if you would a Governor of a State saying that
we should treat environmental pollution as an economic
challenge rather than a crime. You can imagine the sorts of
businesses that would be attracted to a jurisdiction where the
top elected officials espouse that view.
So I think what went on was a number of things. Our police
department for years was told, even by its top commanders, that
there is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing we can do
about it. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard our former
police chief say, ``You can't arrest your way out of the
problem.'' And so we kind of got diverted, and we thought that
if we opened enough PAL centers that that would somehow
miraculously take violent offenders off the streets.
So that is what has gone on in the past. I think other
cities, though--and I think that maybe we should have gotten
out of that ``should we legalize it or not legalize it'' debate
years ago in our city. And we are a little bit behind the curve
on this.
Other cities, like New York, Pittsburgh, Newark, New
Orleans, started showing that while you might not be able to
simply arrest your way out of the problem, if you start being
more proactive, more data driven, more relentless in your
police efforts, you actually can take a lot of the violent
offenders off the street. You can have a lot more interaction
with your addicted population. And you can be much more
successful in restoring that quality of life to our street
corners.
So I think to answer your question, the way we got into
this problem was, we were very late, among other American
cities, to abandon the notion that this is simply a health
problem and that it should not be treated like a criminal
problem. I think now we have restored a sense of balance.
I have asked the former administration's health
commissioner, Dr. Beilenson, to stay on with us because he does
understand addiction. He does understand treatment. As the same
time, we brought in experts from New York City, who have also
been active in Newark and New Orleans and put them together
with our new police commissioner, who understands this
department's challenges and the nuances of this city, and doing
both treatment and better enforcement together we are going
to--you are going to see us join the ranks of the dramatically
safer cities of America.
Mr. Mica. Absolutely pleased to hear that. You know, God
bless the people with the bleeding hearts, but it does take
some tough enforcement combined with treatment. I am convinced
of that the more I see.
We have looked at cities. We have been to New York City. We
held a hearing on tough enforcement--Richmond. They were
slaughtering people at probably the same rate you have had, cut
it in half with Project Exile, which also goes after guns,
those who misuse guns in offenses.
But it has given this city not only a nightmare, but you
have inherited a formidable task. And I am sure this has
spilled over into the suburbs. Unfortunately, it spreads like a
cancer.
The other thing we found, too, and where we put pressure on
tough enforcement, they do flee to the next jurisdiction. We
have seen that.
You indicated that you have had problems getting money from
the State for drug treatment. Is that correct?
Mr. O'Malley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. Well, that concerns me, too. Since Mr. Cummings
and I have worked together, we have increased drug treatment
funding some 26 percent in less than 5 years at the Federal
level. And I am seeing the money go to the State level, and we
try to send it there with as few strings attached as possible.
That has been our philosophy; the locals know best.
But then we have seen that the money isn't getting down to
where the problem is. And there is also a lot--I don't want to
say ripped off, but absorbed in administrative overhead, which
we just held a hearing on. And we are trying to get that money
to the people who are on the front lines and where it is
intended to go.
So I am going to ask the staff if we can review the
Maryland block grant program, and also funding into this
jurisdiction.
The next question I would have is the HIDTA, the
effectiveness of the HIDTA, which is supposed to be our effort
to help your effort in going after the traffickers, the dealers
and death. How can we do a better job there? And how would you
assess where we are now? Mayor.
Mr. O'Malley. You know, the person who would be in a better
position to answer that, Mr. Chairman, would be our police
commissioner----
Mr. Mica. We will hear from him and his----
Mr. O'Malley [continuing]. As he hits me in the kidneys.
Mr. Mica. OK. [Laughter.]
We will hear from him in a minute.
Mr. O'Malley. OK.
Mr. Mica. But----
Mr. O'Malley. My experience with HIDTA----
Mr. Mica. You have been on the council and----
Mr. O'Malley. Sure. I was on the council. I was also a
member of the defense bar for a time. I have been on both sides
of it. I think the most effective law enforcement we do in this
city when it comes to doing some higher level drug
investigations is through HIDTA.
Mr. Mica. Well, I don't want to--I don't--you know, it is
sort of sensitive working with some of these agencies. But I
want to know how--what your relationship is with the Federal
agencies--DEA, FBI, Customs, whoever it takes. Is there a good
working relationship, in your opinion? Or is that developing?
Is the HIDTA assisting you in your efforts to go after--this
stuff is coming in from outside your community.
Mr. O'Malley. Right.
Mr. Mica. I don't know any coca that is grown here, or
poppies--[laughter]--in this area. Could you comment?
Mr. O'Malley. Sure. I think in the years past HIDTA has
operated almost as a sort of island out there. And there has
not been the level of cooperation or the enthusiasm to that
partnership from the local standpoint that there could be.
A lot of our police officers really want to get assigned to
HIDTA, and I think now over these last few months there has
been a lot more--how can I say it--optimism, both on the
Federal side and on ours certainly. I mean, HIDTA has all of
the best tools. They have the best intelligence. And we are
looking forward to having a much better working relationship
with them.
Mr. Mica. OK. That is good to hear, Your Honor. In that
regard, Mr. Cummings, I am going to ask all of those
individuals involved at the Federal level with the HIDTA, and
the local officials, to meet with us in Washington within the
next 2 weeks. We will meet in Washington, and we will see what
is working, what isn't working, and why it isn't working, and
what we need to do to make it function as efficiently as
possible. Thank you.
Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Chairman, in that regard, I would
suggest that maybe we talk to our commissioner and our chief of
police. The mayor and I were both former prosecutors. In my
role as a prosecutor, I was an investigative prosecutor and
worked with FBI, DEA, all of the different agencies.
We find that on a local level the money, the informants,
the ability to help us on long-term wiretap investigations,
helps with respect to HIDTA. But, you know, crime has no
geographical boundaries.
The mayor and I have committed to work together on a lot of
the issues that you have talked about. Just in Baltimore
County, 39 percent of our violent crime comes from persons who
live in Baltimore City. And we realize that as the city goes,
our other jurisdictions are impacted.
As a result of this--and I am glad to hear you say about
the money coming--not getting to the local government, and I
believe that is the case in a lot of situations. I think a good
program that I mentioned before in my testimony was when we
received police money directly. It went right to the local
government, and within a short period of time allowed us to put
a lot of police officers on the street. And we were able to be
very--we were effective. We brought our crime rate down. It
makes a difference.
You know, we all deal--we manage bureaucracies. But we find
that if we can get the money directly without a lot of people
who have to write reports and manage--and we want to be held
accountable--but if we have shown that we can handle it, I
would suggest that we need money directly, right now, for these
drug programs, and also for other programs in helping to take
these criminals off the street that should be in jail.
Mr. Mica. Finally, before I yield to Mr. Cummings, one
question. Last night, my wife and I came--we were in
Pennsylvania and came back, stopped in Baltimore for dinner.
She was driving and got lost, so we ended up in Little Italy
and parked, actually, I think next to a public housing project.
And those projects receive a great deal of Federal funds. Do we
have an effective--and it didn't look like it was exactly the
best situation. Do we have an effective enforcement program and
drug-free zone in there?
I just visited last Sunday--we held a hearing in Honolulu.
It was fun to get off a plane and go to a prison in Hawaii,
which was my Sunday afternoon. I flew out there all night, and
then went into a housing project, and it was quite a dramatic
program that they had had in the housing project. They had
police officers in the housing project who lived--or actually
had offices in all of the units, and a great cleanup effort. Is
that going on here?
Mr. O'Malley. Yes, sir. We are probably leading the Nation
in terms of our use of HOPE 6 funds to literally tear down
projects and redesign them. But also on the security front, you
know, one of the challenges we are faced with is how do we
manage, direct, and make as effective as possible the housing
authority police when you have a policy of trying to
decentralize public housing.
So one of the moves that we have is to develop a memorandum
of understanding between our housing authority police and our
police commissioner.
Mr. Mica. And that is working effectively?
Mr. O'Malley. It is starting to. We are only a couple
months on the job, and there is a lot--it is like changing a
tire on a rolling car, our reform of this police department. So
we are working on a memorandum of understanding.
From my personal experience, I can tell you--and the
Congressmen can probably back me up--I have run into a lot more
individuals on the street who are saying that they are being
denied public housing because of drug distribution records. So
I know that that is going into effect. And I think it is having
an effect.
You do not have the problems to the degree that they were
even 4 years ago in our high-rise projects. And there has been
some improvement there.
Mr. Mica. Well, we will look at that also.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I just have a few questions. Again, I want to thank you all
for being here. It is a tough schedule.
I want to go to Mr. Mayor, and you, county executive, Faye
Taxman, who is going to testify toward the end of this hearing,
wrote a very compelling piece that--and she spends a lot of
time talking about how we put people on probation a lot of
times. But we don't give them the kind of supervision that they
need.
And it is her belief that if we really zero in more on that
supervision, and, I mean, not just--she says it is sometimes
referred to as a ``wait and see'' period as opposed to a ``get
a person straightened out'' period. She believes that we could
save a lot of resources and help a lot of people, and I just
wondered what your opinions are on that. Is that a part of your
plan?
Mr. O'Malley. Yes. I haven't sat around and waited on
enough VOP cases and had addicted clients. I think that there
is a lot we can do to improve supervision. And one of the key
components of that, I believe, is to get the judges out of it.
I think you need to sign up people for graduated sanctions
right up front. Those are the terms of probation.
Right now, we have probation agents who are utterly
overwhelmed, although the State is allocating more money so we
can hire some more probation agents. But we have probation
agents that have scores of people they are supposed to be
supervising, and yet when those people relapse or start using
again or get a subsequent offense, there is this wait and see,
string it out, OK, four postponements later in the district
court, 8 months down the road, then maybe we go back and see
how we resolve this violation and probation. Huh-uh.
What we need to do--if we really want people to supervise
those who should be turning their lives around, what we need to
do is give them the power to enforce those graduated sanctions.
And I know that there are some legitimate constitutional
concerns with that, but I don't think that any of it is
insurmountable. And what we really need to do is get our judges
out of the natural human habit of wanting to micromanage and
personally review every VOP before a sanction is imposed.
And I think people need to--if they are going to be given
the break of a suspended sentence or probation before judgment,
they need to agree up front to abide by certain conditions, and
know that if they don't abide by those conditions then your
penalty for coming off the first time is whatever--a weekend, 2
weekends for a second offense. And it needs to be immediate,
and it needs to happen right away.
We just feed into the whole suspension of reality that is
involved in drug addiction by letting these cases drag on
forever without any penalty. It would be better not to have
them supervised at all than to have them supervised and to do
nothing at all.
Mr. Cummings. Well, it is interesting that you said that,
because Ms. Taxman--part of her theory is that you must have
swift, graduated punishment when people don't do what they are
supposed to do. And I just--I mean, and it--you mentioned
recidivism and with regard to probation. What she notes in her
report is that 35 percent of the people who end up in--well, in
prisons are people who violate parole or probation.
Unfortunately, what happens is that in the process of being
on parole or being on probation, they don't have the
supervision. And it is almost like you put them on a train for
failure without giving them the support system.
Mr. Ruppersberger. I think a lot of it has to do with the
volume. I think if you would interview probation officers,
parole officers, they will tell you that they have a job that
is overwhelming, that they can't do the job because they don't
have the resources, they have too many people that are there.
And, consequently, you can't work with people, you can't deal
with people who violate parole or probation.
The four individuals who allegedly killed our police
officer were all individuals going through that system. You can
look at it over and over again. And I think a lot of it has to
do with management--management at the top also--and where the
priorities and moneys are going.
We are lucky we have Stuart Simms. He is a hardworking
individual who is a good manager. But he does not have the
resources to do the job. And it is going to take millions and
millions of dollars from the Federal, State, and local level to
reevaluate where we are in our criminal justice system. And if
there is an example that--we have to do it, it is right here in
the State of Maryland in Baltimore City, based on what we have
here and what is on the board.
I would suggest that we look at what we need, that we go to
the front line. You know, we sit sometimes as leaders and we
don't go to the front line to hear what they really need to do
the job. And I think it is important that we go to probation
officers, parole officers, without threat that they are
concerned about their job, and say, ``What do you need to do to
do the job better? Where are the problems?'' And then we have
to start there, and then we have to make the decision, as
elected officials, where do we fund? Where are our priorities?
In my opinion, we have got to reevaluate where we are in
this whole criminal justice system, from juvenile to adult, or
it is going to continue. From drug--you can't put everyone and
warehouse them in jail because there are a lot of people that
shouldn't be there. But yet you have to make that
determination. When somebody does make a mistake, they have
been given a chance, then you have to come on them swiftly and
make a difference. And it just has to be, because those people
are impacting our society every day.
Mr. Cummings. I just have a few more questions. Mr. Mayor
and county executive, one of the things that I have discovered
in moving around the streets of Baltimore, and Baltimore
County, is that there is a huge community of people who are
recovering addicts. I mean, it is huge. And these are the
people who work every day, who turn around--and part of their
recovery is to turn around and help somebody else come out of
recovery.
As a matter of fact, you have got one sitting right behind
you, Ricky Phaison, who like I said a little bit earlier is a
recovering addict for over 13 years. And I guess what I wonder
about is, how do we make sure--and you talked about it briefly,
county executive, how do we make sure the treatment that we do
give is effective? That is one of my biggest arguments with the
Republicans. [Laughter.]
But one of my biggest arguments is, that ``We don't want to
throw money out there, and the money isn't working.'' I mean,
it is not doing what they claim it is supposed to do. So how do
we make sure that we get effective drug treatment? And I think
all of us here don't want to just be spending money to spend
it, but we want to make sure that whatever we do works.
Mr. O'Malley. Right. We probably have, in the city of
Baltimore, one of the--we are probably ahead of the rest of the
country, believe it or not, when it comes to evaluating how
many programs we have, how many slots we have, and how
effective they are.
Now, the problem with determining how effective some of
these programs are depends on your definition of effective. You
know, somebody is in treatment for a while. They are in for 6
months or in for a year. They stop coming on a regular basis.
Well, it is--the sort of tracking that all of us want to see is
also expensive.
But we actually have made some great strides, with help
from the Able Foundation--one of our local foundations--and
according to our health commissioner--may be blowing his own
horn now--but according to our health commissioner, the only
city that is better in terms of monitoring and promoting some
sense of accountability for a drug treatment program is San
Francisco.
So we have gone--we have jumped through a lot of hoops at
the State level, trying to convince our Lieutenant Governor and
our Governor of the fact that we actually do know where the
dollars go, we do know what works. And what works also depends
on the person. You know, certain modality--some of the most
effective programs in the city are those that don't involve any
methadone at all. If their core is a spiritual element, the
Government is very bad at administering.
But I was at the Help Up Mission just yesterday--was it
yesterday? Day before yesterday in our big spring cleanup. They
have a lot of men who are really doing phenomenal things, have
certainly overcome bigger challenges than I have ever faced and
are turning it around. Of course, methadone is also what works
for others.
So what we need is not only a continuum of the modalities,
but we also need to be better about wraparound services,
accessing TANF moneys for job training and for transitional
housing, and that is sort of the move that we are making now.
But Dr. Beilenson can talk to you at great length about
what we have, how we monitor it, and whether there may be a
need to move from thinking in terms of slots to, instead,
moving toward the notion of fee for service in some of these
cases.
Mr. Ruppersberger. A lot of it has to do with basic
management, whether you are managing a criminal justice system
or a public works department. What is your mission? What are
your goals? And then you hire people to follow through with
that.
Now, the people that follow through need resources. In
today's age, the technology, everybody should be in--there is a
data base that can be followed. And then you analyze your
results and the accountability of where it needs to go. And
then you pick not a lot of different programs, you pick your
basic priorities, in my opinion. Your priorities in this system
are dealing with the children, dealing with families, dealing
with hardened criminals, and then pulling all of that together.
And then if these individuals are on probation or parole--
you know, we keep talking about probation and parole and being
either soft or being hard, whatever. But the bottom line, when
someone eventually gets out of the system on parole or
probation, then there is no job training, or very little. So
what is going to happen is there is going to be recidivism
again.
So how do we stop it? It is a system that goes from
juvenile all the way through. And in each level we need
funding, we need priority, we need good management, because in
my opinion there has been a lot of mismanagement throughout the
whole country, not just here. And I am not putting the blame--I
will put blame on myself that--that anything that we do has to
be managed well and be held accountable. The money has to be
there.
Mr. Cummings. Dutch, one of the things that you said, and
then I have just got two points and then I am finished, the--
one thing we are going to hear about, the DTAP program up in
Brooklyn, NY. And one of the things that they do is they work
real hard with the business community to help people find jobs.
And what they have been able to do, from what I understand,
is to create a good reputation. The guys who enter and get the
treatment, the supervision, the jobs, and do a good job, become
almost a reference. The business community then comes to them
and says, ``Look, we want a guy or a lady from the program,
because we know that we have got good supervisor, they are
trying to make their lives better.''
And one of the things I noticed about this recovering
community that we talked about a little bit earlier, Mr. Mayor,
is that all of them have jobs. I am just wondering if that is a
part of your program?
Mr. Ruppersberger. A job is the best social program, in my
opinion. But if you take an individual who gets out of jail,
and this individual probably cannot be hired, say, at a fast
food restaurant because he has a criminal record, or she has a
criminal record. If we don't start focusing on that job, there
is no place for these individuals to go but to go back where
they were before.
But it has to come together. There needs to be funding and
reevaluation, and there needs to be more accountability. We
have a lot of well-meaning people out there, but there are a
lot of programs that aren't working. Is there an accountability
of this--of these programs? I don't know.
Mr. O'Malley. There are also programs that are, and the
ones that work best are the ones that have a spiritual
component. Sister Gwenette Proctor--I mean, the men that she
works with have performed miracles in their own lives, turning
them around. And you are right. They have jobs. And before they
have jobs they have--there is something that clicks. In the
most successful of these programs, it is not so much the
modality as it is the mentality of the person that is looking
to change.
But there is nothing compassionate about a criminal justice
system that imposes suspended sentence after suspended
sentence, that has so-called supervised probation where only
half of the people referred for drug treatment as a condition
of their probation ever get into it, where if there is a
relapse it takes 30 to 90 days even to get a warrant for that
person. We need to tighten up all around.
A lot of people cry out for help, and the criminal behavior
is their means of doing that. And we are just not there to
tighten up and to provide the sort of reinforcement that they
need. So----
Mr. Cummings. Will there come a point when we say, or have
you said to the business community, ``Look, if we are able to
do this, to pull this off and get treatment, will you help us
and get people jobs?''
Mr. O'Malley. Yes, we can say that. But, I mean, the very
fact that we notice that they have jobs I think shows that the
market is there. We are about to launch a big summer jobs
program because we are not getting a lot of Federal stand-alone
dollars for that. Just thought I would slip that in.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, please do. [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Malley. Thought I would slip that in. So we are going
to be doing a radiothon and a telethon to get summer jobs for
our young people. But the business community is always in a
desperate search for dependable workers, especially in our
city. It is a big economic disincentive to have so many people
addicted to drugs.
So I think these programs, Congressman, start to speak for
themselves. I don't think the problem so much is the business
community willing to take on these things. I think if we
tighten up our act on the enforcement front, and on the court
front, I think that we will be able to drive a lot more people
into those programs that work. And I think they create, as you
say, their own sort of references just by the success stories
that come out of them.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I wanted to tell you both that your
testimony has yielded two very positive things, if not more.
One, the chairman said, we are going to look at HIDTA, and also
at this flow of the funds. One of the things that we have been
able to do, not only in this subcommittee, but in the last
subcommittee that we shared as ranking member and chairman, is
that we were able to move some things very quickly.
Mr. O'Malley. That is great.
Mr. Cummings. And so we want to thank you for being here.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. And just with respect to
HIDTA, I think if you talk to my chief of police and
Commissioner Daniel, who deal with it every day, so that we can
work together--as a former prosecutor, I used to see that
different agencies would have jealousies. But I have seen in
the last couple of years more teamwork.
And in this hostage situation that has just had our whole
community seized, we had Federal agencies, we had State
agencies, we had jurisdictions from all over, and it took all
of that to do what we had to do. So I think we are going in the
right direction. But I don't think the mayor and I at this
point have enough knowledge on every day operations so that we
can comment one way or another with respect to that.
Mr. Cummings. Thanks.
Mr. O'Malley. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Well, I want to thank both of our witnesses for
being with us today. I hope if we do nothing else the rest of
the year, Mr. Cummings, that we are able to do something to
impact the figures that are on that chart over there. Those are
multiplied, unfortunately, just in 10 years I have been in--
around Congress by probably 3,000 dead citizens of Baltimore,
most of them probably minority young males, whose great
potential of lives are snuffed out and destroyed.
Something has to be done, and I am so pleased to hear
administration chief executive officers of this locale
committed to hopefully working together, maybe taking some new
approaches, and find out what we can do to make this a success.
I am also pleased to welcome a gentleman from Maryland, Mr.
Cardin. Welcome to our subcommittee, and we are so pleased to
be in your State in this local community looking at a very
serious problem.
While we still have these two witnesses, did you want to
make a statement for the record? Mr. Cardin, you are
recognized.
Mr. Cardin. Well, thank you, Chairman Mica. Thank you very
much for being here in Baltimore. I thank my colleague,
Congressman Cummings, for all of his leadership, particularly
on these drug treatment issues.
Let me just acknowledge, you have our two leaders here with
Mayor O'Malley and County Executive Ruppersberger. The nice
thing is that we not only have outstanding leaders in Baltimore
City and Baltimore County, but they work together recognizing
that the problems that we confront know no geographical
boundary. And we just very much appreciate their commitment to
working with our communities so that we can improve the safety
and health of the people in Baltimore. And thank you for
bringing the hearing here to Baltimore.
Mr. Mica. Thank you for joining us today.
Again, I thank each of our first two witnesses, and this
panel is excused at this time.
Mr. O'Malley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. I would like to call our second panel this
morning. The second panel consists of the Honorable Thomas E.
Noel, who is associate judge for the Circuit Court for
Baltimore City; Ms. Anne Swern, deputy district attorney for
Kings County, NY; Mr. Ronald Daniel, police commissioner; Mr.
Stuart Simms, secretary of the Maryland Department of Public
Safety and Correction Services; Mr. Peter Beilenson,
commissioner of the Baltimore Department of Public Health; Ms.
Renee Robinson, she is involved in treatment and correctional
justice as treatment/criminal justice coordinator with the
Baltimore/Washington HIDTA; Mr. George McCann, he is executive
director of the Baltimore Addict Referral and Counseling
Center.
As I indicated at the opening, this is an investigations
and oversight subcommittee of Congress. In just a moment, I
will swear you in. If you have any lengthy statements, which
you would like to be made part of the record, we will be glad
to take them, and upon request enter them into the record, or
additional background charts, materials.
We will run a little clock here on the timer, which will
allow you to summarize any lengthy remarks you may have, and
then we will put the entire statement in the record, and,
again, material that may be pertinent to today's hearing.
With that, if I could ask all of our witnesses to please
stand. Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Mica. The witnesses answered in the affirmative.
We have got one stray back here. Sir? Have I recognized
this gentleman? Could you identify yourself for the record?
Judge Johnson. I am Judge Ken Johnson. I was invited to
testify, and I asked the person who heads up Drug Court to
testify in my stead. I am just here to observe.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Your Honor. We are pleased to have
you, and also you have to be sworn, too, for the record, in
case we need to ask or refer questions to you.
With those comments, I am pleased to recognize, at this
point, the Honorable Thomas E. Noel. He is the associate judge
of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Welcome, sir, and you
are recognized. You may have to pull that up as close as you
can.
STATEMENTS OF HON. THOMAS E. NOEL, ASSOCIATE JUDGE, CIRCUIT
COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY; ANNE SWERN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
KINGS COUNTY, NY; RON DANIEL, POLICE COMMISSIONER; STUART
SIMMS, SECRETARY, MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES; PETER BEILENSON, COMMISSIONER, BALTIMORE
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH; RENEE ROBINSON, TREATMENT/CRIMINAL
JUSTICE COORDINATOR, BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON HIDTA; AND GEORGE
McCANN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BALTIMORE ADDICT REFERRAL AND
COUNSELING CENTER
Judge Noel. I will keep my voice up.
Mr. Mica. Great. Thank you.
Judge Noel. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. Cummings, Mr.
Cardin. It is good to see all of you, and thank all of you so
much for inviting me and coming to Baltimore.
I wanted to acknowledge Judge Kenneth L. Johnson. He and I
collaborated on the paper that I submitted, and some years ago,
in 1992, he began efforts to open our eyes to how devastating
the drug problem in Baltimore City had become.
My comments will primarily focus on Baltimore City, the
illegal narcotics impact, and our treatment efforts. I have
recently sat for 3 years in our Drug Felony Court, and that is
a real penalty. And I have also presided over one of our drug
treatment courts for an 18-month period, which proved to be
truly one of the most educational and enlightening experiences
I have had as a judge. Sometimes we almost felt as if we were
taking off the robes and acting as social workers.
I have also served as a liaison between Baltimore's Circuit
Court and District Court regarding the drug treatment program.
There is no doubt that the illegal narcotics epidemic has
affected all of us to some extent, either directly or
indirectly, and I must say it has truly affected me directly. I
have family members that have succumbed to this addiction.
This epidemic has dealt a severe blow to the city, the
State, as well as the entire country. It is now time to openly
and honestly face the reality of where our city stands and the
degree of this epidemic. It is important to understand the
impact of this problem.
By 1996, drug use in Baltimore had soared over the last
several years to the extent that the city was actually in
danger of becoming the drug capital of the Nation. The drug
abuse warning network--and I would like to submit that report
as an exhibit--is a survey of reported drug episodes in
emergency rooms throughout 21 major American cities.
Baltimore had the highest number of heroin and cocaine
episodes in any of these cities in 1994, and the second highest
number for heroin and highest number for cocaine in 1995. In
1995, emergency room visits in Baltimore were 12 times more
likely to involve heroin than the national average.
Baltimore had more than twice the heroin-related emergency
episodes per capita than New York City, and more than twice the
cocaine-related emergency room episodes for either Detroit or
Miami. In 1998, Baltimore was only the sixth highest rated city
of heroin episodes and the eighth for cocaine.
The chairman had indicated figures somewhat higher than
mine, but Maryland's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration
estimated, in 1994, that an astonishing 9 percent of the city
residents, or close to 62,000 of our residents, actually needed
drug treatment. A more conservative number is--using national
standards, place the number around 44,000.
As I indicated in the paper, this epidemic has had a
disastrous impact on the fiber of this city. From the human
factor, this cancer has devastated generations. Rarely does a
week pass without the loss of life from drug-related activity,
AIDS, murder, overdose, and so forth. Families are destroyed,
loved ones are at odds with one another, and the list goes on.
This sudden explosion of drug-related issues has had a
major impact on our court system also. In 1993, our typical
felony caseload in the Baltimore City Circuit Court was about
3,300 defendants. By 1998, this number had exploded to close to
8,500, mostly black males.
Last week, I took the liberty to determine the number of
individuals being held at our pretrial detention services, and
3,200 defendants were being held, 2,900 of them being black.
Easily two-thirds of the cases in our criminal system
handling felonies are narcotic cases, either indicted or
charged through criminal information, through the Narcotics
Division. Now, this explosion in our dockets has attributed to
many of the problems of our court system that the media has
focused on. Obviously, the courts and support agencies did not
expand proportionately to address the problem.
Baltimore City contains roughly 14 percent of the State's
population, but accounts for 64 percent of the new prison
commitments. And to correct one misconception--when I found
this information, I was somewhat surprised. But the Department
of Justice reports that six times as many homicides and four
times as many assaults and one and one-half times as many
robberies are committed due to the psychopharmacologic
influence of drugs as are committed to obtain money for drugs.
This problem has inundated our court system to the extent
that we now have four full-time felony drug courts operating
handling exclusively drug cases. Effective drug treatment must
now be seriously considered in addressing this dilemma, as many
now are beginning to admit. The goal of treatment must be to
intervene effectively in an individual's addiction, to stop
both the drug use and the collateral behaviors harmful to the
individuals in this community.
Treatment must consist of educating and counseling to alter
thinking and attitudes. In March 1994, the drug treatment court
began to effectively counter this problem.
Another exhibit that should be included--in Baltimore City
we now have 467 defendants in the Circuit Court, and in the
District Court 271 defendants, participating in our drug
treatment program. The program has proven very successful for
those who have been involved.
The recidivist rate is significantly lower than for those
on standard probation. Seventy-seven percent of the graduates
were arrest-free as of June 1998. The program consists of
active monitoring and treatment. When a defendant goes into
this program initially, we hope that the defendant is not
employed and has all free time, because the first 4 to 6 weeks
of the program are extremely rigorous, with urinalysis,
treatment, and counseling. This program also has a job
component built in once the defendant evolves through the
program.
The average age of the participant in this program is 36
years of age. I have found that the older defendant is more
amenable to treatment than many of the younger individuals. And
I find that most of them just have to hit rock bottom before
they are actually willing to consider treatment seriously.
Now, the gender ratio is 58.1 percent male and 41.9 percent
female. Now, drug treatment can also be cost effective. The
average daily cost of incarceration is $56.65. And that is
annually over $20,000. The average cost of those involved in
our drug treatment program is $10 a day, which averages out to
just over $4,000.
Participants in this program, the only alternative--for
most of the participants, the only other alternative would be
incarceration, because most of them have such significant
records because most of the defendants we have have long-
standing, long-term addiction problems, and their records
accurately reflect that. They have been--and you can look at a
defendant's record and realize if it is an addiction record,
because of the thefts, the shopliftings, and the continuous use
of drugs.
As one graduate told me, the program is not going to work
until the participant wants a life change. This is why I feel
the successful participant is usually the older individual.
Our society must develop a means to make the addict realize
the necessity to change. This will only be accomplished by our
efforts to educate. We must recognize the actual health
problems addiction presents and expand effective treatment.
Now, to some extent, the success of our program has caused
us many problems because as of January we had to stop accepting
defendants in the program because we ran out of funding, and,
fortunately, another program gave us outpatient treatment slots
but no inpatient residential slots.
We review this monthly in an effort to try to resume
admission into the program because of its success. And I must
admit the first time I went into drug court, I was not
optimistic. I had real reservations about those that could--
whether or not an individual could change. But I have seen
many, many individuals who have changed.
One defendant comes to see me regularly, and now he has
gotten his--whatever the license is required, to drive tractor-
trailers, and he drives nationally now. And this individual
usually comes to our drug court graduations, and our next
graduation is April 28th, the Circuit Court, and I would invite
all of you to attend.
To effectively combat this drug epidemic, law enforcement
will also have to broaden its perspective and rearrange some
priorities. When reviewing this problem, we must not only look
at it from the perspective of the volume of illegal narcotics
in the community, we must also begin to focus on the money
generated from the sales.
Am I running out of time?
Mr. Mica. You could begin to conclude.
Judge Noel. The average dealer earns one-tenth of the
moneys or funds generated from drug sales, and where does this
balance go? Tracking the money may ultimately lead us to those
in control. Our past course of following the narcotics has yet
to prove successful. All branches of Government, the clergy,
law enforcement, as well as those working in the area of
academics, are holding a meaningful dialog on the alternatives
to the past. A strategy is necessary to effect change because
this problem is having a devastating effect on our city.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Judge Noel follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you for your testimony. We will ask
questions after we have heard from all of the panelists.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Ronald Daniel, who is the
police commissioner.
Mr. Daniel. Chairman Mica, Congressman Cardin, thank you
for your kind invitation to participate today.
As a law enforcement officer, I enjoy arresting people
involved in the drug trade. It is my job. But it pains me when
I talk to so many individuals who are addicted to drugs, who
want and seek treatment, and it is not available for them. Many
police officers, particularly ones who develop informants and
sources of information, talk to people who want to try to get
out of their problem. A lot of them are bright, decent,
hardworking people.
When you watch a drug dealer operate, if they just took
that energy and just did something else, they could be very
productive citizens. And coming up in Baltimore--you know, I
grew up in this city, and so many of my childhood friends got
involved with drugs. Some of my relatives have the same
problems. Even people who grew up in the same households, one
child goes one way, another goes another way. It happens all
the time.
I think that if there were more treatment opportunities--I
have worked with a program called ``hot spots'' for the past 2
years, which is a program sponsored to give parolees and
probationers enhanced supervision by reducing the caseload in
heavy crime areas of the city. And when I was going out with
them on field interviews and talking to so many addicts, a lot
of them weren't doing what they were supposed to. And the
ones--again, I saw significant numbers of people wanting
treatment and being told, ``You have to wait 30 or 45 days just
to be screened to get into a treatment program.''
And with an addict, you know, when they make that decision
they want to try to turn things around, you have got to have
some type of immediate response to help them. Otherwise, you
simply lose them. They are just back in the same environment
they were in before. A lot of times an arrest situation could
be the factor that triggers it. But if we can't offer them some
assistance immediately, you know, it doesn't do us any good.
Without question, there is a connection between drugs and
crime, especially violent crime in Baltimore. We have
significant numbers of open air drug markets in this city. The
mayor has committed, and I am committed, to shutting down 10 of
them within 6 months. We have pledged to do that, and then we
are going to identify 20 more open air drug markets within the
next year.
These are the kinds of things and aggressive law
enforcement action that we are going to take. Beyond the
enforcement action regarding shutting down the open air drug
markets, we have been working with the Health Department, the
Department of Social Services, Department of Public Works, to
improve the quality of life in the surrounding neighborhoods.
And we are not going to leave the neighborhoods or the
areas until the problem goes away. So unlike some enforcement
actions, where you come in, raid, and then leave, and the
neighborhood reverts back, we are going to take steps so that
that doesn't happen. And that is a little difference here for
us.
I was going to talk a little bit about the dollar figure
with addicts, but that was spoken about before. But the fact
that addicts steal $100 a day to get $10 for cocaine, or a hit
of cocaine, or heroin in this city, means when you multiply
that by their needs and the number of addicts that we have in
this city, that is why people's homes are broken into. That is
why people get robbed. That is why cars are broken into down in
the Inner Harbor, to feed and fuel this drug trade.
In this city, we also have some significant--you heard
about it--suburbanites coming into Baltimore to buy drugs. We
do something called reverse stings here, where police officers
pose as drug dealers, and we target areas where we can get
people from out of the city who come in. And a couple of weeks
ago we ran an operation over in the southwest part of the city,
and we asked the people, ``Why did you come here? What led you
to Baltimore?''
One gentleman was from southern Pennsylvania, and he told
us that he had gotten the directions for this particular drug
corner written on a 7-11 wall in Pennsylvania. And the reason
that we have such high purity, low cost, and significant
numbers of drug markets in this city, which is one of the
reasons why we have this large drug problem. Also, quite
frankly, we have had prior enforcement action of the drug trade
that wasn't what it was supposed to be.
You asked about HIDTA. I met with the local HIDTA officials
a couple of weeks ago, got a briefing. HIDTA is good for us,
and I thank you for their support. We have underutilized HIDTA
here. We have not kept up with our commitment for HIDTA. You
know, most law enforcement agencies commit to having some of
their own people, and we withdrew those people without
explanation to HIDTA. I have already taken care of that
problem, and I think HIDTA will say that we are cooperating
much better than we had.
HIDTA helps us a lot. They have excellent crime analysis
capabilities, criminal intelligence capabilities, and, of
course, they have some sophisticated equipment that we use. And
they are posed to tackle and take on some of our heaviest drug
organizations, and we are extremely appreciative.
Heroin is the primary drug of choice in Baltimore, followed
by cocaine and marijuana. I was surprised about the resurgence
of marijuana with regard to violent crimes. In my old
neighborhood, in West Baltimore, marijuana is the only drug
sold on that corner. And I was surprised to see the violence
shootings, killings, significant numbers of arrests, and so
marijuana, cocaine, and heroin are some of the significant
problems for us in this city.
Drugs are moved through this city every way imaginable.
Primarily we get most of our drugs from New York. It is still a
source city. Trains, cars, and we do interdiction exercises at
most of these places, but it is difficult to stem the tides.
What we intend to do is to try to shut down as many open
air drug markets that we can, because we think that that
directly affects the violence in the city, and we are going to
work as hard as we can on stabilizing neighborhoods and getting
people to feel good about themselves, to move back into the
city, because we are significantly losing some of our tax base.
Citizens deserve to be safer than they are right now.
You asked the question about why, and about policies here.
Our police officers have often been confused about policies of
the leadership in the city, what direction they should take, do
they want us to make drug arrests or not, what are they saying
about drugs. There is no confusion any more. We are going to be
aggressive with drug enforcement in the city. We have to be. We
have a horrendous murder rate. We have got 64 murders so far
this year, many of them--at least 40 to 60--are probably drug
related.
We have had some significant problems investigating crimes
because of failed policies in the past, and have taken
corrective action for that. We feel that we should turn things
around. We certainly appreciate your assistance. We appreciate
your coming here, listening to us. But we do have a significant
problem in Baltimore.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Commissioner Daniel.
We will now hear from Dr. Peter Beilenson, commissioner of
the Baltimore Department of Public Health. You are recognized,
sir.
Dr. Beilenson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
Congresspeople. Well, you have heard very eloquently from
several people now about what the problems are, and I think you
will find that we are an unusual jurisdiction in that most of
the people you have been hearing from have criminal justice
backgrounds. And you will be hearing from Secretary Simms
shortly.
And in few, if any, other jurisdictions, can you find that
public health and criminal justice officials agree completely
that (a) you need to have some type of criminal justice
activity on the violent, drug-related offenders, but you also
clearly need more treatment, both voluntarily and through the
courts. And I think you hear this loud and clear from the
mayor, from the county executive, from our police commissioner.
And I assume you will hear it also from Secretary Simms. I
don't want to speak for him.
We have done a lot in this city over the last several years
to increase drug treatment. Along with San Francisco, we are
the only city that I know of that has doubled drug treatment.
Most of that has been through city resources and foundation
dollars that we have raised.
In answer to your earlier question, our block grant, at
least until this past year, has been static--the State-Federal
block grant--for several years. And the only increase we had
recently was to increase salaries for some of our treatment
providers because the counselors are woefully underpaid.
Even still, with doubling treatment availability in the
city, we are serving only about 18,000 to 20,000 of the 55,000
or so addicts in this city. I would just point out that that
chart is not right. In 1950, we didn't have 300 heroin addicts
in Baltimore. We had tens of thousands. So it has not
increased, whatever that is, 3,800-fold, or whatever.
Clearly, we have a major problem. We have about 55,000
addicts, as Commissioner Daniel was mentioning. The primary
drug of choice is heroin about 70 percent of the time. However,
most of our addicted individuals in the city are polysubstance
users. They use heroin and cocaine, maybe marijuana as well,
alcohol, tobacco. So it is a serious problem.
Our proposal is very simple. You asked the mayor earlier I
think does his proposal include things like jobs, and
Congressman Cummings was talking about that. It has been in the
paper--I don't expect that Congressman Mica has read this, but
I know that our two congressional representatives certainly
have. We have a proposal in to the Governor for $25 million.
Just so you know, our general--where we are coming from, about
$30 million is spent on drug treatment in Baltimore City each
year.
The crime costs, as Commissioner Daniel was referring to,
are $2 to $3 billion a year; $50 to $75 a day habit times
55,000 addicts times 365 days comes to about $1\1/2\ billion.
But people get on the street, for what they--you can't sell
what you steal on the street on a one-to-one basis. So the
bottom line is $2 to $3 billion in crime each year.
What we have asked for is $25 million to be able to expand
treatment so that we will be able to have people who are either
required by the courts in whatever way that happens, through
drug court or on parole and probation, or referred directly in
from the streets, self-referrals, because they have hit bottom
and are ready for treatment, to be able to have whatever
modality that would serve them best within 24 hours. So you
have this immediate treatment, as Commissioner Daniel was
talking about--the importance of that.
But it is not enough just to get people clean. It is not
that difficult to get people clean. And if you want to ask
questions later, I have a lot of our statistics here from
Baltimore, our performance measures of our treatment programs.
The key is to keep them clean. And the way to keep them clean
is, as Congressman Cummings was implying, are wraparound
services--kind of a silly term for very important things.
So our $25 million proposal included enough treatment slots
to provide the appropriate type of treatment for everybody who
needs it or is required to go into treatment in Baltimore City
within 24 hours; plus onsite housing services, so we can refer
people to appropriate housing; job training and placement. And
there is a strive program in Baltimore, which you may want to
ask about, that has worked very well at getting addicted
individuals who are recovering into jobs.
Babysitting and day care services--crucial for the moms and
more and more a lot of dads who have custody of their kids who
can't go to drug treatment during the day if they can't find
someone to watch their children. And mental health and medical
services. All of these are in the $25 million proposal. And as
the mayor has said, he has met several times with the Governor
and now the Lieutenant Governor, and so far we are not getting
the $25 million.
It is a tiny amount of money in a huge State budget. And
when you look at the incredible cost to the State of Maryland
of these $2 to $3 billion in crime costs--and that is city cost
alone. It doesn't include the Baltimore County crimes that are
being committed by city residents. We think it would be money
extremely well spent.
I would be happy when you ask questions--I know you are
concerned, Congressman Mica, about the needle exchange program.
We have excellent statistics on that. And if you want to ask
about the performance measures we use here in the city in our
treatment programs to show that they do work, I would be happy
to answer them as well.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Beilenson follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you. I would like to recognize now Mr.
Stuart Simms, who is the secretary of the Maryland Department
of Public Safety and Correctional Services. You are recognized,
sir.
Mr. Simms. Good morning, Chairman. Good morning,
Congressman Cummings. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am
Stuart Simms, secretary, Department of Public Safety and
Correctional Services. We operate the prisons throughout the
State, of which there are 26, also the Division of Parole and
Probation, as well as the local jail facilities. And so we
operate the Baltimore City Detention Facility as well.
I will try to move quickly through these remarks. I will
submit the prepared remarks for your review, but very quickly I
want to thank Congressman Cummings. His interest in this issue
has been consistent throughout. As you may know, he had a
substantial role in development of a study on African-American
males by this State, which focuses particularly on the racial
imbalance in our institutions. I have used it as a principle
starting point to broaden educational services within our
current system.
You can look at the ACA, American Correctional Association,
review, which points out Maryland as being one of those States
that has a progressive educational system.
I also want to express my thanks to the Congress for their
early support of the correctional options amendments to the
Crime Control Act of 1990. That act enables our State agency to
be the State agency which funds the bulk of drug court, along
with the State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which
funds most of the substance abuse treatment services that have
been discussed and will be discussed here today.
I also wanted to indicate, with respect to your interest
about HIDTA, you are going to hear from Ms. Robinson. HIDTA has
been of invaluable assistance certainly on the law enforcement
side. I am familiar with that because I was the former elected
prosecutor for Baltimore City for two terms, as well as a
former Federal prosecutor.
And they have been extremely vital, both on the law
enforcement side and on the treatment side as well. Indeed, one
of our former directors of parole and probation served as
treatment chairman for several years.
I also wanted to indicate there are two things that I think
we have done as a State agency. The first fundamental principle
is that basically treatment has to be viewed as a crime
reduction strategy. Second, that the public safety agencies
cannot solely implement after-care substance abuse services. We
have done that in partnership with the local Department of
Health. We have done that in substantial partnership with the
State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Secretary
Georges Benjamin was here. However, I know representatives of
the State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration are here, and
they have participated significantly in the local service
delivery issue.
I want to point out, as has been said, I think it would be
great to get the $25 million that Dr. Beilenson just discussed.
We are moving forward as an agency to expand, I think, our
service by expanding the number of parole and probation agents,
as well as our services. You must understand also that there
are State legislators who are certainly interested in the
returns that they are getting on these dollars.
And so at the same time that they are being appropriated,
both from State and Federal sources, local and State are asking
for results. I am pleased to report that HIDTA has been an
important link in providing those results. And as you will hear
from later, both from Ms. Robinson and from Dr. Taxman, your
funding of HIDTA has elevated the whole delivery and monitoring
system to show our results. And that has been a key issue.
There are three basic and interrelated approaches which
comprise the balance of our service delivery, and I want to
sketch those very quickly for you. The first is the
correctional options program I just discussed. That began back
in 1994, and in 1994 it was a direct response to unprecedented
growth in the State's prison population, which had doubled
between 1987 and 1997.
Basically, the program targets offenders whose criminality
is due principally to substance abuse problems. Those entering
the programs are screened to determine severity of their
addiction, with the appropriate instruments, and we rule out
any person who has been convicted or charged with a serious
felony.
The offenders are often required to participate in
mandatory drug testing, outpatient drug treatment, job
counseling, and those who comply with the conditions may be
placed in less stringent levels of supervision. And offenders
who do not comply may be placed in more stringent levels of
supervision and may be returned to State prison in special
programs, such as a regimented offender treatment center, which
is institutionally based.
Interesting components of the program include intensive
supervision units, day reporting centers, which we are having
problems locating incidentally, community resource
coordinators, and a urine testing lab. We run a huge urine
testing lab in East Baltimore, and it tests over 10,000
offenders a year.
Currently, there are 3,000 offenders in our correctional
office's program locally, and about 400 of those are
institutional, who are going back and forth as a sanction of
sorts.
A study was conducted of this particular facet of our
program and offering, and we found that there was a 30 percent
difference in the rate of return versus regular DOC releases.
We found that 50 percent of the people in programs are less
likely to commit new offenses. We found--or I should say the
National Center for Crime Delinquency, which did the study,
found that there was a $50 million cost avoidance in prison
construction and a $13 million cost avoidance in operating
costs. In summary, the low recidivism rate and fiscal savings
supported our conclusion that the program was cost effective.
The second approach is drug treatment court that the judge just
talked about, utilizing a partnership with the judiciary and
prosecutor's office. I did see the DTAP program under--I
Charles Hynes, who is a prosecutor up there, and I know John
O'Hare, who was a prosecutor in Detroit.
We looked at the program, looked at the program facets. We
utilized that partnership with the State Drug and Alcohol Abuse
Administration, as well as the City Health Department, as well
as the city prosecutor's office and the local public offender's
office, to feature expedited case handling, intensive drug
supervision, with periodic drug testing and mandatory drug
treatment.
And it may be pointed out by other witnesses today, a
University of Maryland official, Dr. Denise Gotferson, has done
a preliminary analysis, and certainly the program has proved to
be effective. Note from what Judge Noel indicated, the program
has about 700 folks in it. And it is primarily focused for
individuals who are usually about above 30 and have a heroin
background.
The second approach is distinguished from the third basic
approach that we use called ``break the cycle'' where we focus
on a younger offender who potentially is more violent and more
volatile. And in 1998, the legislation did fund about roughly
$3 million to fund that program in seven jurisdictions.
The key approach to this is utilizing, as I said, the very
funding that you made available through HIDTA, a program called
HATTS, which is our Automated Treatment and Tracking System,
because you need to know the outcomes on individuals and where
they went, what happened to them, and what their rate of
recidivism was or repeat offense was.
This program relies on all of the other facets that I have
just mentioned, the drug testing, and monitoring, but it relies
on followup with agents of the Division of Parole and Probation
to ensure that the offenders attend urinalysis testing.
We haven't done any outcome study, yet. The program is
relatively new, but some of the preliminary data, which I am
sure Dr. Taxman will highlight in our discussion, was a typical
offender is male, between 21 and 29, as opposed to a 36-year
old; 23 percent decrease in the number of rearrests; a decline
in drug use of 53 percent; and a decrease in the number of
people who failed to appear for urinalysis testing as we
developed this particular program.
We think these combined strategies and approach are very
fruitful. They have to be continued and built upon. There are
some additional factors I think that you need in order to
sustain significant drug prevention and alternatives to
incarceration programs. The first is a successful drug
treatment delivery system.
Again, I salute my partners in the State health system, Dr.
Benjamin and also Dr. Beilenson here. You will hear a little
bit later about the Baltimore Substance Abuse System, BSAS.
There is a representative of that organization here, which is a
public-private partnership, to try to work with the providers
and get people into treatment.
Second, you need community service. You need community
service grants, whether that is from State, local, or Federal
Government.
And, third, I think--and something that this Congress
should think about--is appropriating dollars for sentencing
guideline organizations, of which there is one in the State of
Maryland, to look at developing local treatment options and
alternatives to incarceration.
Three things I would like to recommend to you--the
continuing funding of the residential substance abuse treatment
program. This Department receives dollars from the Federal
Government to treat offenders behind bars. We do not treat
enough of them. Any program broadening would be helpful.
Second, expanding funding in technical assistance for
transitional programs. You have heard here today that
transitional programming, including those components of day
care, after care, and other aspects, need to be offered from a
Division of Parole and Probation or a State correctional
perspective. That is not our core competency. Therefore, job
referrals and other aspects that we do do, we should be
referring them to professionals who do that on a full-time
basis.
And, last, I think you have a clear opportunity--Maryland
has one of the lowest referral rates of women to prison. And
although that is a growing population nationally, we think
because they are ``smarter'' than men, you have a clear
opportunity, if you fund specific programs related to women,
that we can develop in scale and score some big opportunities.
And so if you take nothing else from this hearing from me
today, I think it is an incredible opportunity, I think, to
specifically design and tailor programs related to women
involved in substance abuse who primarily at all do not need to
be in an incarcerative situation.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify and look forward
to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simms follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you, and we will now recognize Ms. Renee
Robinson, who is the treatment/criminal justice coordinator for
Baltimore/Washington, HIDTA. You are recognized.
Ms. Robinson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Cummings. I would like to thank everyone for the opportunity to
speak on the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA. I thank my
distinguished colleagues for their positive comments of
support, and I ask that the committee indulge my fluctuations
in voice. Today is the day that my allergies decided that they
would attack me, but I will proceed as best I can.
You have heard a lot about the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA,
and I represent specifically, as Congressman Mica mentioned,
the treatment/criminal justice component. That initiative is
comprised of 12 jurisdictions across the Maryland and
Washington, DC area.
The Washington/Baltimore HIDTA is considered somewhat of a
prototype because it is one of the only HIDTAs across the
country that has a treatment, criminal justice, and a
prevention component. I would like to share with you also that
the primary goal of that initiative is to reduce the demand for
drugs for the hard core drug addicted offender population.
We recognize that the demand reduction approach and the
criminal justice supervision and treatment interventions for
this population are effective tools. By improving outcomes for
hard core offenders, changes can be expected in their substance
abusing consumption as well as their criminal behaviors.
The second goal is to improve treatment services for the
hard core offender population. The objective of this goal is to
address enhancing and developing the continuum of care and
wraparound services that my colleagues have mentioned
previously, and using HIDTA funds to provide for one part of
that continuum.
Both treatment interventions and sanctions are incorporated
into this process and expanding the use of community resources
in addressing critical gaps in services.
The third goal aims to improve communications by developing
regional and local management information systems. Dr. Simms
mentioned the HATTS system. An objective of HATTS is to create
an automated system for both treatment and criminal justice
systems in each jurisdictions to case manage automatically and
appropriately services for offenders who are involved in both
systems, so that both will have access to progress or lack
thereof of those offenders while they are involved in those
systems.
This automation will allow for prompt and appropriate
information dissemination and sharing across these systems, and
within jurisdictions within the region. The cornerstone of the
HIDTA model is the development of a seamless system in the
jurisdiction, and that was mentioned earlier this morning, too.
The seamless system is defined as having service delivery links
across criminal justice and treatment agencies, together with
umbrella policies and procedures.
And that is a very, very critical piece because there is a
misnomer, I believe, that exists within the community, the
criminal justice community, as well as the treatment community,
that there is a system. There is not a system per se, but there
are separate agencies that have separate functions that don't
always work together collaboratively in order to manage the
offender while they are effectively under supervision in those
respective agencies.
They don't always communicate with one another effectively,
so establishing those links between those systems, and
establishing communication across those systems, is what
ensures accountability for those offenders as they move through
the service continuum. If we are not talking to one another, we
are not allowing these offenders opportunities to know up front
what is expected of them while they are involved in the
treatment system, and while they are involved in the
supervision system. We are creating gaps for them to wiggle
between.
We need to close those gaps if we are going to be effective
in developing systems, and if we are going to be effective in
increasing the likelihood of success and increasing the
outcomes for these offenders.
Agencies who are involved in the HIDTA continuum make
decisions based on memorandums of agreement, whereby the
responsibilities are outlined by each agency, and they are
signed off on. There is no miscommunication between these
agencies as to what is expected, what role each of them will
play, and which role each of them are responsible for as the
offender goes respectively through that system.
This mix increases coordination between these agencies and
reduces duplication of services, and that is critically
important. We all know that there is a resource pool that is
dwindling. There is a resource pool that does not meet the need
of that population that we serve, so it makes absolutely no
sense that we are duplicating services.
What HIDTA tries to do is to bring together all of the
players involved and make these decisions up front, so that we
can best expend the resources as we can.
Finally, agencies must define how these entities are going
to be integrated in order to meet the tasks and the service
functions in this delivery system.
The other set of policies that are required for an
effective seamless system has already been mentioned earlier
this morning, and that is the development of graduated
sanctions. Graduated sanctions are critical in ensuring that
the offender is held accountable while they are involved in the
system, so that the wiggle room that I mentioned earlier is
closed.
That is how I believe the recidivism rates continue to
escalate throughout the criminal justice system in the manner
that it does, because we have these large gaps where they are
just in limbo, and the system has not all the time set up
adequate mechanisms to address the offenses once they occur.
The offenders get the opinion that they are not going to be
held accountable.
In a previous life, I worked in the Virginia Department of
Corrections, and I was the program director of the largest
substance abuse prison facility at the time in the country. And
on numerous opportunities I have spoken with the offenders, and
one of the things that they always shared with me is, ``Ms.
Robinson, no one ever told me what I needed to do. No one ever
said to me--or if I did something wrong, no one came back to me
and said that this was going to be the response for that.''
It is critical that jurisdictions come together and develop
the set of graduated sanctions, so that the offenders, when
they first come into the system, are specifically told what it
is that is expected of them, and what is going to happen to
them in the event that they are not performing at the levels
that we expect that they should.
Excuse me. My voice is fading.
The development also of drug testing policies is critical
because we need to know that with the interventions that we are
utilizing that they are not outwardly complying but still
using, and drug testing is a critical component in ensuring
that they are adhering to their sanction schedule, that they
are adhering to their supervision schedule, that they are
adhering to their treatment expectations, and, most
importantly, that they are not using drugs anymore.
I would like to also, in closing with my comments, mention
that the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA has received level funding
for the treatment/criminal justice initiative. I think that in
order for us to continue to assist the jurisdictions involved
in our project that we need to account for the lack of funding
that the jurisdictions are facing in expanding the services for
the number of offenders that continually are coming through
their system.
HIDTA does not provide absolute funding for any of the
jurisdictions. What we have allowed them to do is to utilize
HIDTA moneys to augment existing gaps in their current system.
And in doing so, there are a number of clients that are not
being served with HIDTA funds for a number of reasons. Some of
them do not meet the criteria for the HIDTA protocol, and there
are such numbers involved in that system that we cannot serve
all of--we cannot provide funding in those jurisdictions for
the number of clients that may meet our criteria.
So I would like to also close with that comment.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you for your testimony.
I would like to now recognize Mr. George McCann. He is the
executive director of the Baltimore Addict Referral and
Counseling Center.
Mr. McCann. I would like to thank the chairman and
Congressman Cummings for the opportunity to be here. My
perspective is a little different. I am an executive director
of a treatment program in Baltimore City, and I have been
affiliated with that program since 1970. It was a program that
was established to treat the criminal justice system.
I am also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I have
been a part of both systems. I have been incarcerated as many
times as I have been in treatment. I say that not braggingly
but to illustrate that we are dealing with illness here that
has a relapse factor, and that many people do not get well the
first time they are put in a treatment program.
There is a dire need for multi-modalities of treatment,
especially involved in the city. Prior to 1997, we were the
central referral for Baltimore City programs, and our service
was discontinued at that time because it was--the situation
presented itself, it was more problems--I mean, more patients
presenting themselves for treatment than there were treatment
slots in the community.
So people were being put on waiting lists, rearrested, and
reincarcerated, and it was deemed that this service was no
longer needed.
However, we are now a part of this criminal justice
initiative, drug court, break the cycle. And we, at our
agency--I won't speak for the whole system--at our agency, it
has caused extreme difficulties in operating an agency, in
keeping the staff employed, in keeping clients in treatment,
because they have put together a treatment--with break the
cycle, with graduated sanctions, where you must comply, go to,
and complete urinalysis during treatment.
However, if you don't go, nothing happens. And as a result,
when the people that come to us know that nothing happens,
first of all, 50 percent of the people do not even show up for
their first appointment at the treatment program. And when you
inquire about that, we are told by a unit that that is not
their job. Their job is to make the referral, and then it is
so--what I am trying to say, is that hundreds of people are
falling through the cracks, out there roaming the streets of
Baltimore, continuing to commit crimes, use drugs, all because
the system is broken.
I mean, the concept makes sense to me. Had I not been
coerced in my own experiences, I probably would not have
entered treatment. That is the nature of the illness. You know,
you don't wake up 1 day and say, ``I think I will run to a
treatment program and get my life together.'' There is usually
some force that pushes you in there.
I have to tell you, had I been in the system today, I would
probably either be in jail or be dead. The system is so
overburdened--the treatment system that is. It has been since
the Nixon administration. From that administration down, there
has been a--year after year they have taken money out of the
funds for substance abuse and alcohol treatment, continually.
Whenever there is a shortfall, the history indicates to go
to mental health, go to substance abuse, and take it there. As
a result, we have lost social workers, psychiatrists, doctors,
and many resource people that we had at one time when I was a
part of the system, that allowed it to work that are no longer
a part of that system.
It is hard to--I have employment opportunities now. And I
will tell you, it is hard to even hire people because for the
salary you want--you want them to be a death and dying
counselor. They have to be an employment counselor. They have
to be a family counselor. They have to provide child care
services. And that is what we are asked to do, and we can't do
it.
I think if we look at what is effective treatment, and
Congressman Cummings alluded to it, if you look at the things
that are effective for the recovering community, they basically
have to deal with spiritual or 12-step programs. And I think it
is worth mentioning that I think one of the reasons they are so
effective is that they have a primary purpose.
They are not to treat everything and everybody and do
everything for everybody. What they are designed to do, and do
do, is allow people to get clean and sober, allow them to have
resources and to get jobs, allow them to put their families
back together, and allow them to go into a treatment program
and utilize the treatment services, because at that point they
recognize they need other help.
So there are a lot of things--I have submitted written
testimony. I started using and abusing drugs when I was 13
years old. And, you know, I am not proud of it, but that is
what happened. I was caught up in the criminal justice system
similar to what was spoken about here today. I would go away
for a year, serve my time, I would--I had the same lifestyle in
jail as I had outside. You know, I would deal, buy, and use
drugs to stay high, in prison as well. It was like a city
within a city.
Anything that was available on the street was available in
the institution. I would get out. I would stay out for about 6
months. I would start drinking again, start using drugs. I
would be caught back up in the system. Went back in.
And it was just a continual cycle. I knew I was a drug
addict. I knew I needed help. But I didn't know what kind of
help I needed, but I kind of suspected I was not going to get
it in jail. So I was a part of that revolving door they were
talking about.
I would like to close with this, because I can get lengthy
sometimes and I try not to do that. One of the things that is
very needed are treatment slots. OK? And I have to say, along
with the treatment slots, they need agents on the Division of
Parole and Probation.
When I inquire as to why sanctions and why action is not
taken for these people not following the plans that are set up
for them, we are told things like there is not enough agents. I
know there are not enough agents, but there are not enough drug
counselors either.
We have a treatment program located in Baltimore City that
treats the sickest of the sick and the most needy of Baltimore
City. And we deal with every kind of issue possible. One of the
things I never hear anybody talk about is the client-counselor
ratio. I mean, as a way to address funding sources, they say to
the counselors, ``You have to see more people.'' So instead of
seeing 20 people and being able to do a good, effective job,
they want you to see 35 or 40 people. You know, so the soup
gets so watered that the help is not really rendered to the
degree that it can be.
There needs to be residential treatment, graduated
sanctions, a mechanism put in place--there was a mechanism in
place prior to this break the cycle initiative where we went
from operating at 20 percent above capacity to operating at 40
percent below capacity. And that was when the agents could
refer themselves. Now they set up a little network here, chose
a gatekeeper, and you have got to go through the gate and jump
through all of the loops, and ultimately, you get a referral to
a treatment program. If you go, fine; and if you don't go, also
fine.
So, you know, the system is obviously broken. I have a
commitment to do what I can, to try and make it work. I think
conceptually it is a good system. Both parties need to be at
the table--criminal justice and treatment. But neither agency
has the resources or manpower needed to do a complete job.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCann follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you.
I would like to now recognize Ms. Anne Swern. She is the
deputy district attorney, and she is coming to us today from
Kings County, NY. I think she will talk about the DTAP program,
for which we have had previous testimony in Congress. Also, our
panel has visited the program in New York. Welcome, and you are
recognized.
Ms. Swern. Thank you, Congressman Mica. Thank you,
Congressman Cummings, for inviting me to Baltimore. I am here
on behalf of District Attorney Charles J. Hynes to speak to you
about drug treatment alternatives to prison, and substance
abuse. With me is my colleague, Hillel Hoffman, who is woking
on the legislative proposals with your committee.
On the way over here, Hillel and I remarked to each other
that it feels like Fort Green, Brooklyn, as we drove through
Baltimore. I have seen and I have heard a lot about the
similarities between Brooklyn and Baltimore as I sat and
listened for the past several hours.
Brooklyn is Kings County, NY, and it is one of the five
counties in New York City. If it were a city, it would be the
fourth largest in this Nation. It has a very ethnicly diverse
population--30 percent foreign-born, and there are 2.3 million
people living in Brooklyn.
In Brooklyn, in 1999, we had over 30,000 drug arrests. Most
of those were misdemeanor cases, although a substantial portion
of them were felony cases as well. In 1990, District Attorney
Hynes was elected to the position of DA, and in that year there
were 765 homicides in our county.
I am pleased to say that last year there were fewer than
300 homicides in our county, and I think some of the strategies
that District Attorney Hynes has employed, and some of the
strategies of the police department, have helped us bring our
homicide rate down. There is still much more that we can do,
though.
One of the programs that District Attorney Hynes is most
proud of is the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison Program,
also know as DTAP. He started DTAP in 1990, recognizing and
targeting drug addicted predicate felony offenders who were
destined for prison.
In New York, you may know that we have some of toughest
drug laws in the country. Those laws have actually been in
existence since 1973, and they are commonly called the
Rockefeller Drug Laws. There are mandatory prison sentences for
second-time felony offenders accused of possessing or selling
drugs. Typically, that defendant--somebody who has been
previously convicted of a felony is facing a mandatory minimum
sentence of 4\1/2\ to 9 years in prison.
Now, even when assistant district attorneys engage in
substantial plea bargaining, the average defendant facing that
second felony offense on a non-violent felony receives
sentences of 2 to 4 years in State prison or 3 to 6.
Recognizing the senselessness of continuing to incarcerate non-
violent addicts, the District Attorney proposed the Drug
Treatment Alternative to Prison Program, which targeted
predicate felons who were non-violent who were selling drugs to
support their habit, and obviously possessing drugs. As long as
the defendants were non-violent and not major traffickers, we
accepted the addicts into the program.
Recently we have expanded DTAP to include people not only
charged with selling and possessing drugs, but other types of
crimes as well as long as they are not violent crimes.
Typically, we have included larcenies and other types of crimes
that contribute to or are caused by the drug addiction.
Now, when the District Attorney started this program, it
wasn't politically popular to take the mandatory prison bound
defendants and place them in a drug treatment program. But he
felt if he could deal with this difficult population, then
maybe we could make some in-roads into the revolving door
aspect of the criminal justice system.
As it has turned out, predicate felons are one of the
easiest to treat populations of defendants. We have learned,
and we have seen through our drug court and DTAP, that actually
targeting people who face a substantial amount of time in
prison contributes enormously to the success of the treatment
outcomes.
Now, what we do in DTAP is we require the defendant to take
a plea to the felony charge, then we defer the sentence for the
period of time that the defendant is in a therapeutic
community, in a residential drug treatment program, and at the
end of that time, if the defendant successfully completes the
program--which includes the job component, and gets housing
that is appropriate to continue the defendant to be drug-free
and crime-free--we will allow the defendant to withdraw that
plea and end up with a dismissal of the charges. So for the
instant case, the defendant will have no criminal record.
If the defendant fails in treatment, then the defendant is
returned back to court to be sentenced on the original plea.
DTAP also recognizes a system of rewards and sanctions, as
prosecutors have learned that recovery is a process. And so we
recognize that there may be minor relapses, there may be other
matters on the road to recovery that we as prosecutors have
learned to address in an appropriate way, and that includes
this system of rewards and sanctions, intermediate prison
sentences, and things like that.
As we have become more adept at dealing with the
intricacies of addiction, we actually find that our retention
rate improves, and our recidivism rate is lower. So recognizing
what the treatment community has known for a long time has
actually been successful in reducing crime for us.
When we started with DTAP, we were hopeful that it posed no
risk to public safety. And, in fact, we have demonstrated that
that is true. Basically, the DTAP ``in prison'' recidivism rate
is lower than that for the pretrial and in-prison recidivism
rate for a comparison group.
So, basically, while people are in treatment, they are
actually committing fewer crimes than they would if they were
sent to prison.
Also, we looked at recidivism for the treatment graduates
as opposed to the people who were eligible for the program but
did not accept the program or were found ineligible for other
reasons, and we found that our DTAP graduates, 3 years after
receiving treatment, recidivated at a rate of 23 percent. In
comparison, the people who were sent to prison for at least 2
years, after 3 years of being released from prison recidivated
at a rate of 47 percent. So basically by putting them into
treatment we reduced their recidivism rate by half.
Now, the other thing--the other reason that we know that
DTAP poses very little risk to public safety is we employ a
warrant enforcement team. The team consists of detectives hired
by the Brooklyn DA's office who interview the defendants before
we accept them into the program, to make sure that they have
appropriate contacts, so should they leave treatment
facilities, we can return them back to court to face sanctions
for leaving.
In fact, we have been able to return 96 percent of our
defendants in a median time of 9 days, leaving virtually no
opportunity to commit a new crime.
The other measure of DTAP's success is the length of time
we keep defendants in treatment. All of the literature suggests
that the longer people stay in treatment, the more likely a
successful outcome, meaning managing a drug-free and crime-free
life.
We started with two therapeutic communities, and now we
have more than 11 therapeutic communities. The therapeutic
communities in DTAP use use a social learning model that
emphasizes a self-help approach and relies on program graduates
to act as peer counselors, role models, and administrators. It
uses 12-step approaches.
We also, require our defendants who are prison-bound for at
least 2 to 4 years to stay in treatment 15 to 24 months. And
because it is a court-mandated program, in New York State the
Government pays for treatment. As a result of staying for
almost 2 years in treatment, the defendants not only become
drug-free, they are given pro social skills that help them
adapt to life after they leave the treatment facility.
We have a 1-year retention rate of 66 percent, and that is
far higher than other programs that are either not mandated or
not run by effective monitors. Nearly 60 percent of our people
are still in treatment or have graduated from treatment.
After we changed the program slightly, we have raised the
retention rate from 64 percent to 74 percent, so we expect that
our overall retention rate will increase with the number of new
graduates. We also note, that this is not because of the
selection process, but people entering DTAP now are a little
bit older and they were previously employed prior to entering
DTAP. So we expect those numbers to actually increase over
time.
Congressman Cummings, I just want to reemphasize something
you mentioned earlier. DTAP, at our own expense, has a job
developer, a full-time job developer. Additionally, we have a
Business Advisory Council, whom we meet with on a regular
basis, to assess the community's needs for employment as well
as our ability to service that employment.
I think this strategy together provides a very effective
tool for allowing our defendants to stay drug-free and crime-
free. We noted that 26 percent of our DTAP graduates were
employed before they entered DTAP. Now we note proudly that 92
percent of our employable graduates are working or are in a
training program.
We not only help them get their first job, we help them get
every job. A lot of these jobs are seasonal employment. A lot
of these jobs are transitional. And it is unrealistic to expect
that the first job is the only job that the defendants will
ever have.
A very important tool that we have is this job developer,
who allows us to keep in touch with our defendants, to support
them after the case is over, after the case has been dismissed,
to keep them in jobs, which is to my mind, and certainly to the
District Attorney's mind, one of the key elements in keeping
them drug-free and crime-free.
I just want to point out that DTAP is highly cost-
effective. I see my time is up. We had 441 graduates of DTAP.
Our graduates represent a cost saving to New York State of more
than $16 million. Most of those cost savings are corrections
cost savings. In New York, it costs about $82,000 to provide a
slot for a defendant in both the city and State corrections
system.
By contrast, in New York it costs about $21,000 per year to
treat them in a residential facility. The success of DTAP is
demonstrated also by the law enforcement community's adoption
of DTAP. Basically, our four city DAs and our special narcotics
prosecutor, have all started DTAP, as well as many of the other
upstate county DAs. We have been recognized by the Justice
Department as one of the successful recipients of original
Byrne funding, which supported DTAP for a period of time.
We are also the subject of a 5-year NIDA study. That study
has been extended for another 2 years to continue to look at
some of the post-treatment outcomes, cost effectiveness, the
participants' perception of legal coercion, and other things
that NIDA has found particularly helpful and instrumental in
terms of their further study of substance abuse.
The success of DTAP encouraged us to support our drug
treatment court. We have had 1,600 people in our drug treatment
court. They also have a tremendous retention rate. They have a
tremendous success rate. They recently added a job development
component, based on the success of DTAP, and we support our
drug treatment court by sending a very experienced DA into it
who has a lot of discretion to take the pleas and to divert
people into treatment where it is warranted.
I invite anybody who is in this room to come to us in
Brooklyn to see what we do, and I thank you for inviting us
here to Baltimore today.
[Note.--The report entitled, ``DTAP, Drug Treatment
Alternative-to-Prison Program Ninth Annual Report, October 15,
1998 to October 14, 1999,'' may be found in subcommittee
files.]
[The prepared statements of Ms. Swern and Mr. Hynes
follow:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you, and I want to thank each of our
witnesses on this panel. We will start with our first round of
questions here.
Commissioner Daniel, did I hear you correctly when you
testified that I guess the city of Baltimore really wasn't
participating actively with the HIDTA?
Mr. Daniel. No, we participate. But we enter into an
understanding with HIDTA. We had a commitment for a certain
number of officers that was not sustained throughout the term
of the agreement. And when that knowledge----
Mr. Mica. What was the term of that agreement?
Mr. Daniel. They usually run for a year at a time.
Mr. Mica. So in the past, you are saying that the city did
not keep its commitment to participate at the level that it
agreed upon with the HIDTA?
Mr. Daniel. That is correct.
Mr. Mica. And your directive and policy from the mayor and
the current council is to participate at a full level. Is that
correct?
Mr. Daniel. No, I didn't get a directive from them. I just
did it. Basically, there was a need for us to have appropriate
staffing levels in HIDTA. HIDTA gives us so much, we
certainly--it is a small commitment in return.
Mr. Mica. You testified one of the problems is that you are
having difficulty getting the intelligence and information to
go after some of these dealers?
Mr. Daniel. No. I testified that HIDTA has exceedingly high
criminal intelligence capabilities, and that we needed to use
that capability to enhance our efforts in the city.
Mr. Mica. I am sorry. Then you weren't able to utilize that
in the past, is that the problem?
Mr. Daniel. I don't think it was utilized in the past
because we didn't make significant numbers of high-level drug
cases in the city, but as many as we could and should be
making, based on not using HIDTA. HIDTA was there. They have
intelligence capabilities.
Mr. Mica. Right. It has been there. It has also leveled at
a fairly high level, $11.4 million I understand, which is one
of the higher ones that I am aware of. But something seems
wrong in the enforcement end.
Now, the playground that the mayor referred to that was
cleaned up----
Mr. Daniel. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica [continuing]. That was through tough enforcement,
a new enforcement initiative. Is that similar to the kind of
activity you are going to go after in the open--you said you
are going to close down 10 open air drug markets in the next 6
months and go after 20 afterwards. Is that correct?
Mr. Daniel. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Mr. Mica. Why not go after all of them now?
Mr. Daniel. We simply don't have enough police officers and
support assistance----
Mr. Mica. What would it take to close down drug trafficking
in Baltimore? Is this something you can't handle because of
lack of personnel, resources? What do we need?
Mr. Daniel. We do have a personnel shortage in the police
department currently.
Mr. Mica. What would it take to close down all of the drug
markets and go after the big drug traffickers here?
Mr. Daniel. 500 additional police officers.
Mr. Mica. 500 additional police officers.
Mr. Daniel. To do it at one time, yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. To do it at one time. What about Federal
prosecution? Are these people--now, everywhere I have been they
fear Federal prosecution more than they do State. States seem
to be sort of a revolving door. I heard testimony over here
that there is so much wiggle room, and the mayor described a
situation where there--it could be weeks and months before they
are heard, they are back out on the street, the problem
continues.
And those aren't decisions we make at the Federal level, as
far as State and local prosecution. Those are decisions that
are made here. It sounds like you have a very ineffective
enforcement mechanism.
And then I heard testimony from someone, I thought they
said 50 percent of them don't even show up for their first
treatment. Is that correct?
Mr. Simms. That is correct.
Mr. Mica. What is the problem?
Mr. Simms. On the Federal end, if I might, Congressman----
Mr. Mica. OK. The Federal end.
Mr. Simms [continuing]. Linda Tagley, the U.S. Attorney,
has devoted significant resources to going after Federal
prosecution.
Mr. Mica. Are prosecutions up here?
Mr. Simms. Prosecutions are up.
Mr. Mica. The last 4 or 5 years?
Mr. Simms. Have been up consistently since the 1980's. I
myself was involved in drug prosecutions of local cases in
Federal court, basically. There are some concerns within the
judiciary, obviously, of how much you do. The Federal
Government here also has its own version. It, in effect,
predated project exile with its own program called project
disarm. And it is a program which the commissioner, myself, and
other law enforcement agencies are also participating in.
And so we don't lack for the fact that there are Federal
cases being handled here. And with respect to the operational
issues that was mentioned by the gentleman, there are----
Mr. Mica. All right. For the record, I would like submitted
the number of Federal prosecutions in the last 10 years, the
record of those, and where we are. We need to see what it is
going to take at the Federal level. You are telling me the
Federal level is adequate. I am hearing that they don't have
adequate resources at the State and local level.
Why is the State of Maryland so reluctant to fund--to put
additional resources into this area?
Mr. Simms. It has appropriated additional resources. I
think the question that we are grappling with now is the rate
of that increase, as well as your colleagues at the State level
asking questions about the returns that they are getting with
respect to those investments.
Mr. Mica. It sounds like there is a real problem even with
the treatment programs that we do have in place, that we can't
even get people to show up from the programs to--and I have
heard people say they are not held accountable. I am taking
phrases. That there is no--I mean, the program that I visited
with Ms. Swern, and I visited one in Hawaii, I have been in
California----
Mr. Simms. Right.
Mr. Mica [continuing]. Different programs, you don't show
up, you don't participate, even in the drug courts, you are in
the jail.
Mr. Simms. Yes. Two things that are different here than a
number of other jurisdictions. Baltimore City is a city unto
itself. It has no county. And in Baltimore City, where I was a
State prosecutor, as Mr. O'Malley said, there was no addition
to prosecutorial resources for over 10 years.
When I went to see Charles Hynes to talk about that
program, Charles Hynes had the support of the Federal
Government. And although it was somewhat controversial, he had
some other political support. We had none. The State started
the correctional options program. The State funds the
prosecutors for drug court. The State funds Break the Cycle.
The State takes the whole deal. And right now in Baltimore City
the State funds it all. So the----
Mr. Mica. Have you applied for any discretionary funds?
Mr. Simms. Anything that is out there we go for. Anything
that is out there we go for it. So what we are attempting to do
at the State level, and what we did with a number of programs
in the last 3 years, we ramped up very fast. In Break the
Cycle, for example, we are almost up to 20,000 people over a 2-
year period. Very fast to try to throw them into the program.
Did we have operational issues? Yes. Still have some. Did
we have some successes? Yes, we have some. Did we have some
operational difficulties with people showing up? Yes, we have
some. And we are trying to mull through and cut through a
number of those.
Mr. Mica. It is interesting. Most of the attention today
has focused on after somebody is an addict, after someone has
probably committed many crimes to get into the system. It
appears that there has been a fairly sizable gap in going after
active drug dealers, people dealing in death on the streets.
Somewhere, there is something missing. At least if you
don't have the narcotics being dealt with on the streets, that
is a pretty good alternative to incarceration. They are not
dealing here in this venue, and these people are not getting
drugs to start with.
Mr. Simms. I think the piece that you saw missing is part
of the piece that you heard the Deputy District Attorney talk
about when she spoke about the involvement of detectives, and
spoke about the involvement of capacity apparatus. And one of
the issues that we are trying to move forward here is our
ability to have the capacity to address all of the service
issues related to all of these models.
Mr. Mica. A lot of what has been talked about here is that
people at the end of the spectrum that have committed crimes
and are already drug addicts. They have $100-plus a day habit.
Then we get them in the system, and the best I have heard today
is that 50 percent may have a success ratio.
I have heard that--the same thing I hear in other
communities--the best programs are the faith-based or spiritual
programs. They don't even qualify in most instances for Federal
funds. Mr. Cummings and I have heard that testimony before.
So I am concerned that we are manufacturing many of these
people into a system that is failing. And you can keep adding
more and more folks into it. You will never have enough beds. I
mean, if we continue at the rate we are at, in 2050, there will
be 10 percent of the population that won't be addicted in this
town. We will never have enough beds at that continued rate.
So there is something wrong with what is going on here, and
I am trying to find out what pieces we are not helping with. I
have heard from the State that, or at least the Federal aspect,
that there is prosecution they are going after. I heard from
the locals. I have questions about their participation and
commitment in the past, not today.
I have heard from the judicial branch that he is part of a
system that is sort of regurgitating these folks out. I have
heard from this lady over here that there is so much wiggle
room, no one is held accountable. And then I have heard from
this gentleman here that tells me 50 percent of them don't even
show up for their first treatment session. There are problems
here.
Let me hear from the judge.
Judge Noel. Mr. Chairman, we need to determine what
programs we are talking about. The drug treatment program has
proven to be quite effective. The problem is the funding for
it, the lack of available spaces. We don't have a situation
where people don't respond. In the drug treatment program, they
do respond. They are held accountable, and sanctions are
imposed regularly.
This is a very proactive program, where the defendant comes
before a judge on a routine scheduled basis, sometimes within
every 2 to 3 weeks. Sanctions are imposed most frequently, and
they are graduated. But it is usually at the discretion of the
court.
It is quite different than the other programs you are
hearing about. We have almost begged the Governor for
additional funding to expand the drug treatment court because
this is the one program that has proven effective.
Mr. Mica. Yes.
Judge Noel. It is quite similar to the program in New York.
Mr. Mica. Yes, Your Honor. My whole point is that you are
manufacturing these people in this locale at a rate we cannot
keep up with.
Judge Noel. I agree.
Mr. Mica. You will never keep up with it at this rate. If
Mr. Beilenson is correct that it was from 10,000--I don't know
what the number DEA gave us is--but we will take 10,000, and we
are at 60,000 or 80,000. It has just been on a continual rise.
You have a city with a crisis and we have got to stem that.
I don't want to be sending them to you for an alternative to
incarceration. That is where I am trying to stop it, before we
get them into any of these programs down at this end. Not that
I am against any of those programs. I want them to be in the
most successful programs.
Unfortunately, I am told by some constraints we work under
that we can't even support those spiritual or faith-based
programs, and we are trying to find a way to--because they do
have a high rate of success. Most of the public programs I have
seen, even the DTAP program, it does a good job, they are
expensive, they are at the other end of the spectrum.
And you testified, sir, too, that when they hit rock
bottom, and they want a change in their life--I just heard this
same thing on the West Coast and also in Hawaii, and I sat in
the prisons with these guys, and most of them were older rather
than younger. Most of them had spent--if they were 36 years,
they had been 18 years either in jail or in and out of prisons
at great expense.
So we have got to have something--education. We have got to
have something--an early diversion that works, and those things
I don't--I don't see as readily available.
The DTAP--I sat with folks, a heroin addict, his wife just
had died from a heroin overdose. Most of them were--they had
hit rock bottom, and we were pulling some of them out. That is
very necessary. But there is a bigger part of this picture, and
that is--and there are pieces to that missing in this community
and across the country we need to fill in.
Mr. Cummings, I have taken more than my time. Go ahead.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to just pick up where you left off. One of the
things that has always concerned me is the question of how we
prevent people from even getting in this process? I have told
the Congress many times about the neighborhood that I live in,
which is the neighborhood, by the way, Mr. Chairman, where that
school is, the one that the mayor showed.
And I was just wondering if you all had any comments on
any--I mean, we are not just talking about--I am not just
talking about young people. I mean, I think about the whole
process of what the chairman was just talking about, how year
after year these people are committing more and more crimes,
that are hitting our communities harder.
The interesting thing is, that what I find in my community
is that it sort of feeds on itself. People who work hard every
day--and you see it, Judge, I know. People who work hard every
day, raise their families, go to church, the whole bit, they
come home and their place is ransacked because somebody took
some items that they are going to sell for about 5 percent of
what they are worth.
And, we have Judge Ken Johnson who brought this to my
attention very early on.
Do you have any comment on that, Judge? Why don't you
move--they need to get--you need to get to a mic. If you can
just pick it up, I guess that will work. He gave you his seat,
so----
Judge Johnson. Oh.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, sir.
Judge Johnson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cummings. Judge, how long have you been on the bench?
Judge Johnson. Eighteen years pretty soon. And I would just
like to add I was a former Judge Advocate General's Corps
[JAGC] officer in Southeast Asia with the United States Army
for 3 years during the war. And then from there to the Justice
Department, in President Lyndon Johnson's days, I headed up
Alabama and Georgia and then to Baltimore. So I have been on
the bench for about 18 years.
And some time ago, June 21, 1992, I wrote a piece in the
Sun paper that said the war on drugs is mainly eyewash, and for
that I have been in trouble ever since for it. But it is true.
We have to start following the money trail rather than the drug
trail only. We should follow both. When you follow the drug
trail, you are going to find a young, black, high school
dropout. When you follow the money trail, you are going to find
a banker, a lawyer, and the others.
So we have to start looking at both, and we have to stop
them from getting on drugs in the first place. Interdiction
sure is fine, but the money should be reallocated wherein we
have education. We have to have a job for this person. We must
educate this person to keep him off of drugs in the first
place, and that is where I have always stood, and that is where
I stand now.
It is a controversial position because there are billions
of dollars out there, and you would be surprised at the people
who are making this money. It is not this little black boy on
the corner down here who pedals his bicycle down the East
Coast, rides all the way across the Gulf of Mexico, across the
Rio Grande, and he pedals back up to sell on Monroe and North.
That is not the way to get here. We may as well face facts.
What has happened is the press--and I must say the white
press, and I don't mean to be racist. If I had a racist bone in
my body, I would take it out and put this mic in it. But we
must admit that the press, the white press, has fooled the
public into thinking that the drug problem is a black problem
when just the opposite is closer to the truth.
Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Judge.
Anybody else?
Mr. Simms. I just wanted to say, Congressman Cummings,
again, I wanted to thank you and the chairman because, again,
with your funding, and what you made available to help us start
correctional options through your work, correctional options,
and the drug court, you answered part of the issues that were
brought up by Dr. Taxman and people like Mark Kliman, who said
there are three things that community corrections has to do--
the technology to monitor behavior that occurs outside your
presence, the authority to impose rapid and predictable
sanctions, and the resources to acquire and use the technology
and administer the authority.
We have answered two of those things, I think, with the
support that you have given us. And what you hear today, and I
think the Congressman was concerned about, is our--that last
step, that last link is part of the capacity issue that we are
struggling with at this point in time.
Now, on the prevention issue that you asked, there is
effort, both within the Health Department and a massive grant
that they have received and the city of Baltimore is working
on, called the Safe and Sound Campaign that you are familiar
with, which is really a ground-level campaign to bring those
who are causing difficulty within the community in, and to say,
``Here are the resources. Here is what you need to do. We can't
have this particular problem.''
Now, that effort is less than a year old, and it is making
and moving some things within the community. But it is that
kind of educational community effort that is very important.
The last piece is the efforts that you have done to
continue to talk--to have people talk about the whole issue of
restore through justice. That is, the community as a victim--
and to put that out in the community and to educate the
community.
We are trying to do that. We are trying to put together
victim panels to go to institutions to educate people, to
rethink people, so that it doesn't start in the first place. So
I didn't want the Congressman to leave here today and think
there is a dearth of things that aren't happening--things that
aren't happening in the community on the prevention side. There
are some things that are happening on the prevention side.
Ms. Robinson. And, Chairman Mica, Congressman Cummings, I
would like to address some I think misunderstanding about my
comments. What I intended to say was that certainly there is
wiggle room in the traditional system. What HIDTA tries to do
with the jurisdictions that are involved in our system
particularly, in Baltimore County and in Baltimore City, is to
assist them in developing the capacity within those
jurisdictions to address, through drug treatment sanctions,
through the accountability factors, so that the wiggle room
that I reference is closed.
We provide them with technical assistance, and we have
excellent outcomes that I have attached to my written testimony
that attest to the effectiveness of the HIDTA model. But the
HIDTA model only works in a small vacuum. What we would like to
see happen is that that model is replicated across the system-
wide, not just in individual jurisdictions, because in order to
effect change within these systems, we have got to come to a
point where we recognize that certain pieces of it are non-
functional, certain pieces of it are not working together,
certain pieces are not communicating well, bring all of those
entities together and collaborate on a mechanism to address
this problem.
We have the knowledge, I believe, and we have the
technology. What we are struggling with at this point, I
believe, is the whole funding piece. And that is a critical
piece. Once we begin to look at these issues from a systemic
viewpoint, then we know what it is we need to do. We just need
assistance in gaining funding to do what is required, because
we have a lot of information on best practices.
HIDTA has published again a recent study on the
effectiveness of our model. We know what it is that we need to
do. We know where we have struggled with operational issues. We
are addressing those issues, but we need support and
assistance.
Mr. Cummings. Ms. Swern, one other thing, if you have
worked with drug addicts at all. I had a brother-in-law who
died about 2 years ago who was a drug addict, and he was 43
years old and I would just watch him disintegrate.
One of the things that you notice, and I think people like
Ricky Phaison could tell us about this, when you talk to them,
is that somebody who is on drugs appears as if you are not
really talking to them. They look like them, but they are it is
basically a ghost of their former selves.
And what I have found in dealing with people who are on
drugs, is that a lot of times they are not always honest. They
will do almost anything to get their drug. And I think what
happens to the business community--I mean, if I am--let us say,
for example, I run some copying company or something, and I
want to hire somebody.
And I have got to have somebody who I can depend on to come
to work, somebody who if I am not there I know all my receipts
are going to be, you know, straight, and I know they are going
to do what they say they are going to do. That is maybe not the
person--and if I have got a choice between three or four
people, and that is one of them, that person probably won't,
you know, come to the top of my list.
What I am trying to get at is, you know, when I listened to
Mayor O'Malley, and we were talking a little bit earlier about
jobs, because I do believe that is very important. How do you
make sure in the DTAP program that--I mean, and I realize this
is--the job piece apparently comes at the end. But still, it
comes in the middle?
But I am just wondering, how do you convince employers to
participate and to hire folks?
Ms. Swern. I think what you said earlier helps a lot. When
employees have had successful graduates working there, they are
the best public relations for DTAP.
Also, our defendants, because they spend a substantial
amount of time in a therapeutic community, they--we could
basically vouch for the last 2 years of their life. Not only
are they off drugs. That is--in a way--the easiest thing. The
harder things are the social skills, all of the other things
that we have kind of alluded to here that are being addressed
in these therapeutic communities.
Now, I come from a State that, relatively speaking, after
listening here, is a little bit more rich in resources in terms
of residential treatment beds. And we utilize them to the
maximum capacity. And so what we do is we make sure DTAP
participants spend 15 to 24 months in treatment.
When defendants come into DTAP, about 80 percent of them
say the reason they come in is to avoid jail or prison. They
don't come in because they think they have hit rock bottom, to
help their family and friends, to address any of that stuff.
The No. 1 reason that they have given, by far and away, is
prison or jail avoidance.
Over time, and different amounts of time for different
people--it could be the first month, it could be the 14th
month--they decide, you know, maybe these things that all of
the other peers are talking about, all of the others in the
substance abuse community, makes sense. And then not only do we
convince them that a drug-free life seems to be the best
option, we provide them with options.
We have constant feedback from our business community. When
I speak to groups, frequently somebody at the end of the speech
says, ``I have a job, one job.'' And I will go out myself and
see the place where the job is. My job developer goes too--even
for 1, because I know 1 job could lead to 5, that could lead to
10.
And the other thing is we do everything. It doesn't matter
whether the job is 3 months or 3 years. We try to use every
available resource to make sure that people get employed and
stay employed, and they are our best spokespeople.
Mr. Cummings. Judge Noel, when you see people coming into
court, who have violated probation, or whatever, do they
usually have jobs?
Judge Noel. The typical----
Mr. Cummings. With regard to drug situations.
Judge Noel. The typical defendant in the drug treatment
program is unemployed when they come in. We expect relapses. It
would be unrealistic to expect, once they got into the program,
that they would not relapse. Jobs usually come along.
Also, I find that they relocate, and that seems to have
quite an impact on the success rate. They have to move from
that continuous negative environment before they will make
changes, before they will want that change in their life.
Typically, they do come in to avoid incarceration,
obviously. But to stay in the program, and to go through the
rigors of the program, they have got to want that for
themselves.
Mr. Cummings. Last but not least, one of the things that I
know, just piggybacking on something you just said, when I was
in the State legislature we had an after care program for
juveniles in the boot camp system. And one of the things that
we noticed is that the people who stopped hanging with the guys
who sent them there did fine.
But usually there were not a lot of options. That is the
problem. Because they didn't--maybe they didn't have a job, and
they sort of--they may have--said all of these wonderful things
while they were in prison, and then when they got out, they had
all of these high hopes.
But then when they got out they couldn't find a job, and
the next thing you know they were gravitating. They might do OK
for a month or two, but then they gravitate right back to the
corner, and the next thing you know they were back in prison.
Judge Noel. That is why we expect the relapses. And it is
typical in the program. Many defendants stay in our program for
over 2 years when you consider the relapses before they
ultimately become drug-free, and they have to remain drug-free
for at least a year before they are even considered for
graduation.
Mr. Cummings. Finally, if there is something, commissioner,
that you want from us, because we are trying--we are not here
just for window dressing. We are trying to figure out how to
help. What is at the top of your priority list, I mean, that we
could do to help you help us?
Mr. Daniel. I think just your interest today, this hearing,
is helpful. It is helpful when we are fighting this battle and
know that other people care. You know, I am new on this job,
with about 3 months experience, and we are looking for some of
the best practices, so that we can come back to you and say
this works. That is what I am a firm believer in. You know, I
want to make sure that you are confident that your money is
being well spent, and that we can show you some types of
results.
I am looking forward to going to Chairman Mica's meeting to
discuss matters dealing with HIDTA. I hope I get invited to
that because I think that will be very helpful as well.
Mr. Cummings. He just said you certainly will be. And I was
just wondering, as we move forward in this process, I guess you
would be willing to go to the mayor, to the business community,
and to ask them to help us out with regard to the job piece.
Would you?
Mr. Daniel. Certainly we can do that. We are going to start
a police foundation here, and we are going to ask
businesspeople to support that foundation for other things that
we don't want to ask Government for, for special projects and
things like that as a funding source. So we are going to have
an excellent relationship with the business community, and we
certainly would be confident that we can help my co-workers up
there with some of the other aspects of this thing that aren't
necessarily police-related, like looking for jobs.
But, you know, police officers do that with people that we
encounter every day. You know, it is not organized, but we
often are out there helping people, trying to find them jobs,
going to businesses. Officers go in their own pockets and buy
clothes for people to be able to go to an interview. I mean,
those kinds of things happen all the time in the police
department.
Mr. Cummings. In answer to an earlier question, the
chairman asked you what it would take to eliminate all of the
drug corners, and you said 500 officers. One of the things that
concerns me is that a lot of times, when I look at the folks on
the corners, I wonder where they are going to go.
In other words, because there are so many of them, and I
know we push them here and we push them there. I am just
wondering, what we would see, let us say if we had the 500
officers.
Mr. Daniel. OK.
Mr. Cummings. Hypothetically.
Mr. Daniel. I can tell you where they are going to go.
Mr. Cummings. Where?
Mr. Daniel. They are going to go to Baltimore County. They
are going to go to Anne Arundel County. They are going to go to
the surrounding jurisdictions, which is why we have the great
collaboration that we now do with my counterparts.
You know, I meet regularly with the Baltimore County police
chief, and with the Anne Arundel County police chief, and with
the State police superintendent. And we meet regularly because
we know that we are tired of pushing this thing between
borders, and we know that we are going to get more bang for the
bucks if we work together and collaboratively. So no law
enforcement has no turf battles at all.
And, you know, we want to drive this problem that we have
with open air drug markets completely out of the State, and
where they go after that I can't answer.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Ms. Robinson. I would like to take an opportunity to
address that. One of the things that HIDTA has been doing is
developing a cross-border initiative, that is bringing together
the law enforcement community as well as the supervision
community in Washington, DC, and Prince George's County. And
that has been a very helpful process in where they are going to
go. But there is a secondary piece to that.
I mentioned that that was a law enforcement and a
supervision liaison. That has not been inclusive of the
treatment community. What is going to need to happen, if you
really want to look at addressing that issue, is that the
treatment slots that are allocated to Baltimore City and
treated slots that are allocated to Baltimore County are going
to have to be looked at very closely, because once you
incarcerate those individuals then you summarily are also going
to have to provide a level of treatment services and wraparound
community-based services, so that once they complete the
treatment regime and they go out into the community, that they
get jobs, and that they are placed in a different environment
for at least a period of time in order for them to integrate
internally the new value system.
I mean, she speaks very eloquently about the therapeutic
community, and I worked for years in the therapeutic community.
What you endeavor to do in that is to teach pro social values
to these individuals. And it takes 2 years for those pro social
values to be internalized. But if they are going back into the
same environment, what you are looking at is a 6-month period
and they are going to lose all of the benefits basically that
they acquired while they were in treatment.
We have got to provide opportunities for them to move to a
different community, and that is a faith-based community, that
could be AA, NA. I mean, there are support mechanisms that are
existing in the community to assist them along their recovery
path.
Mr. Cummings. I don't want you to answer this now. I just
want, maybe you can give us something in writing or contribute
it to the HIDTA meeting that will be held. But you said
something a little bit earlier about the fact that funds that
HIDTA is now using to I guess supplement drug treatment in
Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and elsewhere I guess, it
then takes away from other things that you might want to do. Is
that what you said?
Ms. Robinson. No, no. No, no.
Mr. Cummings. What did you say?
Ms. Robinson. Once you--you asked the question, what would
happen to these individuals----
Mr. Cummings. No. I am going back to something you said a
little bit earlier.
Ms. Robinson. OK.
Mr. Cummings. You were talking about the fact that you use
HIDTA money with regard to treatment.
Ms. Robinson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. And you said something to the effect of, we
need to maybe look at that and see whether we are taking away
from other things that you might want to use the money for, or
other people.
Ms. Robinson. No.
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Ms. Robinson. Each jurisdiction that is involved in the
HIDTA projects has an opportunity to look--assess their own
system, and they utilize HIDTA funds to augment gaps within
those systems. So once they make that determination--and it is
different in just about every jurisdiction that is involved in
HIDTA--then that does conversely take resources away from other
pursuits.
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Ms. Robinson. Because they could utilize that money in
Baltimore County specifically. Their money is all utilized in
drug treatment slots, and in Baltimore City it ranges from drug
treatment to positions that are purchased with their money. I
mean, they have----
Mr. Cummings. Sure.
Ms. Robinson [continuing]. Utilized it in very different
ways.
Mr. Cummings. Right. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
And I want to thank each of the witnesses on this panel. It
appears that there has been a slaughter going on in this
community for the last decade or more. If it is on average 300
dying, that is 2,500, 3,000 people have died in this slaughter.
I have been in the Washington area, as I said, for about a
decade, and I saw every night a slaughter going on there. It
averages as many as 400 a year in our Nation's capital close
by, which I guess is part of this HIDTA effort.
We have had some success in bringing the deaths down in
Washington. They have been fairly reduced. But in Baltimore we
haven't seen that success, and we have got to stop that
slaughter in some fashion.
We have our jails full. The judge testified that it is
imprisoning not only a record number, but also the ones that
are suffering most are the minority population who are the
victims of these murders, of the incarceration. And then we
have a system that is failing them even at the end where they
are cast into a community that doesn't have the jobs.
Coming from the business community, I can tell you that any
community that has the kinds of problems this community has
experienced, I would not invest where you have rampant drugs,
crime, murders. And so you have a perpetuation of a cycle of
even when these folks come out, the judge said their best hope
is to go someplace else, and that is their best success rate.
Somehow this has all got to be turned around, and I am
hoping working with the mayor, with the new commissioner, with
the individuals who are here--the county executive, and all of
those who have testified--and my colleague, Mr. Cummings, and
others, that we can be a partner in turning this situation
around.
I guarantee you we will do everything possible. It may not
have been possible before the beginning of this year, but I
guarantee you we will give every effort to turning this around
and working as a partner with you.
With those comments, I will excuse this panel, and thank
you again.
I call our third and final panel. The third panel consists
of Dr. Faye Taxman, who is a professor of criminology at the
University of Maryland. The second witness on the panel is Mr.
Ricky Phaison. He is a program participant in project excel.
The other panelist on this third and final panel is Mr. Israel
Cason. He is president of I Can't, We Can.
I am pleased to welcome the three witnesses to our panel.
Once again, I will reiterate that this is an investigations and
oversight subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. In
that capacity, and with those responsibilities, we do swear in
our witnesses for testimony.
If you have any lengthy statements to be made part of the
record, upon request to the subcommittee that will be included
in the record.
At this time, I will ask our three witnesses on this panel
to please stand and be sworn. Raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Mica. The witnesses answered in the affirmative. Again,
I thank each of you for joining us. I will recognize first Dr.
Faye Taxman, professor of criminology at the University of
Maryland. Welcome, and you are recognized.
STATEMENTS OF FAYE TAXMAN, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF CRIMINOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND; RICKY PHAISON, PROGRAM PARTICIPANT,
PROJECT EXCEL; AND ISRAEL CASON, PRESIDENT, I CAN'T, WE CAN
Ms. Taxman. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for
inviting me to testify today, and I appreciate the opportunity,
Congressman Mica and members of the subcommittee, to talk a
little bit more about an issue that you have been discussing
today which has to do with a redirection in national policy in
terms of dealing with the problems of drugs and crime in our
community.
In particular, my interest is in terms of building more
effective community correctional treatment and control programs
that prevent criminal behavior and penetration into the
criminal justice system. I think what you have seen today is
the tragedy in a city like Baltimore where we have people with
very lengthy criminal justice histories. And it affects them
and their families and their children and their communities,
and I think we have to reflect on how better to provide
services to prevent all of these factors.
If you look at what we have done over the last 30-somewhat
years, is we have really focused on incarceration at the State,
Federal, and local levels. We have built jails. We have built
prisons. And in many States, including this State, we spend
more money on incarceration than we spend on educating school-
age children. In my own community, we are currently building--I
live down the road--a very large jail, once again, that is
taking away needed resources for the school children. And I
think that is part of the travesty that we feel.
If you look at what we have done through RSAT at the
Federal level and other crime control initiatives, we put money
into programs in prisons and jails, which makes sense. But we
haven't invested the same level of resources into the
community-based programs, and there have been some minor
modifications in RSAT which have allowed the programs to use
like 10 percent of the funds in after care or continuing care
in the community.
But that does not really build the types of programs like
DTAP or the drug courts or some of the longer term initiatives
to really help people get themselves back on the right track.
So I think we really have to look at how we fund things, and
begin to look at where our priorities are.
The other thing I would like to mention is this State and
many States struggle with this notion that everything in the
community has to be done at a cost containment or a cost
reduction over incarceration. So while we are comfortable to
spend $23,000 a year, or $85,000 a year in the State of New
York, to incarcerate someone, we skirmish at the notion of
spending $2,000 or $3,000 a year to put someone in a drug
treatment program.
I think that is a clear reflection of priorities that are
mismatched in terms of where to get the most effective care for
our community.
So what I would like to do is basically talk about three
points very quickly, because I know your time is short, and
hope that you will consider from a Federal level to really
start some national Federal initiatives to deal with people on
community supervision, because I believe, as Congressman
Cummings noted earlier, that I feel we can get the most
effectiveness in terms of reducing crime and improving the
quality of lives and communities by focusing on probation and
parole services.
My three points today which I would like--as part of some
testimony that I entered in--are, first that incarceration has
a limited impact. And, in fact, I think what we have done and
the research literature has shown is that incarceration
actually is no longer a deterrent to criminal behavior. And I
will talk about that a little bit more.
My second point, is that treatment is very effective, but
some programs work better than others, and we need a system of
care.
And my third point, is that effective supervision is the
key to reduced crime.
On the first point about incarceration, we have seen
generations of families that have been in prison and jail. What
we have seen--and you can see this through a number of
ethnographic studies--is that people are immune to prison and
jail. It does not matter now. You can talk to most prison
wardens, you can talk to most jail wardens, and they will tell
you that people don't fear jail. And even kids don't fear jail
as much as one would think.
And I think we have to reflect on where we perceive jail to
be a deterrent, it is no longer the deterrent. And that is--
that raises a number of questions in terms of a national
priority of how to change that value system so people do fear
periods of time away in incarceration facilities.
Related to that is that in order to--from my perspective,
to overturn that, is to really deal with the issue that we need
to build better things within the community and the community
framework. Repeatedly, we have over the past several--15 or 20
years--built correctional programs in the community that mainly
focus on controlling orientation. And when I say control I mean
things like house arrest, electronic monitoring, drug testing
only.
But what we haven't done is given the people who get caught
up in the criminal justice system the tools to help themselves.
Now, we have heard discussion today about how people need to
hit rock bottom, have to be motivated to want to change their
lives. I take a slightly different position. I think that you
can help people become motivated, and that we need to build
treatment systems and correctional systems that include
components of effective care, that will help people become
motivating.
There is a whole body of literature, scientific literature,
on motivational readiness programs, cognitive behavioral
restructuring programs, that really deal with building people's
motivation to change their lives.
Now, you can't deliver those services in a short period of
time. You can't do that in 6 months or less. So what we need to
do is we need to develop a treatment delivery system based upon
the scientific principles of effective care, and those
treatment delivery systems have to be for longer durations.
You heard the judge talk about the drug court program being
2 years in duration. You heard Ms. Swern talk about DTAP being
2 years in duration. We can work within time periods if we are
given the resources to do that, and right now people under
treatment or under supervision are under supervision for 12 to
24 months.
We don't effectively use that whole period of time, but we
could build programs that connect and walk people through
stages of change, so they get the motivation to change their
lives. You give them the skills and tools. You help them
reorient their value system, and you have to deal with the
criminogenic value system. And you help them in some of the
areas of stabilization, which many people have talked about
today in terms of jobs.
I am not going to go over it, but I did provide for you
some analysis that was done actually at the request of Congress
in a report that was done by my department, the Department of
Criminology and Criminal Justice on what works and what doesn't
work. There are many programs that we fund that do not work.
There are many programs that we don't fund that do work.
And so I suggest that as you begin to look at providing
scientifically based programs to help overcome these long-term
problems, we focus on those programs that work. Those programs
have some key principles. They provide programs of significant
duration to change the behaviors of offenders. They utilize
cognitive and behavioral approaches to provide consistent and
effective techniques to assist offenders in learning how to
assume accountability for their lives.
They assure that these programs assist individuals in
restructuring their lives. And they emphasize value systems,
attacking the criminogenic traits and the ability to stabilize
yourself in the community.
Those multi-dimensions are very important. They encompass
everything from helping people motivate change to helping
people get more active in their community, whether that
includes their faith community, family, or other support
mechanisms that they may have. But I implore you to really look
at the scientific literature, because over the last 15 years we
have built a very nice base in order to really decide what
works and what doesn't work. And we have to move away from the
myths.
A lot of people work on one person, that one war story here
or there. But really focus on, you know, good, controlled
studies.
My last point today has to do with supervision. People
commonly talk about probation as being a slap on the wrist.
And, in fact, you know, to be more accurate, it probably is
because most people who are on probation, not only in the State
of Maryland but nationwide, are not supervised adequately. They
have this ``wait and see'' period of self-destruction. And,
unfortunately, most States' prison population is driven by the
failures on probation and parole.
So what we need to do is look at how to build effective
supervision systems. And we right now have much like what law
enforcement had about 30 years ago--a much more reactive stance
to supervision. It used to be that law enforcement was reactive
in terms of crime problems. That is what probation and parole
is. So we can build different models of probation, and I think
that there is a need at the Federal level to encourage that and
to help States learn to turn around the problem.
This is not just a problem in Maryland. I deal with about
15 other States that are all grappling with how to deliver the
best effective probation and parole services to control crime.
In that end, we also know that there are key principles of what
works under supervision.
One is that we need to use that whole supervision period as
an intervention period, not just a period of wait and see. We
need to make sure that supervision agents learn how to use
behavioral management techniques. Many people today have talked
about accountability, through sanctions. I would also add a
reward system, because we know from the psychological
literature that most people react better to rewards than
sanctions.
But we need to have these principles of swiftness,
certainty, and progressiveness, to address the problem
behaviors of offenders. And these become the tools to help
people restructure their lives.
We need to ensure that the criminal justice system provides
timely response to offender non-compliance. It is a major
problem. It contributes to crime in the community, and it
contributes to the offender's perception that the criminal
justice system is a joke.
And, finally, we need to incorporate effective treatment
services throughout that whole period of supervision. Added
together, these components can significantly reduce crime at a
very minimal cost enhancement to current probation services.
There were several examples today of programs that you have
heard that employ little components of these programs. I think
the challenge that Secretary Simms mentioned is, how do you go
from running a program for several hundred people to dealing
with the system? Because that is where the bottlenecks occur.
I have been analyzing Baltimore City data for about the
last 10 years, in terms of the criminal justice system, and the
bottlenecks occur all the way from the intake in number of
arrests through all of the different components of their
system. And Maryland's break the cycle effort is one effort
that was aimed to look at systemic changes in how the criminal
justice system works.
Now, the program has been up and running for less than 2
years, and it takes a while in terms of getting some of the
results. But what the initial findings were were, you know, in
the direction which suggests that some systemic reforms could
have long-term changes. The first systemic reform was adding
drug testing as a component.
What the evaluation found was that by a consistent pattern
of testing--and when I say consistent I mean every--twice a
week testing for 3 months in duration, which is unlike most
other States or jurisdictions where they drug test people at
most once a week, maybe several times a month, or at random.
But this consistent pattern of testing reduced the drug
test positive rate by 53 percent within a 60-day window of
time. When you do not do the consistent drug testing, what we
found is that there was not a significant reduction in drug
test positive rates.
We also looked at the rearrest rate during this period of
time for these hard core offenders, or for the offender
population. Again, most of the offenders here had an average of
four prior arrests, so they had been through the criminal
justice system many times. And we have reduced--what we have
seen is that--this is only Baltimore City data, where for this
short period of time we reduced the probability of rearrest by
23 percent.
That was just merely with the drug testing component.
Adding treatment and the accountability, which are the system
components, being built as we are here today; they are in the
process of construction. You know, the expectation is is that
we could see even more market changes in terms of rearrest
rates and improvements in safety in the community.
As you heard mentioned earlier, this requires better
coordination across all levels of Government, amongst criminal
justice and treatment programs, and a tool is the ability to
track people.
Have I run out of time?
Mr. Mica. Getting close.
Ms. Taxman. OK. And there was a tool that was developed
under the HIDTA program, called HATTS, that provides a very
easy tool, but it is difficult to retool the whole industry.
And when I say the industry, the criminal justice system, the
public health system, because you have a work force that is not
used to automation.
So what we found in the implementation of HATTS is that,
you know, we basically had to give the employees of these
programs, whether they be in treatment or supervision agencies,
computer skills. But as, you know, the county executive, Mr.
Ruppersberger, talked about, it is important for the criminal
justice system to be able to talk automatically with other
systems about the progress of people.
And what HATTS does is provide a nice tool to get away from
the phones and faxes and letters sent, so someone can open up a
screen and see, did the person come to treatment? Were they
testing positive? Did they go to supervision? Did they go to
court? And are they working? All of the key components that one
needs to really know whether someone is making some progress.
And so there is a need for some more investment, though,
and, you know, that is part of your responsibility in Congress,
to really look at how to provide technological tools to help
advance the field. And, if you would like, I can submit in
writing some other ideas about technological tools.
But it is really critical in this thinking about reshaping
probation, and reshaping supervision, to really work on
advancement of the field, much like what LEAA provided back in
the 1970's. It provided the funding for training. It provided
the funding for tools for the field. And it helped to redirect
law enforcement into being much more strategic in its
activities. There has been nothing in the supervision field
that has really done that.
In conclusion, I would like to suggest that we really need
to talk about alternatives to incarceration in the context of
trying to prevent penetration into the criminal justice system.
An alternative suggests that the person should go to prison.
What would be nice is if we really built a structure up front,
including the juvenile justice system, that was focused on
prevention and providing the earlier intervention, taking the
principles of what we know that works for very younger kids who
start to have troubles within their own communities.
But we must employ these effective tools and move away from
the short-funded episodic type of interventions that we seem to
have a mindset. The gains that can be made are really important
in terms of trying to overcome, particularly in communities
like Baltimore City where you have, you know, significant
poverty problems and other types of social, you know, safety
net disintegration.
But even in rural communities, you can see the effects that
drugs have had in those communities where they could also
benefit from better quality supervision in building of systems,
to build a safety net to prevent people from penetrating into
the system.
So I would like to suggest, in conclusion, that at the
Federal level the following would really help States. One is to
be able to put more funding into supervision agents to protect
communities. Most States have very large ratios of staff to
agents, 1 agent to 100 to 300 offenders. Obviously, this is
very insufficient to meet any type of supervision or oversight
needs.
The second, is that we need to fund the expansion of
graduated responses capacity in many of these systems by
offering day reporting programs, day treatment programs, longer
term therapeutic community programs that link across the
different legal statutes, to really enhance our community
control efforts, and to focus in on trying to help that person
learn to restructure their life.
I would add, that we should try to really move away from
the simple notions that people have to hit rock bottom to help
us understand why they need to change their lives.
Third, I would like to suggest that there is a need to
expand funding for training and technical assistance, much like
you did through LEAA, to develop comprehensive treatment,
testing, and sanction and responses practices throughout the
jurisdictions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Taxman follows:]
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Mr. Mica. Thank you for your testimony.
We will now hear from Mr. Ricky Phaison, who is a program
participant with project excel. You are recognized, sir.
Welcome.
Mr. Phaison. Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank
God for allowing me to be here, and thank Congressman Cummings
and Congressman Mica for allowing me to testify.
I want to testify on a personal level. I heard a lot of
talk today about alternative to incarceration. I remember at
the end of my addiction when I was--when they locked me up and
I went to jail, and the furthest thing from my mind was my
disease, my disease of addiction.
I knew that I had some type of problem. I just could not
identify the problem. So when I went to jail, and when I got to
jail, I didn't see any educational programs, any meetings which
I attend now, and any 12-step program or nothing when I went to
jail. So the first thing I had on my mind--my attitude was--
see, all my life I have blamed society on what I did, on all of
my problems.
So my thoughts were, while I was incarcerated was, I was
going to pay society back when I got out of jail. When I got
out of jail, I paid society back by repeating the same thing I
had always done. Went back to the same corner, repeated the
same thing. No education whatsoever. I really didn't understand
about the disease of addiction. I didn't know I had a problem.
I had to be at my bottom before I realized that I needed
some help. I got my help through a treatment center, thank God,
called excel. And in participating--it was a 28-day treatment
center, and on the second floor they had a juvenile facility,
and then on the first floor they had a long-term behavior
program. And I found out that I had to be broken all the way
down and built back up again.
I had to see my personality was part of my problem. My
addictive behavior was part of my problem. I remember seeing so
much travesty in my younger life, trying to forget it, and when
I took that first drug it made me forget all of my problems,
everything. I didn't start off using drugs to become an addict.
I started off using drugs as social acceptability, curiosity,
and then it became my problem at the end.
At the end, I had to surrender. I had to forgive. I had to
get off--I had to move out of my way. And I remember going
through this treatment program, and for the first time in my
life I started identifying that I had a problem, that I had a
disease. Now, what am I going to do about this disease? What am
I going to do about this problem?
I had to learn how to get rid of all of those deep, dark
secrets I carried all of my life. I also had to learn how to
start living step by step, day by day, all over again. I got a
lot of help through my 12-step program. My 12-step program has
taught me how to become a father, become a husband, become a
responsible individual. In other words, grabbed me by the hand
and rebuild me all over again.
It has got to be treatment for me. It has got to be
treatment for me. It is like everybody that I have talked to or
I have come across in the last 13 years of my sobriety has
dealt with treatment, has come out of treatment, has been
successful with going to treatment. A lot of people I know have
gone into jail have come back out and repeated the same thing.
So my answer to alternative to incarceration would
absolutely be treatment. And we need to put everything together
that I have heard here today and maybe give me some of your
ideas, and take some of my ideas, and take some of her ideas,
and take some of his ideas, and then put them all together.
Because I know every time I come to a symposium, or I see
something going on like this, when I shared my idea I am
rolling out the door and I am not listening to other people.
And I think we all need to listen to each other and come
together and understand that you can lock me up as much as you
want to. But, I mean, as long as I am locked up in the mind,
there is nothing else you can do to me.
Thank you for letting me share.
Mr. Mica. Thank you for your testimony.
We will now hear from Mr. Israel Cason, who is president of
I Can't, We Can.
Mr. Cason. Good afternoon. First of all, I would like to
thank God for allowing all of us to be here. My name is Israel
Cason. I am the president and founder of I Can't, We Can
recovery program. I Can't, We Can is a spiritually based tough
love, self-supported, grassroots, nonprofit recovery program
for alcoholics and addicts. Our primary purpose is to save
lives, win souls, and to uplift the fallen of humanity. We
utilize the therapeutic value of one addict helping another
addict.
I Can't, We Can, through positive networking, works closely
with prosecutors, public defenders, lawyers, penal
institutions, and judges. We have gained the trust of the
criminal justice system through the good works we have
accomplished in our community. As ex-offenders, I Can't, We Can
staff, we are asked for our opinions and expertise on how lives
can be changed by way of alternatives to prison.
Although we are self-supported, we manage to monitor and
take the responsibility for people who want to change. Through
urinalysis, case management, tough love, spiritual meetings,
educational programs, and job readiness training programs, we
are able to change deviants into productive members of society.
We realize that people who are imprisoned are a part of
that fallen humanity, but human nonetheless. As Plato said it
more than 2,500 years ago, ``the parts can never be well unless
the whole is well.'' Here the solution must be approached
holistically. We have come to understand that incarceration
will never allow a person the opportunity to acquire true clean
time.
This clean time--incarceration--does not equal recovery.
From this observation, we realize that drugs are not the real
problem, but the symptoms of the problem. We also understand
that substance abuse and drug addiction are the results of the
acquisition and the practicing of addictive behaviors. These
behaviors cause people to form negative networks and thus
become familiar with that negative environment.
Now, there is comfortability in familiarity. When people
are incarcerated, they are attracted to negative networks. This
means whatever zone they find comfortable to practice their
addictive behavior in, they will. Case in point: What do you
have when you clean and sober up a drunken horse thief? Answer:
a horse thief.
We have now discussed three parts--the biological, the
psychological, and the social aspects--of inmates. Let us
remember that the parts can never be well unless the whole is
well. A man is made of mind, body, and soul.
There is another part that needs to be addressed:
spirituality. We are going to define the term spirituality as a
source that gives your life meaning and purpose. Spirituality
allows inmates to encounter that which is unfamiliar to them,
which is a positive networking. This positive network should
begin as soon as the inmates are detoxed or free of mind-
altering or mood-changing substances.
Alternatives to incarceration should be approached with
familiarity of each individual's background and the
understanding that what may seem to be the reason for the
incarceration may only be the effect of the problem which
caused the incarceration. We also must implement steps to
change negative networks into positive networks by using the
following steps.
Education on the disease of addiction should begin with the
teaching of psychological effects, sociological effects,
physical effects, and spiritual effects. Exposure to spiritual
understanding. Case management should be in place to determine
short-term and long-term goals. Co-dependents must be
identified, and if possible, educated. A smooth transition back
into society must begin long before release, such as birth
certificates, driver's license, or State ID, Social Security
card, child support, and housing. Secondary diseases
identified. A place of residence conducive to recovery
identified and contacted.
I Can't, We Can has realized that when given the
opportunity, the majority of people can make the transition
back to being a productive member of society. Our recovery
program has grown into a recovering community that utilizes a
holistic approach to incorporates individuals back into
society. This structure, which I Can't, We Can uses, allows
members to practice building their lives on a daily basis. The
members live in neighborhoods as residents and neighbors, and
belong to the community associations, civic groups, religious
organizations, and support the merchants in our communities.
The gratitude one acquires for the opportunity to be part
of such a positive society is tremendous. Residents are
encouraged to further their education while working on creating
balanced lives.
Being a self-supported organization, we have found ways to
help sick and suffering addicts regardless of their financial
status. In the therapeutic community, we manage to salvage our
most precious resource, our people. When people recover,
everything is reduced--crime, grime, and negativity.
In conclusion, addicts seeking recovery should not be
denied treatment or left to die. It is God's will, not ours,
that must be done.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cason follows:]
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Mr. Mica. I want to thank all of our panelists for their
testimony this afternoon. I have a couple of questions. I don't
want to get too personal, but I want to ask Mr. Phaison and Mr.
Cason some questions about where we failed as a society, or
where your problems began, whether--did you have problems as
far as your family life to begin with, Mr. Cason?
Mr. Cason. I come from a religious family. My mother and
father were preachers. But in my environment I learned the
behaviors of the people that I hung around with and----
Mr. Mica. So that is where your problems started? You came
from a very good, religious, nuclear family that--and you say
that your problems started with the people you----
Mr. Cason. That I hung around with.
Mr. Mica [continuing]. Associated with.
How about you, Mr. Phaison?
Mr. Phaison. Well, I came--my mother did the best she could
raising us, and she was a practicing alcoholic. But I never
wanted to be a part of that family. I always wanted to be
outside, so I looked for things outside of my family structure.
Mr. Mica. But is there something that either of you could
have seen that we could have done early on, either as a
society--maybe in education, or who you--is there something you
could identify where you might have taken another path? Mr.
Cason.
Mr. Cason. Well, looking back, I see that addictive
behavior is the polar opposite of spirituality, and no two
things can occupy the same space at the same time. You either
have to----
Mr. Mica. But you hung with some folks, and it must--you
must have gotten involved either with alcohol or drugs at some
point. Did you finish your education? Was there ever anything
in school? Or did you have any exposure to anything that would
stop you?
You know, the topic of this is alternatives to
incarceration, and I am trying to back it up to say, well,
maybe we are doing something wrong; we didn't do something. We
obviously short-changed you in some way. You had a good
religious family, but you said you hung with the wrong guys.
Were there drugs out there that were available? Did you do this
because of peer pressure? What happened?
Mr. Cason. Well, with me, I--the drug life seemed more
inviting, and it appealed more to me.
Mr. Mica. Did you finish your education, your high school
diploma?
Mr. Cason. Well, I went to jail first.
Mr. Mica. Went to jail first.
What about you, Mr. Phaison?
Mr. Phaison. Well, the----
Mr. Mica. Was there anything--when did you leave school?
Mr. Phaison. Well, I attended Antioch University and
obtained 96 credits in human services and worked in the
Juvenile Justice Department before I even decided to take a
drink or a drug.
Mr. Mica. Before you took a drug?
Mr. Phaison. Right. Before I took a drink or a drug. In
other words, I am saying it just--in my----
Mr. Mica. And then where did you--where did things fail for
you?
Mr. Phaison. Well, curiosity, say, killed the cat. I----
Mr. Mica. So the availability of drugs----
Mr. Phaison. Yes. Absolutely. It was--I mean, it was just
readily available.
Mr. Mica. Readily available for you?
Mr. Phaison. Yes.
Mr. Mica. Both in the city of Baltimore and outside?
Mr. Phaison. Yes.
Mr. Mica. Still available today?
Mr. Phaison. Absolutely.
Mr. Cason. More so.
Mr. Mica. More so. All over the----
Mr. Phaison. Yes. Ten times as much.
Mr. Cason. At one time it was--you know, it----
Mr. Mica. How would you--I have heard mixed reviews on the
enforcement. It sounds like there is not that much enforcement.
If a guy from Pennsylvania can get the locale on a 7-11 wall
for where to get drugs in Baltimore, it doesn't sound like
there is much enforcement here. So is that part of the problem
or----
Mr. Cason. Yes, I think that if they would go after the
drug dealers--instead they are chasing the victims.
Mr. Mica. Yes. Well, you are the--you are victims. There
are a lot of young people that are victims, but they are not
going after--we heard Judge--was it Johnson, the other judge?
Mr. Cummings. Right. Yes.
Mr. Mica. He said that the people that are making the
money, that are doing the deals, the big deals, and bringing
the drugs in, there is no--I said there is no poppies or coca
grown in Baltimore.
Mr. Cason. That is right.
Mr. Mica. That I know of. So we are not going--there is
definitely a plentiful supply and availability, and somebody is
making money and killing people off of this deal. Is that
correct?
Mr. Cason. Right.
Mr. Phaison. Absolutely.
Mr. Mica. You think so?
Mr. Phaison. Absolutely.
Mr. Mica. So that is part of it.
You have both been involved in treatment programs. And you
are both here, you said, by the grace of God. And you are lucky
because there is--I don't know the names behind these. I have
read some of them before, the ones that died in Washington and
Baltimore. On the House floor, I do that from time to time.
I picked up a paper--I fly into Baltimore and often pick up
a paper and read of the slaughter going on here. And it has got
to be humanity and a real person behind all of those people
that die, and certainly you two are fortunate to even be with
us.
My question is, again, what elements--you both came from--
you told me yours was faith-based, no public money, did you
say? Or is there public money?
Mr. Cason. No public moneys.
Mr. Mica. And what about you?
Mr. Phaison. Well, we had public money, but when they took
away the public funds, the treatment centers closed.
Mr. Mica. You did have, though.
Mr. Phaison. Yes.
Mr. Mica. But you both came out of treatment programs that
worked, one that is closed, one that is faith-based that we
couldn't put money----
Mr. Cason. Well, we are spiritually based, and we still
operate now. We have over 500 people that is in the program.
Mr. Mica. All right. Well, I am just trying to find out--we
are spending a lot of money on the whole drug effort--
prosecution, enforcement. Mr. Cummings and I helped put
together $1 billion education program, which is underway now,
plus combined with private donations it will be double that, we
hope. And we are trying to find out what works.
As a final question, what in these programs really made a
difference in your lives that we could replicate in our future
programs?
Mr. Phaison. Well, for me it was ``Talk, Hurt, and Grow.''
In other words, I identified what the problem was and talked
about it. You talk about a bad----
Mr. Mica. And there were elements of that program that
helped you get to that point.
Mr. Phaison. Absolutely.
Mr. Mica. And that is what is important to you, sir.
Mr. Cason. To me, the key is to bring a person to a
spiritual awakening, and that is--you have to work on addictive
behaviors, because they are two--that is what gets two
different results. One is spiritual and one is addictive
thinking. And that takes a process. A spiritual awakening, a
person will become self-supporting and productive members of
society.
Mr. Mica. Just a final question for Dr. Taxman. I heard you
testify to different things. You said the criminal justice
system is sometimes a joke, that we need swiftness and
certainty--and you gave several elements--in these programs.
That you know that drug testing does produce better results if
it is an element introduced into these programs.
Why haven't these reforms, if we know what works, and
elements like drug testing that prove such dramatic increases
in success, why haven't those reforms been instituted? And that
is the first part of my question. And the second is, should the
Federal Government mandate that they be a part of programs to
receive our funds, at least our funds?
Ms. Taxman. I think that the first question you asked is
why aren't the best practices that we know are available, put
in place in programs across the Nation----
Mr. Mica. Well, let us just deal with right here.
Ms. Taxman. OK. Or here. And I think part of it is there is
a gap of knowledge in terms of, you know, what is funded and
what the practitioners look at in terms of their base. And over
the last 5 years, there has been an increase in terms of trying
to disseminate more best practice information.
So some of the things that I talked about are things that
the research literature has discussed over the years, but
hasn't necessarily been readily available in the actual field.
Mr. Mica. OK. The other part is you testified here today
you know what works.
Ms. Taxman. Well, the components.
Mr. Mica. Why shouldn't Mr. Cummings and I go back and make
that a requirement to get Federal funds so that we would
require that what you say works is incorporated in these
programs to make them successful?
Ms. Taxman. I would think that it would be good for there
to be some Federal initiatives that have standards in them.
Much like what RSAT tried to do was putting some standards into
place. What is good quality prison-based treatment? The same
could be true for the Federal block grant dollars that go to
many of the States in terms of their public health funding for
treatment and prevention programs.
There is no Federal initiative on drug testing itself, but
it seems to me that it would make a lot of sense, and the
research literature suggests that drug testing should be in
drug treatment programs as well as in correctional programs.
Why those haven't occurred in the past has to do a lot with
what you heard today--a lack of funding specifically.
I mean, program administrators have choices. They fund
clinical services, or they fund drug testing. And they are
scrambling enough to fund quality, you know, clinical services.
So they took away from other things that they would like to do.
If you talk to many of the treatment providers in the city,
they would desire for more drug testing as well as the ability
to expand the types of services that they offer to clients.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
As I listened to the testimony, I couldn't help but think
about all of the people who are dead, you know, the ones who
were not as fortunate as you all here today.
And, Mr. Phaison, you and I have talked about this. One of
the things that--and it is the direct result of my
conversations with you that I have constantly pushed in the
last few hearings that we have had in Washington about
effective drug treatment. One of the things that you said to me
a while back is that one of the worst things you can do is send
an addict to a treatment situation that ain't real. It is not
real.
Mr. Phaison. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Because all that does is send it is very
frustrating and, of course, he is not getting better.
Mr. Phaison. Right.
Mr. Cummings. Right now, I guess you have a lot of people
that come to you asking for----
Mr. Phaison. Oh, yes.
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. Help.
Mr. Phaison. Oh, yes, on a daily basis, sir. I have about
15 or 20 people on a daily basis trying to get into treatment.
Thank God for my commitment, so I have at a couple of treatment
centers that allow me to get a couple of free slots every
month. But if you have got 20 people per day asking you and you
have only got one or two slots per month, you know, it just
doesn't add up.
You know, I have a question, too, because I remember
speaking in front of Congressional Black Caucus before, and as
a result you said $156 million was allocated for the black and
Hispanic community----
Mr. Cummings. That is right.
Mr. Phaison [continuing]. On drugs and AIDS. But in my
community, I still have not seen any change. See, we are
talking $156 million, but when it trickles down I really
haven't seen any change.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I can address that at some other point.
Let me just ask my questions.
Mr. Phaison. OK.
Mr. Cummings. But I can tell you one of the organizations
that received some of that $156 million is Ms. Pascal, who is
right behind you. And I think she can tell you that we pulled
together a little coalition to try to deal with the whole drug
problem, but I want to talk to you about that.
But let me just ask you this. There is something about that
critical point when you said people come to you asking for
treatment. I mean, where are you looking to send them? In other
words, what are the things that you think are going to be
best--I know everybody is different. But you are just not going
to send them anywhere.
Mr. Phaison. No. First of all, I am going to look for the
sincerity. That is No. 1, because a lot of times people have a
tendency to play a lot of games. I can't. I have to look for
the sincerity of the person because I may only have one or two
slots, with 200 people asking for them.
So I have to try to the best of my ability, to feel them,
to understand that this is what they really want because once
you put them--or once you suggest where they should go, and
they go and they don't stay, that is not--the credibility is
not good for you.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Assuming that they are sincere----
Mr. Phaison. Assuming that they are sincere----
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. What criteria are you looking
for? If you have five or six different programs, what are you
looking for as far as treatment and thinking, hoping, and
believing that it will be most effective? That is what I am
trying to get at.
Mr. Phaison. OK.
Mr. Cummings. In other words, you are just not going to
send them anywhere.
Mr. Phaison. Right. In other words, I am looking for a
place like I went to--excel, the drug treatment center. They
have seminars. They have candlelight seminars. They talk--they
have a program called ``Talk, Hurt, and Grow,'' to get down to
the root of the problem.
I wouldn't just send them somewhere where they--you know,
people are just getting a dollar, just getting a dollar for
them. I am going to send them somewhere where they really,
really can get some help, and they have recovering addicts who
work in those positions who really understand where they are
coming from.
Mr. Cummings. Now, Dr. Taxman says that you have to have--
the most effective treatment needs to be--you need to spend a
substantial amount of time in-house. Is that right, Dr. Taxman?
Ms. Taxman. Well, when you say in-house, do you mean in a
residential component?
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Ms. Taxman. No. It is really an issue of trying to use
residential services for those who need to be away from their
community stabilizing themselves. So it depends on the person,
but I would say from what we have learned that somewhere around
30 percent of the people need some sort of residential
component.
Mr. Cummings. And that is so that they can get away from
their community.
Ms. Taxman. Right. For those who are probably less
motivated, for those who need more stable--initial
stabilization. I think the key is making sure that the
treatment process includes a motivational enhancement component
up front. A lot of people aren't quite ready there. Whether you
are trying to decide to quit smoking, or you have a diabetic
situation, you don't come to a doctor saying, I want to change
my behavior today. You need to be motivated to do that.
So I was just going to add that it is really a treatment
process. The way funding is for treatment is thorugh episodes
usually. You fund an outpatient program that has an episode to
it. You don't fund a treatment process for a person. So that if
they can begin--let us say if they need some residential, and
then move from a residential to day treatment to an outpatient
program, to some support services.
Mr. Cummings. In one of our recent hearings with SAMHSA, we
spent quite a bit of time talking about the best practices, and
one of the things that they said was that there are some
States, that when it comes to drug treatment they don't have
any way of analyzing whether the treatment is effective. On the
other hand, there are States that do.
Ms. Taxman. Right.
Mr. Cummings. Is that something that you think is important
as far as when a State takes a look at effective treatment, to
have some kind of criteria?
Ms. Taxman. Most definitely. You know, in the public
sector, what we are most concerned about is getting outcomes
that, you know, work toward the greater good of trying to help
people recover. But we have to be able to sort through two
issues: what programs work, and what programs work for what
types of people. And without having good data, you really can't
make those determinations.
The field has suffered because we don't have enough
studies. I mean, NIDA has done and CSAT has done some studies
over the last 5, 7 years that have found the base for us. But,
really, if you look over the last 30 years, there are very few
studies that have been done on different types of programs'
effectiveness.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Cason, this is my last question. We are
running out of time here. But, looking back at what you are
dealing with today and the process that have been through, and
going back to some things that Chairman Mica was talking about
is how do we try to make sure that people--do what we can to
make sure that people don't have to go through what you did.
I mean, are there things that if you could request of
Congress, in the most powerful Nation of the world, what would
you want to see? I am just curious.
Mr. Cason. Well, first of all, I would like to see that--
because the grass-roots organization, we work with the people
that is in the city, in the gutter, and in the neighborhood.
And a lot of the addicts that is recovering becomes the example
that--to the people that is coming up. That is the preventative
measurement.
I would like to see the recovering communities be more
supportive because they get no support from State, Federal, or
nobody. So we have got to become self-supporting, which is that
adversity causes us to develop because we are going to recover
anyway.
But I would like to see the people be held accountable
because we have got people who come from jails, from
institutions, and they send them to this--to our program, and
if they would have kept them in jail they would have to pay for
them. But they refuse to give us any money. We have got
hundreds of people that are coming out of jail every day--I
mean, that is in the program.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to take a moment to thank all of
you for--and everybody who testified today. This is an ongoing
struggle, as you all well know. And I think when we look at--I
once said that, you know, when drugs was introduced to this
society, it really--I mean, and when people talk about drug-
infected, that is probably a very accurate word, because I
don't think a lot of people even know the depth of the drug
problem.
I am not just talking about the person who is addicted. I
am talking about the family members and the children, and it
just goes on and on. Even people who may be in the choir every
Sunday and singing may have a son who, you know, who is drug
addicted. And the deaths that we see. But I am just hoping that
hearings like this puts a face on this whole situation.
One of the reasons why, as I conclude, Mr. Chairman, I
wanted to come to Baltimore was because so often in Congress we
hear about Baltimore and the negative comments about drug
addiction and various problems. A lot of times I think it is
important to put a face on all of that. I think it is important
to put a face on the fact that there are people who are
struggling every day, who have had problems, but got up, dusted
themselves off, and are doing a good job now.
We didn't get into it too much, Mr. Phaison, but the fact
that you are a barber and you took off today, and you are not
going to regain that money----
Mr. Phaison. Certainly not.
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. But nobody is going to pay you
leave time.
Mr. Phaison. We can talk about that.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. [Laughter.]
But the fact is that that is the kind of commitment, Mr.
Chairman, that I am talking about. And I am sure it is a
similar situation for you. And, Dr. Taxman, all of the work
that you have done, and you seem like you have made a life
commitment to try to address this problem. And we appreciate
it.
And I guess what I am trying to explain to you is that we
take this--several reporters have asked, ``Well, what do you do
with all of this?'' What we do is I think we have to--we can't
just be policymakers. Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., said you
cannot lead where you do not go, and you cannot teach what you
do not know. And that is why it is so important for us to reach
out and come here and listen and try to figure this out.
As a matter of fact, I know, that these hearings have an
impact. When somebody like Chairman Mica addresses his
Republican colleagues, he has a greater base of knowledge
because he was here and he is senior.
My last question is--and I have said it earlier, Mr.
Phaison and Mr. Cason, I am amazed at the number of recovering
addicts in Baltimore who are successful. I am sure there are
thousands upon thousands----
Mr. Phaison. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. Working every day, who have been
working for years, raising their families, doing what they are
supposed to be doing. They don't drink, smoke, and a lot of
them don't even take an aspirin.
Mr. Phaison. Right.
Mr. Cummings. A fellow was telling me that the other day
because he considers it a drug. They are special people, and I
want to thank you all for being here, and I want to thank you,
Ms. Taxman.
And I want to thank the university, as we come to our end,
I want to thank everybody, my staff, who has worked tirelessly
on this and done a great job. And I want to thank the majority
staff, too. Ms. Beverly Fields who is in the back, our
legislative director in Washington, and Aliyah Horton, who is
out in the hall, and others, who have worked so hard to make
this happen. I want to thank you.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Cummings, and I do appreciate each
of our witnesses coming forward today. And I know you waited
some time to testify, particularly those who gave up
compensation personally to be with us and provide testimony at
this hearing.
And just to reiterate what Mr. Cummings said, what we do
with this is we try to take this back. Our subcommittee is
responsible for trying to put together a coherent Federal drug
policy. The speaker--I inherited this responsibility from the
current Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert, who I can tell you
this is one of his very highest priorities, that we get a
handle on this, that we fulfill our Federal responsibility.
If the war on drugs was closed down, as we heard--was it
Judge Johnson also say--that that has become a joke. That is a
Federal responsibility, to stop this stuff before it ever gets
into our shores or into these communities. And that needs to be
fulfilled.
This is an incredibly--I am a bit of a historic fan. I love
history. This community holds an incredible amount of rich
history from this Nation, and there is no reason that it should
be in the condition or the situation it is in today, that we
are just left with--and we don't want to be just left with
discussing alternatives to incarceration, incarcerating the
population or remembering the thousands that have been lost in
this war. We have got to turn this around.
So we will meet with the HIDTA. We will meet with our
Federal officials involved that are supposed to be working with
Maryland and with this local community. We will convene as many
meetings as we need, additional hearings. We have got to do
something to fulfill our responsibility to the good people of
this community and the country. We cannot let this continue.
So with that commitment, Mr. Cummings, I thank you again,
your staff, and others, for helping bring us here, and for your
commitment to working together to resolve this problem for our
community and Nation.
There being no further business to come before this
subcommittee, this meeting of the Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources Subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:57 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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