December 9, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 196 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
GOOD CONDUCT TIME CREDITS FOR CERTAIN ELDERLY NONVIOLENT OFFENDERS; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 196
(Extensions of Remarks - December 09, 2019)
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[Extensions of Remarks] [Pages E1563-E1564] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] GOOD CONDUCT TIME CREDITS FOR CERTAIN ELDERLY NONVIOLENT OFFENDERS ______ speech of HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE of texas in the house of representatives Tuesday, December 3, 2019 Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4018, the legislation which provides that the amount of time that an elderly offender must serve before being eligible for placement in home detention is to be reduced by the amount of Good Time Credits earned by the prisoner, and for other purposes. This legislation would ensure that elderly offenders become eligible for the pilot program at a point in time that takes into account any good conduct time credits they may have accumulated in the course of their time in prison under the Second Chance Act. This change is important for at least three reasons: (1) the elderly offender pilot program should be consistent with the way the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) calculates other transfers, which includes credit for good conduct time, (2) offenders who otherwise have satisfactory behavior should not lose good conduct time solely due to their elderly status, and (3) one of the goals of the pilot program is to save taxpayer dollars, and older inmates tend to be more costly for BOP to house. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation because it is long overdue and provides much needed relief to persons who no longer warrant incarceration. To promote prisoner reentry and improve community reintegration, I co-sponsored and advocated for passage of the Second Chance Act, which Congress enacted in April 2008. The Second Chance Act expanded existing offender reentry grant programs at DOJ and created a wide array of targeted grant-funded pilot programs. The Second Chance Act reauthorization improved programs by: broadening programs to cover reentry courts, expanding grant eligibility to nonprofits, bolstering support for programs targeting offenders with histories of homelessness, substance abuse, or mental illness, and makes the existing elder release pilot program permanent and broadens eligibility. The Second Chance Act also established an elderly offender release program for those individuals over the age of 65 who have served the greater of ten years or 75 percent of their sentence. The Act has been consistently funded by Congress since its enactment. [[Page E1564]] Since its inception, the Second Chance Act has resulted in more than 800 grant awards in 49 states and the District of Columbia to government agencies and nonprofits for reentry programming designed to provide services that can help reduce recidivism and increase public safety. The data shows that this investment in our returning population lowers recidivism, saves money and reduces crime. Nearly one out of three Second Chance Act grantees is a community or faith-based organization and includes funding for federal programs through the Bureau of Prisons. The data shows that this investment in our returning population lowers recidivism, saves money and reduces crime. The Second Chance Act has been a success and its reauthorization was an essential part of any meaningful criminal justice reform effort. Through grants, the Second Chance Act encourages the development of evidence-based reentry programming to improve outcomes for those returning to families and communities. Grantees provide vital resources, including employment training, drug treatment, family programming, and so much more. Reauthorization had broad bipartisan support in Congress and from nearly 700 organizations across the political spectrum. The Second Chance Act has played an important role in the impressive advances Texas has made over the last decade in criminal justice and juvenile justice reform. Texas has received over 28 Second Chance Act grant awards to date, totaling over $11,932,289. One recipient, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, has used it to provide family-focused reentry services and comprehensive case management to gang-affiliated youth. The City of Dallas used its funding to support a program for women who have a substance abuse diagnosis and are pregnant or have children who are 5 and under. The women received comprehensive family-based support and co- occurring substance use and mental health services on an inpatient and outpatient basis. This change is especially significant because the fastest growing segment of inmates are those age 50 and older, and they cost far more. As an original co-sponsor of the Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2017, I am very proud to have played a part in the development of the Federal Prisoner Reentry Initiative for our citizens over 60 years old. For the previous several Congresses, I introduced the Federal Prison Bureau Relief Act to amend the federal criminal code to require the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to release early an offender who has completed at least half of his or her prison sentence if such offender has: (1) attained age 45, (2) committed no violent offenses, and (3) received no institutional disciplinary violations. The bill modified provisions related to computation of a federal prisoner's good time credit. Specifically, it allowed an eligible federal prisoner to earn a maximum good time credit of 54 days per year of the sentence imposed (instead of 54 days per year of the sentence actually served). It also permitted the Bureau of Prisons to restore good time credit previously denied, based on a prisoner maintaining good behavior. These modifications applied to an ongoing prison sentence imposed on or after November 1, 1987. A bipartisan consensus is developing across this country in support of such a policy. Allowing this group of nonviolent offenders to go home to their families is both beneficial to the inmates as well as in the best interest of the United States. There is a continuing need for re-entry programs. Due to the dramatic growth in the size of the prison population, the issue of prisoner reentry has emerged as one of the most critical and complex dilemmas facing the American criminal justice system. The United States is the world's leader in incarceration. According to the Prison Policy Initiative Mass Incarceration, the American criminal justice system holds almost: 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. These trends resulted in prison overcrowding despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of public safety. The result was that an incredibly low number of prisoners over 60 years of age were released to home confinement under the pilot program. Passing H.R. 4018 will not fix the entire criminal justice system, but it is another important step in our effort to make it a more just and humane system for our elderly non-violent offenders with reentry into our communities. ____________________