Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Senator MATHIAS. On your chart you show education and training at 1.7 percent.

Mr. HARDY. That's appropriation. That's from direct appropriation. That's money approved by Congress.

Senator MATHIAS. It does not include the grant moneys. Mr. Moore just testified it was a grant.

Mr. HARDY. It does not include grant moneys; no, sir.

Senator MATHIAS. Does education and training apply to inmates or staff?

Mr. HARDY. This is for inmates. As a matter of fact, that pie chart is a chart relating and giving an idea on how the Department has moved from a custodian agency to a department where 70 percent of the appropriated funds 3 or 4 years ago went to correctional officers, hiring correctional officers for basic security functions of the Department. It has now been reduced to 50.9 or 70 percent increased in the other areas such as community and social services, which at one time was 1.7 percent for community and social services and now it is 24.7 percent. In support of services such as engineering and other activities we run around 15 percent compared to 17 percent some years ago. But in the area where you see planning and research and education and training, psychological services, and employment services, we still feel this is such a small spectrum of our bookkeeping and that is where we are channeling most of our plans in order to supplement the need for expanding on these programs.

Senator MATHIAS. I am encouraged to hear that because it seems to me that if the fact that the figures on the charts were the actual case the 2 percent in education and training and 0.6 percent in employment services really weren't improving the end product very much. I would hope that individual progress made in these programs because of special help by LEAA could be made a part of the budget. Unless you are training people to do something useful in the Department of Corrections is not fulfilling its designed function.

Mr. HARDY. But it continues to warehouse if you don't build in these things. Senator, I have submitted for the record a chart showing how active we are in proposed projects. You are speaking of $5,230,000 in grant funds as a grant. These programs don't have the appropriated funds and this, I am hoping, could put Congress on notice that we are coming back some day for a review in our budget on this segment of money that is now being given to us by Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, EPW, and Labor in the operating budget. So I'm saying that $23 million, as it stands today, will not operate this Department effectively. We need something like $28 million and I am only speaking of a budget that would maintain the level or keep up the level of operating efficiency before the Court Reform and Criminal Procedures Act came into law. After that the figures are tremendous. I see we have four or five more witnesses and I'm wondering if you—

Senator STEVENSON. Perhaps we had better continue with the next witness.

Mr. HARDY. The next one is Mr. Allen Avery, who is Associate Director of Community Service. Much has been said about work release and I'm sure that he will be able to help you there.

STATEMENT OF ALLEN AVERY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY SERVICE

Mr. AVERY. Thank you, gentlemen. We will respond to the President's Commission on Crime recommendations 6.25 and 6.26, which deal with the expansion of work release and community-based rehabilitation programs respectively. Our work release program began in April 1966 and was housed at the Lorton Reformatory. The program, at this time, shortly after the Commission's study, had 100 participants. In January 1968, the program was moved from the Lorton correctional complex to CB-4 of the jail, which allowed us to increase the number of participants to 140. Although this program was deemed rather successful, it did not, in this setting, meet the challenge of the recommendations made by the Commission with reference to 6.26. We were able to secure, through fiscal year 1969 supplemental budget authority for expansion of program on a communitywide basis. Funds, at this time, allowed for the expansion of the program to accommodate some 175 beds in four community centers plus the authority to contract for 35 beds with the Bureau of Rehabilitation.

Additional funds were made available December 24, 1969, and in the fiscal year 1969 budget that permitted us to operate seven community correctional centers with approximate capacity for 220 men. Three of these facilities were by contract arrangements and four run by the Department. The program emphasis of two of the facilities was specifically geared to the narcotics program, which was becoming a plague on the city. At the present time, the Department is operating, exclusive of the Youth Services Division, 12 community-based programs with a capacity of 320 for rehabilitating offenders.

President's Commission on Crime recommendations 6.27, 6.34, 6.35, and 6.37, all deal with improved parole services in several areas, in which the Department has made satisfactory progress. In early 1969 final plans were made to utilize three multipurpose centers located in upper Cardozo, Tivoli Theater, Arthur Kappa in southeast, and the Highland Dwellings. These centers were to be staffed with a complete parole unit composed of six parole officers, two clerks, and one supervisor. Problems were immediately experienced in making the office settings workable because of a variety of reasons, ranging from inadequate lighting and heating facilities coupled with continued theft of office equipment, and the inability to make the buildings secure for the purpose for which they were originally designated. After a series of discussions and careful review, it was felt that better service could be rendered to the parolees by reorganization of the case workload, developing differential case loads, which would reflect intensive supervision where needed and servicing areas of high crime rates with more concentrated effort.

We were able to have funding to increase our parole officers from 14 to 18, which reflected in the caseloads being reduced from 80 parolees per parole officer to the point where now each parole officer is exercising parole supervision over no more than 52 or 53 parolees at any given time. At the same time, through added responsibility for presentations and Parole Board appearances, we were able to

rewrite the job description of the parole officer in a manner to reflect these new responsibilities and merit an upgrading of job position from GS-10 to GS-11, which, of course, allows us to recruit more competent persons for this work.

Before the Commission's report and continuing up to the present time, parole officers have been in an ongoing inservice training program. In our training effort we have been helped by such noted professionals as Dr. Kushner, former director of legal psychiatric services, who worked with our parole officers for a period of almost 2 years. The emphasis of this training was to help them to establish better rapport with parolees and to conduct group counseling on a truly professional level. Following training by Dr. Kushner, we were able to have the services of Dr. Lanham, the current director of legal psychiatric services, who instituted weekly seminars, which dealt with helping the parole officer deal with abnormal behavior patterns, alcohol, and drug addiction problems, and identifying certain psychological problems that might need professional attention. In 1968, we were fortunate enough to have Dr. DuPont to run a series of training sessions with parole officers in the area of staff development and during 1970 Dr. Abrahams, psychiatrist, also conducted weekly staff development sessions. At the present time, a course of study designed specifically to meet the inservice training needs of the parole officer is being designed by the training academy and will be held for all parole officers over a 3-month period, beginning in September and ending in November.

With the development of proficiency by our parole officers through inservice training and experience counseling, it became quite easy to completely comply with recommendation 6.39 relative to the discontinuance of the District of Columbia Board of Parole to conduct disciplinary interviews and allow the parole officers to assume the exclusive responsibility in this field.

We are also pleased to report that recommendation 6.42 is now in operation by the Parole Division. The manual, which this recommendation refers to is continually being updated and revised, but has proven to be an excellent guideline not only for new parole officers entering the field, but as resource material for the Parole Division. Attention is called to recommendation 6.48, which recommends that the U.S. Employment Service for the District of Columbia establish a unit to coordinate effort to provide employment for former offenders. In this regard we would like to state that the Department did not deliberately ignore this recommendation, but for our own purposes implemented the following recommendation, 6.49, which relates to the transfer of the administrative operations of the Employment Counseling Service from the District of Columbia Parole Board to the Department of Corrections and to increase its capability to serve all releasees from the Department's penal institutions. In December 1967, the Office of Parole Supervision was transferred to the Department of Corrections along with Employment Counseling Service. The mission of this unit has been, and continues to be, to find suitable employment for those persons released from prison under parole-mandatorily released-for those persons on probation, and recently, to offer job supportive services

to the many men housed in the community correctional centers. The Department of Corrections, through the employment placement service, has helped to bridge the gap of transition from institutional living to a life in the free community, providing job employment and training opportunity to hundreds of its population. This unit has now expanded to include several new counseling and placement units plus receiving a grant of $24,000 from LEAA to supplement matching funds of $16,000 from the Department of Corrections to establish funding for three positions to administer a new careers program for rehabilitated offenders. Since the passage of the District of Columbia Omnibus Crime Bill, this division anticipates possibly some 4,000 referrals during the coming years and will need additional staffing to meet this need. An example of the increase can be seen by figures reported in referrals in fiscal year 1969 as being 1,381 with a 69 percent increase. The figures reported in fiscal year 1970 reflect a referral of 2,330 persons for service. Of this number of referrals in 1970, 1,448 were placed in employment and 225 placed in training. Our figures also show that the weekly income for most men referred and placed by the employment placement service, averaged $90.81 for fiscal year 1970. At the same time referrals from the probation department, Court of General Sessions-now known as the Superior Court-declined 41.5 percent and 14.7 percent respectively. Further studies will show that this decline may be due to the utilization of the job bank book by the superior court and the partial utilization of other community employment resources. However, we would like to reemphasize that in the field of employment there has been a steady increase in job referrals, which we think can be continually anticipated in the coming fiscal years.

Thank you very much, I would like to answer one of your earlier questions.

You asked a question, "Do all those referred from work release get into the program?" and the answer is "no."

Senator STEVENSON. Thank you. Senator Mathias?

Senator MATHIAS. Have you made any recommendation for adoption by the District of Columbia of the Interstate Compact for Parole?

Mr. AVERY. Yes, we have, and I think this was done back in 1967 and again in 1968 and as far as I know it still remains in the corporation counsel's office.

Senator MATHIAS. Have you recommended approval?

Mr. AVERY. Yes; we do. That's right, but let me say this, any day we now have around 140 men from other States and we have about 125-130 men from our institutions here in the District who fan out through the country. Over the years I worked on the parole board for 25 years and there was never more than 120 in the last four years. We have been able to cut the number by going out and coming into the District of Columbia. It really hasn't hurt us too much because most of the States want to send people to us

Senator MATHIAS. Are you saying it has been close to a balance? Mr. AVERY. Yes. But I think we can do better with the compact. I can't think, Senator Mathias, right now of the legal inhibitions that I've heard of for years but I know we have tried for many, many years to come into the compact.

Senator MATHIAS. I can contact the corporation counsel.

Mr. AVERY. To tell you the truth, now we don't have any trouble with men coming from Maryland, there is no difficulty there.

Senator MATHIAS. It's up to Maryland to pick up its share of that load and it is over $55,000.

Mr. AVERY. It must be about equal because we have a large number of men come here.

Senator MATHIAS. We will pursue it further with the corporation counsel.

Senator STEVENSON. If I heard you correctly, you said there were 320 inmates in the community program?

Mr. AVERY. Yes. This does not take into consideration the youth division but this is the adult division I am talking about.

Senator STEVENSON. And that includes work release?

Mr. AVERY. Yes. But these are people in our 12 centers. Incidently we opened a center for women with narcotics problems in March and this house is able to serve only 15 women at a time.

Senator MATHIAS. What would that figure be optimally right now considering the people in the institution eligible in the center? Mr. AVERY. One of the problems is we have no more space.

Senator MATHIAS. What would it be if you had the space-or what would it be optimally?

Mr. AVERY. Well how many people should be. I would have to say a couple, Senator. Like any day I have between 60 and 70 applications to be serviced, that are to come to the program. This includes 30- to 60-day people that we sentence through the order of work release of the Superior Court that we have very, very seldom been able to reach except the judge calls and says this man has a job he can do and he would like to have him out. We have him out tomorrow. But we have done a couple of things. For instance, we are now taking men into the program 6 months before parole date. In other words if a man has a 1- to 3-year sentence and he serves 6 months in the institution and is recommended by the classification and parole officer and the superintendent of the institution at the workhouse then we bring that man into the program. This also goes for anybody in a general sentence of 3 years. I suppose you know the parole board, since October 1968, has been hearing cases with a 3year minimum or over, 6 months before his parole date so this gives us another group that can come into the community.

Also, we have space for 25 bail bond cases. This came about through a meeting with Judge Hart, who met with the committee in 1968, and our records indicate they would reserve 25 beds for men on bail bond. This also applies to men in the Court of General Sessions or the new Superior Court. I think Mr. Hardy and Mr. Montilla have indicated that they have heard this figure before. We would like to have 1,000 men committed to the community in 1973. It is possible that after all I've been through in correction and parole the last 2911⁄2 years, this is we are going to have to act in order to help meet the needs. Prison is the worst place a man could be. I found that out in 1969 when I was acting superintendent of Lorton. We were continually trying to help the men to get out early and to place them in jobs which we hoped would meet their needs.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »