[Senate Hearing 106-1004]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-1004
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL
BUREAU OF PRISONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE OVERSIGHT
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 6, 2000
__________
Serial No. J-106-75
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
JON KYL, Arizona HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
BOB SMITH, New Hampshire
Manus Cooney, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina, Chairman
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
Garry Malphrus, Chief Counsel
Glen Shor, Legislative Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Leahy, Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement............................................. 79
Thurmond, Hon. Strom, a U.S. Senator from the State of South
Carolina....................................................... 1
WITNESSES
Sawyer, Kathleen Hawk, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons,
prepared statement............................................. 2
Stana, Richard M., Associate Director, Administration of Justice
Issues, General Government Division, U.S. General Accounting
Office, prepared statement and attachments..................... 14
Fine, Glenn A., Director Special Investigations and Review Unit,
Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice,
prepared statement............................................. 62
APPENDIX
Questions and Answers
Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions from Senator
Thurmond....................................................... 81
Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions from Senator
Leahy.......................................................... 84
Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions from Senator Thurmond. 85
Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions from Senator Leahy.... 86
Responses of Glenn A. Fine to Questions from Senator Thurmond.... 87
Additional Submissions for the Record
Dorgan, Hon. Byron L., a U.S. Senator from the State of North
Dakota, prepared statement..................................... 89
Johnson, Hon. Tim, a U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota,
prepared statement............................................. 91
OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:04 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Strom
Thurmond (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Alson present: Senator Sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STROM THURMOND, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Senator Thurmond. The committee will come to order.
I am pleased to hold this oversight hearing today regarding
the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I have always believed that we
must be tough on crime, and maintaining dangerous criminals in
prison is a key component in the war against crime. One of the
primary reasons that crime is on the decline is that we are
putting more serious offenders in prison and keeping them there
for longer periods of time.
One of the greatest challenges facing the Bureau of Prisons
today is its duty to house an ever increasing inmate
population. The number of prisoners has doubled since 1990, and
is expected to rise by an additional 50 percent in the next 7
years. Today, prisoners are being added at a rate of at least
1,000 per month.
Keeping the growing inmate population productively occupied
is essential. Boredom and idleness, especially in our currently
overcrowded prisons, can be dangerous. Last year, this
subcommittee held a hearing on Federal Prison Industries that
highlighted the central importance of this work program to the
effective management and safe control of Federal inmates. This
program teaches job skills to inmates, and studies continually
show that participants are more likely to find and hold jobs
after their release and are less likely to commit other crimes.
I think this year we should make every effort to reform
this program without endangering its success. We can eliminate
the legal preference that Prison Industries has to make
products for the Federal Government if we also allow it to
compete in the commercial market. Also, we should encourage
Prison Industries to produce items that are currently made in
foreign countries and not in the United States. Reforms such as
these should further minimize its impact on the private sector.
With the constant rise in inmates, the Bureau is doing a
good job in controlling the cost of medical care for prisoners.
While national trends show health care costs rising annually,
the Bureau's costs have actually decreased for the last 3 years
in a row. This is based on various initiatives that the Bureau
has implemented, including staff reorganizations, bulk
purchasing, and telemedicine.
Moreover, as the General Accounting Office notes, the
Congress should permit the Bureau to charge a small co-pay for
inmates when they receive non-emergency care, as many States
already do. This would help discourage frivolous health care
visits, thereby freeing medical staff for needy inmates. Also,
the Bureau should be able to cap inmate hospital payments at
the Medicare rate.
A recent DOJ Inspector General report raises concerns about
inmate use of telephone calls to continue their criminal
activity while incarcerated, including crimes like drug
trafficking and fraud. In 1995, the Department of Justice
settled a prisoner lawsuit regarding phone use on terms
generous to the prisoners.
Currently, most inmates are allowed to make as many
telephone calls as they are able to pay for, or as many collect
calls as people outside will accept. The case demonstrates that
while the current Justice Department often encourages
settlement agreements in various areas of the law, these
settlements are not always in the best interest of all parties
involved.
While inmates should be able to maintain contact with their
families and communities, the Bureau must balance these needs
against the public interest in preventing inmate crime. The
Bureau is taking steps to address this issue. It must work
diligently to prevent prisoners from committing crime from
behind bars.
I want to thank the witnesses who are present, especially
the Director of the Bureau. Dr. Sawyer has one of the toughest
jobs in the Federal Government, and I wish to commend her for
her hard work and dedication. I look forward to discussing
these important issues today.
I will now introduce Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the Director
of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, of the Department of Justice.
She has 24 years of management and training experience in the
Bureau of Prisons and currently oversees the operation of 95
Federal institutions.
How are you doing?
Ms. Sawyer. Just fine, sir.
Senator Thurmond. She holds a bachelor's degree from
Wheeling Jesuit College, in West Virginia, and both a master's
degree and doctorate degree from West Virginia University.
We will now turn to Director Sawyer.
STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN HAWK SAWYER, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF
PRISONS, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Sawyer. Good afternoon. I am certainly pleased to
appear before you today, and I want to start by thanking you,
Mr. Chairman, for your tremendous support of the Bureau of
Prisons, and I thank you for that throughout the years that we
have worked with you.
The Bureau continues to effectively meet our mission. As
you indicated, our 31,000 outstanding and dedicated staff
manage over 140,000 inmates in 95 of our own Federal prisons,
as well as contract facilities around the country. During
fiscal year 1999, the Bureau experienced its second consecutive
year of record-breaking growth. We grew by 11,300 inmates last
year alone, and we anticipate that by 2007 the Bureau of
Prisons population will reach 205,000 inmates. That is a growth
of nearly 50 percent over today's numbers.
Crowding in our facilities is 34 percent over-capacity
system-wide. At medium- and high-security facilities, crowding
levels are even more dangerous, with 55-percent crowding at
medium-security and 51-percent crowding at high-security. We
must reduce this crowding at each facility for the safety of
staff, inmates, and the communities surrounding us.
With the resources Congress has already provided, we are
making significant progress in this regard. We have 22 new
prisons that are funded or partially funded, and in the fiscal
year 2001 budget we are seeking funding and advanced
appropriations for nine additional new prisons.
In addition to absorbing our own rapidly increasing Federal
inmate population, the Bureau has begun assuming responsibility
for the sentenced felons from the DC. Department of
Corrections, as required by the National Capital Revitalization
Act. Thus far, we have absorbed 2,300 sentenced felons, and we
will be absorbing the remainder of the inmates by the end of
2001. Absorbing these inmates is going to be a great challenge
for the Bureau because, as I indicated, our facilities are
extremely crowded already and the new bed capacity to absorb
the DC. inmates will not be constructed before the deadline
date of December 2001.
You may recall that in the preliminary drafts of the
Revitalization Act, the Lorton closure date was supposed to
have been 2003, which was consistent with the dates by which we
would get the new institutions built. However, when enacted,
the date for closure had been changed to 2001, which means we
will be absorbing the remainder of the inmates by the end of
2001 without sufficient bed capacity on line.
The Bureau is committing to providing inmates with programs
to help them make the most of their time in custody, as well as
to reenter the community successfully. Our programs include
drug treatment, education, vocational training, and work skills
training. We operate residential treatment programs for
substance abuse for nearly 30 percent of the Federal inmate
population who have serious substance histories.
An interim report researching our success in our drug
treatment programs shows that, 6 months after release, 73
percent of the inmates who completed our program are less
likely to be arrested and 44 percent are less likely to test
positive for any substance abuse. Last year, nearly 6,000
inmates completed their General Education Degree, the GED, and
thousands of others completed a variety of additional education
and vocational training programs.
As I have testified on previous occasions, and as you
mentioned, Mr. Chairman, Federal Prison Industries is our most
important program, and it is a cost-effective program. It is
entirely self-sustaining and operates without any appropriated
funds. It provides significant training for inmates that has
been demonstrated to reduce recidivism.
For many years now, as you indicated, some members of the
business and organized labor communities have voiced strong
concerns with the mandatory source preference, that it gives us
an unfair advantage in the Federal marketplace. Should we lose
mandatory source status, we would clearly need alternative
authorities, as you indicated, such as being able to make
products for the commercial market and being able to make
products that are currently made offshore.
Recently, the General Accounting Office conducted an audit
of our health care, and as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, it was
determined that our health care costs have been steadily going
down as nationwide health care costs have been increasing. GAO
noted several of the initiatives that contributed to this
savings. They also highlighted the two legislative proposals
that you mentioned in your comments, Mr. Chairman, about the
inmate copayment and the Medicare rate caps. And it would
certainly improve our ability to provide cost-effective health
care in the Bureau if both of these legislative initiatives
would be successful.
In August 1999, the Office of the Inspector General
completed an audit on our inmate telephone system. The report
identified some significant problems that have occurred over
the years with inmates abusing their phone privileges, and we
have been working diligently to improve both the inmate
telephone system and our monitoring to address the shortcomings
of the program.
Our goal is to maintain reasonable access by inmates to
phones to support healthy family and community ties which
assist in successful return to the community, but at the same
time we must control for any abuses of phone privileges. The
dramatic growth that we have experienced in the Bureau over the
last several years and the huge numbers of new staff coming in
have outpaced our traditional methods of preventing phone
abuses. We must now look to new technologies that are now
available for us to enable us to control phone abuses, and the
new technology will be installed in all Bureau of Prisons
facilities by November of this year.
I am very proud of the Bureau of Prisons staff and the job
that they do each and every day. Despite our record-setting
population growth, the Bureau has maintained its outstanding
level of performance.
I would like to conclude again, Mr. Chairman, by thanking
you and the members of the subcommittee for your wonderful
support of the Bureau of Prisons throughout the years. This
concludes my prepared comments and I would be happy to take any
questions you might have.
Senator Thurmond. Thank you very much. I want to compliment
you on your fine record.
Ms. Sawyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Thurmond. I have heard so many nice things about
you. You are not only nice looking, but you are avery efficient
woman.
Ms. Sawyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, your budget for the new
fiscal year requests about $2 billion in new funding to
construct or complete construction of 17 new prisons over the
next 3 years. Is this new funding, including advanced
appropriations, critical to help you control overcrowding?
Ms. Sawyer. It is absolutely critical, Mr. Chairman. As I
indicated, our crowding levels are really at very dangerous
proportions, especially at our medium and high security levels,
which are the most dangerous inmates in our system. We
desperately need to have more prison beds coming on line. We
are trying to build them as fast as we can to get the beds on
line quickly. We appreciate the great support and resources we
receive from the Congress, and we desperately need each and
every one of those beds we are requesting.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, the GAO review of health
care costs in the Bureau of Prisons shows that unlike the
national trend, your per-capita health care costs are
declining. What do you credit as the primary reason you have
been able to keep per-capita inmate medical costs under
control?
Ms. Sawyer. Well, we have been watching our costs very
carefully, Mr. Chairman, looking for every way possible to
bring those costs down, and we have identified a number of
things that have had a great impact on our costs. One was
reorganizing or changing the way we staff our health care
operations.
We used to be very reliant on physicians and mid-level
practitioners, physician assistants. We find that by spreading
the health care resources a little differently, by bringing in
more registered nurses and licensed practical nurses and other
staff to do the lesser skilled work, frees up, then, the
physicians and physician assistants to do what they are trained
to do, and that is provide medical care, but at much less cost
to the taxpayer.
We have entered into a number of cooperative agreements
with the Veterans Administration and the veterans hospitals. We
share some contracts with them. We do laboratory work together.
We have a cooperative agreement with them, or a contract on our
pharmaceuticals that we are able to achieve at a much lesser
cost through the VA.
Telemedicine has been a great boon for us, and I think we
have only just begun to see the benefits of telemedicine
because that not only saves us money in terms of the amount
that we spend for the consultant medical staff, but it saves us
the cost of transporting an inmate downtown to a local
hospital. We are able to do it using the technology of
teleconferencing, telemedicine. We are getting wonderful
results there and significant cost savings. So there are a
number of different strategies that have resulted in our cost
savings.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, as you are well aware,
the inmate population continues to grow and it is aging. Also,
more and more inmates have serious health conditions such as
AIDS. Will problems such as these make it harder to keep health
care costs under control in the future?
Ms. Sawyer. Well, I think it is specifically because we
envisioned both of these things coming our way, an aging
population as well as the many infectious diseases that come
into our institutions--HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis. That is
exactly why we took such an aggressive approach to reducing our
costs because we need to be able to keep those costs down to a
reasonable level and still meet the medical needs of both the
aging population and the many infectious diseases that come our
way.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, do you think it is a
problem today that too many inmates seek medical care when it
is not needed, and would requiring prisoners to make a modest
co-pay for non-emergency care help prevent prisoner abuse of
health care privileges?
Ms. Sawyer. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. We have done a lot of
tracking and counting the numbers in our institutions. We
believe that about 25 to 35 percent of those inmates who come
to sick call really don't need to come to sick call. They are
trying to get off a day of work or get out of a school class
and not have to attend. They really don't need to be utilizing
the very expensive medical resources that we have available. We
believe the medical co-pay requirements where the inmates would
have to pay just a nominal amount for, again, non-emergency
situations would reduce the abuses of sick call.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, the GAO review of health
care costs concludes that the Bureau could save money if it
could pay hospitals at Medicare rates, especially if
benchmarking efforts were expanded. Do you agree that these
appear to be promising methods to help BOP control medical
costs in the future?
Ms. Sawyer. Yes, we agree that both of those are promising
initiatives. We are very much hoping to someday achieve
approval of the legislation that would allow us to have
Medicare rates capped by the outside hospitals. We believe it
would save up to 50 percent of what we are currently paying now
on health care costs out in the local hospitals.
The benchmarking is a very promising thing, and we are
teaching all of our staff around the system how to do
benchmarking when they are developing new medical contracts. It
is very promising in some locations, especially the inner city
and some other areas around the country. We are a little wary
of it in some of the smaller, more remote communities where we
are located because communities that have a larger poor
population get offsets by Medicare. There are multipliers that
actually increase the costs somewhat. So we want to look at it
a little carefully in terms of some of our remote institutions
to make sure there truly will be a cost savings utilizing the
benchmarking approach in some of those locations.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, the August 1999 report
of the Inspector General raises concerns about inmates using
telephones to continue criminal activity from behind prison
walls, such as drug trafficking. Are you concerned about this
issue, and what steps have you taken to respond?
Ms. Sawyer. We are very concerned about this issue, Mr.
Chairman, and our concern for this was what led us to be
looking to utilize the new technologies that exist today to get
much better control over inmate access.
We have been trying to put into place a new technology
phone system for the last several years and we ran into some
serious glitches both in terms of some protests to our
contracts as well as some litigation which delayed our ability
to put in the new system.
During that same time period, though, as GAO noted, we were
growing dramatically and we had a lot of brand new staff coming
in, and our own practices and procedures and our policies fell
short in terms of being able to be sure that we identified all
the inmates who were going to attempt to continue illegal
activities in the institutions.
So we are now very clearly targeting getting that new
technology in place by November of this year. Since the GAO
report, we have implemented a lot of new practices and
procedures and oversight and monitoring to make sure that we do
control any inmate who attempts to abuse our phone systems.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, I understand from the IG
report that some BOP facilities limit prisoner phone calls to
15 minutes each. Do you think that all BOP facilities should
limit the length and total number of calls that a prisoner can
make on a weekly or monthly basis?
Ms. Sawyer. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We believe, as GAO does,
that one of the ways to get better control over abuses is to
limit access to calls. Again, we have already cut back access
in our institutions currently, shutting down the phone systems
during the daytime when inmates are supposed to be working, and
shutting all the phones off later in the evening as the evening
comes to an end.
Our plan is with the new phone system, we have it installed
now in 40-some institutions, and that will automatically cut
you off after a 15-minute phone call and it will restrict how
long you have to wait before you can make another phone call.
Again, the new technology coming is going to give us some
wonderful benefits.
With the 140,000 inmates that we have in our system and 90-
some institutions, it is hard to keep controls on these things
manually anymore because we are so big, and the new technology
will just give us tremendous new capabilities, including
cutting an inmate off after a 15-minute call.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, what is the status of
implementing ITS-II, your new telephone monitoring system, in
all facilities, and what effect will it have on curbing inmate
telephone abuses?
Ms. Sawyer. Currently, 42 of our 95 institutions are
already fully installed with the ITS-II system. The remainder
of the institutions will be completed by November of this year,
7 months away. It will do a number of things for us. It will
identify every inmate using the telephone with a PIN number. We
will know exactly which inmate is on the phone. We will know
which numbers they are calling because it can restrict you to
just 10 approved numbers by us.
It cuts you off after 15 minutes. It controls how
frequently you can use the phones, so it controls the inmate
access. But the other thing it does is it allows us to do a lot
of cross-referencing to really target abuses. We can tell how
much time over the course of a week or a month you may be
trying to utilize the phone. If you are using it excessively,
obviously you are probably up to no good, and we can target
your calls and monitor them even more carefully.
We can cross-reference numbers to determine whether or not
multiple inmates are trying to call the same numbers which may
suggest illegal activity going on there, or at least something
that is not appropriate. They will be able to cross-reference
numbers with any numbers that law enforcement officials have
that they know are known drug connections. And if our inmates
are utilizing any of those numbers, we can pull it up quickly
through the new technology. There is just a wealth of
capabilities that this new system will provide for us, and
again it will be fully operational by November of this year.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, is Prison Industries
better than other prison work programs to teach inmates skills
they need when they are released and to help prevent
recidivism?
Ms. Sawyer. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. We believe that the
Prison Industries program is the best possible way to teach
good work skills and develop good work habits, and research
backs us up with that fact. Traditional vocational training
programs teach the skill, but there is not sufficient live work
then for the inmates to be able to do to develop the proper
kinds of work habits and really make those skills reality for
them.
The Prison Industries program enables us to do both teach
the skills, develop the good work habits, and also give them
real work over an extended period of time to really hone their
skills so that by the time they are released, they are very
ready to go back into law-abiding society and have good
employment.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, assuming that Congress
eliminated the mandatory source preference for Prison
Industries regarding the Federal Government but did not give
Prison Industries the authority to sell products in the private
sector, what impact would this have on Prison Industries?
Ms. Sawyer. We believe it would have a serious impact upon
Prison Industries. We don't know exactly the volume that it
will have, but we know that if we lose the mandatory source, we
will lose some sales in some of the traditional markets that we
have been involved in historically.
That is exactly why, as you indicated in your opening
comments, Mr. Chairman, should we lose mandatory source, we
must have some new opportunities open to us, some new
authorities that will allow us to sell to some other markets in
order to keep an adequate number of inmates employed in Prison
Industries.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, if Prison Industries
were permitted to make products for sale in the commercial
market and paid comparable wages similar to State prison work
programs, would Prison Industries be able over time to
eliminate the mandatory source preference that it now has in
the Federal market?
Ms. Sawyer. We believe that that is one vehicle that would
help us certainly reduce our reliance on mandatory source.
Being able to sell in the commercial market and pay prevailing
or minimum wage is a program that is available to State
facilities right now, State correctional systems. It is called
the Prison Industries Enhancement program, PIE program, and we
believe that that would help us to achieve the kinds of sales
levels that we need.
The other area that would be helpful, as you referenced
earlier, is being able to make products that are currently
being manufactured offshore and then brought back and sold in
this country. If we could have access to the commercial market
for those kinds of products also, we believe the combination of
the two would significantly reduce our need for mandatory
source.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, do you think itwould be
beneficial for the Bureau of Prisons and for American companies if
Prison Industries were allowed to make products that are currently made
by foreign labor outside of the United States?
Ms. Sawyer. Yes, we certainly do, Mr. Chairman. We think
that is a wonderful opportunity for us because those jobs have
already left this country. We wouldn't be harming the domestic
labor market at all, but it would give good work to our inmates
and develop good work skills.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, on the issue of inmate
telephone calls, it seems that one way to deter prisoner abuse
of phones is to provide tough, consistent punishment for
inmates who abuse their telephone privileges. What is the
Bureau's policy for the discipline of these inmates?
Ms. Sawyer. We agree exactly with that point, Mr. Chairman,
and it was one of the issues raised by the Inspector General's
office also. Our disciplinary response to inmates in the past
had not been as tough as we could make it, so we have made some
significant changes in that regard giving a lot more teeth to
the disciplinary action that will occur for those inmates who
abuse our phone systems.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, are three-way calls a
significant problem, and will the ITS-II telephone system help
prohibit inmates from making three-way calls?
Ms. Sawyer. Yes, Mr. Chairman, three-way calls are very
difficult for us, and unfortunately the ITS system in and of
itself will not resolve that problem for us. There is currently
no technology out there that can clearly identify and clearly
eradicate three-way calls. We continue to work with the
technology experts in the field of telecommunications and as
soon as they land on anything that is usable in terms of three-
way calls, we will include that into the ITS system. But
currently there is nothing that is fail-safe that would
identify for us three-way calls.
Senator Thurmond. Director Sawyer, I believe that completes
the questions I had in mind. Do you have anything else you want
to say?
Ms. Sawyer. No, sir. Again, I just thank you for your
support of the Bureau of Prisons.
Senator Thurmond. Thank you again for your good work.
Ms. Sawyer. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sawyer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathleen Hawk Sawyer
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to
appear before you today to discuss the operations of the Federal Bureau
of Prisons (BOP). Let me begin by thanking you, Chairman Thurmond,
Ranking Minority Member Senator Schumer, and other members of the
Subcommittee for your strong support of the BOP. I look forward to
continuing our work with you and the members of the Subcommittee.
The BOP continues to meet effectively our mission to protect
society by confining offenders in facilities that are safe, humane,
cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and that provide work and
other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming
law-abiding citizens. Through their dedication and outstanding
contributions, over 31,000 BOP staff manage over 140,000 inmates in 95
institutions and contract confinement facilities throughout the
country.
population growth and resources
During fiscal year 1999, the BOP experienced its second consecutive
year of record breaking inmate population increases. In fiscal year
1998, the population increased by more than 10,000, and in fiscal year
1999, the increase was over 11,300. By fiscal year 2007, we anticipate
a Federal inmate population of approximately 205,000. That is growth of
nearly 50 percent over the current level.
Overcrowding in BOP facilities is 34 percent over capacity system
wide. At medium and high security facilities overcrowding levels are at
even more dangerous proportions, 55 percent at medium security
facilities and 51 percent at high security facilities. We must reduce
overcrowding at those facilities for the security of staff, inmates,
and the surrounding communities. With the resources Congress has
already provided, we are making substantial progress with 22 new
prisons funded. However, we need to do more. In the fiscal year 2001
budget request we seek funding and advanced appropriations to fund 9
new prisons over the next three years. Advanced appropriations, coupled
with design-build contracting, will enable the BOP to build the new
facilities more quickly and at less cost.
district of columbia (dc) felons
In addition to absorbing the rapidly increasing federal inmate
population, the BOP has begun assuming responsibility for sentenced
felons from the District of Columbia (DC), as required by the National
Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 (the
``DC Revitalization Act''). The BOP also continues to move forward on
the Revitalization Act requirement to privatize confinement for at
least 2,000 DC sentenced felons. Environmental and legal challenges
have delayed our efforts to transfer the inmates to privately operated
prisons, but we have accepted almost 2,300 DC sentenced felons from the
DC Department of Corrections facilities for placement into facilities
operated by or under contract with the BOP. Over900 of these inmates
are currently housed in a facility operated by the Virginia Department
of Corrections.
During fiscal year 2000, the BOP will accept on an on-going basis
from the DC Department of Corrections, minimum and low security male
sentenced felons, female sentenced felons, and sentenced Youth
Rehabilitation Act (YRA) offenders. The inmates to be accepted include
both new Superior Court commitments and those confined in the DC
Department of Corrections (or facilities under contract with the
Department of Corrections). We will continue to accept, on a case-by-
case basis, special management cases, as well as inmates with chronic
medical problems who can be housed in the general population of a BOP
minimum or low security facility. Further, despite severe overcrowding
at our penitentiaries and medium security facilities, we have agreed to
take up to five maximum custody inmates per month who have shown by
their behavior that they are incapable of functioning in an open inmate
population. Also, contingent upon BOP capacity, transfer of additional
mental health/medical cases will be accomplished.
Absorbing the DC sentenced felons into the BOP presents an
extraordinary challenge. BOP facilities are extremely overcrowded, and
the new prison facilities being constructed to absorb DC felons will
not be ready until after the transfer deadline of December 31, 2001. In
the preliminary drafts of the Revitalization Act, the Lorton closure
date was 2003, consistent with BOP estimates for construction
completion of new facilities. However, when enacted, the date for
closure was 2001, and thus we are not in the best position to absorb
these inmates. We are, nevertheless, committed to meeting the
requirement of the act and receiving all inmates by the end of 2001.
Finally, we continue to seek a modification to the 50 percent
privatization requirement in the DC Revitalization Act. This charge is
necessary because nearly two-thirds of the D.C. Code sentenced felons
are classified as medium and high security under our classification
system. Consequently, to meet the 50 percent requirement in the
Revitalization Act, the BOP would have to place more than 2,000 medium
and high security offenders in contract prisons. Consistent with the
Administration's position that the private sector has not yet
established a sufficient track record in housing these offenders, the
BOP believes it would present a significant risk to public safety if
the higher security D.C. offenders were to be placed in privately
operated prisons. Accordingly, we are seeking language to provide us
with the same discretion that we have with other federal inmates to
determine which D.C. felons can appropriately be placed in private
facilities, consistent with the safety of staff and inmates and the
surrounding community.
inmate programs
The BOP takes its mission very seriously and is very committed to
providing inmates with programs designed to help them make the most of
their time in custody and successfully reenter the community upon
release. We provide a variety of correctional programs that further
these objectives, including drug treatment, education, vocational and
work skills training.
Residential drug abuse treatment
The BOP operates residential drug treatment programs for the nearly
30 percent of the federal inmate population who have histories of
substance abuse. Residential programs (where inmates live in housing
units devoted to drug treatment activities) are the most significant
component of the drug treatment process. Through our 44 residential
drug abuse treatment programs we provide treatment to all eligible
offenders with substantiated histories of moderate to serious drug
abuse. Nearly 50,000 inmates have completed this program since 1990. An
interim report from an ongoing evaluation of BOP residential drug abuse
treatment programs showed that individuals who had been released to the
community for a minimum of six months after completing residential
treatment were 73 percent less likely to be arrested for a new offense
and 44 percent less likely to test positive for drug use, as compared
to similar inmates who did not complete the program.
Education and vocational programs
Last year nearly 6,000 inmates completed their General Education
Degree (GED) and thousands of others completed a variety of additional
education programs, as well as vocational training programs. Through
these programs, inmates gain knowledge and skills that help them become
gainfully employed upon release and avoid new criminal conduct. These
programs have been shown by BOP research to significantly reduce
recidivism. I will address the value of work skills programs in more
detail below in the context of Federal Prison Industries.
Life skills programs
In recent years the BOP has developed a host of new programs
intended to assist inmates make a better adjustment to prison life, to
help those who had been involved with gangs adapt toindependent
functioning as inmates in prison and as citizens after release to the
community, and help those inmates with deficiencies in life skills
improve their functions while being incarcerated and upon release. The
programs are designed to bring about a significant increase in the
quantity and quality of interactions between staff and inmates. The
goal of these interactions is to increase the likelihood that staff
will have a positive influence over the inmates, as well as a greater
opportunity to prevent illicit inmate behavior. They also emphasize the
development of positive, pro-social values and behaviors that will
enable inmates to manage better their lives in the institution and upon
return to the community; all are designed to teach individual
responsibility, respect for the law and authority, and pro-social
coping and interacting skills.
We remain committed to self-improvement programs for inmates and
their significance to our overall mission despite the substantial
overcrowding and the additional strain that it puts on our staff in
providing programs.
federal prison industries
As I have testified on previous occasions, Federal Prison
Industries (FPI) is the BOP's most important and cost-effective
correctional program. FPI, which is entirely self-sustaining and
operates without any appropriated funds, provides an important inmate
program at no cost to the taxpayers. FPI's mission is to: (1) employ,
instill good work habits in, and provide skills training to as many
inmates as possible; (2) contribute to the safety and security of
federal prisons by keeping inmates constructively occupied; (3) produce
market-priced, quality good for Federal Government customers; (4)
operate in a self-sustaining manner; and (5) minimize its impact on
private business and labor. FPI employs nearly 21,000 inmates,
representing approximately 25 percent of the sentenced, medically
eligible, federal inmate population. Inmates employed by FPI learn
marketable job skills, develop a strong work ethic, and are less likely
to engage in prison misconduct.
In addition, inmate employment in FPI reduces recidivism and
thereby increases public safety. A comprehensive study conducted by the
BOP demonstrated that FPI is an important rehabilitation tool that
provides inmates an opportunity to develop work ethics and skills that
can be used upon release from prison. Inmates employed by FPI were
found to be 24 percent more likely, upon release, to become employed
and remain crime-free for as long as 12 years after release.
The FPI program also contributes significantly to the safety and
security of the BOP's correctional facilities. FPI keeps inmates
productively occupied and reduces inmate idleness and the violence and
other misconduct associated with it. In recent years, FPI's role as a
correctional program has become even more important as the inmate
population and institution overcrowding have increased substantially.
The FPI programs are essential to the security of communities in which
they are located, the Federal Prison System, its staff, and inmates.
For many years now, some members of the business and organized
labor communities have voiced strong concerns that the mandatory source
preference gives FPI an unfair competitive advantage in the federal
market place. The debate has intensified in recent years as the number
of inmates employed in FPI has increased with a corresponding increase
in output of goods and services. The increases are drive by the past
two decades bi-partisan federal criminal justice policy of putting more
people in prison for longer periods of time. There is now an ongoing
dialogue between interested Members of Congress, FPI, private business,
and organized labor that we hope can achieve a solution that will
simultaneously satisfy the legitimate concerns and competing issues of
all interested parties.
Should FPI now forgo its mandatory source status, as an offset for
sales and inmate job assignments that would be lost as a result, the
BOP clearly needs alternative opportunities in order to maintain
current inmate employment levels in industries.
We believe there is broad-based consensus for several principles,
which should guide the development of these opportunities:
Private businesses should be allowed to compete for
federal business.
Federal customers should have more discretion in procuring
products.
EPI should operate in a manner that minimizes any adverse
impact on domestic companies and workers.
EPI should employ inmates and provide job skills training
to provide for secure prison management by reducing inmate idleness and
to reduce recidivism by prisoners who are released to the community.
EPI should operate in a self-sustaining manner.
medical issues
Chronic health care costs
The number of inmates over 50 years old confined in BOP facilities
is gradually increasing. While it is true that the aging inmate
population has inordinate needs for health care, we have found that
younger inmates who have a history of high risk behaviors are also
prone to significant health concerns (e.g., HIV, hepatitis).
Specifically, many of our elderly inmates have no significant health
care needs, and are appropriately housed based upon their security
levels in our general population facilities. The bulk of our health
care costs emanate from our Medical Referral Centers (essentially
prison hospitals), which house some elderly offenders, but also house
large numbers of younger offenders suffering from chronic, debilitating
diseases that result from the lifestyle as they have led.
Infectious disease
Large urban correctional systems, like the District of Columbia
system, have consistently reported higher rates of drug use among their
inmates, a behavior strongly linked to blood borne pathogen infections,
such as HIV and hepatitis B and C. For example, studies of the felon
population at the DC Jail have shown HIV infection rates of 8-10
percent, while the prevalence of HIV infections in the BOP inmate
population has been steady at 1 percent over the past decade (based
upon our random seroprevalence studies and clinical observations, we
can estimatethat our seroconversion rate is extremely low).
Accordingly, we expect that our health care costs will rise as a result
of absorbing the DC Code offenders, since treating HIV-infected inmates
is very expensive; medical care averages $20,000 per year per HIV-
infected inmate, compared to just over $3,200 per year per non-infected
inmate.
General Accounting Office audit of BOP health care costs
From July, 1999 to February, 2000, the General Accounting Office
(GAO) conducted an audit of the BOP's inmate health care costs. GAO
found that inmate health care costs rose from 1990 to 1996, but
declined thereafter. In comparison, nationwide health care costs rose
continuously from 1990 to 1998. They further noted that several BOP
health care cost-containment initiatives are beginning to produce
savings.
GAO also highlighted the BOP's support for two legislative
initiatives that could improve inmate health by increasing efficiency
and potentially reducing medical costs, while maintaining the quality
of inmate health care. First, H.R. 1349 and S. 704 are companion bills
that provide the BOP the authority to charge non-indigent inmates a
minimal copayment fee for health care visits. These bills seek to
decrease health care visits scheduled by inmates who do not have
genuine medical concerns, but sign up for ``sick call'' to avoid
required activities (e.g., work assignments, education classes). The
Department strongly supports these bills, and believes they would
provide a significant tool to assist BOP medical staff to more
appropriately spend time evaluating and treating inmates with
legitimate medical needs. Additionally, we believe these bills would
further our efforts to help inmates understand the importance of
personal responsibility.
A Medicare rate-based cap on payments to hospitals that treat
federal inmates, similar to that already granted to the Department of
Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, might produce
substantial health care savings without decreasing the quality of
health care inmates receive. Our analysis of a small sample of BOP
inmate health care billings to outside hospitals revealed that the
Medicare rate cap provision would have saved the BOP almost 50 percent
of the total hospital bills included in the sample.
inmate telephone use
From February, 1998 to August, 1999, the Office of the Inspector
General (OIG) conducted an audit of the BOP's inmate telephone system
(the results of the audit were published in a report entitled
``Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons' Management of
Inmate Telephone Privileges''). The report identified some significant
problems that have occurred over the years with inmates abusing their
phone privileges. We have been working diligently to improve both the
inmate telephone system and our monitoring to address the shortcomings
in the program. The systems in place today are significantly better
than in past years. The systems and operating procedures, and
monitoring capabilities planned for the future are the best available
in the field of corrections, and I believe the BOP has repeatedly
assumed a national leadership role in the development of inmate
telephone monitoring hardware, software, and investigative strategies.
The BOP recognizes the importance of inmates maintaining close
family ties, through visits, written correspondence, or telephone
calls, in order to assist with their successful reentry to society
following release from prison. Unlike many smaller state correctional
systems that generally house inmates relatively close to home, the
federal system must sometimes house inmates far from their families. As
a result, social visits may occur less frequently, greatly increasing
the importance of inmate telephone contact with family members. The BOP
has provided inmates with access to collect call telephones for many
years, and as a matter of security we have recorded all non-attorney
calls and have randomly monitored non-attorney conversations. However,
as our population has grown dramatically since the late-1980's, our
traditional mechanisms to prevent inmate telephone abuses have been
outpaced by population growth. Therefore, we have had to turn to new
and improved technologies to prevent abuses.
As part of our technological advancement, in the early 1990s the
BOP began developing a new telephone system that would provide inmates
with debit calling and would enhance our monitoring capacity. While
implementation of these technological advances has been delayed by
litigation and contracting difficulties, we are now making substantial
progress installing our most recent generation debit calling telephone
system (ITS-II), and we hoe to have it installed in all federal prisons
by November 2000. This new system will allow the BOP tosignificantly
increase control of every inmate's calling privileges. The system can
provide staff with numerous reports to assist in monitoring inmates and
determine which inmates may be attempting to abuse telephone
privileges. Additionally, the system links together all BOP facilities
for information sharing among staff about inmate phone usage, and makes
this information readily available to our headquarters.
In the OIG report, it was recommended that the BOP make changes in
four broad areas: increased telephone monitoring, increased discipline
of telephone abusers, proactive telephone restrictions for certain
inmates, and detection and deterrence of inmate use of telephones for
criminal activity involving the community. We have taken actions in all
of these areas.
We are revising training protocols and tracking systems to
enhance proactive monitoring of inmate telephone calls. This will allow
us to increase surveillance of inmates who are more likely to abuse the
telephones and to better understand some of their often coded
conversations. We have established a target date of June 30, 2000, for
implementation of this initiative.
We are developing a national contract to install state-of-
the-art recording equipment in our institutions, and we are reviewing
the potential for use of technologies that enhance detection of three-
way calling and other prohibited practices. We are conducting a pilot
test of new technology and anticipate completion and assessment of the
pilot data by December 31, 2000.
On December 1, 1999, we modified our institution
misconduct policy to reflect new offense codes for engaging in coded
conversations, with loss of telephone privileges as one of the
available sanctions. However, prior to implementation of these changes,
our union (AFGE) notified us that, in accordance with the Master
Agreement, they intend to negotiate this policy change. We are unable
to provide a target date at this time, but we are hopeful these changes
can be implemented very soon.
On January 5, 2000, the BOP implemented the recommendation
to use the Security Threat Group (STG) ``telephone abuse'' category
more frequently and set better standards for its use. This will allow
BOP staff to increase and enhance overall institution monitoring of
targeted inmates.
We have modified our inmate classification procedures to
permit proactive restrictions upon inmate telephone privileges.
conclusion
I am very proud of the BOP staff and the job they do each and every
day. Despite our record setting population growth, evidenced by the net
increase of 1,800 new inmates in the BOP last month alone, we see
indications of our effective prison management. For example, over the
past 5 years we have had substantial decreases in both inmate suicides
and inmate misconduct, including assaults. However, such successes
cannot be expected to continue in the face of the dramatic population
increases and record setting overcrowding we project will occur in the
next several years. Without the resources we have requested to bring
additional bed space capacity on line, our record of service may be in
jeopardy.
The BOP's mission involves myriad program and policy issues; today
I have touched on just a few key topics. I'd like to thank you, Mr.
Chairman. and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to
provide an update on the operations of the Bureau of Prisons. This
concludes my prepared remarks, and I would be pleased to answer any
questions you may have.
Senator Thurmond. Our next witness is Richard Stana, Associate
Director for Administration of Justice Issues at the General Accounting
Office. Mr. Stana, who has been with the GAO for 24 years, has a
master's degree from Kent State University. He will present the
findings of GAO regarding containing health care costs for an
increasing inmate population.
Our final witness is Glenn Fine, Director of the Special
Investigations and Review Unit of the Justice Department's Office of
Inspector General. He has been with the IG's office for 5 years and
received an undergraduate and a law degree from Harvard. He will
discuss the IG report, Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of
Prisons' Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges.
I would ask that you please limit your opening statements to no
more than 5 minutes. Your written testimony will be placed in the
record, without objection.
We will start with Mr. Stana.
PANEL CONSISTING OF RICHARD M. STANA, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ISSUES, GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION,
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC; AND GLENN A.
FINE, DIRECTOR, SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS AND REVIEW UNIT, OFFICE
OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
WASHINGTON, DC
STATEMENT OF RICHARD M. STANA
Mr. Stana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the results of our review which we did at your
request of the Bureau of Prisons' efforts to contain rising
inmate health care costs.
As you know, the inmate population in the Federal prison
system is growing at a dramatic rate. Over the last 3 years,
roughly 1,000 inmates were added to the Federal prison
population each month, and BOP projects it will have almost
200,000 inmates by fiscal year-end 2006. That is about 50
percent more than it has today. This population growth----
Senator Thurmond. Did you say 1,000 a month?
Mr. Stana. One thousand a month.
Senator Thurmond. Increase?
Mr. Stana. Yes, sir.
This population growth, along with the effect of mandatory
minimum sentencing for drug-related crimes and the aging of the
inmate population, has placed unprecedented demands on BOP's
health care system. My prepared statement discusses in detail
the trends in BOP's health care costs, the various initiatives
BOP has undertaken to address these trends, and some options
for controlling rising costs.
In my oral statement, I would like to highlight two main
points. First, BOP's overall health care costs are on the rise
on an overall basis. They increased by about 170 percent during
the 1990's. Population increases aside, the three major cost
drivers are salaries of BOP medical personnel, the cost of
community hospital services, and salaries and relocation
expenses of Public Health Service personnel.
However, BOP health care costs look much differently when
analyzed on a per-capita basis rather than an overall basis.
Adjusted for inflation, per-capita costs rose steadily, from
about $3,000 in 1990 to a high of about $3,700 in fiscal year
1996, then decreased these past 3 years to about $3,250 per
inmate in fiscal 1999. In contrast, the nation's per-capita
health care costs rose continuously during the 1990's, to about
$4,140 per capita in 1999.
In part, this recent downward trend is a result of many
cost containment initiatives that Director Sawyer mentioned in
her statement. Among these are medical staffing restructuring,
obtaining discounts through quantity or bulk purchases,
leveraging resources through cooperative efforts with other
Government entities, centrally pre-certifying inmates for
surgery before they are sent to community hospitals, using
telemedicine, and even privatizing services at selected
facilities. Collectively, BOP reports that these initiatives
are saving millions of dollars each year.
My other point focuses on the next steps toward controlling
BOP's health care costs. Two of these steps are embodied in
legislative provisions. One provision would authorize the
Director of BOP to assess and collect a fee of not less than $2
for certain health care visits requested by an inmate. CBO
estimates this provision would generate annual revenues of
about $1 billion, but by law these revenues would go to the
victims of crime and not to BOP. Rather than being a revenue
generator, the value to BOP is to reduce the number of
unnecessary medical visits and free up limited resources for
the inmates who need them the most.
The second legislative provision would allow BOP to emulate
Medicare's prospective payment rates which vary with each
hospital. These Medicare rates would become a cap to BOP's
payments to community hospitals for services provided. This is
significant because about one-fourth of BOP's total health care
costs are for contracted services with community hospitals. CBO
estimates that this provision would save BOP about $6 million
annually. We believe that both legislative provisions would be
helpful to BOP's efforts to control medical costs.
Another step is one BOP could take without legislative
action. Given its increasing reliance on community hospitals,
BOP needs to negotiate more cost-effective contracts. BOP's
South Central Region recently began using an innovative
approach called benchmarking to identify best value among
competing proposed contracts.
Specifically, the region required bidders to use a common
or standard benchmark rate--that is, the Medicare Federal
rate--and to separately show a proposed percentage markup or
discount to that benchmark rate. This not only makes it easier
to compare bids, but it also allows for more accurate payment
for services rendered.
According to regional office contracting officials, if the
benchmarking approach were applied to all contracts in the
South Central Region, the estimated savings would be about $5.6
million annually in this one region alone. We are recommending
that BOP take steps to test the benchmarking approach in other
regions and, if the test validates its cost-effectiveness,
implement it BOP-wide.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my oral statement. I would be
happy to answer any questions you have.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Stana, your report shows thatthe
Bureau of Prisons is saving money with its private contract with the
local medical university in Beaumont, Texas. Do you think it could be
beneficial in the future for the Bureau to look for partnerships with
other teaching medical centers as a way to control costs?
Mr. Stana. Well, there is a lot of merit in this proposal.
They are saving about $4 per inmate per day on this contract,
but I also ought to say at the same time that it is not clear
that this contract and the costs that are connected with it
would necessarily be able to be duplicated in other locations,
for a number of reasons.
The long-term care is passed on to BOP and the contractor
himself has said that they could no longer do it for this
amount of money. So while the concept is a good one, I am not
so sure that the exact features of the Beaumont contract could
be duplicated.
Senator Thurmond. Excuse me. I want Mr. Fine to make his
opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stana follows:]
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STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE
Mr. Fine. Mr. Chairman, Senator Sessions, thank you for
inviting me to testify before the subcommittee about a special
investigation conducted by the Department of Justice Office of
the Inspector General regarding telephone abuse by Federal
prison inmates.
My name is Glenn Fine and I am the Director of the Special
Investigations and Review Unit, the unit of the Office of the
Inspector General which conducts sensitive or complex
investigations of Department programs and personnel.
In August 1999, we issued a special report entitled
``Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons' Management
of Inmate Telephone Privileges.'' This special investigation
attempted to identify the scope of the problem of telephone
abuse by Federal prison inmates, look at the Bureau of Prisons'
response to that problem, and offer recommendations to address
the issue.
The review was conceived of and conducted by a team of OIG
employees, led by an OIG attorney, Tamara Kessler, an OIG
inspector, Adrian Flave, and an OIG investigator, Jeff Long.
Our 122-page report, which has been provided to the
subcommittee and which is available on our Web site, contains a
detailed description of our findings.
Because my written statement has been submitted and will be
admitted to the record, I will briefly try and describe our
report, the structure of our review, the major findings of our
review, and the recommendations that we made.
At the outset of the review, we attempted to determine the
scope of the problem. However, we quickly learned that the
Bureau of Prisons had little information on this issue. Neither
BOP headquarters nor Bureau of Prisons facilities throughout
the country keep statistics on cases in which Federal prison
inmates are accused of committing crimes from prison using
telephones.
We therefore attempted to independently assess this problem
by sending out questionnaires to 94 U.S. attorneys' offices, to
the FBI, and to the DEA asking them to identify prosecutions
and investigations they had conducted involving Federal
inmates' use of telephones. We also surveyed BOP facilities and
conducted site visits of nine BOP facilities to interview the
staff that was responsible for monitoring inmate calls and to
ask them about the pattern of inmate calls.
In addition, we examined some high-profile prosecutions of
inmates who had been convicted of committing crimes using
prison telephones. We also interviewed one inmate, Rayful
Edmond, a notorious drug dealer who had been convicted of drug
trafficking both outside prison and inside prison, to ask him
about his experience using the telephones.
What did we find? Well, our surveys, case examinations,
document reviews and interviews painted a very troubling
picture of the scope and seriousness of the problem of Federal
inmates using prison telephones to engage in criminal activity
We believed that it was a significant problem.
For example, responses to our survey to the U.S. attorneys'
offices revealed over 100 cases in which they had prosecuted
Federal inmates for committing crimes behind bars using prison
telephones, and in approximately 10 of them there were murder
cases, there were drug trafficking cases, there were fraud
cases. We also found additional investigations by the FBI and
the DEA, and in few of these cases was the criminal activity
detected by the Bureau of Prisons.
FBI agents and Federal prosecutors whom we interviewed also
told us that they believed that the BOP made insufficient
effort to target telephone calls and to refer the evidence of
criminal conduct for investigation. Many of the BOP monitors
and employees we talked to believed that a significant
percentage of the calls made by inmates were not for legitimate
purposes, such as maintaining ties to their family and
community, but were for illegitimate purposes.
We also found that very few of the calls that were made
were monitored. Virtually every call made by a prison inmate is
taped, but less than 4 percent of them, only about 3.5 percent
of them, are ever listened to by Bureau of Prisons officers or
monitors.
Another finding was that we found during our site visits
that the BOP staff that was responsible for monitoring
telephone calls was insufficiently trained, and that monitoring
equipment often was not working. We saw that some officers who
were assigned the duties of monitoring as collateral duties
performed their duties in a perfunctory way and not
sufficiently.
In our case studies, we saw many cases in which prison
inmates who had been convicted of using prison telephones to
commit crimes were not targeted even after they had been
convicted for monitoring and still enjoyed full telephone
privileges, and that was despite some calls and requests by
prosecutors or judges to keep track of these inmates. Rayful
Edmond was one of them. He told us that, in his experience, he
used the telephones virtually every day--he called on it all
day long--to arrange drug deals outside of prison; that he on
50 or 60 occasions used telephones to have drugs introduced in
prisons. He participated in telephone conference calls to
Colombia.
And, Senator Thurmond, that is Colombia, South America, you
will be glad to know, not Columbia, SC.
Senator Thurmond. I hope so.
Mr. Fine. He said he knew that most of his calls were not
listened to and he didn't fear that any restrictions would be
placed on him even if he were found out. He had little concern
about that.
Based on our review, we made recommendations to deal with
this issue in four areas. First, we said and we recommended
that the BOP should increase the percentage of inmate telephone
calls it monitors if it expects to make any headway in the
problem of inmate telephone abuse.
Second, we believe that the BOP should more consistently
discipline telephone abusers. Third, the BOP should restrict
and target telephone privileges proactively for those inmates
who have a history of telephone abuse or a likelihood of
telephone abuse. And, fourth, the BOP should emphasize the
responsibility of its officers to detect and deter crimes by
inmates using telephones.
In response to our report, the BOP has acknowledged its
shortcomings and has stated that it is working diligently to
improve its monitoring program. The Director told you that, and
we have seen a response by them. However, to determine whether
the changes in the BOP procedures have been effective to
adequately address these issues, we plan to conduct a 1-year-
after review, approximately 1 year after we completed our
initial report, to review the Bureau of Prisons procedures and
the changes that it made to determine whether they are
effective in protecting the public and to correcting inmate
telephone abuse.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and Senator Sessions,
permitting inmates access to prison telephones and protecting
the public against crimes facilitated through the use of prison
telephones present a complex balancing of interests. The BOP
has told us that its main mission of its monitoring program was
to detect internal activity that could undermine the security
of its institutions. It has also told us that it wants to allow
prison telephone calls to promote ties to the family and
community of the inmates. Those are both critical and
legitimate objectives.
We also believe, however, that it is critical that the BOP
focus on preventing inmates from using prison telephones to
commit crimes outside of prison that affect those outside the
institution as well. We believe that the BOP should
aggressively implement changes such as the ones we recommended
to address the serious problem of inmate telephone abuse.
That concludes my oral testimony and I would be glad to
answer any questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Glenn A. Fine
Mr. Chairman, Senator Schumer, and Members of the Subcommittee on
Criminal Justice Oversight:
i. introduction
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee to
discuss the work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with
respect to our oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Specifically, I appear before this panel today to discuss a special
investigation conducted by the OIG and issued in August 1999 entitled,
``Criminal Calls: A Review of The Bureau of Prisons' Management of
Inmate Telephone Privileges.'' This special review sought to identify
the scope of the problem of telephone abuse by BOP inmates, assess the
BOP's response to the problem, and offer recommendations to address
this serious issue.
Telephone privileges for BOP inmates have increased dramatically
since the 1970s when inmates were permitted one telephone call every
three months and that call was placed by BOP staff. Now, most BOP
inmates are allowed to make as many telephone calls as they are able to
pay for or as many collect calls as people outside prison will accept.
The BOP provides inmates access to telephones on the grounds that it
furthers important correctional objectives, such as maintaining
inmates' ties to their families. However, BOP's responsibilities extend
beyond those objectives. Permitting inmates virtually unlimited access
to telephones comes at the cost of allowing inmates the ability to
commit serious criminal activity using prison telephones. Often those
crimes extend beyond the prison. Even though the BOP records all inmate
calls, except prearranged calls between inmates and their attorneys, we
found that the BOP listens to few such calls--approximately 3.5 percent
of the tens of thousands of calls made daily by federal inmates.
Our review found that federal inmates using prison telephones to
commit serious crimes while incarcerated--including murder, drug
trafficking, and fraud--is a significant problem. Although the BOP has
been aware of the problem for many years, we concluded that it had
taken insufficient steps to address the abuse of prison telephones by
inmates. The BOP failed to respond adequately, partly because of the
fear of litigation if it made changes to inmate telephone privileges,
partly because of its misplaced reliance that new technology will
provide solutions, and partly because of its apparent belief that
inmates primarily use the telephone to maintain family relationships
and community ties.
We concluded that the BOP needs to squarely address what appears to
be significant inmate abuse of prison telephones and take immediate and
meaningful actions to correct the problem. Technology alone will not
solve the problem of inmate telephone abuse without aggressive
intervention by BOP officials. We believe that unless the BOP places
some meaningful restrictions on inmate telephone privileges, steps up
its monitoring of inmate calls, disciplines telephone abuses more
consistently, and devotes more effort to detecting and deterring prison
telephone abuse, the significant problem of inmates using prison
telephones to commit crimes will persist.
ii. the oig review
At the outset of our review, we attempted to determine the scope of
the problem of inmates' abuse of prison telephones. However, we learned
that the BOP had a paucity of information on this issue. Neither BOP
headquarters in Washington, D.C., nor BOP facilities across the country
keep statistics of cases in which inmates are accused of committing
crimes from prison using the telephone. Although the BOP maintains
statistics on violations of prison regulations, this data is not
sufficiently specific to identify which cases involve the use of
telephones. Several BOP officials acknowledged to us that their limited
statistics do not represent the overall number of telephone violations
because many violations are resolved informally or not pursued
administratively when criminal charges are brought.
Given the limited information available from the BOP, we attempted
to independently identify the scope of inmate telephone abuse through a
questionnaire we sent to all 94 United States Attorneys' Offices
(USAOs). In the questionnaire, we asked the USAOs to identify any cases
they prosecuted involving crimes committed by inmates using telephones
in BOP facilities. We sent a similar questionnaire to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
headquarters, for distribution to all FBI and DEA field offices, asking
them to identify investigations they conducted involving federal
inmates' use of prison telephones to commit crimes. In response to our
requests, we received information from 72 USAOs, 16 FBI field offices,
and 11 DEA field offices. Because these organizations do not index
cases according to whether they took place in prison or involved the
use of telephones, their responses to our questionnaires were based on
the recollection of the people who filled them out rather than on any
comprehensive statistical review, and they undoubtedly do not represent
the total universe of such cases.
We also sent a questionnaire to the 66 BOP facilities that use the
Inmate Telephone System (ITS), a telephone system employed by the BOP
that can store and analyze data about inmate telephone calls better
than the older telephone system used in 27 other BOP facilities. In
this survey, we sought information about the volume of inmate calls and
each institution's monitoring practices, staffing, equipment, and other
policies related to the detection of telephone abuse by inmates.
We also visited nine BOP facilities to interview staff responsible
for the institution's security and inmate telephone monitoring
operations. These nine facilities represent institutions with different
security levels and different physical layouts, two factors that affect
the methods of monitoring the use of prison telephones. We visited four
penitentiaries, three medium-security facilities, and two low-security
institutions.
In addition, we examined prosecutions of several high-profile
inmates who were convicted of committing crimes from inside a BOP
facility. We looked at these cases to determine what steps, if any, the
BOP had taken to prevent these inmates from using the telephones to
continue their criminal activities while they were incarcerated. We
also interviewed one of these inmates, Rayful Edmond III, about his
experience using prison telephones to commit crimes.
In total, we interviewed more than 70 BOP employees and
approximately 20 other persons in the Department of Justice. We
examined numerous documents, including BOP program statements on inmate
telephone usage, the case law on inmate rights to telephone access, and
the litigation and settlement agreement in a large class action lawsuit
brought by inmates against BOP regarding the telephone system.
iii. findings
Our interviews, case examinations, data collection, and document
review paint a troubling picture of the scope and seriousness of inmate
use of prison telephones to engage in criminal activity. Our 122-page
report, which has been provided to the Subcommittee and which is also
available on the OIG's website at ``www.usdoj.gov/oig,'' contains a
detailed description of our findings. For purpose of this statement, I
will summarize our major findings.
We determined that inmate abuse of prison telephones appears to be
significant. For example, responses to our survey to the USAOs revealed
more than 100 cases recently prosecuted by those offices involving
inmates' use of prison telephones to commit criminal acts. Eleven of
these cases involved prosecutions for murder or attempted murder
arranged by inmates over prison telephones. In one case, an inmate used
prison telephones to attempt to arrange the murder of two witnesses and
a judge and to pay for the execution with illegal firearms. One inmate
directed a fraudulent employment matching service scheme using prison
telephones that involved approximately $1.6 million. Another inmate
used prison telephones to swindle trucking companies out of more than
$100,000.
The FBI field offices that responded to our questionnaire reported
that they conducted 44 investigations between 1996 and 1998 involving
prison inmates using telephones to commit crimes. The DEA reported
investigating 12 cases at BOP facilities in the recent past in which
federal inmates had used prison telephones to commit crimes. In none of
the DEA cases was the criminal activity detected by the BOP.
FBI agents who handled many cases of prison crimes told us that
they believed that the BOP makes little effort to target inmate
telephone calls and to refer evidence of criminal conduct to the FBI
for investigation. Similarly, a federal prosecutor from the Los Angeles
USAO, who works mostly on prosecutions involving crime in prisons, said
that the prison telephones to commit crimes is rarely detected by the
BOP.
Rayful Edmond, a notorious Washington D.C. drug dealer who used
prison telephones at USP Lewisburg to run an international drug
organization, told the OIG that he talked on the telephone ``all day
long'' and made arrangements for drug deals on the telephone almost
every day, including participating in conference calls to Columbia. He
estimated that he arranged to have drugs brought into prison 50 or 60
times. He claimed that almost half of Lewisburg inmates were involved
in bringing drugs into the institution and that most of these drug
deals were arranged over prison telephones. Edmond said that he has
little concern about conducting drug deals using prison telephones
because he knew that most calls were not being monitored. He said he
also believed that even if he were caught abusing his telephones
privileges, at worst he would receive a light punishment or a
restriction of his privileges for a short period of time.
Our survey determined that most inmate calls from prison are never
listened to by BOP employees. Only 3.5 percent of the tens of thousands
of calls made every day from BOP facilities were monitored. Our survey
also found that even though inmate telephones wereavailable an average
of 18 hours per day, the institutions had staff assigned to listen to
telephone calls an average of only 14 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on
weekends. Our survey also indicated that 16 of the 66 BOP institutions
using ITS assign staff to listen to inmate telephone calls less than 50
percent of the time that the telephones are operational. While all
calls are recorded and can be listened to later, we found that this
occurred rarely.
Some inmates use prison telephones excessively. Fifteen inmates at
the nine institutions we visited spent more than 66 hours each on the
telephone during a one-month period. This equates to more than two
hours per day, on average, that these inmates spent talking on the
telephone. However, none of the institutions had done anything about
this excessive telephone use or was even aware of it.
During our visits to the nine institutions, we also found that the
BOP staff responsible for monitoring inmate telephone calls were not
sufficiently trained on the telephone monitoring equipment or
monitoring procedures. For example, we did not talk to any telephone
monitor who had received anything other than on-the-job training. We
found no BOP telephone monitors who had received formal instruction on
the best way to monitor inmate telephone calls; how to recognize
suspicious activities or coded inmate language; which inmates should be
monitored; or how to detect three-way calls, which are prohibited under
BOP regulations. We also found that many BOP facilities make little or
no effort to monitor telephone use by high-risk inmates. In addition,
we saw that some correctional officers who are assigned collateral
duties of monitoring inmate calls do so in a perfunctory way, often
monitoring fewer calls than they are required by their post orders.
During our site visits, we also saw that some of the equipment used to
monitor calls was broken and no one had placed an order for it to be
repaired.
In addition to our surveys and site visits, we examined several
high-profile prosecutions of inmates who were convicted of conducting
their crimes from inside a BOP facility. We looked at their cases to
determine the response of the BOP in each case and what, if anything,
it could have done differently to detect the criminal activity. These
cases provided stark examples of the BOP's failure to adequately
monitor inmate telephone use. In addition to the case of Rayful Edmond,
we reviewed the following cases:
Anthony Jones, a drug dealer in Baltimore, MD, was
convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and was
incarcerated at a BOP facility in Allenwood, PA. While incarcerated,
Jones became aware of an ongoing grand jury investigation into his drug
activities and used prison telephones to order his associates outside
prison to murder two witnesses he suspected had testified against him.
One of the witnesses was killed and the other was shot several times.
As a result, in May 1998 Jones was convicted of murder and attempted
murder, and he received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Yet, even after these convictions, Jones retained full telephone
privileges and the BOP failed to take any measures to monitor his
telephone calls. Only after the OIG questioned the BOP about Jones'
telephone access in connection with this review did the BOP move to
restrict his telephone privileges in July 1998.
Jose Naranjo was convicted of conspiracy to distribute
cocaine in 1979. While serving a 12-year sentence in Otisville, NY, he
used the prison telephones to participate in a conspiracy to import
cocaine from Colombia, South America to North Carolina. Even after his
conviction for that crime, he continued to enjoy full telephone
privileges. After being transferred to Petersburg, VA, he engaged in
other conspiracies to distribute cocaine, and in 1995 was again
convicted of drug distribution offenses that he had committed using
prison telephones. After Naranjo's sentencing, the federal prosecutor
wrote to the BOP to urge it to prohibit Naranjo from using prison
telephones. However, during our review in 1998, we were surprised to
learn that Naranjo's telephone privileges had been restored and that
the BOP was making no special effort to monitor his calls.
Oreste Abbamonte was convicted of using prison telephones
at Lewisburg, PA, to orchestrate the distribution of multiple kilograms
of heroin. After this conviction, federal prosecutors wrote a letter to
the BOP stating that Abbamonte's access to prison telephones had
enabled him to commit drug crimes while incarcerated. When Abbamonte
was sentenced, the court specifically recommended that he be confined
to the BOP's highest security facility with limited telephone
privileges.
Despite these recommendations, the BOP placed no restrictions on
Abbamonte's telephone use, and his drug trafficking using prison
telephones continued. While in a BOP facility in Leavenworth, KS,
Abbamonte again used prison telephones to conspire to purchase cocaine,
and he was convicted in 1992 for this offense. When we reviewed
Abbamonte's BOP files in 1998, we were again surprised to find that his
telephone privileges were not limited in any waydespite the
prosecutor's letter, the court's specific request, and his repeated use
of the prison telephones to commit crimes.
Several BOP officials told us they believed that a new generation
of telephone equipment planned for installation in all BOP institutions
during the next two years will detect many cases of inmate telephone
abuse. However, no new technology--including ITS II, the BOP's new
inmate telephone system--will solve the problem of inmate telephone
abuse without aggressive intervention by BOP officials. Implementation
of a new inmate telephone system is not the ``cure all'' that some BOP
officials apparently are counting on. In fact, given the lack of
understanding and failure to use some of the security features that
already exist in the BOP telephone system, the new system could have
little impact on BOP's efforts to detect telephone abuse by inmates
unless the BOP makes a more sustained effort to use the new technology
aggressively to detect and deter telephone abuse.
iv. recommendations
Based on our review, we recommended that the BOP take steps to curb
prison telephone abuse in four ways. First, the BOP must increase the
percentage of inmate telephone calls it monitors if it expects to make
any headway on the problem of inmate telephone abuse. While additional
resources will be helpful in this regard, because of the high volume of
inmate calls the only realistic solution is to reduce the number of
calls so that BOP staff assigned to this task can monitor a greater
percentage of calls. Towards this end, we made various recommendations,
including that the BOP impose limits on all inmates' telephone
privileges, set a significantly higher goal for monitoring inmate calls
and then calculate the resources needed to meet this goal, have
telephone monitors on duty at all times that prison telephones are
available to inmates, do a better job identifying inmates with a high
probability of abusing their telephone privileges, and institute a plan
to monitor these inmates' calls proactively.
Second, the BOP must increase and more consistently discipline
telephone abusers. During our review, we found various cases in which
inmates retained full telephone privileges even after they were
convicted of a crime involving use of prison telephones. We recommend
that the BOP develop and enforce policies to ensure that administrative
action is quickly taken against inmates who abuse their telephone
privileges, particularly those inmates convicted of crimes stemming
from their use of prison telephones. The BOP also should develop and
implement policies that mandate restriction of telephone privileges as
the preferred sanction for inmate telephone abuse. Subsequent
violations of BOP telephone policies should result in increased
sanctions that include loss of all telephone privileges. Inmates who
commit crimes using prison telephones also should have their privileges
revoked.
Third, the BOP should restrict telephone privileges proactively for
inmates who have a history of telephone abuse or a likelihood of abuse.
This would mean that some inmates simply would not have telephone
privileges because of their previous behavior using the telephones in
prison. As an additional safeguard to deter potential criminal conduct,
the Department of Justice should educate prosecutors about the
availability of court orders restricting an inmate's telephone
privileges in racketeering and drug cases. The Department also should
consider seeking legislation to permit similar court orders in all
cases in which the government can make a showing that the defendant
should not be entitled to telephone privileges because of a prior
history of telephone abuse.
Moreover, the Department should emphasize to USAOs the need to
inform BOP of inmates who pose special risks of committing serious
crimes while incarcerated, as outlined in a letter from the Attorney
General on May 7, 1998. As of the fall of 1998, the BOP had received
only two such notifications. These notifications are critical because
they fill gaps in BOPs' knowledge about the inmates' history and put
the BOP on notice of the risk posed by certain inmates. In light of the
BOP's failure to properly monitor high-risk inmates after either court
order or notice from prosecutors, we recommend that a reporting system
be established to assure USAOs that the BOP has taken proper measures
after such a notification.
Fourth, the BOP should emphasize the responsibility of its officers
to detect and deter crimes by inmates using BOP phones. Our review
found that Special Investigator Supervisor (SIS) officers at BOP
institutions spend far too little time detecting and deterring criminal
conduct committed by inmates using prison telephones. The SIS's mission
should be expanded to include a more substantial focus on the detection
of crimes by inmates in BOP custody. This could be accomplished through
additional training for SIS staff, greater communication between the
SIS and other law enforcement agencies, and better intelligence-
gathering on inmates. In addition, the BOP should revise its procedures
to require SIS staff to ensure that the numbers listed on an inmate's
telephone calling list are investigated prior to approval of those
lists, especially with high-risk inmates.
v. oig follow-up review
In response to our report, the BOP acknowledged the shortcomings of
its telephone monitoring efforts and stated that it has been working
diligently to improve its monitoring program. However, the BOP
contested whether there was widespread abuse of prison telephones by
inmates, arguing that the 100-plus cases of inmates recently prosecuted
for telephone abuse cited in the OIG report were only a small
percentage of the total number of inmates in BOP custody. We found this
argument unconvincing. Our surveys identified serious cases of criminal
activities. In addition, our interviews of BOP correctional officers,
law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and Rayful Edmond, as well as
our case studies of how the BOP failed to monitor the telephone calls
of inmates who had been convicted of committing serious crimes with
prison telephones, indicate that the problem is significant. Moreover,
we believe that the absence of reported cases is attributable, in large
measure, to the fact that the BOP does not monitor prison calls
adequately and does not even compile statistics on prison telephone
abuse. As a result, the reported cases we collected in our survey
appear to be, as one FBI agent who investigated such cases phrased it,
``the tip of the iceberg.''
In its response the BOP concurred with many of the reform
recommendations we made, including imposing limits on telephone
privileges. It disagreed with several of the recommendations, however,
such as whether the BOP should monitor a higher percentage of inmate
calls, whether there should be a telephone monitor on duty at all times
prison telephones are available to inmates, or whether SIS officers
should focus more of their attention on the detection of crimes by
inmates in BOP custody.
To determine whether the BOP's procedures and proposed changes in
response to our report adequately address these issues, the OIG plans
to conduct a ``year-later'' follow-up review of the BOP's management of
inmate telephone privileges. We intend to use a variety of techniques,
including surveys, interviews, site visits, data analysis, and document
review, to assess whether BOP has made improvements in its efforts to
curb inmates' abuse of telephone privileges.
In conclusion, permitting inmates access to prison telephones and
protecting the public against crimes facilitated through use of prison
telephones present a complex balancing of interests. Our review
highlighted the serious nature of inmate abuse of prison telephones,
including murders and drug deals arranged using BOP telephones. Our
review also led us to conclude that the current inmate call monitoring
system is ineffective. Our interviews of telephone monitors left us
with the impression that they are overwhelmed and not adequately
trained. The low number of crimes or administrative violations detected
and the high number of crimes likely being committed should indicate to
the BOP that major changes are needed. We believe that, in light of our
report, the BOP should aggressively implement changes to address the
serious problem of inmate telephone abuse.
Senator Thurmond. Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Well, on the telephones, do the Federal prisons themselves
make a profit by selling the phone to a private contractor, and
do they have an incentive to allow more calls to be made? That
was true in Alabama prisons, I know, and actually they were
paying for it because the prisoners had to call collect to
their mama or their wife, who didn't have the money to pay for
the calls. But they couldn't turn them down when they called
collect and ended up with big fees, higher than normal
telephone fees, and the contractors and the prison both were
making money off of the deal.
Mr. Fine. Senator Sessions, in this case the contractor and
the Bureau of Prisons do get a share of the profits that are
made from inmate telephone calls. I think the problems in the
State institutions that I have read about are significantly
different in that there are exorbitant rates charged to inmates
using the telephones.
In the Bureau of Prisons, the rates that are charged are
approximately 15 to 31 cents for debit calls. For local calls,
it is 50 cents, a flat fee, and for collect calls it is the
standard collect charge, whatever that may be. A portion of the
profits go to the contractor and a significant portion of the
profits do go to the Bureau of Prisons.
Senator Sessions. So the more calls that are made, the more
they make. What do they use that for the coffee fund or----
Mr. Fine. Well, they use that for the inmate trust fund.
There is currently an issue whether they can use that money to
monitor telephone calls. The money that is used has to go in
the inmate trust fund for the benefit of the inmates, and there
is an open question whether that could be applied to monitoring
efforts. We believe that it should be, and there may be sort of
a need for clarifying legislation to make it clear to the
Bureau of Prisons that they can use that money to more
proactively and aggressively monitor the inmates' calls.
Senator Sessions. Well, several of the former public
officials or public officials who were involved in this are now
themselves in the bastille in Alabama for these manipulations
of telephone toll calls. And I thought it was really bad. Some
of that investigation began when I was attorney general.
Do you think that the fact that the prison makes some money
out of it could cause them to be less aggressive in containing
the calls?
Mr. Fine. Well, that is a possibility.
Senator Sessions. Well, you know, I guess that is the
answer. My next question is did you have any occasion to
examine the nature of these contracts to make an opinion about
the wisdom of those contracts? I thought they were rather
bizarre because there was big money being made. Once they set
the system up, the owners sit back in their homes and the money
just comes in. Every time some prisoner calls their mother
collect, the chink goes into that cash register of the
businessman, and I wonder why the Federal prison system
couldn't run that itself, or get the major phone companies to
do it.
Mr. Fine. We did not examine the contracts and the
arrangements that had been made between the Bureau of Prisons
and the telephone companies. What we were mostly focusing on in
this was their efforts to monitor and prevent criminal calls
from behind bars. We found a significant problem there. But you
raise a serious issue; there is not question about that.
Senator Sessions. And is it basically done on a collect
call basis?
Mr. Fine. No. It is on a debit basis in most institutions,
with the option of having collect calls. They can make debit
calls. They get a phone access code and if they have money in
their commissary account, they can use that phone access code
to make a direct debit call. If they don't have sufficient
money in their commissary account, they can use the phones to
make collect calls to their families.
Senator Sessions. One hundred seventeen prosecutions is
significant of people in prison abusing the phones. One of the
great prosecutors I have ever known, Broward Segrist, in
Montgomery, years ago prosecuted some 30 prisoners who were
using the prison phones to conduct fraud, and I remember him
telling me, they said, well, you know, it is just worthless; a
lot of these guys got 20 years in jail. We have got a trial, it
will be a holiday for them. They get another year and there is
nothing you can do to them. But he said he felt so strongly
about it that it was wrong that he was not going to turn away
and listen to the prison people and the experts who said they
shouldn't be prosecuted.
I would assume, based on my personal experience, that a lot
of cases of significance have not been prosecuted for that very
reason, and actually gone to trial and been convicted because
the U.S. attorney's office has a lot of demands on it. It is
going to prosecute a $1,000 fraud when the guy has already got
10 more years to serve in jail, and he might escape during the
prosecution. So it is a burdensome thing to prosecute. So, that
indicates to me that you have a bigger problem than a lot of
people would suggest.
Have you seen any computer fraud? Has there been any access
by prisoners to computers in a way that has led to fraudulent
activity?
Mr. Fine. No, not in this survey. What we did was we
surveyed the U.S. attorneys' offices, and they did not have--
everyone did not have indexes of these cases and records of
these cases. What it really was was whoever got our survey from
memory remembering the cases that involved prison telephones.
So I agree with you. We believe that those numbers were the
tip of the iceberg, and the fact that there were that many
prosecutions indicates that there is much, much more
criminality going on behind bars and only some of them get
prosecuted. Of the cases that we were referred, I don't believe
there were any computer frauds that were noted in response to
our survey.
Senator Sessions. I had a neighbor in Mobile, AL, that
talked to me about receiving--two people I knew in town
received a call saying their child had been either in an
accident or arrested, and that this person had been asked to
call on their behalf and they needed to fax so much money to
this address. And these people were terrified. They didn't know
whether their child had been injured or had been arrested.
Eventually, it turned out to be a prison call scam.
Is that the kind of thing we are talking about?
Mr. Fine. That is the kind of thing we are talking about.
We are talking about those kinds of frauds where prisoners have
virtually unlimited access to the phone and can commit these
fraudulent schemes. We saw one case, for example, where there
was a prisoner behind bars in Federal custody who committed a
fraud by claiming he was a headhunter, claiming there was an
employment matching service. Send me some money and I will get
you a job. The person who sent the money had no idea that they
were sending money to a prisoner behind bars. That is the kind
of thing that can happen, and the thing that you just described
as well.
Senator Sessions. Well, many of these are quite devious and
sociopathic, and it is why we have controls on the use of their
phones.
Do you uncover any need for legislation, or did you think
for the most part the problems could be solved by regulations
within the prison?
Mr. Fine. We believe for the most part the problem can be
solved by the Bureau of Prisons by aggressively intervening, by
aggressively using the technology that they have and monitoring
inmate calls more aggressively, by restricting the number of
calls to a reasonable level. We saw some cases where there was
an absolutely incredible amount of telephone calls being made
by single prisoners that the Bureau of Prisons was not aware of
or was not evendoing anything about. So the tools are in place.
There is a little bit of legislation that we suggested
around the edges; one, for example, making it clear that the
Bureau of Prisons can use the profits from the telephone system
to monitor telephone calls, that that is part of the overall
system, and that that would be used for the benefit of the
inmates; that is, providing a secure system could use that
money.
In addition, judges can restrict privileges for inmates if
it is a drug offense or a racketeering offense, and we looked
into and recommended that there be some consideration of
expanding the types of crimes where judges can actively
restrict the privileges of inmates. But in response to your
question, by and large the tools are there and we have
recommended that the Bureau of Prisons aggressively use those
tools.
Senator Sessions. I would think they ought to look at the
whole idea of this contracting out this phone business. I am
not sure that is healthy. Maybe in the early days, only a few
people knew how to put a system in like that that could work to
do the collect calls or however they managed it. But I think we
are probably beyond that now. Mainstream companies probably
could do it, and it provides an opportunity to create a cash
cow for a contractor who really is not doing any work. Once he
gets the system set up, it just basically runs itself and the
money clinks in every week.
Mr. Chairman, I did want to ask a little later some
questions about health care issues, but I have taken too much
time. I apologize.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Stana, do you believe that the
benchmark contracting initiative and a cap on hospital charges
at Medicare rates has the potential to significantly help
contain costs?
Mr. Stana. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. The initiatives that
are currently being implemented by the Bureau of Prisons have
been very helpful, but they can only go so far. They have
gotten the Bureau down to the levels they are from 3 years ago,
but there is going to be a sort of a diminishing return to how
much more you can expect from those initiatives.
Now, what you get with a Medicare cap is you have the
hospitals using a system that they fully understand. It is the
Federal system. There are predetermined rates that are set by
HCFA, with a little bit of room that would be made in the
legislative proposal for any other special needs brought about
by taking care of inmates. And you would know exactly what you
had. You would have more of a basis for confidence that you are
getting one of the best values for the money.
With the benchmark, you have something completely
different. What you have with the benchmark rate is not using
the Medicare care, per se. You are using the Federal Medicare
rate, which is the base rate before each individual hospital
gets to add their own circumstances and cost features into that
rate, and this is significant.
Of the five hospitals in the El Paso area, for example,
there was a 40-percent difference in the Medicare rate among
the hospitals for the same procedure. So by using the benchmark
rate, what you are telling the hospitals is this is the rate I
want you to benchmark your bid at; let me know the percentage
above that rate or below that rate you are going to bid at.
Now, both of these rates could be complementary, with the
Medicare cap being at the upper end and the benchmark rate
being something perhaps below that, so that they could work in
tandem.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Stana, what do you predict will be
the primary health care cost issues that the BOP will face in
the future?
Mr. Stana. Well, I think there are many issues that they
face in the future, but I would boil it down to three. The
first one is contracts. Right now, about a third of their costs
are made through contracting, and they need to have the
confidence that they are getting the best possible contracts.
And we think the Medicare cap and the benchmarking procedure
would go a long way to making sure that they are getting the
smart contracting procedures.
The second thing is caring for special-needs populations.
Director Sawyer mentioned the problem of the aging inmate
population. In fact, I just last week visited two Federal
medical centers in Fort Worth, TX, Carswell for women and Fort
Worth for men, and what I saw is a number of elderly inmates
who are not really appropriately placed in the general
population, but being that there is no intermediary care, were
placed in the Federal medical center, taking up a hospital bed,
which is very expensive care.
Right now, I believe the Bureau estimates that they have
virtually enough inmates, or will very soon, to open a separate
facility that would, in essence, be nursing care. And this is a
challenge that is going to exacerbate as the aging of the
population proceeds.
The third thing is pharmaceuticals. They spend a lot of
money on psychotropic drugs for mentally ill inmates, cocktails
for HIV inmates. For example, the normal prisoner's health care
cost is about $3,250. For an AIDS patient, it is about $20,000,
and the hepatitis drugs the same thing.
Senator Sessions. Twenty thousand for whom?
Mr. Stana. Twenty thousand for an AIDS patient.
Senator Sessions. And $3,500 for----
Mr. Stana. And $3,250 for the average BOP inmate health
care cost.
For hepatitis C, it is $14,000 for medications there, and
care, for an average hepatitis patient. Again, the average for
BOP-wide is $3,250.
Senator Sessions. A year?
Mr. Stana. A year.
As times goes on, as you get more and more AIDS patients
and hepatitis C, which they are just beginning to test for, and
mentally ill inmates in the system, health care costs are going
to go up, and we need to be sure that we can get on top of
these issues.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Stana, the Bureau of Prisons is faced
with a sharply rising prison population which increases
Government expenses in all areas, including health care costs.
In this time of growth, is it important for the BOP to make
cost containment measures a top priority not only in the
medical care area but other areas as well?
Mr. Stana. It is critical that they have cost containment
strategies for all areas of their operations. In the early
1990's, we did a number of reports dealing with the
construction program and the population management programs
that the Bureau had at that time, and that is when we were
dealing with a population base of about 50 to 60,000 inmates.
As you know, we are more than double that today.
I would think that they would focus their cost containment
areas in a handful of areas where there may be some payback.
One is reexamining the design capacities, how they are
designing their prisons to enable the use of double-bunking
where appropriate instead of having each inmate have a separate
cell. Of course, you can't do that at the more advanced
security levels, but at the mediums and below, you may be able
to take advantage of that in a greater way.
The second thing is construction costs. When we compared
construction costs of the Federal prisons to State and local
prisons a number of years ago, we found that the Federal
prisons were far more expensive. In part, that is because they
build a more substantial building, but in part they didn't take
advantage of common use areas and they gave each inmate, on
average, more square footage.
Another area that we would like to reexamine sometime is
their use of halfway houses. We found a lot of excess capacity
going unused in the halfway house system, when there were
inmates that could be appropriately placed there and they could
be housed there at much less expense.
Finally, privatization. Of course, we have the Taft
experiment going now and we don't know how that is faring yet.
There is not enough experience there, but I think we ought to
look to the private sector to do more and more just as they are
doing in the health care system.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, what steps has the Bureau taken
in response to your IG report to make inmate abuses of phone
privileges more of a priority?
Mr. Fine. We have been generally pleased with their
response. They have acknowledged the shortcomings and have
stated they have diligently attempted to address the issue.
They are implementing the new inmate telephone system, the new
technology, at many different institutions. They have told us
that they have entered many more inmates in categories of
inmate telephone abuse, and that they will look at them more
targeted and more proactively.
They have sent out a monitoring guide to the officers and
the investigators in the field. They have made the use of coded
language in telephone calls a more severe disciplinary offense.
They are attempting to increase the discipline levels for some
of the offenses. So they have told us they have taken
significant steps to address the problem of inmate telephone
abuse.
What we intend to do, however, is, as I stated before, go
back in a year after our report to see whether those policy
changes and procedural changes have had an effect. In the past,
we have seen a disconnect to some extent from the policies that
are at the headquarters level to what we saw in the field, and
we think it is important that those policies are implemented
throughout the Bureau of Prisons so that they will have the
intended effect.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, at the time of your report
inmates were provided almost unlimited telephone privileges.
What restrictions on inmate telephone calls do you think are
appropriate?
Mr. Fine. Well, we know that the Bureau of Prisons had a
wardens' working group a few years ago that looked at this
issue and suggested that 300 minutes a month would be an
appropriate restriction. That seems to us to be reasonable. We
didn't state the exact number of minutes that should be the
maximum, but we do think that there should be a restriction on
the number of minutes. Otherwise, the Bureau of Prisons won't
be able to get a handle on the problem of inmates using the
telephones excessively and using them excessively to conduct
criminal activities. So we have recommended to the Bureau of
Prisons that they look at this issue and put in a reasonable
restriction such as that.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, do you think that the
settlement that the Department of Justice recently made in the
Washington v. Reno litigation was more generous for prisoners
than the law required, and has the settlement deterred efforts
within BOP to restrict telephone privileges?
Mr. Fine. It has restricted efforts to some extent. The
main problem with that settlement agreement, in our view, was
that the litigation and the settlement agreement delayed the
implementation of needed changes. It delayed to some extent the
new technology, the new inmate telephone system, and it also
has created a mind set within the Bureau of Prisons that they
are hesitant to make changes in the inmate telephone privileges
and hesitant to make changes in the current system, when the
actual settlement agreement, in our belief, wouldn't prevent
that from happening.
For example, the settlement agreement states that inmates
should be allowed 120 minutes of collect calling per month and
60 minutes of debit calling per month. That, in our view, is
not an onerous restriction because the wardens' working group
and sort of in our view, any restriction would be a higher
level. But that settlement agreement has prevented the BOP from
looking at this issue and making changes while the settlement
agreement is in effect, and we think that the fear of
litigation and the fear of the settlement agreement shouldn't
hold up the needed changes.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, should the Department of
Justice try to get the court to amend the consent decree on
terms more favorable to BOP if the decree impedes efforts to
restrict telephone abuse?
Mr. Fine. I would say yes. If it does restrict the efforts
to restrict telephone use, then the Department of Justice
should clearly look at that settlement agreement. However, in
our talking to the Federal programs attorneys and the Bureau of
Prisons attorneys, their view is that the settlement agreement
would not restrict efforts as long as the Bureau of Prisons
could make the case, and we believe that they can, that
restrictions are necessary for the security and good order of
the institution and to protect the public.
That is a provision in the settlement agreement, and as
long as the case can be made and the Bureau of Prisons makes
that case, the settlement agreement should not restrict their
efforts to impose significant controls on inmate telephone use.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, your report notes that in 1998
the Attorney General sent a memorandum to U.S. attorneys
encouraging them to inform the Bureau of Prisons of incoming
inmates who posed a special risk of committing crimes while in
prison. Do you think the Department of Justice needs to do more
to encourage U.S. attorneys to warn BOP about these new
inmates?
Mr. Fine. Yes, we do think they should. We think that memo
was a good step. When that memo was issued in May 1998, we
looked at it, and in the fall of 1998 there had only been two
referrals to the Bureau of Prisons to look at inmates who
exhibited a likelihood of continuing theircriminal activities.
In August 1999, there were six. We are told currently there has only
been about 17 referrals. We believe that there should be more
referrals, and the Department of Justice and both the U.S. attorneys'
offices as well as the law enforcement agencies should make an effort
to notify the Bureau of Prisons about inmates of greatest concern.
Senator Thurmond. Mr. Fine, is it important to limit
prisoner use of telephones to hours when telephone monitors are
on duty?
Mr. Fine. We think that is an important restriction that
should be made. I know the Bureau of Prisons disagrees with
that. They believe that monitors should only be on duty at the
times of the highest usage. The problem we found is that
although almost all inmate telephone calls are taped, if they
are not listened to live, they are rarely listened to. And we
believe that the live monitoring is the most effective
monitoring that occurs; that the alerts can be noted and
listened to. And we believe that there should be monitors on
duty at the time of telephone usage.
Senator Thurmond. I want to thank you gentlemen for being
here and for your testimony. I have got another engagement and
I have got to go.
Senator, can you take over now?
Senator Sessions. Yes, I can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
just have a few questions I would pursue.
It is difficult to overestimate the problems that come from
these consent settlements. Every warden, when asked to do
something about phones, is going to say, well, there is a
lawsuit and they have got a consent settlement and the judge
will put me in jail if I do anything. So it is just an excuse
for doing nothing.
I really believe that the Bureau of Prisons needs to assert
the fact that they represent the United States of America with
regard to housing prisoners, and not lawyers and a judge in a
back room in a courthouse somewhere trying to monitor the
telephone system. I really think we have gone too far on that,
and I hope that out of this will come a determination to
conduct reform across the board.
Mr. Stana, with regard to the aging population, I assume
that was not part of your analysis precisely, but anecdotally
or otherwise did you form any opinions or develop any concerns
about increasing health care costs coming from an aging prison
population?
Mr. Stana. Well, aside from the obvious cost of maintaining
an elderly patient, what we found is that the Bureau's system
of health care really isn't flexible enough right now to
provide a gradation of care as inmates move along in their care
needs.
In the private sector--you and I have parents and uncles or
whatever--if you need a little more help, you can go into
assisted living. If you need a little more than that, you can
go into a nursing home. If you need a lot of care, there is a
hospital. You know, there is a gradation of care.
Well, with the Federal prison system, if you can't maintain
yourself or be maintained in the general population, given your
security level, your option is to go to the Federal medical
centers. That is very costly. I just came back from the Federal
medical centers last week and one impression I came away with
is there are an awful lot of elderly inmates who are using up
bed space.
Senator Sessions [presiding]. Hospital-style bed space?
Mr. Stana. Hospital-style. It is questionable whether they
needed that intensity of care, but there is nowhere else to put
them. So I think what the Bureau needs to do, and I think they
are thinking along these lines, is to create an option, almost
a nursing home, if you will, to care for these elderly inmates.
Senator Sessions. And you believe that would be not only
more appropriate, but less expensive in the long run?
Mr. Stana. Well, like I say, it frees up hospital beds for
inmates who need hospital-style care. That is what the private
sector does and that is what the Bureau of Prisons is
eventually going to have to do.
Senator Sessions. To your knowledge, are there any
proposals now about how to deal with elderly prisoners who
maybe have reached a point in their life when they cease to be
dangerous? I don't think we can say that about every prisoner,
but there are some probably that that could be said about,
people who have contracted a terminal illness or something like
that. Is there sufficient ability for the prison system to
transfer them to some sort of work camp or outside facility, or
even on a home detention basis?
Mr. Stana. I met an inmate last week who was terminally ill
with cancer. She had maybe 2 months to live, and the Bureau was
working with her on a compassionate release so she could go
home and essentially die with her family. The problem is not
many inmates who serve long sentences have a support network
once they leave the prison. Their relatives disown them or they
just aren't there.
So by releasing the inmate to get care other than in a
prison, the question is where do you release them to, and would
the private sector care, either nursing homes or other types of
assisted living, be willing to take on inmates who are there
under those circumstances.
Senator Sessions. Not an easy question to deal with.
Mr. Stana. No.
Senator Sessions. What trends did you see in pharmaceutical
drugs? Has that been going up steadily?
Mr. Stana. Well, they have, but through bulk purchasing and
cooperative agreements with other governmental agencies, they
have really got a bit of a handle on that. The issue here is
what are they going to do with the inmate population as they
see it coming. You know, they are testing more for hepatitis,
hepatitis B and C, and so they are finding more cases of that,
and that is a very expensive treatment. It is a form of blood
poisoning.
The same with AIDS patients. There is only 1 percent of the
BOP inmate population that has HIV or AIDS, but about 8 to 10
percent of the District of Columbia inmates that are being
transferred into the Federal system have the AIDS virus. So it
is very expensive care. Psychotropic drugs, as I mentioned
before, are very expensive, you know, the anti-depressants,
schizophrenia drugs, and so on. And you have to provide this
level of care.
Now, what the Bureau does attempt to do in discerning what
type of care to give to which inmates is try to discern who
needs life-saving care, who needs the kind of care that would
essentially leave them with a lifelong condition, like a bad
hip and they just can't get along without it. They may provide
that.
Then there is a sort of a gray area on a case-by-case basis
of if a person has a hernia, well, can they live withit? Well,
if they can, they won't do it. If they can't live with it, then they
will; they will provide the care. And then there is a fourth category
that is dental caps and removing tattoos, things like that that are
most of the time dismissed out of hand. But I have got to say my own
observation would be if they are going to err, they are going to err on
the side of providing the care rather than withholding care from an
inmate in need.
I have one thing I wanted to mention. You were having an
exchange with Mr. Fine a second ago and you asked about
computer security in prisons. We did a report and issued it
last summer on the controls on inmates who do prison work
programs that gives them access to personal information. It is
mostly in the State systems where the State department of
corrections may be under contract with the health bureaus or
the driver's license bureaus to transfer files on computers.
The real key we found there is good supervisory controls
over the inmates, making sure that they are controlled when
they go in, they are working in a controlled environment while
they are working, and there are some controls to see what they
are taking out of the facility with them.
We found a relative handful of cases where an inmate read a
medical file and discovered that it was a relative and they
called the relative and it resulted in an embarrassing
situation. Or they got a credit card number somehow or a
driver's license and they proceeded to get a credit card and it
was Eddie Bauer for the cell block, you know. But it was rather
rare. In fact, we expected to find more of it, and we owe it to
the kinds of controls that they have in prison work programs.
The programs that did not have the controls really were at
risk.
Senator Sessions. Well, everything is risk. You hire
somebody off the street and they can violate privacy or steal.
I am generally of the view and would be supportive of more
effort to make prisoners work, to have them work. The prisoners
benefit from it, the prison benefits from it, the taxpayers
benefit from it. Violence in the prison goes down when
prisoners are working. There is just a more pleasant
circumstance. So I think we can't be intimidated just because
somebody might escape. Well, they are about to be released in 9
months anyway, free and clear, you know. I think we have got to
pursue the effort of work and employment.
The numbers on health care costs look fairly good to me
over the decade. I mean, they have more than doubled, tripled,
probably, but we also have almost twice as many.
Mr. Stana. Well, that is it. The biggest cost driver is the
population increase. We mentioned earlier that the net increase
is about 1,000 inmates a month. Well, what that does is that
commits the Bureau of Prisons to about $3 million more in
health care costs each year just by the fact that they are
coming in the door with the average health care costs. You do
the math and it is $3 million more a year just by simple
population growth. But they have taken steps and they are
bringing it down on a per-capita basis.
Senator Sessions. Well, Federal prison does not segregate
AIDS patients, is that correct?
Mr. Stana. I am not clear on that. I think if they present
a danger, they would, but I don't know if they would do that on
a routine basis.
Senator Sessions. The State of Alabama has segregated AIDS
patients, won that at the supreme court level, and believes
that even if it is just one, two, three, four, five cases that
are eliminated in transmissions of disease, that is a benefit
to the prisoner as well as to the taxpayer.
Mr. Stana. Yes. My understanding is they do not segregate
them.
Senator Sessions. I don't think they do.
What about hepatitis C? That is easily transmitted.
Mr. Stana. My understanding is they do not, but I think one
thing that they are trying to do, or at least it is a proposal
they are thinking about is trying to bring patients with like
needs together in the same situation so they can treat everyone
and maybe come up with a cost saving that way.
For example, the medical center at Fort Worth has a
specialty in wounds treatment. The medical center in
Springfield has kidney dialysis. By doing that, you bring
people with like illnesses together and maybe get some savings
that way.
Senator Sessions. And they have always had mental
hospitals.
Mr. Stana. They have always had those things, yes.
Senator Sessions. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
believe that the prison system is a necessary evil, if you want
to say it that way. I don't believe anyone can deny that our
tendency in recent years to lock up for longer periods of time
repeat, habitual, dangerous offenders has saved people from
being murdered and has reduced crime in America. It is a big
factor in it. We are doing a better job. We are not where we
need to be, but we are doing a better job of identifying those
who need longer periods in prison and seeing that they get it.
That does mean that we have got costs that occur from that,
and we need to keep them as low as possible. The taxpayers do
not need to be paying more than they have to take care of a
person's health care, or they shouldn't be subjected to crime
because they want to give a prisoner the right to use a phone
whenever they reasonably can allow them to use that phone.
Before we dismiss, I will put Senator Leahy's statement
into the record. He is the ranking member of this committee.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, a U.S. Senator From the
State of Vermont
As we renew are discussion of the issues facing our prisons, I
would like to address an aspect of the prison privatization that poses
a serious threat to public safety and deserves immediate congressional
action--the interstate transportation of prisoners.
Last year, the escape of convicted child murderer Kyle Bell from a
private prison transport bus should have served as a wake-up call, to
the Congress and to the country. Kyle Bell slipped off a TransCorp.
America bus on October 13, while the bus was stopped in New Mexico for
gas. Apparently, he picked the locks on his handcuffs and leg irons,
pushed his way out of a rooftop vent, hid out of sight of the guards
who traveled with the bus, and then slipped to the ground as it pulled
away. He was wearing his own street clothes and shoes. The TransCorp
guards did not notice that Bell was missing until nine hours later, and
then delayed notifying New Mexico authorities. Bell was a fugitive for
three months before his capture in January of this year.
Kyle Bell's escape is not an isolated case. In recent years, there
have been several escapes by violent criminals when vans broke down or
guards fell asleep on duty. Just last week, James Prestridge, a
convicted murderer, escaped in Chula Vista, California, while he was
being transported from Nevada to North Dakota by a private company
called Extradition International. According to the Los Angeles Times,
the van was stopped at a rest area when Prestridge overpowered two
guards, took one officer's gun, and escaped with another violent
offender who was being transported by the same van. They remain at
large today.
In addition to these disturbing incidents, there have also been an
alarming number of traffic accidents in which prisoners were seriously
injured or killed because drivers were tired, inattentive or poorly
trained. Privatization of prisons and prisoner transportation services
may seem cost efficient, but public safety must come first.
This is why I joined Senator Dorgan in introducing S. 1898, The
Interstate Transportation of Dangerous Criminals Act. This bill
requires the Attorney General to set minimum standards for private
prison transport companies, including standards on employee training
and restrictions on the number of hours that employees can be on duty
during a given time period. A violation is punishable by a $10,000
fine, plus restitution for the cost of re-capturing any violent
prisoner who escapes as the result of such violation. This should
create a healthy incentive for companies to abide by the regulations
and operate responsibly.
I would also like to take this opportunity to urge House action on
S. 704, the Federal Health Care Copayment Act, which was introduced by
Senators Kyl, Abraham, Ashcroft, Cleland, Dorgan, Grassley, Hatch,
Inouye, Johnson, Lincoln, Sessions and Thurmond. Senator Johnson
brought this issue of medical copayments for prisoners' health care to
my attention last year. My own state of Vermont does not have a
copayment requirement for prisoners' health care so I appreciated the
Senator from South Dakota sharing with me the problems he has seen in
his State.
After some initial reservations, I was glad to help move this bill
out of Committee after it was improved during markup. It passed the
Senate by unanimous consent on May 27, 1999, more than 11 months ago,
but has still not been acted upon in the House. This is legislation
that has the support of the Bureau of Prisons and of the U.S. Marshals
Service.
In my view, a critical part of this bill is its protection against
prisoners being refused treatment based on an inability to pay. In
particular, I am glad the Senate accepted my amendment to make clear
that copayment requirements should not apply to prisoner health care
visits initiated and approved by custodial staff, including staff
referrals and staff-approved follow-up treatment for a chronic illness.
The goal of the bill is to deter prisoners from seeking unnecessary
health care, not to prevent them from seeking health care when they
need it.
In addition, the version passed by the Senate excluded visits for
emergency services, prenatal care, diagnosis or treatment of contagious
diseases, mental health care and substance abuse treatment from the
copayment requirement. Copayment requirements should not prevent
prisoners from receiving emergency and critical health care.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today and
welcome their comments. We will hear today whether the Federal Health
Care Copayment Act is still needed, or whether the Bureau of Prisons
has been able to make administrative adjustments despite the lack of
authority that measure would have provided.
Senator Sessions. Is there anything else either one of you
would like to add at this time?
Mr. Stana. No.
Mr. Fine. No. Thank you for inviting us to testify on this
subject.
Senator Sessions. Thank you for your reports and your work.
I think it will be helpful to the Bureau and to all of us as we
attempt to operate a better and less expensive system.
So we will leave the record open now for a week for
additional materials anyone may want to submit, and the hearing
is adjourned at this time.
[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Questions and Answers
----------
Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions From Senator
Thurmond
Question 1. Director Sawyer, what steps are you taking to
proactively limit some inmates' telephone use based on their
classification when they enter a facility rather than waiting until
crimes are committed?
Answer. The BOP has developed a Public Safety Factor (PSF) for
Serious Telephone Abuse and is incorporating it into the classification
policy. PSFs, which can be applied during an inmate's initial
classification or during their incarceration, are entered for inmates
who require increased security measures to ensure the protection of
society. Inmates with a PSF for Serious Telephone Abuse will have
restrictions placed on their telephone use, and any telephone calls
they are permitted to make will be live monitored. The Warden must
permit inmates who have had their telephone privileges limited to place
at least one telephone call per month. The PSF will be entered if any
one of the following criteria applies:
The PSI reveals the inmate was involved in criminal activity
facilitated by the telephone;
Federal law enforcement officials or a U.S. Attorney's Office
notifies the BOP of a significant concern and need to monitor
an inmate's telephone calls;
The inmate is convicted of a criminal act directly related to
telephone usage;
The inmate has been found guilty of a 100 or 200 level
incident report code for telephone abuse; such as using the
inmate telephones to further criminal activity, or attempting
to circumvent telephone monitoring procedures by placing a
third party call or talking in code or;
The Special Investigative Supervisor's (SIS) Office has
reasonable suspicion and/or documented intelligence supporting
telephone abuse.
Question 2. Director Sawyer, many of the changes that the Inspector
General has recommended to curb phone abuse were derived from a 1997
Warden's Working Group on telephone abuse. Are you reviewing the
Working Group's findings further subsequent to the Inspector General
Report?
Answer. Yes. In November 1997, the BOP's Executive Staff reviewed
the Wardens' Inmate Telephone Work Group Report and approved 9 of the
14 recommendations. In December 1999, we adopted four more
recommendations of the Work Group (see below).
After the Inmate Telephone System II (ITS-II) is installed in
all of our facilities, we will have the technology in place to
individually limit each inmate's calls to a prescribed number
of calls or a total of minutes per day, week, or month,
Although we continue to consider this and other means of
limiting access as warranted, any significant changes to
inmates' access to the telephones risks action by the Court who
presided over the Washington v. Reno case. In January, 2000,
the BOP requested of the Federal Programs Branch, Civil
Division, Department of Justice, (the branch that represented
the BOP in the Washington v. Reno case), an assessment of the
litigation risks associated with further restrictions to limit
inmate telephone access. The Civil Division opined that there
would be a risk of reopening litigation if inmate telephone
privileges were further restricted.
Inmate telephone access has been restricted during normal
inmate working hours (Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. until
10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until after the 4:00 p.m. inmate
count). Institutions with ITS have the capability of allowing
limited telephone access during restricted hours to accommodate
inmates who do not work standard institution shifts (e.g.,
evening or weekend Food Service workers).
We have established the following guidelines to assist
Disciplinary Hearing Officers (DHO) in imposing meaningful
sanctions for inmates found guilty of abusing telephone
privileges: 1st offense: 6 to 18 months loss of telephone
privileges; 2nd offense: 18 to 36 months loss of telephone
privileges; and 3rd offense: 5 years to duration of sentence
loss of telephone privileges. When the sanction falls below the
suggested range due to mitigating factors, the DHOs document in
writing the reason for the departure.
As discussed in question one above, we have developed a Public
Safety Factor for limiting an inmate's social telephone calls
as a matter of classification.
Question 3. Director Sawyer, if the 1995 settlement of the
Washington v. Reno lawsuit causes problems for your efforts to control
inmate phone use, should the Department of Justice consider reopening
the settlement agreement pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act?
Answer. The terms of the settlement agreement are set to expire in
2002. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, it is possible to seek
modification of a consent decree by returning to the original judge.
Given Judge Wilhoit's very strong feelings regarding this case, the BOP
has concerns that further review of the case could precipitate
additional, more onerous burdens rather than amelioration of the
current, restrictive terms. The DOJ has similarly opined that there
would be a risk of reopening litigation if inmate telephone privileges
were further restricted (see Question 2). Accordingly, we have no plans
to seek modifications.
Question 4. Director Sawyer, the Inspector General has recommended
that the Bureau institute certain minimum administrative punishment,
including loss of phone privileges, for certain types of phone abuse.
Are you considering this suggestion?
Answer. Rather than developing mandatory sanctions for inmate
misconduct, the BOP prefers to develop suggested ranges of sanctions
that provide the Disciplinary Hearing Officers (DHO) with discretion in
sanctioning inmate case. We have recently implemented a suggested
sanction range for abuse of telephones (see Question (2). This strategy
of providing DHOs some discretion in sanctions was successfully
implemented several years ago by providing suggested ranges to DHOs for
sanctioning inmates found to have introduced drugs into the institution
through social visiting. The result was that DHOs imposed greater
sanctions, and the introduction of drugs through the visiting room was
reduced.
Question 5. Director Sawyer, is the Bureau increasing the
involvement of Intelligence Section (SIS) officers in reviewing
telephone crime?
Answer. Yes. We have taken action to improve our telephone system
and monitoring efforts as follows:
FBI staff are included in all SIS training sessions in an
effort to improve the quality and effectiveness of our
investigative operations as they relate to telephone
monitoring.
We created 24 additional intelligence positions at facilities
located in metropolitan areas to work with inter-city crime
task forces in identifying criminal acts and trends. Staff in
these positions work as liaisons with law enforcement agencies
to gain information about outside illegal activities, including
targeting activities taking place through telephone
communications. Two of the positions are assigned to FBI
Headquarters and help ensure the BOP is aware of inmates coming
into our custody who may pose unique security concerns.
We prepared and distributed an Inmate Monitoring field Guide
for Wardens and SIS staff. This guide gives very detailed
instructions for staff regarding proper procedures to detect
and deter telephone abuse. Moreover, we are developing a
computerized tutorial training program for telephone monitoring
which will be available to all BOP staff.
Additionally, the BOP is taking the following steps to support the
agency-wide goal of enhanced telephone monitoring:
We added a category for inmate telephone abusers in our
computerized inmate database, thereby assisting staff in the
identification and monitoring of those inmates who have or are
likely to abuse their telephone privileges.
Many of our facilities have recently instituted additional
telephone monitoring stations that allow a higher percentage of
telephone calls to be monitored.
We have almost completed installation throughout the BOP of
ITS-II, an enhanced telephone system that allows the BOP to
significantly restrict every inmate's calling privileges. The
system can be programmed to alert staff every time a high risk
inmate makes a telephone call. ITS-II can provide staff with
numerous reports to monitor and determine which inmates may be
attempting to abuse telephone privileges. It also ``links'' all
BOP facilities and our headquarters together for information
sharing of inmate telephone use information. The system allows
the BOP to tag and target specific inmates who display a
propensity to commit fraudulent or criminal activity over the
telephone. In addition, the ITS-II system allows the BOP to
restrict an inmate's calling capabilities to specific time
periods, specific telephones, specified number of calls per
day, specified number of minutes per day, period of time prior
to placing another call, or no calls.
We have added two new offense codes to the inmate discipline
policy; a 100-level offense code for utilizing the telephone to
continue criminal enterprises and a 200-level offense code for
noncriminal use of the telephone. Additionally, we have made
the use of coded language by inmates over the telephone a
disciplinary violation in all circumstances.
Question 6. Director Sawyer, are you working to make telephone
monitors in each facility a permanent position?
Answer. We expect to have permanent telephone monitor posts in
place in all facilities by December, 2000. The posts will be rotated
among qualified staff. This allows each monitor to become familiar with
the process, yet avoids the ``staleness'' that can occur with a
permanent assignment.
Question 7. Director Sawyer, the Bureau must always be alert to
criminal activity within prison, and telephone abuse by inmates is one
aspect of this issue. What is the status of implementing National
Strategic Planning Objective 5.11?
Answer. National Strategic Planning Objective 5.11 was most
recently revised with a greater emphasis on telephone initiatives.
Action plans include some of the Office of Inspector General
recommendations and approved BOP Executive Staff decisions. The current
action plans, approved by the Executive Staff in March 2000, will be
completed by early 2001. At that time, new actions plans will be
developed and submitted to the Executive Staff for their approval.
Question 8. Director Sawyer, guard escort services for inmates who
need transportation to medical facilities is one cost that has
decreased considerably in recent years, down by an average of almost
$100 per inmate. Have your efforts to expand telemedicine been an
important reason for this decline?
Answer. As of June 9, 2000, twenty institutions will have
telehealth equipment installed, and the equipment will be fully
operational at ten institutions. The program appears very promising as
a health care cost reduction initiative that, importantly, allows us to
maintain the community standard of care for inmates. However, because
of the relative newness of the program, further study is required
before we can comfortably ascertain definitive cost benefits. A large
part of the cost savings the BOP has realized results from the
increased use of ``in-house'' medical visits by community specialists.
By coming to the institution, physicians are able to examine multiple
inmates in one visit, and the BOP does not incur transportation or
escort guard costs. The BOP continues to seek innovative, cost-
effective strategies for providing the community standard of medical
care to our inmate population.
Question 9. Director Sawyer, in your statement you said that one of
the major concerns facing the BOP is the number of inmates who have
AIDS and hepatitis C and require additional care, along with an inmate
population which is aging. Do you feel that the BOP should have an
intermediate care medical facility that can offer assistance for those
inmates who do not require full hospital services but need more medical
assistance than the general inmate population?
Answer. The BOP is planning to develop enhanced care facilities
that would house many of the chronic care inmates that are currently
housed at Medical Referral Centers. These inmates do not require the
intensive level of health care services available at the Medical
Referral Centers, but do require more health care than most inmates in
our general population facilities (e.g., uncontrolled diabetes, HIV
infection requiring multiple medications, hepatitis C). By developing a
multi-tiered health care delivery system, to include Medical Referral
Centers, enhanced care facilities, and general population institutions,
the BOP can match the appropriate level of health care resources to the
appropriate inmate population.
Question 10. Director Sawyer, are inmates with infectious diseases
such as HIV segregated from other inmates? Please explain.
Answer. All BOP staff and inmates are educated regarding
appropriate precautions to prevent transmission of infectious diseases.
These precautions include ``universal precautions'' (i.e. assuming all
blood and body fluids are infected) and educating staff and inmates
about how infectious diseases are spread and how they are best
prevented. As such, inmates with infectious diseases such as HIV or
hepatitis are housed in general population with other inmates, as these
diseases are not spread by casual contact. We segregate sick inmates as
necessary to provide appropriate medical treatment and prevent
transmission of diseases that spread through casual contact (i.e.,
tuberculosis).
Question 11. Director Sawyer, is it a problem that inmates will use
the fact that they have or may have an infectious disease as a weapon
against staff or inmates, and if so, what type of punishment does this
type of conduct receive?
Answer. The BOP views any assault as a serious incident, regardless
of the means used to carry it out. Over the past five years the assault
rate in the BOP has decreased by almost 30 percent, due in part to the
efforts of our staff to effectively communicate with the inmate
population. Ordinarily, inmates who engage in assaultive behavior
toward staff are charged with a Greatest Severity Prohibited Act
offense code, regardless of whether or not the inmate committed the
assault with the intent to infect staff with an infectious disease. If
the charge is sustained following the inmate's administrative hearing,
any of the following sanctions may be imposed: loss of good conduct
time, disciplinary transfer, disciplinary segregation up to 60 days,
and loss of privileges (i.e., visiting, telephone, commissary).
Question 12. Director Sawyer, the Federal inmate population has
more than doubled since 1990, and about 1,000 offenders are being added
to your custody each month. Is managing the rising number of inmates
the primary challenge that your agency faces today.
Answer. Managing the increasing number of inmates in a safe and
secure manner and adding sufficient prison capacity are the two largest
challenges we face. During FY 1999, the BOP experienced its second
consecutive year of record breaking population increases when the total
inmate population increased by more than 11,300. The BOP projects that
inmate population growth this year will set another record, with
projected growth of approximately 12,500inmates. By Fiscal Year (FY)
2008, we anticipate a federal inmate population of approximately
209,000, nearly 50 percent above the current population level. To meet
this growth, we currently have 32 prison facilities in some stage of
planning, design or construction, though some are contingent on the
advanced appropriations requested in our FY 2001 budget. These requests
are currently under consideration by Congress.
______
Responses of Ms. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to Questions From Senator Leahy
Question 1. You testified about a number of successful
administrative initiatives that the Bureau of Prisons has put into
place over the last several years to contain inmate health care costs
and increase efficiency of services. Indeed, BOP's per capita inmate
health care costs have decreased steadily since 1997. In light of this
trend, is the Federal Health Care Copayment Act still necessary, in
your opinion? If yes, please provide a detailed explanation of your
response.
Answer. The BOP views inmate health care copayments as a valuable
tool in our overall strategy to encourage inmates to use available
services in an appropriate manner and to teach them personal
responsibility. While this will undoubtably reduce medical costs
somewhat as some inmates decide not to seek unnecessary medical
treatment, this is not the primary purpose of the bill. Inmates will
not be charged copayments for prenatal visits, chronic care clinics,
food handler's examinations, psychiatric assessments, or intake
physicals. They will only be charged for appointments they initiate.
None of the revenue generated by this bill will be made available to
the BOP.
Question 2. The Inspector General's report on the management of
inmate telephone privileges recommends legislation explicitly to
authorize the Bureau of Prisons to use proceeds from the inmate
telephone system to pay for monitoring inmate calls. Mr. Glenn Fine,
Director of the Special Investigation and Review Unit of the Office of
the Inspector General, indicated in his testimony that all such
proceeds are required to go to the Inmate Trust Fund. When was the
Inmate Trust Fund established and for what specific purpose? What are
the current requirements for using funds from the Inmate Trust Fund?
What specific operations, programs or other expenditures are currently
funded by the Inmate Trust Fund?
Answer. The inmate Deposit Fund was established in 1930 by the
Department of Justice (Circular No. 2126, ``Rules Governing the Control
of Prisoners Funds, at the Several Penal Institutions'') to maintain
inmates' monies while they were incarcerated and to authorize the
establishment of an inmate commissary at each federal correctional
institution. The existence and operations of prison Commissaries was
recognized and approved by Congress in 1932 with the passage of the
Department of Justice's 1933 appropriation bill. In 1934, Congress
designated the ``funds of Federal prisoners'' and ``Commissary funds''
as ``Trust Funds''. All monies accruing to these funds were to be
appropriated and dispersed in compliance with the Trust.
By the terms of the Trust Fund, profits may be used to provide
programs that benefit all inmates, and may not be used for the personal
benefit of individual inmates. Profits may not be used to purchase
items ordinarily procured from funds appropriated by Congress for care
of prisoners. Additionally, a September 26, 1994, Sixth Circuit Court
of Appeals ruling in Washington v. Reno upheld a prohibition against
the BOP using inmate commissary trust funds to pay for inmate telephone
system components with a primary purpose of institution security.
Some examples of items purchased with trust Fund profits are:
Recreation/arts and crafts operating costs, activities, and
supplies including contracts, supplies, and equipment related
to fulfilling the mission of the BOP's Recreation program
(Staff salaries, benefits, travel and training are not funded
through the Trust Fund, but are funded only through Salaries
and Expenses (S&E) appropriations)
Advanced Occupational Education (AOE) programs that may lead
to an associate degree. All inmates, with appropriate academic
prerequisites, are eligible to participate in AOE programs.
Other Inmate Programs, including Artists in Residence; Inmate
Placement; and Beckley Responsibilities and Values Enhancement
Programming (Staff salaries, benefits, travel and training are
not funded only through S&E appropriations)
Educational items such as self-help videos, library books
Commissary merchandise for inmate purchase
Inmate Performance Pay (pay for satisfactory completion of
inmate work assignment tasks)
Commissary and ITS computer systems, property, and operating
supplies (freezers, safes, shelving, etc.)
Salaries and benefits for Trust Fund employees
__________
Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions From Senator Thurmond
Question 1. Do you think that prisoner abuse of health care, such
as inmates using medical visits to get out of work or other duties, is
a significant problem, and would you expect a copay requirement to help
reduce any such abuse?
Answer. In our testimony, we reported that the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) had looked at this question and reported that, where
similar prisoner copayment programs were adopted in 36 states or local
jurisdictions, prison medical facilities experienced average reductions
in sick call visits of 16 percent to 50 percent. Although we are not
aware of any formal study by BOP or others, we received anecdotal
information from BOP health care officials that frivolous visits to
medical units do occur in BOP and that some reduction in this kind of
abuse could be anticipated if some additional charge were levied.
However, we were not provided with an estimate of the magnitude of the
anticipated reduction.
Question 2. Does it appear that states have benefited from a copay
requirement?
Answer. As noted in response to the previous question, CBO has
reported that after adopting copayment requirements, 36 states or local
jurisdictions experienced reductions in the number of sick call visits.
These reductions ranged from a low of 16 percent to a high of 50
percent.
Question 3. It appears that personnel salaries are the primary
category for health care costs. Have recent BOP initiatives, such as
restructuring staff to depend less on highly paid physicians for
routine duties, helped reduce staff costs in recent years?
Answer. One BOP official told us that, as a result of our 1994
report, BOP began examining the utilization of its health care staff to
allow for more efficient operations. One result the BOP official cited
was a restructuring initiative that focused on using qualified, lower-
salaried medical personnel instead of more highly paid physicians and
physicians' assistants for certain routine duties. BOP attributed
annual savings of about $5.5 million to this initiative. We also
testified that BOP medical personnel salaries--on a macro level--have
decreased steadily from a peak of $1,399 per inmate in fiscal year 1996
to $1,225 in fiscal year 1999. We testified that Public Health Service
(PHS) associated costs, largely composed of PHS salaries, have dropped
from $378 per inmate in fiscal year 1997 to $367 in fiscal year 1999. A
BOP Health Services Division official was quite confident that the
downward slope in per inmate medical personnel salaries and PHS
associated costs was due to the staff restructuring initiative and
other related cost-cutting initiatives. However, BOP officials were
concerned that the savings from these economy and efficiency measures
will eventually bottom out.
BOP officials said they expect overall medical costs to continue to
rise in future years for several reasons:
Projections of the number of inmates incarcerated in federal
facilities show continued increases.
Felony inmates transferred to BOP from the District of
Columbia Department of Corrections generally have
disproportionately more medical needs than other BOP inmates.
BOP is receiving increasing numbers of long-term,
nonreturnable detainees from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS).
BOP's expenditures for pharmaceuticals likely will rise due to
the increasing prevalence of illnesses such as HIV and
hepatitis.
Question 4. You noted during your oral testimony that many inmates
are staying in medical referral centers for long periods due to serious
medical conditions. Do you think it may be more cost effective for BOP
to have an intermediate care medical facility for inmates needing long-
term care?
Answer. Most evidence indicates that an intermediate care facility
could have advantages for BOP, although a thorough cost-benefit study
might still need to be conducted to consider the various forms that
such a facility could take. Medical costs at BOP's medical referral
centers are higher on a per inmate basis than medical costs at standard
prisons. Based on BOP data, the estimated medical costs on a per inmate
basis at a medical referral center are about $16,000 per year, whereas
medical costs at a standard prison are less than $2,500 per year.
In terms of inmate access to medical care, BOP officials told us
that it is important that there be a regular turnover of patients in
medical referral center hospital beds--based on the medical needs of
the patients. They told us that increasing numbers of chronically ill
inmates with long sentences are being sent to medical referral centers
because the inmates' medical conditions cannot be treated approximately
at a standard prison. For these inmates, the medical referral center is
the end of the line. This means that fewer and fewer hospital beds are
turning over. It also means that new patients from standard prisons may
have to wait for the next available medical referral center hospital
bed to be freed up. For example, at one medical referral center we
toured, we learned that the waiting list of new patients for the next
available bed is gradually getting longer.
Anecdotally, we were told that BOP already has enough chronically
ill inmates to fill an intermediate care medical facility of 400 beds.
The type of facility would have the added benefit of freeing up more
expensive medical referral center beds presently occupied by inmates
who have little chance of returning to their home prison. Nonetheless,
a cost-benefit study could determine, for instance, whether the per
inmate cost of constructing an intermediate care medical facility would
be more or less than competing alternatives, such as contracting for a
privatized nursing home environment, or renovating an existing building
at a medical referral center just for the chronically ill.
______
Responses of Richard M. Stana to Questions From Senator Leahy
Question 1.--In your written statement, you indicated that CBO has
estimated that the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act of 1999
would generate annual revenues of $1 million and ``would be helpful to
BOP's efforts to control medical costs.'' Under section 4048(g) of this
legislation, fees collected from inmates subject to an order of
restitution shall be paid to victims in accordance with the order.
Seventy-five percent of all other fees collected would be deposited
into the Federal Crime Victim's Fund and all the remainder would be
used to cover the administrative expenses incurred in carrying out this
Act. With legislative mandates on the use of copayment fees, how would
the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act of 1999 significantly
contribute to reducing health care costs?
Answer. We testified that a May 1999 CBO analysis of the proposed
$2 health care system fee estimated that BOP might generate additional
revenue of about $1 million in fiscal year 2000. However, BOP enforces
the proposed fee primarily as a means to reduce unnecessary or
frivolous medical visits--that is, BOP does not view the proposed fee
primarily as a revenue generator.
BOP has suggested that the proposed legislation be modified to
mandate that 100 percent of collected fees go to the Crime Victims
Fund. According to one official, BOP might send a check each quarter to
the fund--a procedure that would help to minimize administrative
expenses. BOP suggested this alternative because an administrative
process is already in place that could be modified at little or no cost
to include tracking collected fees. However, the cost of distributing
restitution checks to victims is another matter since no administrative
process or supporting staff structure currently exists. One BOP
official told us that the number of checks could be enormous, the
amount of each check would be small, and the administrative cost of
establishing and maintaining a process (to make sure victims received
the appropriate checks) would be an additional expense. This official
also opined that victims might react negatively to receiving checks of
such small amounts repeatedly over the years.
CBO has looked at this question of unnecessary or frivolous medical
visits. CBO reported that where similar prisoner copayment programs
were adopted in 36 states or local jurisdictions, prison medical
facilities experienced average reductions in sick call visits of 16
percent to 50 percent. We received anecdotal information from BOP
health care officials that frivolous visits to medical units do occur
in BOP and that some reduction in this kind of abuse can be anticipated
if additional charges are levied. However, we have not independently
verified the magnitude of such a reduction.
Neither BOP nor we believe that the primary benefit of the
copayment proposal to generate revenue. Rather, its primary benefit
would be to reduce unnecessary or frivolous medical visits and the
burden population through 2006, it appears the demands on BOP's health
care system will increase.
Question 2. Have the administrative initiatives that BOP put into
place over the last several years to contain inmate health care costs
and increase efficiency of services been taken into account by your
estimate? Have the facts or assumptions on which you based your
estimate of $1 million changed?
Answer. The estimates of increased efficiency of services by virtue
of administrative initiatives BOP has undertaken over the last several
years are BOP estimates. The $1 million estimate of anticipated revenue
generated by a prison copayment provisions is CBO's estimate. We
referred to the CBO estimate in our testimony because we did not want
to duplicate that work. Also, given the short time in which we
conducted our review, we did not attempt to independently verify the
estimates and do not know whether the facts and assumptions used by CBO
have changed.
BOP officials believe that savings or benefits from the economy and
efficiency initiatives BOP has implemented will eventually bottom out
and they expect that inmate health care costs will rise given
the pressures from a growing prison population;
transfers of inmates to BOP from the District of Columbia
Department of Corrections--inmates who generally have
disproportionately more medical needs than other BOP inmates;
the increase in numbers of long-term, nonreturnable detainees
from INS; and
the growth in expenditures for pharmaceuticals because of the
increasing prevalence of illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.
We believe it is time to consider additional measures for
containing BOP medical costs. The copayment provision is one
alternative to consider--not because it is a revenue generator, but
rather because such a provision can be expected to reduce the demand on
medical services by reducing the number of unnecessary or frivolous
medical visits by inmates.
__________
Responses of Glenn A. Fine to Questions From Senator Thurmond
Question 1. Mr. Fine, do you think that prisoner use of coded
language on the telephone to disguise criminals activity is a problem,
and is it important for the BOP telephone monitors to be trained in
detecting coded language?
Answer. Yes. Use of coded language by federal inmates is a serious
problem and BOP telephone monitors need better training to identify
such language that may disguise serious criminal activity. We believe
it is very important for BOP telephone monitors to receive additional
training regarding detecting criminal conversations on the telephone,
including the use of coded language. In addition, as we suggest in
recommendation number 12 in our report:
The BOP should examine the possibility of making use of coded
language by inmates over the telephone a disciplinary violation
in certain circumstances. Such a rule would allow the BOP to
restrict or suspend an inmate's telephone privileges when an
SIS officer finds an inmate engaging in suspicious coded
conversations. As a model, the BOP should look to its existing
correspondence regulations that contain a provision allowing
wardens to reject correspondence that contains a code.
Question 2. Mr. Fine, I understand that inmates are limited to
twenty telephone numbers that they can have on their list to call at
any one time. Does the Bureau need to do more to review the listed
numbers that high-risk inmates may call to verify whether these numbers
have connections to criminal activity?
Answer. Yes. Our investigation revealed that the BOP does an
inadequate job reviewing the telephone numbers submitted by inmates for
inclusion on their personal calling lists--especially inmates that
should be considered high-risk for telephone abuse. As we point out in
our report, inmates at most BOP institutions with the ITS system have
unlimited calling privileges to contact up to a maximum of 30
individuals on an approved telephone list. Inmates prepare their
proposed telephone lists during their admission and orientation process
at a new BOP facility.
Inmates may submit on their list telephone numbers for any person
they choose, with the understanding that all calls are subject to
monitoring. Inmates are required to pledge that any calls made from the
institution will be made for a purpose allowable under BOP policy or
institution guidelines.
Normally, telephone numbers requested by the inmates are approved
without review. When inmates request persons other than immediate
family members or persons already on their visiting list, BOP staff are
required to notify those persons in writing to afford them an
opportunity to object to being placed on an inmate's telephone list.
Other than this notification, however, the BOP conducts no screening of
these individuals placed on an inmate's telephone list.
Additional Submissions for the Record
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, a U.S. Senator From the
State of North Dakota
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding
this oversight hearing today, and for the opportunity to submit this
statement.
One of the duties that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) is
charged with is transporting federal inmates. It is a duty that the
FBOP has carried out with the utmost care and responsibility.
At the state and local level, law enforcement agencies are
responsible for the movement of their own prisoners. Although they can
contract with he United States Marshals Service to move prisoners,
states are increasingly turning to private companies to perform this
service.
These companies transfer prisoners from state to state, often
taking long, circuitous routes all over the country. Prisoners are
dropped off and picked up at numerous stops along the way. These trips
can last for weeks, requiring the guards to take constant breaks to
eat, sleep, refuel, etc.
Mr. Chairman, the simple fact is that many of the companies have
proven themselves inept when it comes to keeping prisoners in custody.
Since 1996, at least 26 prisoners have escaped while being transported
by a private company. Many of these escapees were violent offenders--
murderers, rapists, sexual molester, armed robbers, and so forth. In
this same time frame, FBOP has not lost a single prisoner. In fact, its
been almost 10 years since someone escaped while being transported by
FBOP.
It leads me to wonder what has caused these companies to fail where
FBOP has been so successful. In my judgement, the answer is simple:
FBOP has to live up to certain established standards, ranging from the
hiring and training of personnel to the types of restraints used when
transporting prisoners. Amazingly, there are currently no such
standards that apply to private companies that haul violent prisoners
around the country.
There are standards that govern how we transport toxic waste,
because we want to make sure it's handled properly to prevent a risk to
the public. But there are no standards governing how violent criminals
should be handled when they are transported--and believe me, the public
is very much at risk.
As I said earlier, there have been many escapes from private
prisoner transport companies. Just last month, a convicted murderer
serving a life sentence without parole escaped during a rest stop in
Chula Vista, California. A convicted armed robber escaped with him, and
they are still on the loose today. I want to share with you the details
of this escape and some others that have taken place in the past few
years. I think they will shock you, as they did me.
March 25, 2000--Convicted murderer James Prestridge and
convicted robber John Doran escaped while being transported form Nevada
to out-of-state facilities. During a restroom break, the two convicts
overpowered a guard, taking his gun, his keys, and his clothes. They
then returned to the van transporting them and overpowered the other
guard, who was taking a nap. After locking the two guards in the back
of the van with the other prisoners, the inmates sped off, abandoning
the van just north of the Mexican border. Prestridge was serving a life
sentence without parole for first degree murder. Both inmates are still
at large.
January 22, 2000--three prisoners escaped while the van
transporting them stopped at a convenience store for a restroom break.
While the two guards weren't looking, two inmates jumped into the front
seat, where the keys had been left in the ignition. The inmates sped
off down the highway, leaving the two guards helpless on the side of
the road. Luckily, shortly after the escape the van spun out of control
and slammed into a dirt embankment, preventing the prisoners from
completing their escape.
October 13, 1999--Convicted child molester and murderer
Kyle Bell was being transported to a prison in Oregon. The transport
van traveled from North Dakota to Nashville, Tennessee and across the
south central plains, until reaching Santa Rosa, New Mexico, where it
stopped to refuel. While tow of the four guards refueled the bus and
shopped at the truck stop, the two guards left behind to supervise the
prisoners slept in the front seat. Using a key hidden in his shoe, Kyle
Bell undid his handcuffs and shackles, and escaped through the roof
ventilation hatch. After resuming its journey, the van traveled for
nine hours before the guards discovered Bell was missing. And then it
was another two hours before they notified law enforcement officials
that here was a convicted killer loose in the area.
July 24, 1999--Two men convicted of murder escaped from a
van while being transported from Tennessee to Virginia. The two guards
went into a fast food restaurant to get breakfast for the convicts, but
then they returned did not notice that the convicts had freed
themselves from their leg irons, possible with a smuggled key. While
one guard went back into the restaurant, the other stood watch outside
the van. But he forgot to lock the van door. The inmates kicked it open
and fled. One was caught after 45 minutes. The other stole a car, but
was apprehended eight hours later.
July 30, 1997--Convicted rapist and kidnapper Dennis Glick
escaped from a van while being transported from Salt Lake City to Pine
Bluffs, Arkansas. While still in the van, Glick grabbed a gun from a
guard who has fallen asleep. He took seven prisoners, a guard and a
local rancher hostage and led 60 law enforcement officials on an all-
night chase across Colorado. He was recaptured the next morning.
November 30, 1997--Whatley Rolene, being transported from
New Mexico to Massachusetts, was able to remove his cuffs and grab a
shotgun while one guard was inside a gas station and other slept in the
front seat. He later surrendered after a showdown with the Colorado
State Patrol and a local Sheriff's Department.
December 4, 1997--11 inmates escaped after overpowering a
guard in the van transporting them. Among the escapees were convicted
child molester Charles E. Dugger and convicted felon (and former jail
escapee) Homer Land. Apparently, the escapees shed their shackles
either by picking the locks or using a key. The one guard in the van
had opened the van doors to ventilate it while the other guard was
inside a fast food restaurant. The guard in the van had been on the job
less than a month.
Dugger and the others were apprehended shortly after, but Homer
Land forced his way into the home of a couple in Owatonna, MN, and held
them hostage for 15 hours. He later forced them to drive him to
Minneapolis, where they escaped while Land went into a store to buy
cigarettes. Land was later apprehended in Chicago on a bus headed to
Alabama.
August 28, 1996--A husband-and-wife team of guards showed
up at an Iowa State prison to transport six inmates, five of them
convicted murderers, from Iowa to New Mexico. When the Iowa prison
warden saw that there were only two guards to transport six dangerous
inmates, he reportedly responded ``You've got to be kidding me.''
Despite his concerns, the warden released the prisoners to the custody
of the guards when told the transport company had a contract.
Despite explicit instructions not to stop anywhere but county jails
or state prisons until reaching their destination, the husband and wife
decided to stop at a rest stop in Texas. During the stop, the inmates
slipped out of their handcuffs and leg irons and overpowered the
couple. The six inmates stole the van and led police on a high-speed
chase before being captured. The escape was reported to local
authorities not by the husband and wife, but by a tourist that
witnessed the incident.
These escapes all have one thing in common--they are fraught with
errors and missteps by employees who are either inadequately trained or
lack good supervision. Clearly, something needs to be done before more
harm is wreaked upon an unsuspecting public; before more murderers,
rapists, and child molesters escape while being transported by people
who have to meet no standards and follow no common procedures.
That is why I have introduced, along with Senators Ashcroft and
Leahy, the Interstate Transportation of Dangerous Criminals Act. I call
the bill Jeanna's Bill, after the 11-year old girl who was brutally
murdered in North Dakota by Kyle Bell.
This legislation requires the Attorney General to develop a set of
minimum standards that private prisoner transport companies must follow
if they want to continue hauling murderers and rapists across the
country. The standards must include some basic common-sense provisions,
such as employee background checks, minimum training standards, minimum
standards for restraints, and a requirement that if a violent prisoner
escapes while in transport, the company must immediately notify law
enforcement.
These standards are not onerous--in fact, they can be no stricter
than those the federal government uses when transporting federal
prisoners. Rather, they provide a minimum level of safety and common
sense to an industry that so far has lacked both.
Finally, the bill would also establish civil penalties for
companies that violate these standards. And if a company's failure to
follow the requirements results in an escape, then the company can be
held liable for the costs incurred by state and local law enforcement
agencies involved in the search. State and local governments do not
spend millions of dollars to apprehend, try, and incarcerate violent
criminals just so a private company can lose them again. If private
prisoner transport companies are made liable for these costs, perhaps
fewer violent convicts will escape.
No American should ever have to pull the family station wagon up to
a gas pump only to find that the van next to them is full of convicted
murderers whose only supervision is someone with one-week's training
who may well be asleep. Nothing in this bill requires a degree in
criminology. It is just common sense, and we need to make absolutely
sure that private transport companies start to show some.
Senator Leahy and I have asked Chairman Hatch for a full committee
hearing on our bill, and I am hopeful that one will be scheduled soon.
In the meantime, I encourage you to support this bill. The Federal
Bureau of Prisons is accountable for its actions, as evidence by this
hearing today. But there is no oversight when it comes to these private
companies. I hope you'll help me change that by supporting this
important legislation.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Tim Johnson, a U.S. Senator From the State
of South Dakota
I want to thank Subcommittee Chairman Thurmond and Ranking Member
Schumer for allowing me to share some thoughts on Federal prisoner
health care costs and the Bureau of Prisons. As you know, Senator Kyl
and I introduced last year a bill to require federal prisoners to pay a
nominal fee when they initiate certain visits for medical attention.
Fees collected from prisoners will either be paid as restitution to
victims or be deposited into the Federal Crime Victims' Fund. My state
of South Dakota is one of 34 states that have implemented state-wide
prisoner health care copayment programs. The Department of Justice
supports extending this prisoner health care copayment program to
federal prisoners in an attempt to reduce unnecessary medical
procedures and ensure that adequate health care services are available
for prisoners who need them.
My interest in the prisoner health care copayment issue came from
discussions I had in South Dakota with a number of law enforcement
officials and US Marshal Lyle Swenson about the equitable treatment
between pre-sentencing federal prisoners housed in county jails and the
county prisoners residing in those same facilities. Currently, country
prisoners in South Dakota are subject to state and local laws allowing
the collection of a health care copayment, while Marshals Service
prisoners are not, thereby allowing federal prisoners to abuse health
care resources at great cost to state and local law enforcement.
As our legislation moved through the Judiciary Committee and Senate
last year, we had the opportunity to work on specific concerns raised
by South Dakota law enforcement officials and the US Marshalls service.
I sincerely appreciate Senator Kyl's willingness to incorporate my
language into the Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment Act that
allows state and local facilities to collect health care copayment fees
when housing pre-sentencing federal prisoners.
I also worked with Senator Kyl and members of the Judiciary
Committee to include sufficient flexibility in the Kyl-Johnson bill for
the Bureau of Prisons and local facilities contracting with the
Marshals Service to maintain preventive-health priorities. The Kyl-
Johnson bill prohibits the refusal of treatment for financial reasons
for appropriate preventive care. I am pleased this provision was
included to pre-empt long term, and subsequently more costly, health
problems among prisoners.
The goal of the Kyl-Johnson Federal Prisoner Health Care Copayment
Act is not about generating revenue for the federal, state, and local
prison systems. Instead, current prisoner health care copayment
programs in 34 states illustrate the success in reducing the number of
frivolous health visits and strain on valuable health care resources.
The Kyl-Johnson bill will ensure that adequate health care is available
to those prisoners who need it, with out/straining budgets of
taxpayers.
I am pleased the Senate passed the Kyl-Johnson Federal Prisoner
Health Care Copayment Act last year, and I am hopeful that the House
will act on this legislation before the end of this session. A
companion bill, sponsored by Representative Salmon, has bipartisan
support and is now waiting action by the House Judiciary Committee. I
look forward to working with members of the House on this important
piece of legislation, and I once again thank Chairman Thurmond, Ranking
Member Schumer, and Members of the Subcommittee for giving me the
opportunity to discuss this issue with you today.