AG Eric Holder: “Move Past Politics and Ideology to get Smart on Crime”
July 10, 2009 by Desiree Washington
Filed under News, Politics
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
In his remarks, Attorney General Holder outlined the Department of Justice’s agenda for reducing crime rates and the cost of incarceration, the Department’s main concerns. “To begin with, high rates of incarceration have tremendous social cost,” he said. “And, of course, there also is the matter of simple dollars and cents, and the principle of diminishing marginal returns. Every state in the union is trying to trim budgets. States and localities are laying off teachers and canceling sanitation department shifts, but in almost all cases, spending on prisons continues to increase. Not only is this unsustainable economically, but it is also not proving to be effective at fighting crime. For while prison building and prison spending continue to increase, public safety is not improving. Since 2003, spending on incarceration has continued to rise, but crime rates have flattened. Indeed, crime rates appear to have reached a plateau, and no longer respond to increases in incarceration.”
Attorney General Holder emphasized the need for including prisoner rehabilitation in the strategy for reducing the cost of incarceration. Residential drug abuse treatment programs, which are said to result in a 16% lower likelihood of re-arrest, were at the top of Attorney General Holder’s list of reforms. “We know that offenders who have participated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ residential drug abuse treatment program are 16% less likely to be re-arrested, have their supervision revoked, and be returned to prison, than similar inmates who did not receive such treatment before their reentry into society,” he said. “They are also less likely to use drugs once released.”
Another initiative Attorney General Holder mentioned as helpful would be providing more work for inmates. “[I]nmates who work in prison industries are 24% less likely to commit crimes again, compared to inmates who have not participated in such programs – which, incidentally, operate at no cost to the taxpayer,” he said.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, inmates are required to work if they are medically able in areas like food service or the warehouse, or work as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter, or groundskeeper. These inmates can earn 12¢ to 40¢ per hour for work assignments. Other inmates work for Federal Prison Industries (FPI) factories. They work in factory operations, such as metals, furniture, electronics, textiles, and graphic arts and make 23¢ to $1.15 per hour.
Despite the low wages, the Federal Bureau of Prisons requires a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate for all work assignments above entry level (lowest pay level) in institution and FPI jobs.
Attorney General Holder also stated that the Bureau of Prisons’ educational programs, which are designed to address educational deficiencies ranging from Adult Basic Education to high school level classes are also effective in reducing recidivism. “Inmates who participate in these programs are 16% less likely to commit crime again as compared to their non-participating peers,” he said. “And inmates who are released through halfway houses are more likely to be gainfully employed, and therefore less likely to commit crime again, as compared to inmates who are released from prison directly to the community.”
Rehabilitation would be incomplete without a focus on non-violent drug offenses and their sentencing, according to Attorney General Holder. “One specific area where I think we can do a much better job by looking beyond incarceration is in the way we deal with non-violent drug offenses,” he said. “We know that people convicted of drug possession or the sales of small amounts of drugs comprise a significant portion of the prison population. Indeed, in my thirty years in law enforcement, I have seen far too many young people lose their claim to a future by committing non-violent drug crimes.”
Attorney General Holder proposed expansion of drug treatment courts, which offer an alternative to incarceration for non-violent offenders by focusing on treatment of their underlying addiction. Program participants would be placed in treatment and routinely tested for drug use, with the imposition of sanctions for positive tests balanced with incentives to encourage abstinence from drug use.
He also recommended taking a closer look at children who are exposed to domestic violence as a way to help prevent crime before it occurs. “We can also extrapolate from available data to identify youth that are highly at-risk to commit crimes in the future,” Attorney General Holder said. “For example, it seems that children who are exposed to domestic violence at home are more at-risk. Once we have identified at-risk youth, we can intervene with targeted programs, and I have asked the Department to make a priority of focusing on the issue of children exposed to violence.”
The changes Attorney General Holder outlined are part of President Obama’s agenda for the Justice Department’s overhaul. The department will review sentencing guidelines, mandatory sentencing, crack/ powder cocaine sentencing disparities and other racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing. “Although this Administration is still young,” Attorney General Holder said, “we have already started to put into practice what I believe is a data-driven, non-ideological, post-partisan approach to crime.”
The Department is considering alternatives to incarceration and strategies that help reduce recidivism when former offenders reenter society, and plans to recommend new legislation that will reform the structure of federal sentencing.
The Administration is equally concerned with the issue of indigent defense, which Attorney General Holder describes as being in a state of crisis. “Resources for public defender programs lag far behind other justice system programs, constituting only about 3 percent of all criminal justice expenditures in our nation’s largest counties,” he said. “In many cases, contract attorneys and assigned lawyers receive compensation that does not even cover their overhead. We know that defenders in many jurisdictions carry huge caseloads that make it difficult for them to fulfill their legal and ethical responsibilities to their clients. We hear of lawyers who cannot interview their clients properly, file appropriate motions, conduct fact investigations, or do many of the other things an attorney should be able to do as a matter of course.”
The Department will also look at the usage of forensic DNA evidence and its increasing role of importance in criminal prosecution. “Our goal is to ensure that forensic science is practiced at the highest level possible, and always in the pursuit of truth,” he said. “Because we put a premium on truth-seeking – because, indeed, this Administration is committed to using the best science possible whenever possible, including in criminal justice – I also believe that defendants should have access to DNA evidence in a range of circumstances. DNA testing has an unparalleled ability to exonerate the wrongfully convicted as well as to identify the guilty. Federal law already guarantees access to DNA evidence held by the federal government under specific conditions, and I hope that all states will follow the federal government’s lead on this issue.”
Attorney General Holder also stated that measures to improve the prevention and detection of economic crimes and on-line crimes would also be considered.
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