counsel them. They count it an advantage not being officially a part of Corrections in the sense of employment. They are able, with professionals like attorneys and social agencies like the Welfare Department, to draw on existing resources to meet many of the counseling needs of the inmates of the District of Columbia jail. We have been quite pleased with the operation even though they have been in operation only a short period of time. I think this program started in March 1971. Another program that we have instituted through cooperation with the American University Law School is the law-cor program. Senator STEVENSON. What program? Mr. MOORE. The law-cor program. What Mr. Riley, the superintendent of District of Columbia jail and staff, found was that many of the problems came from inmates who were arrested and brought to the jail by the police department. Their cars were left parked and payments were not kept up-or he missed payments on the homeso there are many needs. Through cooperative efforts with American University we came up with this program where they regularly go into the District of Columbia jail and interview the inmates and speak of their problems of various kinds but mostly about civil matters. We have also expanded the role of the chaplain to include and go beyond the traditional conduction of religious services to help them with their family and so forth and in addition to our own staff which consists of three persons who work with the inmates about their own personal problems. The other recommendations pertain to the new facility. I can say very briefly that the plans for the establishment of a diagnostic facility in connection with the new facility is still in our present plan. However, we might mention we have gone ahead and tried to meet at least part of the needs as reflected by the Commission. This relates to efforts of the Department of Vocation and Rehabilitation. We did examine the diagnostic center as a lawyer complex. We currently have planned application for grants with LEAA which would expand and enlarge there. Even if the grant does not come through we hope to expand this program. This would be a pilot project depending on when establishment of the District of Columbia jail program went into effect. With reference to the recommendation for the hiring of recreational specialists for the District of Columbia jail-this has been accomplished and we do have professional personnel. But regarding the expansion of the educational program in the District of Columbia jail we have an additional person but we are still far behind here. I cannot say that we have fully met the terms of the recommendation of the President's Commission. In connection with the Court Reorganization Act-we do have some projects which we are hoping to add to our program at the District of Columbia jail in terms of the improvement of inmate records-the general recommendation is made in the report. We have accomplished this by publishing a manual in January 1969 that has had the effect of improvements of some inmates' summaries. Going beyond this, however, we will be submitting a recommendation by the 1st of July to transfer to the use of ADT, a status processing form, for the filing and retention of inmates' records. This would mean we would be able to make a variety of uses for a variety of information related to inmates. Briefly I would like to say while we are not able to carry out our recommendation principally, as Mr. Montilla indicated, the public health service is not interested in taking over the health facilities, we were able to beef up our staff somewhat by nine persons to be exact. In addition to this we were fortunate to learn just today that we received favorable consideration of a grant proposal at LEAA to establish a psychiatric unit. Those services are very badly needed at the Lorton complex, which will serve inmates from all the correctional facilities who need psychiatric care. Mr. HARDY. I think Mr. Moore violated one of the fundamental principles of management—that he knew something before I was told about it. It's quite all right. Senator STEVENSON. That's a very impressive summary of your activities, Mr. Moore. I will now place the charts submitted by the District of Columbia Department of Corrections in the record. The charts follow.) |