COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARING

MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM 140 MAIN CAPITOL BUILDING HARRISBURG, PA

MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2 019 10:02 A.M.

PRESENTATION ON SENATE BILLS 500, 501 AND 502 TO EXPAND THE JUSTICE REINVESTMENT INITIATIVE

BEFORE: HONORABLE ROB KAUFFMAN, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE SHERYL DELOZIER HONORABLE MATTHEW DOWLING HONORABLE TORREN ECKER HONORABLE JOHNATHAN HERSHEY HONORABLE BARRY JOZWIAK HONORABLE JERRY KNOWLES HONORABLE PAUL SCHEMEL HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS HONORABLE JESSE TOPPER HONORABLE JUSTIN WALSH HONORABLE RYAN BIZZARRO HONORABLE GERALD MULLERY HONORABLE CHRIS RABB HONORABLE MELISSA SHUSTERMAN HONORABLE MIKE ZABEL 2

COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: THOMAS DYMEK REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MIKE FINK RESEARCH ANALYST ELANA MAYNARD MAJORITY LEGISLATIVE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT II TIM CLAWGES DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

* * * * * Pennsylvania House Of Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 3

INDEX

TESTIFIERS

* * *

NAME PAGE

JOHN E. WETZEL SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS.... 7

KIRSTEN KENYON DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF RESEARCH, EVALUATION AND STRATEGIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSION ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY.... 18

HONORABLE FRANCIS T. CHARDO DAUPHIN COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY PENNSYLVANIA DISTRICT ATTORNEYS ASSOCIATION...... 2 3

MARK H. BERGSTROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSION ON SENTENCING...... 30

GREG ROWE DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATION AND POLICY, PENNSYLVANIA DISTRICT ATTORNEYS ASSOCIATION...... 46

APRIL BILLET-BARCLAY DIRECTOR, PROBATION SERVICES IN YORK COUNTY VICE PRESIDENT, COUNTY CHIEF ADULT PROBATION AND PAROLE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION OF PENNSYLVANIA..... 61

ANNA MCCAUSLIN DEPUTY STATE DIRECTOR, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY - PENNSYLVANIA...... 71

NATHAN BENEFIELD VICE PRESIDENT AND COO, COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION..... 74

JESSICA BARNETT MANAGER OF POLICY RESEARCH AND EDITING, COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION...... 77

JIM FOX BOARD MEMBER, PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF PROBATION AND PAROLE...... 95 4

1 5

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 * * *

3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: But you all know I

4 like to get started on time, so with that I ’m going to call

5 this hearing of the House Judiciary Committee to order.

6 And first things first, we haven’t been on the

7 House floor yet, so if we could all rise for the Pledge of

8 Allegiance.

9 (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.)

10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: All right. And if

11 the Secretary would call the roll getting started out here

12 today.

13 (Roll Call.)

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you very much.

15 And with that we will get started.

16 This is an important hearing today and a very

17 robust agenda, so I do want to keep things moving along

18 today. But this is an important public policy discussion

19 that needs to be had and we are in possession of -- the

20 House Judiciary Committee is in possession of three bills

21 that are being discussed this morning.

22 And so I’m excited to hear the testimony of all

23 those involved, the stakeholders from various perspectives

24 because, as we know, this is a deliberative process where

25 we want to get the absolute best product to get done for 6

1 all the people of Pennsylvania.

2 And so I want to recognize the Minority Chairman,

3 Representative Briggs, if he has any comments to start out

4 with.

5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN BRIGGS: No. I just want to

6 thank the Chairman for having this discussion in June.

7 Just looking at the agenda right now, it does look like a

8 robust group, and it'll be great to listen to their

9 concerns.

10 Thanks.

11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: All right. In

12 getting started out today, the Secretary, he is his own

13 panel. And so -­

14 JOHN WETZEL: That's not a weight joke, is it?

15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Yeah, no, that was

16 not, absolutely not. I would never do that to you, John.

17 JOHN WETZEL: Sure. Sure.

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: The Secretary and I,

19 we go back. Of course, the Secretary started out in

20 Franklin County here. So I do have an affinity for the

21 Secretary and the great work he's done here in the

22 Commonwealth, and he is a leader here and around the

23 nation.

24 So, Mr. Secretary, we'll get started with you,

25 and I'm sure there will be lots of questions and 7

1 conversation here this morning.

2 Thank you.

3 JOHN WETZEL: Okay. Well, thanks for having me,

4 and I appreciate you having a hearing on this. I think, to

5 your point, I think this is really important public policy

6 and really should be vetted in this manner.

7 I submitted testimony. But for folks who aren’t

8 familiar with justice reinvestment, just let me briefly

9 just touch on the process because I think that the thing

10 that the members need to understand is that this is a

11 product of a process that had every stakeholder around the

12 table, from district attorneys, law enforcement, victims,

13 county judges, county probation, public defenders,

14 everybody around the table, wrestling with what's the best

15 policy given the changing nature of the population coming

16 into the criminal justice system.

17 And some of the big takeaways here are that we

18 get our best bang for our buck in the criminal justice

19 continuum from county probation and parole. And this

20 really seeks to significantly invest in county probation

21 and parole.

22 And certainly there's been a lot of hearings

23 in -- with this body, around the opioid epidemic. And one

24 of the consistent things I've heard is that we can't

25 incarcerate our way out of this. 8

1 And one of the key mechanisms -- because drugs

2 are illegal, people are going to get arrested. And one of

3 the keys that we found throughout this process is that when

4 folks are put on county intermediate punishment, we get our

5 best outcomes. So we get lower future re-arrests. We get

6 people off drugs. And we keep them in the community so

7 they are contributing. They are taxpayers. They keep

8 their jobs. Their kids aren’t going into foster care.

9 And so this really seeks to really bolster that.

10 I mean, just at the Department, we've seen a doubling in

11 the amount of people coming in addicted to opioids. This

12 is a significant issue.

13 So to do that we really, I think, cautiously

14 targeted folks who would benefit from treatment, and

15 especially expanding state intermediate punishment which is

16 a key component of this.

17 Understand that where that came from is -- and I

18 don't want to speak for the district attorneys, but there's

19 a lot of folks who come in county jails a bunch of times,

20 six, seven, eight times, not necessarily for violent

21 offenses but they've exhausted every program at the state

22 level.

23 And what we know about the state intermediate

24 punishment program is it reduces future criminality. But

25 because it was so complicated to assign people, it was only 9

1 used about 2 6 percent of the time. And the context of that

2 is that lower re-arrest rate, lower recidivism rate.

3 So this allows us to get those folks in program,

4 addresses criminogenic needs, who have exhausted all the

5 remedies at the county, while at the same time building out

6 the infrastructure in the county by really funding county

7 probation and parole.

8 So I think that’s kind of the context of this

9 process that started three or four years ago now. And I ’d

10 be happy to answer any questions.

11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: I ’m actually

12 surprised. You left everyone speechless.

13 Mr. Secretary, maybe as we move forward, if you

14 could maybe speak to the individual bills just so that

15 the -- because my guess is that possibly the Committee

16 hasn’t had a chance to actually review the text of the

17 legislation. And maybe you could just give a review of

18 these three pieces of legislation, not to put you on the

19 spot, Mr. Secretary, but -­

20 JOHN WETZEL: It’s okay. I ’ve got backup notes

21 with me.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: All right. I

23 figured. You always come prepared.

24 JOHN WETZEL: So, by number I probably am not the

25 best person to do it. I know it’s Senate Bill 500, 501 and 10

1 502. Let me talk about the corrections component of it and

2 what it really does.

3 There's a component that creates a group of

4 individuals who -- the minimum sentence is two years or

5 less, who are eligible for presumptive parole. Now

6 excluded from that group are people who have committed a

7 violent offense.

8 And also, as a result of some work with Senator

9 Langerholc's, in the Senate last term, eliminates some of

10 the drug kingpin levels, so level three drug dealers are

11 excluded from that.

12 What's interesting about that group is that we

13 looked at 2014. There was a group. They spent on average

14 5.3 months beyond their minimum sentence. And when you

15 look at recidivism, there's no value added. So they

16 weren't any less likely to commit recidivism, those who got

17 out at their minimum.

18 So this is a group that really makes a lot of

19 sense to target. This drives -- the projection is that

20 we'll get 700 less people a year which drives the savings

21 to invest at the front end of the system.

22 Beyond that it looks at -- I talked about the

23 state intermediate punishment program. It modifies that to

24 allow, make it presumptive that folks will presumptively be

25 eligible if they meet the eligibility requirements. We can 11

1 put them in the program and we can actually -- there used

2 to be a 24-month flat -- we can extend it by six months for

3 misbehavior.

4 Jumping back on presumptive parole for a second,

5 if someone misbehaves, gets a serious misconduct during

6 that period, then they'd go in front of the parole board

7 anyhow.

8 Senate Bill 500, it creates the County Adult

9 Probation and Parole Advisory Committee within Pennsylvania

10 Crime and Delinquency, so get -- how the county folks have

11 more control over county probation and parole, which I

12 think is really consistent and makes sense. We want

13 decision making to be at the level where people have skin

14 in the game or have a vested interest.

15 And I think that if you look at the funding for

16 county probation from a state level, it stayed flat pretty

17 much for 20 or 30 years. So I think that provision, to

18 bolster county probation and parole makes a lot of sense.

19 501 is what I was referring to as the changes

20 within the Department of Corrections.

21 And then, 502 amends the Crime Victims Act making

22 changes in notification provisions and compensation, and

23 Jen Storm, of course, is a heck of a lot better to talk

24 about anything or all things victims than I am.

25 But that's kind of the summary of the bills and 12

1 especially the one around Department of Corrections.

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: And I assume the —

3 you were talking about the county piece, the -- that's one

4 that the County Commissioners Association has been very

5 active on and advocating for, I assume.

6 JOHN WETZEL: Yes. And I think — I can't

7 overstate enough how effective county probation is when you

8 look -- there was a study done in justice reinvestment, and

9 there was one slide in particular that I think everyone

10 should be aware of, and we can provide it after the fact.

11 But it looked at an individual who the judge had

12 complete discretion to sentence him anywhere. So the judge

13 could sentence him either to the county intermediate

14 punishment, county jail, state prison traditional, or state

15 intermediate punishment. And so it matched these groups,

16 and it looked at which group has the best outcome. The

17 best outcome is county intermediate punishment.

18 So diverting people altogether, getting them the

19 treatment they need, but keeping them close to home so

20 their pro-social supports are in place are where we get the

21 best bang for our buck. Less future crime.

22 And so, but again, when the state is only funded

23 at 16 million, when 85 percent of everyone that's on

24 supervision is on county supervision. This is the

25 mechanism that drives down the population, reinvests in a 13

1 place where we will get future savings, not just from less

2 people in state prison, but less people committing crime

3 and getting people out of the system altogether.

4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: And starting out

5 with questions, Representative Topper.

6 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Mr. Secretary, good to

7 see you again.

8 JOHN WETZEL: Good morning.

9 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: So you mentioned a couple

10 of times bang for your buck and future savings. Has the

11 department done any analysis, whether it be these bills or

12 specifically in the short term, like what kind of savings

13 we're talking about?

14 JOHN WETZEL: Yeah. There's an analysis that's

15 in the testimony that I provided in writing.

16 But I can tell you, for instance, the presumptive

17 parole, looking at that group who served over 5.3 months

18 beyond their minimum, that alone is about $73 million a

19 year.

20 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Thank you.

21 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Representative

23 Mullery.

24 REPRESENTATIVE MULLERY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

25 Quick question on the written testimony that you 14

1 provided, specifically under the short-term parole, where

2 you reference folks sentenced to county jail are serving

3 far less time despite receiving the same sentence than

4 those who go to a state penitentiary.

5 Why is that?

6 JOHN WETZEL: So in the county, the presumption

7 is that they will get out at their minimum. And unless

8 there is something that happens, for instance they actually

9 do misconduct, the presumption is that they get out at

10 their minimum.

11 At the state, what would happen is people -- when

12 they come to us through a state, everybody who comes to a

13 state prison, or almost everyone, goes through a county

14 jail. So their time counts during that county jail.

15 So let’s just say that I get a 24-month sentence,

16 but I ’ve already served 18 months at the county jail. Then

17 they come to us. They go through classification. Then

18 they are assigned prescriptive programming. So by the time

19 they actually get in programming and complete that

20 programming, what has accrued is an average of 5.3 months

21 longer.

22 And then when you look at the research, and I

23 always go back to what are the outcomes. Had they got out

24 on their minimum, there’s no difference in the recidivism

25 rate. And we also have an infrastructure in the community 15

1 so it doesn't eliminate them from getting the program they

2 needed, but we can deliver it in the community at a much

3 lesser cost with the same outcomes.

4 REPRESENTATIVE MULLERY: So is that a false

5 statistic then?

6 So in other words, if they are serving 18 months

7 in the county, and then for some reason are transferred to

8 a state penitentiary, we're counting that 18 months as a

9 lesser sentence, even though they're still serving the same

10 sentence.

11 Is that what you are saying?

12 JOHN WETZEL: No. No. The premise behind it is

13 that when someone's in the county, when they hit their

14 minimum, they get out. If you match it to the state, they

15 don’t automatically get out at their minimum. So that’s

16 why we decided on a group that everybody was comfortable

17 with having this presumptive parole absent some

18 inappropriate behavior.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MULLERY: Thank you.

20 JOHN WETZEL: Yep.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Representative

22 Jozwiak.

23 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you.

24 Good to see you, Secretary.

25 JOHN WETZEL: Sure. 16

1 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: I'm looking at this 5.3

2 months longer, that's a 2014 statistic.

3 What's today's statistic?

4 JOHN WETZEL: I don't know, but we can update

5 you.

6 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: I mean it's five years

7 old.

8 JOHN WETZEL: Yeah. I think that's when the

9 analysis was done for this justice reinvestment because

10 this started right when Governor Wolf came in.

11 But we'll update you and get that back to you.

12 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: So when people are on

13 parole and they have a violation, do you put them back in

14 jail?

15 JOHN WETZEL: Yes, if they meet the criteria that

16 was in the first justice reinvestment. There's a fab five;

17 there's five criteria that results in them coming back to

18 jail.

19 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: And who does that, your

20 state parole people?

21 JOHN WETZEL: Yes.

22 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay. Are they still

23 getting warrants?

24 Do they still get warrants to pick people up when

25 they are a violator? 17

1 JOHN WETZEL: Yes.

2 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: And they violate them?

3 I was told they weren't, that's why I was asking.

4 JOHN WETZEL: No. We still -- we're violating

5 plenty of people. That hasn't -- I mean the number of

6 violations have gone down but they're still able to bring

7 people back.

8 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Do you move people from

9 program to program when there's a -- like a technical

10 violation?

11 JOHN WETZEL: It's possible.

12 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay. Thank you.

13 JOHN WETZEL: Yep.

14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Well, I think you

15 got off easy this morning, Mr. Secretary.

16 JOHN WETZEL: I appreciate that. Thank you.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: And I'm not going to

18 delay because again we've got a robust pan -- group of

19 testifiers. So I assume we will take that time up

20 somewhere else. So thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being

21 here.

22 And the next testifier would be Kristen -­

23 Kirsten Kenyon -- I had to put my glasses on and make sure

24 I read that correctly, you know; I'm in my 40s now so it's

25 not working out so well for me -- Director of the Office of 18

1 Research, Evaluation and Strategic Policy Development for

2 the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

3 So thank you, Kirsten, for being here today and I will

4 open it up to you for testimony.

5 KIRSTEN KENYON: Thank you.

6 Thank you, Chairman Kauffman, Chairman Briggs,

7 and members of the House Judiciary Committee, for the

8 opportunity to provide testimony to you on behalf of the

9 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. I am the

10 Director of the Office of Research, Evaluation and

11 Strategic Policy Development. In addition to that, I am

12 also the legislative liaison for the agency, as well as the

13 policy director and the media consultant. So I wear a lot

14 of hats at PCCD.

15 I could go through my written testimony, but I

16 guess what I'm going to do is I'm going to focus on the

17 three bills individually, since that's what you had asked

18 for. So I'm going to skip some of the overview.

19 PCCD strongly supports Senate Bill 500's creation

20 of the new County Adult Probation and Parole Advisory

21 Committee to provide direction on probation and parole

22 funding, planning and recommendations for best practices.

23 The advisory committee process for us has worked rather

24 well.

25 We have at least four or five statutorily created 19

1 advisory committees that currently do the work of the

2 Commission and form the Commission’s decisions. It’s been

3 very valuable for us, the advisory committee process, to

4 bring appropriate stakeholders to the table, and allows for

5 rather robust cross-system discussions and policy

6 development.

7 Further, we already have extensive relations with

8 our county criminal justice partners through our county

9 criminal justice advisory boards and through our county

10 intermediate punishment funding stream. An advisory

11 committee makes the most sense to us to coordinate county

12 probation and parole efforts throughout this Commonwealth.

13 We also support the provisions of Senate Bill 501

14 which reclassify county intermediate punishment as an

15 option under probation which should encourage its greater

16 use by counties.

17 CIP is a state-funded diversionary sentence for

18 individuals convicted of offenses that would otherwise

19 result in partial or total confinement in a county

20 correctional facility. Our agency has conducted recidivism

21 research on CIP, and we have found that individuals

22 diverted into CIP, with a drug and alcohol restrictive

23 intermediate punishment component, had a better three-year

24 recidivism rate of 25.7 percent when compared to a similar

25 state prison control group, 34.9 percent. 20

1 Since CIP is a cheaper alternative to

2 incarceration and it has measurably better outcomes -­

3 recidivism outcomes than prison, we strongly encourage its

4 use by counties, particularly as a means to divert

5 non-violent offenders to appropriate substance abuse and/or

6 mental health treatment services.

7 And finally, the amendments to the Crime Victims

8 Act in Senate Bill 502, we created those in consultation

9 with the Office of Victim Advocate, who is here today. And

10 we strongly support all of the amendments that are made to

11 that Act.

12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Could you kindly

13 move the microphone closer to you just in case anyone from

14 home is -- because we are recording.

15 KIRSTEN KENYON: If I ’m not loud enough, I ’m

16 sorry.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Okay. There you go.

18 That’s good.

19 KIRSTEN KENYON: Okay. PCCD is tasked with

20 administering the state’s Victims Compensation Program

21 which provides financial support to victims after a crime

22 occurs for a wide range of services such as counseling,

23 funeral costs, medical care costs, cleaning of the crime

24 scene, etc.

25 The amendments to the compensation program in 21

1 Senate Bill 502 are designed to reduce bureaucratic red

2 tape that our Office of Victim Services has historically

3 noted hinder our ability to assist victims.

4 Further, we also like that Senate Bill 502 amends

5 law enforcement's responsibility to provide basic

6 information on rights and services available to victims as

7 soon as the officer has first contact with the victim or as

8 soon as reasonably possible.

9 Right now, the onus is on the law enforcement

10 agency to follow up and provide that information to the

11 victim, so we were thinking if we amended the law we would

12 provide that information to a victim sooner rather than

13 later.

14 I thank you again for the opportunity to be here

15 today. And if you have any questions, please feel free to

16 ask me.

17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: As we begin, would

18 you be able to expand on the process by which we came about

19 with JRI, long term, short term. Just give folks here the

20 background.

21 KIRSTEN KENYON: Sure. We had reached out —

22 PCCD as long -- with all of our other criminal justice

23 related agencies, we reached out to the Council of State

24 Governments in the Pew Center back in 2011 originally, to

25 form a interbranch task force that -- comprised of all of 22

1 representatives of the criminal justice system.

2 And CSG came in and provided us with technical

3 staff support. They looked at all of our data, and they

4 gave us a series of policy recommendations and legislative

5 recommendations that we initiated here in the General

6 Assembly back in 2012, through two acts, Act 212 -- 122 and

7 196 in 2012.

8 And based on the successes that we had in those

9 two acts, we initiated a second round of JRI II, in late

10 2016 where we -- it was the same exact process. We reached

11 out to the Pew and the Council of State Governments to

12 provide us with technical assistance.

13 We formed a large interbranch task force again,

14 and we went through a similar process, where we examined

15 all the data that we have in the criminal justice system to

16 come up with policy recommendations and reforms that you

17 see here today in the legislative packet.

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Any questions for

19 the testifier?

20 Doesn't look like it.

21 Well, thank you very much.

22 KIRSTEN KENYON: Oh, okay.

23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: You're getting off

24 easy as well.

25 And the next panel we have is Fran Chardo, the 23

1 Dauphin County District Attorney, with the Pennsylvania

2 District Attorneys Association; Greg Rowe, the Director of

3 Legislation and Policy for the Pennsylvania District

4 Attorneys Association; and then Mark Bergstrom, the

5 Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on

6 Sentencing.

7 If you gentlemen would come forward and -­

8 MALE SPEAKER: Want to go first?

9 MALE SPEAKR: You can go. Please.

10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Fran.

11 FRAN CHARDO: Good morning, Representative. My

12 name is Fran Chardo. Thank you for hearing from us today.

13 I'm joined by Greg Rowe from our Director of

14 Legislation Policy for the District Attorneys Association.

15 Thank you for hearing from us.

16 And it's always a pleasure to appear with Mark

17 Bergstrom. I had the pleasure of teaching sentencing with

18 him to the District Attorneys Association at our basics

19 prosecutors school. So we try to reach our prosecutors at

20 the earliest stage and teach sentencing, and in particular

21 some of the principles that we are going to talk about

22 today, and some of the alternatives, so that we're not just

23 being tough on crime, but we're being smart on crime.

24 JRI II began in 2016 and included many important

25 stakeholders who provide valuable insight into the 24

1 discussions. My predecessor, Ed Marsico, served on the JRI

2 workgroup, and Greg attended many of the meetings as well.

3 As you know, CSG, the Council of State

4 Governments, performed the research and analysis for the

5 workgroup. One of the most invaluable legacies of JRI is

6 the extensive data collection and analysis that they

7 performed.

8 While JRI legislative package contains a number

9 of significant changes, there are two that would have the

10 largest effect on the day-to-day workings of the criminal

11 justice system.

12 The first is in Senate Bill 501 which would

13 streamline the process by which an eligible offender is

14 admitted into our state intermediate punishment program.

15 Although the program itself would not change, Senate Bill

16 501 would remove some of the operational inefficiencies

17 regarding admission into the program.

18 Instead of having an eligible offender first

19 assessed by the Department of Corrections after a

20 conviction, and then having the court determine whether the

21 offender should enter the program, the legislation makes

22 the process much simpler, with the goal that more

23 individuals will be admitted into the program, and

24 objections to sending an otherwise eligible offender to

25 state intermediate punishment would need to be made up 25

1 front.

2 And the DOC would subsequently determine whether

3 the eligible offender would be suitable for the program.

4 The Commonwealth, if not -- if they have not objected

5 initially, the judge would have to sentence the person to

6 that program. So w e ’d have to make our determination up

7 front.

8 We have all the information that we need at the

9 time we submit the person for SIP. We really -- the only

10 thing we don’t know is what the department analyzes once

11 the person is committed. There really is no need, from our

12 perspective, for a two-step program. And so this

13 simplifies it, and hopefully w e ’ll see more people

14 participating in the SIP program.

15 One of the disappointments that I see is that we

16 don’t have more participation. And so, hopefully with this

17 really simple change, w e ’ll get more people participating

18 in SIP.

19 Individuals would be reinvested within the

20 criminal justice system. Indeed, a significant portion -­

21 excuse me, initiatives would be reinvested within the

22 criminal justice system. Indeed a significant portion of

23 these cost savings would be specifically reinvested into

24 county probation.

25 This is the crux of JRI: investing cost savings 26

1 in order to make our communities safer by reducing the

2 likelihood of recidivism. Stopping the cycle of criminal

3 activity at the county level will be enhanced if our

4 probation officers have more tools and resources at their

5 disposal.

6 So what we would do is we make parole automatic

7 in cases where the person has eligibility criteria in RRRI.

8 This is the earned-time credit program where a person

9 enters the DOC with two or fewer years in his minimum

10 sentence. They are less violent offenders because they

11 have not committed a personal injury crime as defined in

12 statute. They are automatically eligible at their minimum,

13 unless they have a major misconduct while in custody or

14 they have an outstanding felony charge.

15 This is a smart-on-crime initiative, and we fully

16 support this program. This provide -- and then would

17 reinvest this funds into the county probation system

18 providing additional resources that allow them to focus

19 where it is needed.

20 It goes without saying that our criminal justice

21 system can be significantly enhanced if there were more and

22 additional resources and investments put into it, such as

23 more long term drug treatment and additional resources for

24 those with significant mental health issues, while doing

25 either or both of these, would require significant infusion 27

1 of dollars, the result would ultimately be less crime and

2 fewer victims.

3 The CSG and DOC are working on a mental health

4 project called Stepping Up in Dauphin County. I'm

5 especially grateful to Secretary Wetzel for his tremendous

6 leadership on this program, and we hope it can be a model

7 statewide.

8 We have already acted on the recommendations of

9 this study, and it is paying off already. We now have a

10 professional with a background in mental health and

11 intellectual disabilities, as the head of a new agency

12 designed to divert individuals with serious mental health

13 issues from the criminal justice system at the earliest

14 point.

15 Because the director is based at our criminal

16 justice center, at the booking center in Dauphin County,

17 she can identify people for diversion from incarceration.

18 By working with stakeholders she has the confidence of the

19 police, the prosecutors, defense counsel, and the judges at

20 both the magisterial district justice judge and Court of

21 Common Pleas level.

22 And we are acting proactively with the people -­

23 that people with serious mental illness are not being

24 shoved into jail cells. They are getting the help that

25 they need. When appropriate, they are being removed from 28

1 the criminal justice system altogether.

2 The goal is to stop a cycle of arrest and

3 re-arrest with unreasonably long periods of pretrial

4 detention. And we found that people with serious mental

5 illness are held in pretrial detention much longer than

6 other individuals. And using this program we are ending

7 that, and we are having a significant effect already in

8 Dauphin County. And we hope that we can replicate that

9 statewide.

10 But my point is, as we improve the criminal

11 justice system, let us not forget about investing time and

12 resources into helping to stop those with criminogenic

13 needs before any crime is committed.

14 The JRI legislation will provide the district

15 attorneys -- provide that district attorneys give the

16 Office of Victim Advocate information about victims in

17 personal injury crimes or cases involving crimes of

18 violence.

19 This will allow the Office of Victim Advocate to

20 ensure appropriate notification and help them to work with

21 crime victims. This is important. This will allow full

22 involvement by the victims so that they know what is going

23 on. And we are fully in favor of this measure.

24 I also wanted to highlight two areas we need to

25 consider further. As you know, there has been a 29

1 considerable amount of discussion about probation reform.

2 Along with many other stakeholders, we have been

3 extensively involved in discussions with Representatives

4 Delozier and Harris about how to appropriately reduce the

5 number of Pennsylvanians on probation and to ensure that

6 only appropriate cases result in revocation that result in

7 reincarceration of a probationer.

8 JRI was drafted well before probation reform

9 garnered public attention that it has, and it includes

10 provisions intended to achieve some of those same goals.

11 For example, Senate Bill 501 authorizes the

12 Sentencing Commission to promulgate probation guidelines.

13 In fact, I just appeared before the Sentencing Commission

14 recently to discuss those sentencing guideline -- those

15 resentencing guidelines. It’s an appropriate way to ensure

16 that resentencing occurs in a uniform way across the state.

17 And we believe that that is an appropriate way to deal with

18 this measure.

19 We believe that the discussions about

20 Representative Delozier’s probation reform legislation and

21 JRI language, especially as it relates to probation reform,

22 and the powers of the Sentencing Commission, need to be

23 evaluated together in order to achieve optimal outcomes.

24 Second, under current law if the court imposes a

25 fine of over $60, then 70 percent of that extra amount goes 30

1 to the county victims fund and 30 percent to the

2 Commonwealth. For very technical reasons, the language in

3 Senate Bill 502 would have the 70 percent portion go to the

4 state victims compensation fund instead of to the county

5 victims fund. We request respectfully that the current

6 process continue, and we have worked with the PCCD in

7 drafting language to do so.

8 Thank you for inviting us to this hearing.

9 Changes to the criminal justice system are collaborative,

10 thoughtful, data driven and victim sensitive. That’s a

11 positive thing.

12 And we hope that we can continue to work with

13 this committee in making sure that our criminal justice

14 system is fair and continues to be so.

15 Glad to take any -- to turn it over to -­

16 MARK BERGSTROM: Did you want to take questions

17 with them or -­

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: You may proceed.

19 We ’ll go through the whole panel and then w e ’ll

20 open up to questions.

21 MARK BERGSTROM: All right. Thank you.

22 Good morning Chairman Kauffman, Chairman Briggs,

23 and members of the Judiciary Committee. I ’m Mark

24 Bergstrom, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania

25 Commission on Sentencing. Thank you for providing this 31

1 opportunity to testify about JRI II.

2 I will focus my brief comments this morning on

3 the role of sentencing structures, data, and guidelines in

4 advancing the objectives of the Justice Reinvestment

5 Working Group, and how the proposed legislation can serve

6 as a vehicle to strengthen public safety through

7 redirecting critical correctional resources.

8 I have attached my testimony to a copy of a paper

9 I wrote in 2016 with Dr. Bret Bucklen from the Department

10 of Corrections regarding justice reinvestment. It goes

11 into a lot more detail on both JRI I and II.

12 As an agency of the General Assembly, I ’d like to

13 recognize two members of the House that serve on the

14 Commission, Representative Todd Stephens, who I believe is

15 here this morning, and Representative Joanna McClinton.

16 Welcome.

17 So the three issues.

18 First, streamlining sentencing structures.

19 Echoing what Secretary Wetzel said, a key finding of the

20 Justice Reinvestment Working Group is that the structure of

21 sentencing in Pennsylvania is unnecessarily complicated,

22 and the delivery of correctional services is uneven due to

23 heavy reliance on counties with minimal state investment.

24 To address the structural problem, JRI II

25 proposes combining and streamlining several sentencing 32

1 alternatives and correction programs. To address the

2 funding needs, JRI II proposes investing the savings

3 realized from reforms at the state level in county adult

4 probation and parole with funding linked to documented

5 needs, best practices, and proven success.

6 The first of the structural changes is at the

7 county level: incorporating county intermediate punishment

8 into an order of probation as restrictive conditions.

9 When initially enacted, county IP was designated

10 as a separate sentencing alternative in order to avoid net

11 widening, placing people who were normally getting

12 probation on more restrictive conditions, and leading to

13 more waste of resources and higher technical violations.

14 And the funding was linked to these county intermediate

15 punishment programs and compliance with the standards that

16 were in place.

17 Advances in assessments and community supervision

18 strategies during the past 25 years and the provisions in

19 JRI II that address or define the use of restrictive

20 conditions in terms of intensity and duration and that

21 monitor compliance address these earlier concerns. And so

22 it would be a reason for moving to consolidate the two and

23 simplify the process.

24 The other structural changes occur at the state

25 level and, as the DA said, involved redefining state 33

1 intermediate punishment as a drug treatment program within

2 the Department of Corrections, and streamlining the

3 consideration of parole for those state sentences with

4 relatively short minimum terms.

5 These actions provide a more efficient, a less

6 burdensome process of getting the right individuals into

7 the right programs in a timely manner, aligning the

8 offender's risk and needs with the programming required and

9 providing for expedited processing of parole for the most

10 appropriate cases. Not only are these approaches supported

11 by research and practice, but they generate the cost

12 savings needed to invest in county probation and parole

13 services.

14 As was discussed earlier, state intermediate

15 punishment has been found to be a really effective program.

16 The Commission analyzes and evaluates the program every

17 other year. Great outcomes but really underutilized. Less

18 than one percent of drug-related offenders going to the DOC

19 get into the program. We hope by this process you

20 streamline and more people can be considered for a program

21 that seems to work pretty well.

22 Another issue is leveraging sentencing data. A

23 mission critical function of the Commission is a

24 collection, analysis and dissemination of sentencing data.

25 The Commission has prepared detailed sentencing data sets 34

1 since 1985, and launched a JNET-based SGS web application

2 in 2002 which is now used by all common pleas courts to

3 prepare sentencing guidelines and to report all sentences

4 to the Commission. This application was recently expanded

5 to include resentencing data.

6 The data reported through SGS web are used to

7 provide the General Assembly and the Administration with

8 information for legislative impact analysis, and for the

9 state criminal justice population projections; to inform

10 the Commission in adopting guidelines and evaluating

11 programs and practices; and to make available to agencies,

12 counties, courts and the public information on sentences

13 imposed in Pennsylvania.

14 The Commission is utilizing this platform, SGS

15 Web, and hopefully the next generation platform if funded

16 through JRI II, to make available when implemented the

17 sentencing risk assessment instrument, resentencing

18 guidelines, state parole guidelines and recommitment

19 ranges, all mandates that the Commission has received from

20 the General Assembly.

21 JRI II proposes two additional uses of these data

22 and this platform. First, to provide courts with

23 interactive information on risk, recidivism, and cost for

24 consideration, along with sentencing guidelines prior to

25 sentencing. And second, to provide the Pennsylvania 35

1 Commission on Crime and Delinquency with sentencing data to

2 be used by the County Adult Probation and Parole Advisory

3 Committee for developing a funding plan and a formula.

4 As part of the JR II responsibilities, the

5 Sentencing Commission is required to certify that each

6 county’s compliance with the guidelines and with the county

7 intermediate punishment plan for imposing restrictive

8 conditions.

9 The third issue I wanted to raise was aligning

10 sentencing guidelines with best practices. And this sort

11 of gets in the weeds, but I ’ll try to go through it

12 quickly.

13 The sentencing guidelines are advisory benchmarks

14 which serve as a common starting point for sentencing in

15 Pennsylvania. Sometimes described as providing the typical

16 sentence for the typical offender, the guidelines promote

17 uniformity and proportionality in sentencing across the

18 Commonwealth.

19 Originally built in the 1980s and revised 16

20 times, the guidelines provide recommendations based on the

21 current conviction offense and the offender’s criminal

22 history. Similar to guidelines adopted in other

23 jurisdictions, Pennsylvania’s sentencing guidelines are

24 retributive, but consider other utilitarian purposes such

25 as rehabilitation through clinically prescribed treatment 36

1 for drug dependent offenders or incapacitation of repeat

2 violent offenders through substantial periods of total

3 confinement.

4 Current convictions are ranked by seriousness and

5 seek to hold the offender accountable through

6 recommendations that address the disposition and duration

7 of the sentence.

8 The criminal history, called a prior record

9 score, considers the number and seriousness of prior

10 convictions and serves dual roles as a sentencing

11 enhancement.

12 First, to reflect the blameworthiness of the

13 offender, think the offender should have known better, and

14 as a measure of risk of future offending past is prolonged.

15 As part of the Commission’s ongoing review and

16 revision of the sentencing guidelines, JRI II proposes that

17 the prior records score focus more on risk and less on

18 blameworthiness, more on recent offending and less on past

19 offending.

20 This is consistent with research and findings by

21 the Robina Institute at the University of Minnesota Law

22 School related to criminal history and public safety. The

23 Commission has been analyzing the impact of prior record

24 score on sentences imposed.

25 The authorization provided in JRI II would permit 37

1 the Commission to reduce the valuation of less serious

2 offenses and to modify the criminal history to reflect risk

3 to reoffend.

4 Another aspect of the sentencing guidelines that

5 would be reviewed under JRI II is what District Attorney

6 Chardo talked about, and that is probation guidelines.

7 JRI II legislation includes a proposal that the

8 Commission address the intensity of supervision, the use of

9 restrictive conditions, and the duration of terms of

10 probation as part of the sentencing guidelines. This is an

11 important linkage between the work of county adult

12 probation and parole in assessing risk, needs and

13 responsivity, and the use of this information by courts to

14 determine the appropriate intensity and duration of a

15 probation supervision and/or consideration of other

16 sentencing alternatives.

17 There are times when the use of probation in

18 community supervision is viewed from a retributive

19 perspective, a trade-off between a short period of

20 confinement and a longer period of probation. But if JRI

21 II is redirecting the focus from retribution to public

22 safety, then risk and needs should drive decisions

23 regarding the intensity and duration of supervision, and

24 long probation terms should be the exception rather than

25 the rule. 38

1 An analysis in 2015 -- of 2015 sentencing data

2 found that over 70 percent of non-DUI sentences imposed

3 during judicial proceedings included probation with an

4 average term of probation equal to or less than five years,

5 typically viewed as the outer limits of community

6 supervision.

7 However, about 20 percent of those probation

8 sentences were part of split sentences which means the

9 probation was consecutive to a confinement sentence or

10 another sentence of community supervision like CIP.

11 And then there were numerous outliers, long

12 durations of probation of 20 years or 25 years or, in one

13 case, 59 years, clear exceptions to the rule, but one of

14 the things that I think JRI II working group looked at and

15 thought should be under consideration.

16 And I agree with the DA that as the General

17 Assembly considers probation more generally, the Commission

18 has to be involved in those discussions in order for those

19 views to be reflected in any future sentencing guidelines.

20 So just a few closing thoughts.

21 JRI is not the first criminal justice reform

22 considered by this committee and it will not be the last.

23 I know there have been concerns that JRI I overpromised and

24 underdelivered, but real changes did occur because of JRI

25 I, and sustained reductions in the DOC population were the 39

1 result. The bills you are considering now as part of JRI

2 II are a good start on frontend reforms.

3 They are different than the bills that were

4 considered last session, and they are different than the

5 initial proposals adopted by the Justice Reinvestment

6 Working Group. The restrictions are greater, the

7 streamlining is more modest, the savings are reduced, the

8 funding is lower.

9 But these bills, if enacted, will make important

10 changes to sentencing structures, data and guidelines, will

11 improve the use of community and institutional correctional

12 resources, and will provide much needed funding to county

13 adult probation and parole where most of community service

14 occur -- community supervision occurs.

15 I cannot close without mentioning that

16 important -- the importance of stable and adequate funding

17 to make these proposed reforms a reality. As an example,

18 JRI I promised the Commission $400,000 a year for five

19 years to take up the various duties it was assigned, but

20 delivered just over 50 percent of that funding. Permanent

21 duties and responsibilities cannot be met with temporary

22 funding, and counties cannot be expected to meet increased

23 expectations without adequate support.

24 So thank you for your time.

25 I am certainly available for any questions. 40

1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Representative

2 Jozwiak.

3 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

4 Mr. Bergstrom, I ’m just looking at your testimony

5 here, and I ’m a little confused. It says, "As part of the

6 Commission’s ongoing review and revisions of the sentencing

7 guidelines, JRI II proposes that the prior records score

8 focus more on risk and less on blameworthiness, more on

9 recent offending and less on past offending."

10 If you have a habitual criminal, don’t you want

11 to look at his past record?

12 MARK BERGSTROM: I think that the issue that was

13 raised was under the prior record score we treat all prior

14 offenses the same in terms of weight in the prior record

15 score and the sentence recommendation. So if you committed

16 an offense 20 years ago, that offense would carry the same

17 weight as an offense committed a year ago.

18 And what JRI II recommends, and what the research

19 tends to recommend, is there are two different reasons for

20 having a prior record score. One is to just hold someone

21 accountable, saying you should have known better, so that a

22 first-time offender is treated differently than an offender

23 that comes back into the system.

24 But a second and more important issue seems to be

25 whether that offender is at risk of committing a new 41

1 offense. And that’s the real focus of JRI II in thinking

2 about the prior record score. Let’s use the prior record

3 score in a bigger way to try to identify those cases that

4 you expect to see again, that are at high risk of

5 reoffending, and let’s provide the appropriate kind of

6 sentence or recommendation for those.

7 But if you have a very stale or old criminal

8 record, maybe we look at ways to diminish the impact of

9 that if we think they have little or no impact on future

10 offending.

11 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay, but I still

12 think -- you used an example of one offense 20 years ago.

13 What if the guy has an offense every three years?

14 MARK BERGSTROM: Right, then -­

15 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: That’s a past record,

16 you’ve got to look at that.

17 MARK BERGSTROM: No. Sir, I ’m not saying that we

18 shouldn’t look at that. What I ’m saying is we have to be

19 more careful or informed about how we look at prior

20 offending.

21 I think I agree with you. If someone has a

22 repeat pattern of offending and recent patterns of

23 offending, that should be a really -- that should be a red

24 flag in terms of sentencing. But if someone has old and

25 stale records, I think that’s different and we have to 42

1 think about that differently. Presently under the

2 guidelines, we don't think about that differently.

3 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: So when you look at

4 these old records, are you looking at non-violent crimes or

5 violent crimes, or all of them?

6 MARK BERGSTROM: I think we have to look at all

7 offenses and consider all of that. So I think that's part

8 of the analysis. And the Commission does careful analysis

9 of that.

10 But if you look at the work of the JRI working

11 group, what they tried to do was look at when prior

12 offenses really were a good indicator of future offending

13 and when it was less the case.

14 And all I'm saying is as part of the discussions

15 and consideration by the Commission, considering those two

16 things separately instead of just throwing them into a bag

17 and calling it a prior record score might help us to do a

18 better job in terms of recommendations for the court.

19 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you.

20 MARK BERGSTROM: Thank you, Sir.

21 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you.

23 Representative Stephens.

24 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you,

25 Mr. Chairman. 43

1 So I guess my first question can go to any of the

2 three of you that feel comfortable. And my understanding

3 in looking at the bill, and it’s on page 6, I guess, of

4 Senate Bill 500, is that the savings that we anticipate -­

5 I’ll give you guys a second to get there, sorry. I hate it

6 when people did that to me.

7 The savings that we anticipate receiving from

8 this legislation come in essence from three areas, right?

9 The implementation of short-sentence parole -- and I’m at

10 the bottom of page 6 -- the increased use of state drug

11 treatment programs, and the use of sanctions for technical

12 parole violations, right, those three things?

13 MALE SPEAKER: Correct.

14 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So the implementation

15 of short sentence paroles, that’s something that the parole

16 board can do right now, right?

17 FRAN CHARDO: Well practically speaking, the

18 problem is the person is spending a lot of time in the

19 county jail before commitment, and so there is a lag time

20 because the time the parole board is spending to review

21 those cases.

22 So to make an informed decision in non-violent

23 offenses, I think that as I utter on a daily basis,

24 governance is about choosing. And it’s about devoting the

25 parole board’s time to the more pressing cases, the cases 44

1 that require the time, the violent offenders, and the cases

2 that will probably get parole anyway, so I think that this

3 is smart governance.

4 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: But to my question, the

5 parole board today -- I mean, they have their own internal

6 policies that determine which cases they review and how

7 quickly and how efficiently they work.

8 So no change in state law is needed for the

9 parole board to review cases more efficiently or more

10 expeditiously, right?

11 MARK BERGSTROM: Well, I think the difference of

12 this is removing the interview process, as I understand it,

13 for short min paroles, expediting the process and making it

14 more of a -- I don’t know if I should use the word

15 presumptive, but certainly trying to move those cases more

16 quickly and efficiently through the system.

17 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, I get that.

18 But the interview process isn’t required by

19 statute, is it?

20 MARK BERGSTROM: I ’m not sure.

21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So my point is I think

22 that some of these -­

23 FRAN CHARDO: It is.

24 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay. So it seems to

25 me that internally parole could achieve this result without 45

1 legislative changes.

2 There’s nothing legislatively preventing them

3 from reviewing cases more expeditiously, right?

4 FRAN CHARDO: I suppose that’s correct.

5 The problem I would have with that is if w e ’re

6 giving short shrift to the interview process in a certain

7 class of cases. My concern is that that might bleed over

8 to the more serious cases. I ’d rather us do this in the

9 nonviolent short min cases than the danger of it going to

10 the more serious violent cases.

11 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay.

12 FRAN CHARDO: At least that’s my view on it.

13 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay. Well let’s talk

14 about that though.

15 So nonviolent, are they drug felonies?

16 FRAN CHARDO: Yes. In the short min cases, yes.

17 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay.

18 FRAN CHARDO: So it -- but they would be cases

19 that would not presumably involve a deadly weapon

20 enhancement.

21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So —

22 FRAN CHARDO: Because they would otherwise -­

23 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: For a firearm.

24 GREG ROWE: It’s anyone who is otherwise eligible

25 for RRRIs, that same criteria. 46

1 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Which includes

2 for-profit drug dealers, not addicts feeding their habit,

3 but for-profit drug dealers, right?

4 MARK BERGSTROM: For the first two levels. Yeah.

5 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: All right. I think I

6 have to disagree on the notion that they are nonviolent. I

7 mean, I think the courts have held routinely in upholding

8 search warrant circumstances and exceptions to the warrant

9 requirement and things like that, that drug dealers -- drug

10 dealing is an inherently violent activity.

11 And so moving on though, I guess my point is I

12 get the value in investing more in probation and parole.

13 Right, that’s important. I get the value in investing more

14 in the victims compensation fund. That’s important.

15 Absent those reinvestments, where would you be on

16 this legislation?

17 GREG ROWE: I can’t give you a definitive yes,

18 no, or maybe, but I will say that what is attractive to us

19 about this legislation is the reinvestment piece. Without

20 the reinvestment piece, we would have a lot of problems

21 with the legislation.

22 Because, as you know, any time you try to change

23 the system, it’s a balance. You take some from A, you give

24 it to B, and you see where it comes out in the end. In

25 this case, our belief is that the reinvestment is really 47

1 going to help drive down recidivism and ultimately make

2 Pennsylvania safer. If there is no reinvestment, then we

3 lose out on that opportunity.

4 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So, and I agree with

5 you wholeheartedly, 110 percent on board with that.

6 Mark, if I could just ask you because I think

7 you're pretty far in the weeds on what happened with JRI I

8 and the funding.

9 MARK BERGSTROM: Weeds. Absolutely.

10 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Because we were told

11 with JRI I that there was going to be significant dollars

12 available for reinvestment. And I can tell you as a member

13 on the Sentencing Commission, we were told that there was

14 going to be significant dollars flowing to us to implement

15 some of those policies. And I think it's really important

16 that we understand fully.

17 I know you mentioned it in a sentence in your

18 commentary, but could you review for us what happened with

19 the funding on JRI I, in terms of the over promise and

20 undelivering (sic) I think is the words that you used.

21 MARK BERGSTROM: Yeah, sure. So JRI I outlined

22 five-year funding formula. The first -- and for the

23 Commission, and a lot of people receive funding, but for

24 the Commission there's $400,000 available each of those

25 five years for funding. 48

1 In the first year, I forget the exact figure, but

2 I believe it was $29,000 out of $400,000; the second year I

3 believe it was $200,000 or $300,000; third and fourth year,

4 $400,000; and the fifth year was cut.

5 And so -­

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Cut entirely?

7 MARK BERGSTROM: Cut entirely.

8 And so, we received, I think, 54 percent of what

9 was promised. And again, it was more because it was we

10 were given permanent mandates and temporary funding and it

11 wasn’t the first time, but it creates a problem in

12 sustaining efforts moving forward.

13 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: I guess that’s just my

14 biggest hesitation and caution, is that, you know, the old

15 saying, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on

16 me, right?

17 And, you know, w e ’ve been down this road before,

18 and I think the goals are laudable. I think that there

19 certainly are benefits to getting truly nonviolent

20 offenders through the system more quickly and get them the

21 programming that they need and get them, you know, back on

22 a path towards, you know, a law-abiding, contributing

23 lifestyle, and back on the street.

24 I think a lot of that is dependent upon the

25 funding. And I have been very disappointed in the funding 49

1 that JRI I delivered especially when viewed as it relates

2 to its promises. And I think that we need to do some work

3 to ensure that if reinvestment is truly what is driving,

4 particularly, you know, the experts in law enforcement that

5 are before us, and all of you gentlemen are very well

6 accomplished, for sure.

7 But if it’s reinvestment that is driving your

8 support for this legislation, I think we need to do a

9 better job to make sure that we will in fact see the

10 reinvestment that’s promised.

11 Thank you.

12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you,

13 Representative Stephens.

14 Along the same lines, I noted the same statement

15 that Representative Stephens did. Now, you say the fifth

16 year, zero funding.

17 So what happens to the functions that were to be

18 funded with that money?

19 MARK BERGSTROM: Well, Chairman, for -- at least

20 for the Commission; I can only speak for the Commission.

21 This goes back even before JRI I. The Commission was given

22 a number of mandates in 2008 with little or no funding.

23 JRI I was seen as a mechanism to sort of shore up some of

24 the funding.

25 The Commission’s operating expenses, w e ’re 50

1 operating at about a $500,000 deficit right now. And

2 that’s because the funding for these new mandates have not

3 kept pace. And we were filling that void with JRI II

4 funding -- I mean, JRI I funding, and then with that gap,

5 we are in the hole.

6 And so, that’s the issue, being given permanent

7 duties and responsibilities with temporary funding and then

8 the funding isn’t even -- you know, it doesn’t come

9 through, it puts us in a tough spot.

10 And this legislation which I strongly support

11 also gives the Commission numerous new duties and

12 responsibilities and a promise of funding, but even the

13 funding that was proposed last session was -- the funding

14 this session is less than what was proposed last. And the

15 overall funding, the overall benefit from the savings that

16 we ’re looking for is lower than it was originally projected

17 to be.

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you.

19 I do note that the policy makers in Harrisburg

20 are great with promises. But the bait and switch on

21 funding, all you have to do is go to those who we mandate

22 in all sorts of local governments, and they can tell you

23 that those promises don’t always come to full fulfillment.

24 So, with that, Representative Rabb.

25 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 51

1 Mr. Bergstrom, you mentioned recommended

2 guidelines, sentencing guidelines provide consistency.

3 How does that jive with how judges can hand down

4 sentences outside the scope of these guidelines?

5 MARK BERGSTROM: So, thank you, Representative.

6 The guidelines in Pennsylvania are called

7 advisory guidelines; they provide this common starting

8 point. There is appellate review of departures from the

9 guidelines, but the determination is manifest abuse of

10 discretion, so a pretty high standard for overturning and

11 remanding a case.

12 One of the issues that has been discussed over

13 the years in terms of trying to address concerns about

14 departures from the guidelines is to review the appellate

15 review and see if, under certain circumstances or for

16 certain statutes, there might be stronger or higher

17 appellate review.

18 The alternative I think that we have seen is very

19 much linked into program eligibility. I think prosecutors

20 have been given a lot of discretion, and I think

21 appropriately in some cases, to determine which cases

22 should be considered for county IP or state IP or boot camp

23 because there is some concern that total discretion by the

24 court is unchecked because there is not adequate appellate

25 review and might put the wrong people in programs, and so 52

1 someone has to have a check. And I think in some of the

2 legislation we see prosecutors have that check.

3 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: And, if I could.

4 How does JRI II, based on the evidence-based

5 research that you all have compiled, bear light on racial

6 disparities with regard to all of these issues?

7 Because, you know, frankly that hasn’t been

8 talked about explicitly, and the people we find in the

9 criminal justice system are overwhelmingly black and brown,

10 and overwhelmingly poor.

11 What does the evidence show? I ’m not interested

12 in opinions; I ’m not the expert here. What does the

13 evidence show in terms of sentencing disparities as it

14 relates to race?

15 MARK BERGSTROM: Yeah. The Commission over its

16 history has done evaluations of a lot of different factors

17 including race. Some of the studies that were done by the

18 Commission and by outside researchers found a racial

19 impact. But what they found was the racial impact under

20 the guidelines is less than it otherwise was.

21 So the guidelines provide by providing common

22 starting points that look at the conviction offense and the

23 criminal history and other factors tend to bring down that

24 kind of disparity, unwarranted disparity.

25 But what the Commission can’t do at sentencing, 53

1 and especially with advisory guidelines, is correct all

2 upstream factors so the decision on where crime occurs,

3 where police are deployed, what offenses are charged, who

4 is convicted, and so forth, drive a lot of the things in

5 the criminal justice system.

6 And so we have to try to do the best we can at

7 our decision point in the system and use the tools we have

8 to try to address those concerns that you’ve raised and

9 others have raised. And part of what we try to do is make

10 data available and transparent so if you go to our website

11 you can find, you know, all kinds of reports that you can

12 generate on sentences imposed. You can obtain data sets

13 from us. We work with universities and colleges across the

14 country providing those data so that people can analyze

15 things like that and hopefully improve the system.

16 So I think that’s an important consideration, an

17 important role of the Commission in collecting data and

18 making it available for exactly the kind of research you’re

19 talking about.

20 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: And you’re — the other two

21 gentlemen, do you believe that JRI II meaningfully

22 addresses racial disparities in this realm?

23 FRAN CHARDO: I think that Mark is in a better

24 position to address that, having the statistics.

25 Obviously, that’s a goal and to address that, and I think 54

1 it’s a step in the right direction.

2 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: That’s obvious that it’s a

3 goal?

4 FRAN CHARDO: It is to me.

5 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Is that explicit anywhere?

6 FRAN CHARDO: Well, I —

7 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Just I only say this

8 because when w e ’re talking about the criminal justice

9 system, it is one of the most egregiously punitive

10 institutions that directly correlate with race. Few things

11 are as stark.

12 So if there’s nothing explicit in terms of your

13 comments, in terms of the legislation itself, I wonder -­

14 because if I had no other background, and I ’ve visited a

15 number of state prisons, not county jails and such, I would

16 think that black people are more prone to violence and

17 crime than white people. I would think that Pennsylvania

18 is a majority black state.

19 So my question is, and again I ’m not the expert

20 here, are black people more prone to crime?

21 FRAN CHARDO: I certainly don’t think so. I ’m

22 sure they’re not. My goal is to be colorblind in my

23 approach to the criminal justice system.

24 Mark is collecting the data. I don’t have -- I

25 have not studied that. I approach every case in a 55

1 colorblind manner.

2 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: The challenge with that, of

3 course, -- and I ’ll leave with -- I ’ll yield my time back

4 to the chairman -- is that when you’re colorblind, you make

5 people of color invisible.

6 And as a person of color, I never want someone to

7 say to me, I ’m colorblind. That means they don’t see me as

8 part of my ethnicity which is part of my identity, just

9 like people say, I ’m Irish American, or what have you. As

10 a black person who is overwhelmingly considered a suspect

11 in the society, based on the systems that w e ’ve embraced,

12 that is a concern.

13 So all I ’m saying is if it’s obvious to you that

14 this is a goal to address the racial injustices born in the

15 criminal justice system, how is it explicitly realized?

16 FRAN CHARDO: Well, I guess there’s two different

17 steps. One is obviously as a system in trying to correct

18 what is a problem. For instance, legislatively, we have to

19 accept the fact, the statistics, and we have to try to

20 correct it. In an individual case, I approach it, unless

21 there is an indication of racial bias with -- then I ’m

22 going to approach it and say what’s the right thing to do

23 in this case.

24 So I ’m going to approach an individual case in a

25 colorblind manner, but as a system wide, because we have 56

1 statistics that tell us there's something wrong, well then

2 correcting the system, that's a different thing. So

3 there's two different, the individual case and the whole

4 system.

5 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Right. And I'm speaking as

6 a legislator as it relates to how these bills will impact

7 the criminal justice system based on the things that have

8 been outlined thus far.

9 GREG ROWE: Representative Rabb, if I could

10 highlight one of Mark's points that he brought up earlier,

11 and I think it's worth repeating, is that provision which

12 would de-emphasize old convictions, but frankly emphasize

13 more current ones.

14 I think in those, while not explicitly about race

15 will have an impact of getting the right ones, focusing on

16 the right ones. It'll have an effect over many areas, but

17 I think that's an important step.

18 Second, I think one of the great things that Fran

19 talked about earlier in terms of Council of State

20 Governments was the data collection and data analysis. So

21 this is not a direct answer to your question, but it's a

22 little more of, hey, this is an important point about data

23 collection and data analysis.

24 So you've asked in essence, what's the data.

25 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Yeah. 57

1 GREG ROWE: Mark has some data. We don’t have

2 it. If we have more, that’s terrific. All parts of the

3 criminal justice system and all reform and all changes work

4 when we have data.

5 We ’ve looked at probation reform which is an

6 important point. One of the areas we struggle with is

7 we ’ve got great data on the state level, on the county

8 level it doesn’t exist. W e ’re flying a little blind.

9 So I think we all struggle a little bit with the

10 lack of comprehensive data, particularly in a commonwealth

11 heavy local based system with 67 counties, a ton of

12 municipalities, which just don’t have the means to do this

13 intensive data collection.

14 So on the issues you’ve spoken of, on other

15 issues that w e ’re also all dealing with, there are times

16 when the lack of comprehensive data can affect what we can

17 or can’t do.

18 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Thank you.

19 MARK BERGSTROM: Representative, if I could add

20 one point on Greg’s point actually, and that is just don’t

21 underestimate the quality and depth of the data we have in

22 Pennsylvania as compared to other jurisdictions.

23 Through sort of under the umbrella of JRI, I did

24 a little bit of work or visited in Ohio which is similar to

25 Pennsylvania in a lot of ways, size, other things like 58

1 that. And, you know, they are envious of the data that’s

2 available in Pennsylvania and the connectivity,

3 particularly at the state level.

4 And I give a huge amount of credit to the

5 Administrative Office of the Courts for all the work

6 they’ve done in automating data, making it available. The

7 JNET infrastructure is a great way of sharing data across

8 agencies and with counties. So there’s a lot of great

9 things we have.

10 And I think that resource can be utilized to get

11 to exactly the issue you’re talking about, connecting the

12 dots, looking at the point of arrest through the point of

13 release from the system, and understanding attrition and

14 what’s happening. So I think all that’s really important

15 and w e ’re fortunate with what we have.

16 But having said that, and sort of getting back to

17 the data issue, you know, there are a lot of

18 vulnerabilities of data systems, AOPC, us, others that

19 there are just -- there was heavy investment early on and

20 little or moderate investment since and that really could

21 cripple what has been sort of a, you know, crown jewel of

22 how we operate in Pennsylvania.

23 GREG ROWE: This will be my last point. I don’t

24 want to give Mark more work. If the data is there, he’ll

25 get it. And we rely on Mark for data. I know all of you 59

1 rely on him. To the extent it’s there, they do a wonderful

2 job with that, so we would be remiss if we didn’t put in a

3 plug for the importance of the Commission and of funding as

4 well.

5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: As the prerogative

6 of the chairman, our Victim Advocate in Pennsylvania, who I

7 think we all respect greatly, has something to add on this.

8 So I ’m going to ask Jen if she would like to come

9 to the microphone here and just give her perspective on

10 this concern and issue.

11 Jen.

12 JEN STORM: Thank you. I appreciate that very

13 much.

14 While I can’t speak to the bills that deal with

15 the presumptive parole and the county probation in Senate

16 Bill 502, one of the reasons w e ’re expanding the crime

17 victims compensation is because there is a disparate racial

18 impact on crime victims in the City of Philadelphia.

19 There has been a prohibition, if you will, by the

20 compensation board to fully fund funerals for those who are

21 killed, and that is due to this kind of causal connection

22 language, if you will, that has always been embedded in the

23 Crime Victims Act.

24 It’s been a frustration of mine having worked in

25 Harrisburg for ten-and-a-half years and having to walk 60

1 family members through the funeral process after their

2 loved one is killed, and then having to go back and further

3 victimize them by saying, well, law enforcement indicated

4 that your loved may have had a causal connection; i.e.,

5 there might have been a pipe in their jacket, maybe they

6 threw the first punch in a situation that then resulted in

7 that person’s death.

8 It’s solely incumbent on law enforcement to fill

9 out a form that then goes to the compensation program, and

10 then the compensation program will either choose to not

11 fully fund that funeral or they’ll decrease the benefits.

12 What we have seen in Philadelphia specifically,

13 is that has had a racial disparity. And w e ’ve had family

14 members who have not been able to properly bury their loved

15 ones, which is, in my opinion, horrific and was one of my

16 main primary goals in this legislation initiative to remove

17 that.

18 And so there is discretion that is being given in

19 502 to PCCD to be able to say there are circumstances that

20 should enable an individual to fully be honored and

21 respected and everyone has the right to be free from

22 violence regardless of your actions. Nobody has the right

23 to take your life just because you may have or may not been

24 engaging in something else.

25 We also recognize that solely relying on the law 61

1 enforcement questionnaire is also sometimes inherently

2 biased in and of itself.

3 So those changes I can at least speak to that we

4 are very much trying to ensure that no family ever has to

5 incur the burden of burying their loved one when another

6 person chooses to take their life.

7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you very much.

8 Thank you, gentlemen.

9 And thank you, Jen, for your perspective always.

10 And we are going to move on to the next

11 testifier, who would be April Billet-Barclay, Director of

12 Probation Services in York County, and Vice President of

13 the County Chief Adult Probation and Parole Officers

14 Association of Pennsylvania.

15 Thank you for being here, April. And we will

16 open it up to you to give your testimony and remarks. And

17 we'll see if there's lots of questions or not, it depends

18 on what you say.

19 Thank you for being here, April.

20 APRIL BILLET-BARCLAY: Thank you.

21 Good morning, Representative Kauffman, and

22 Representative Briggs, and members of the House Judiciary

23 Committee.

24 I am April Billet-Barclay, Director of Probation

25 Services in York County. I am also the current Vice 62

1 President of the County Chief Adult Probation and Parole

2 Officers Association of Pennsylvania. My remarks today are

3 on behalf of the County Chiefs Association. Thank you for

4 providing this opportunity to testify before this Committee

5 on the subject of justice reinvestment.

6 My testimony will focus on specific provisions

7 included in Senate Bill 500 and 502 that will directly

8 impact county adult probation. Our members will not

9 provide any comment related to Senate Bill 501 since its

10 main focus is related to sentencing. We defer to the

11 judiciary on these issues. Our Association has faith in our

12 courts and allowing judicial discretion at time of

13 sentencing.

14 Therefore, my remarks will address four general

15 areas: Background of county adult probation and parole and

16 current challenges; the creation of a County Adult

17 Probation Advisory Committee, specific to Senate Bill 500;

18 amending the County Offender Supervision Fund specific to

19 Senate Bill 502; and county adult probation implementation

20 of evidence-based practices.

21 County adult probation and parole departments are

22 under the jurisdiction of the president judge in each

23 county; 65 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania operate

24 county adult probation and parole departments. The

25 Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole provides all 63

1 adult probation and parole services in Mercer and Venango

2 Counties.

3 County adult probation departments supervise 8 6

4 percent of the offenders in the community on probation and

5 parole. That’s over 258,000 offenders. The Board

6 supervises 14 percent of the offenders in the community.

7 That’s approximately 42,000 individuals.

8 There are numerous challenges the county

9 probation departments face around the state, but I will

10 limit my comments to just a few.

11 First, the structure of county adult probation

12 departments is decentralized. The 65 adult probation

13 departments are under the direction of 60 president judges.

14 The probation departments have different levels of

15 resources and stakeholder support.

16 Currently there is no oversight agency or

17 advisory commission in the adult probation system providing

18 standards and consistency throughout the 65 county adult

19 probation departments.

20 This is in contrast to the juvenile probation

21 system, where the Juvenile Court Judges Commission provides

22 an oversight role by establishing standards in juvenile

23 courts; establishes personnel practices and employee

24 standards used in probation offices; collects, compiles,

25 and publishes juvenile court statistics; and administers a 64

1 grant-in-aid program to improve county juvenile probation.

2 Such a body for adult probation and parole would be a

3 valuable tool for improving and strengthening the county

4 adult probation and parole system.

5 A second challenge is caseloads are high and

6 continue to grow. Based on the Pennsylvania Board of

7 Probation and Parole’s 2017 County Adult Probation and

8 Parole Report, county probation active -- average active

9 caseloads range in size from 261 offenders to a low of 14.

10 The statewide average is 108 offenders per officer. This

11 is more than double the recommendation of the American

12 Probation and Parole Association, which suggests caseloads

13 of 50 offenders to one officer for moderate to high-risk

14 population.

15 The board average caseload for state agents is

16 currently at 50. Studies show that reduced caseloads, in

17 combination with evidence-based practices, can lead to

18 improved recidivism outcomes.

19 A third challenge is lack of funding. County

20 adult probation funds come primarily from the county and

21 raising revenue is limited. The county adult probation

22 departments carry the largest share of the Commonwealth’s

23 correctional workload, but the state provides only a

24 fraction of the funding, an amount that is not adequate to

25 support the provision of effective probation and parole 65

1 services.

2 The Grant-in-Aid Program, established in the

3 Improvement of Probation Services Act of 1965 was amended

4 in 1986 to include the goal of covering 80 percent of

5 eligible county salary costs.

6 GIA funding came close to meeting the 80 percent

7 goal in the late 1980s. Since then, GIA, as a percentage

8 of eligible salaries, has declined steadily. Based on the

9 2015 Legislative Budget and Finance Committee Report on

10 Funding of County Adult Probation Services, Grant-in-Aid in

11 recent years has been less than 18 percent of eligible

12 county salaries.

13 There are many more challenges that face the

14 county probation departments but in the interest of time, I

15 will limit my remarks to just those I have already

16 indicated.

17 Regarding Senate Bill 500, one component of this

18 bill would create the County Adult Probation and Parole

19 Advisory Committee within the Pennsylvania Commission on

20 Crime and Delinquency.

21 Our membership supports this proposed

22 legislation. Part of the duties of this new committee is

23 to develop a funding plan for county adult probation

24 departments and make recommendations related to grant

25 applications. 66

1 The new committee would advise on all matters

2 pertaining to the administration of county adult probation

3 and parole. Such a body for adult probation and parole

4 would be a valuable tool for improving and strengthening

5 the county adult probation and parole system.

6 This bill also requires funds which are deposited

7 into the Justice Reinvestment Fund to be distributed to

8 PCCD, which in turn will distribute to county adult

9 probation departments via a funding formula under the new

10 advisory committee.

11 The first five fiscal years would provide 16.2

12 million to the counties which is desperately needed. After

13 year five, we hope the amount will significantly increase

14 due to the savings at the Department of Corrections and can

15 be reinvested at the county level where it is most needed.

16 Regarding Senate Bill 502, our Association

17 supports the changes to the current county offender

18 supervision funds. There is a provision under the Crime

19 Victim Act requiring adult offender supervision of a county

20 probation department pay a monthly fee, or supervision

21 fees. The statute currently allows the county to retain 50

22 percent of the fee it collects and remit 50 percent to the

23 Commonwealth’s State Offender Supervision Fund.

24 To encourage counties to collect these fees, the

25 Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole established a 67

1 policy returning the fees to the county on a

2 dollar-for-dollar basis. During the time the fees are with

3 the state, any interest earned remains with the state.

4 This transfer of the counties of half the

5 supervision fees to the state and their subsequent return

6 to the counties creates additional administrative burdens;

7 this practice is wasteful in time and administrative

8 effort. It should be noted that the counties earn no

9 interest on this money, while the state does.

10 Our members support the provision in Senate Bill

11 502 which would streamline the process of county

12 supervision fees. The proposed legislation would remove

13 the requirement that 50 percent of the money be sent to the

14 State Offender Supervision Fund. This change would allow

15 100 percent of the county supervision funds to remain at

16 the county where the fees are collected.

17 I just wanted to touch base on the County

18 Strategic Plan and Implementation of Evidence-Based

19 Practices.

20 In 2016, the County Chiefs Adult Probation and

21 Parole Association released its strategic plan for

22 advancing adult probation and parole within the

23 Commonwealth. The goal of our strategic plan is to enhance

24 public safety, reduce recidivism, and provide for an

25 effective use of public funds through the implementation of 68

1 evidence-based practices.

2 EBPs are the application of science into

3 operational practice for services and programs for

4 offenders. The goal is to use practices that have been

5 empirically tested and have been shown to reduce recidivism

6 among offenders. Our juvenile probation system has already

7 undergone statewide implementation of EBP under the

8 direction and leadership of JCJC.

9 The Chief’s Association Strategic Plan is the

10 beginning of a multiyear effort to achieve better outcomes

11 in community-based offender recidivism rates. We believe

12 the strength of our strategic plan lies in the support and

13 collaboration of county adult probation and parole partners

14 and key stake -- state stakeholders.

15 The Chief Adult Probation and Parole Officers

16 Association of Pennsylvania has collaborated with several

17 state agencies and created a statewide EBP leadership team

18 comprised of the following: the Pennsylvania Commission on

19 Crime and Delinquency, the County Commissioners

20 Association, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania

21 Courts, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, the PA

22 Board of Probation and Parole, the Office of the Victim

23 Advocate, and the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing.

24 Implementation of EBP in all county adult

25 probation departments will be a daunting challenge. But 69

1 once implemented, county criminal justice systems should

2 see results including improved supervision outcomes;

3 reduced offender risk, reduced recidivism; reduced use of

4 county and state prison for probation and parole violators;

5 and better utilization of public resources.

6 There are many ways to improve the county

7 criminal justice system and sentencing practices in

8 Pennsylvania, but much of the effort will come at the

9 county level with county stakeholders, particularly the

10 judiciary and prosecutors.

11 As stated previously, our Association has faith

12 in our judges and utilizing their judicial discretion at

13 time of sentencing and any potential subsequent proceeding.

14 As Pennsylvania’s county adult implementation of EBPs, we

15 have been moving away from the old mindset of trail ’em,

16 nail ’em, and jail ’em.

17 We hope the legislature will continue to support

18 county adult probation and parole and take the necessary

19 steps to restore Grant-in-Aid funding to the amount

20 established in the Probation Services Act and fund 80

21 percent of the eligible county salaries, as the state

22 requires. This would go a long way to support effective

23 probation and parole services in our communities.

24 Thank you for this opportunity to provide

25 remarks. 70

1 I would be happy to hear any questions.

2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Well, it appears as

3 though you may be off the hook.

4 I did note in your testimony that you were

5 talking about anticipated funding through the legislation

6 as well as hopeful funding for the future.

7 After hearing the remarks of the previous panel,

8 do you have any concerns with that?

9 APRIL BILLET-BARCLAY: I do.

10 There has been very little investment by the

11 state at the state level in county probation, and if you

12 really want to see change in the criminal justice system,

13 you need to invest at the county level. We have the

14 ability to prevent individuals from going to county jail

15 and then to state prison. You get the most bang from your

16 buck by investing at the county level. And I do have

17 concerns.

18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you.

19 Well, if there are no questions, thank you very

20 much for your participation today.

21 And we will move on to the next panel, which

22 almost puts us on time. And that panel consists of Anna

23 McCauslin, Deputy State Director of Americans for

24 Prosperity in Pennsylvania; Nate Benefield, Vice President

25 and COO of the Commonwealth Foundation; and Jessica 71

1 Barnett, Manager of Policy Research and Editing at the

2 Commonwealth Foundation.

3 And so, with that, I will let you all take over;

4 whoever would like to start.

5 Anna?

6 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: Sure.

7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: All right.

8 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: I can start first.

9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you.

10 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: So you have my testimony in

11 hand; it’s three short pages. I ’m going to direct your

12 attention to a few key pieces of it.

13 Some of you may be thinking Americans for

14 Prosperity, that’s just the people who care about taxes in

15 the state budget, isn’t it? But we actually care very much

16 about the criminal justice system.

17 But why? So we have always believed that people

18 can do extraordinary things if they are given the ability.

19 But sometimes there are barriers, whether in themselves or

20 in the community, that cause them to not reach that full

21 potential. When these choices cause someone to break a

22 law, the person should pay a fine or do some time or be

23 held accountable.

24 But in Pennsylvania we seem to make it more

25 difficult for them to move on with their lives, and that’s 72

1 really to the detriment of the person, the community, and

2 society as a whole. We have the second highest percentage

3 of citizens on probation and parole in the country, the

4 highest incarceration rate in the Northeast, but this isn't

5 making our community safer. And that's the goal, to make

6 communities a safe place to live, to work, or to run a

7 business.

8 It means that we're paying higher taxes to keep

9 people incarcerated or straining the finite resources of

10 the probation and parole system, sometimes keeping people

11 on probation longer than -- or parole longer than their

12 original sentence would have had them stay in prison.

13 In 2016 alone, over half of the people going into

14 prison were not because they committed new crimes. It's

15 because of probation and parole revocations. Obviously, we

16 aren't setting people up for success in their reentry;

17 we're placing more barriers in front of them.

18 At $42,727 per year, and that's the average cost

19 to Pennsylvania taxpayers to keep someone in prison, we

20 can't afford putting nonviolent individuals behind bars.

21 We need them in treatment. We need them in their

22 communities working, reforming, being successful.

23 Ninety-five percent of individuals who are going

24 to go behind bars are going to come back out, and it's our

25 responsibility to make sure that they are set up for 73

1 success when they come out of prison. That’s why we also

2 need to pass Senate Bill 500, 501, and 502.

3 According to my friends at the Commonwealth

4 Foundation, due to the excessive -- success of JRI w e ’re

5 seeing the largest decline in prison population. Couple

6 that with the fact that the crime is decreasing. The

7 reforms are working and we need to build on them.

8 I think Mr. Chardo said that the goal is less

9 crime, less victims, and that’s something that we share as

10 well.

11 So Senate Bill 501 will make Pennsylvania’s

12 community supervision system more effective by expanding

13 the use of risk and needs assessments to better

14 individualize the supervision and the resources directed

15 toward individual parolees and probationers.

16 This one-size-fits-all policy sometimes that we

17 have in Harrisburg is really not beneficial to the

18 individuals back in our communities, and I think you’ve

19 heard that theme throughout testimony today.

20 Our communities are safer and our taxpayers are

21 better off when parole and probation officers can

22 concentrate on those in need of the greatest supervision to

23 successfully complete their supervision.

24 Senate Bill 500 creates the County Adult

25 Probation and Parole Advisory Committee overseeing grants 74

1 to implement probation and parole reforms. The advisory

2 committee SB 500 creates will issue grants to help counties

3 implement holistic community supervision programs to serve

4 more than a quarter million Pennsylvanians on parole and

5 probation.

6 That advisory committee will assist counties in

7 developing funding formulas and program plans to

8 effectively implement the pieces of Senate Bill 501, which

9 I talked about first.

10 And then Senate Bill 502 expands services to help

11 ensure victims of crime are supported and made whole,

12 something that AFP recognizes as an important component of

13 an effective criminal justice system.

14 The bill increases the time period a crime victim

15 can file for compensation from two to three years, and

16 clarifies eligibility rules, so that victims can apply as

17 long as they report crimes within 72 hours of their

18 discovery, not merely their commission.

19 So in the interest of supporting victims and

20 keeping our communities safer, through lower recidivism and

21 helping former inmates turn their lives around, I urge that

22 you support Senate Bill 500, 501, 502.

23 And I am excited to hear the Commonwealth

24 Foundation, and take any questions that you might have.

25 NATHAN BENEFIELD: Thank you to the Committee for 75

1 having us here. I ’m going to turn it over to my colleague,

2 Jessica Barnett, in a minute to talk specifically about the

3 three bills that w e ’re talking about today.

4 But I wanted to give a little background on the

5 Commonwealth Foundation’s work in criminal justice reform.

6 We have been working at this for a number of

7 years going back to 2011, joining a broad coalition, who

8 looked at prioritizing how we can reform our criminal

9 justice system to first protect public safety. I think

10 that is the key. I want to take the best practices that do

11 indeed protect the public safety.

12 But second, to prioritize our spending and

13 prioritize how we spend our resources.

14 And third, to help those who are leaving prison

15 to become productive citizens of -- in society when they

16 return, as most people who are in state prison will return,

17 that is part of what we want to see and what is key in

18 terms of reducing recidivism in Pennsylvania.

19 With that in mind, those -- that coalition that

20 we formed helped support the first round of justice

21 reinvestment that passed in 2012. It passed unanimously.

22 It was signed by Governor Corbett. That’s something I

23 think rare in politics, to see things passed on such a

24 bipartisan nature.

25 And that justice reinvestment was based on 76

1 looking at the best practices across the country, looking

2 at what the data said were effective practices, and looking

3 at the best practices and what other states had done. That

4 was key to developing those recommendations.

5 Since that time, we have seen the prison

6 population decline. We have seen a reduction in the number

7 of people in state prison, which not only is a good thing.

8 We ’re spending $50,000 per year to house someone in state

9 prison which you know isn’t necessarily the most effective

10 place for all people.

11 But at the same time, w e ’ve seen the crime rate

12 in Pennsylvania drop. That’s the win-win scenario w e ’re

13 talking about of having lower crime, smarter spending. And

14 that’s the reforms we support.

15 And that we still have work to do in

16 Pennsylvania. We still have a very high supervision rate

17 relative to the rest of the country. Certainly have work

18 to do on the recidivism side of having too many people who

19 are coming back to prison after leaving. And that’s what

20 has led to this second round of justice reinvestment.

21 Again, this was based on what the data says are

22 effective practices across the country, and what are the

23 best practices in other states.

24 As you’ve already heard, these recommendations

25 were developed by a very broad coalition of stakeholders, 77

1 including those in law enforcement, including prosecutors,

2 including judges, including those who serve inmates who

3 work in the prison system. And those recommendations have

4 then been developed now into three bills that have passed

5 the Senate and are before you now.

6 And I'll turn it to my colleague, Jessica, to

7 speak more specifically on what is in those bills.

8 JESSICA BARNETT: Great.

9 Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify

10 on behalf of these really important pieces of legislation.

11 The first challenge that JRI addresses is our

12 supervisory population which is among the highest in the

13 nation. Three quarters of the correction population is on

14 probation and parole, yet upwards of 90 percent of these

15 cases are handled at the county level.

16 But these departments are receiving a diminishing

17 portion of funds and also lack centralized guidance on best

18 practices. So really this diminishes the effectiveness of

19 supervision and contributes to recidivism.

20 So indeed, one-third of state prison beds, it's

21 estimated, are filled with individuals who have violated

22 their probation and their parole. So as much as we can

23 address this at the front end, at the county level, that

24 will increase or decrease our recidivism. So this really

25 ensures that resources are delivered to the point of the 78

1 greatest need to meet the expanding supervisory population.

2 So more specifically, SB 500 would reinvest

3 savings into the county probation and parole departments,

4 by creating a commission to advise the counties on

5 evidence-based best practices, to train personnel and

6 assess unique needs of the population as well as to review

7 county grants and advise them on funding.

8 The next major reform is fair sentencing for -­

9 to help reduce recidivism as well. So sentencing, I think

10 we can all agree, should be purposeful and deterring future

11 crime, not simply a punitive measure. Yet complexity in

12 sentencing really diminishes its practical application, and

13 judges often do not have enough guidance on how to choose

14 among the best recidivism-reducing options. So as a

15 result, recidivism-reducing sentencing options are often

16 underutilized as well as inconsistently applied across the

17 state.

18 Senate Bill 501 addresses this by providing

19 judges with uniform best practices, which effectively can

20 reduce recidivism, and most notably it would streamline

21 access to drug treatment programs, which on average save

22 about $33,000 per participant, and are more effective at

23 keeping individuals out of prison. So these reforms will

24 create a fairer sentencing process fostering decreased

25 recidivism from the very start of the corrections process. 79

1 It would further provide improved probation and

2 parole practices. So as already been touched on,

3 individuals serving short term, two-year, sentences are

4 held beyond their stay, despite that not being the case at

5 the county level, and this is inequity costing upwards of

6 $73 million a year.

7 So Senate Bill 501 addresses this by providing

8 for the release of these individuals, really emphasizing

9 these are people who have not committed certain crimes.

10 Lastly, it would -- I shouldn’t say lastly, I

11 would also add that 501 simplifies technical probation

12 violation sanctions. So this gives probation and parole

13 agents the ability to have swift, certain, and fair

14 sanctions.

15 So it would deter probation and parole

16 violations, and this then would keep Pennsylvanians out of

17 prison in the first place, and then prioritize resources

18 for those more serious offenders.

19 JRI would also support victims of crime. So

20 victims are often unaware of the compensation for which

21 they may qualify, or some of the rights that they may have.

22 So Senate Bill 502 would improve communication

23 with crime victims by shifting the responsibility from an

24 agency to individual officers. It would also let them know

25 of rights such as whether their perpetrator is out on 80

1 parole.

2 So this will help victims to prepare for their

3 own safety, as well as access the resources to which they

4 already qualify, in addition to expanding eligibility for

5 these resources.

6 So as a result of these collective reforms,

7 Pennsylvania should have a more cost-efficient criminal

8 justice system that improves public safety. By generating

9 savings it will then reinvest those into a more efficient

10 system. And this will generate long-term benefits.

11 So specifically looking at the report that the

12 Council of State Governments puts out, this could lead to

13 over $50 million in savings over five years. But as we saw

14 with JRI I, this could create systemic changes that have

15 long-term benefits.

16 So just through the comprehensive criminal

17 justice system reform, that was built by a broad coalition

18 of individuals, JRI can really seize an opportunity to help

19 individuals earn their independence and really achieve

20 success. This could contribute to their communities, to

21 the workforce, and then this is ultimately what will lead

22 to decreased crime.

23 So thank you again for the opportunity.

24 We ’ll take any questions.

25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: And starting out 81

1 with questions, Representative Schemel.

2 REPRESENTATIVE SCHEMEL: Thank you.

3 And thank you all for your testimony.

4 Mr. Benefield, in your testimony I think you -­

5 one of the things you didn’t elucidate on, and I ’d like to

6 ask you about, is why the immediacy of doing JRI II now.

7 W e ’re just seeing some of the benefit of JRI I,

8 but what do you see as the immediacy of doing JRI II now?

9 NATHAN BENEFIELD: Well, a couple things.

10 Is one is, you know, doing these reforms now,

11 they have long-term consequences. So it’s not necessarily

12 going to be something like, hey, w e ’re going to save this

13 money, it’s going to balance the budget and fix everything

14 immediately, but the long-term consequences.

15 The sooner we enact this legislation, the sooner

16 these reforms can go into place. You talk about things

17 like presumptive parole, you know, waiting years to pass

18 legislation, people are sitting on parole waiting to get

19 out having -- it was going to have an immediate impact and

20 is going to have a long -- the sooner we do it, the more

21 impact we are going to see there.

22 Second is, you know, there have been a lot of

23 criminal justice reforms that have been talked about at the

24 general -- at the state level, a lot of different groups

25 supporting different things. 82

1 The justice reinvestment is one that has been

2 well vetted. This has been developed, you know, a number

3 of experts have weighed in on this. It’s been through the

4 legislative process and been amended. It is kind of at the

5 stage where, hey, this is ready to go, this is something we

6 can do now and has the support from all sides of the aisle.

7 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: And why wait?

8 I mean, if you have the ability to -- you have

9 the ability to see a program that has been working over the

10 past five years, why wait to build upon it when there’s

11 lives that will be impacted in the future that we don’t

12 know about?

13 I think now is the best time, especially given

14 that it was unanimous in the Senate in its recent passage.

15 The bills, as Nate pointed out, have been unanimous in the

16 past. And w e ’re hoping for a broad range of support for

17 this package.

18 REPRESENTATIVE SCHEMEL: Thank you.

19 So in the manner of full disclosure,

20 Representative McClinton and I are the co-prime sponsors of

21 the House versions of the same three bills. And we look

22 forward to hopefully seeing at least the Senate bills pass

23 through the House.

24 This was made really -- this initiative, I think,

25 really came home to me after the Governor’s inauguration. 83

1 I had invited some civics teachers to join me for that.

2 And on the drive back, one of the civics teachers, who

3 teaches at a local school, is himself a minority, and comes

4 from an urban area of Pennsylvania. And we were talking

5 about justice reforms and I explained my own support for

6 that.

7 And he says, you know, Paul, he said, you're

8 probably only interested in that because of the money; he

9 said not the human element, which made me really think.

10 And I think this is a happy confluence of the two.

11 I mean there is, and as Representative Rabb

12 pointed out, a very significant human element to this, and

13 how we treat individuals and how we reduce crime, and how

14 we reduce disparate impacts upon various populations within

15 our state.

16 But on top of that, we also can save funds or we

17 can reinvest those funds in a way that is, you know, going

18 to be far more effective in achieving the goal of returning

19 people to society in a meaningful way, where they can be

20 productive members of society in their communities.

21 And there are a lot of questions, Representative

22 Rabb, that you had asked in an earlier panel, in regard to

23 the impact this would have on different groups, especially

24 minority groups within our commonwealth, and the fact that

25 this reinvests money out of the state but into localities. 84

1 So into those neighborhoods, especially, you

2 know, in your case perhaps, minority neighborhoods really

3 where the programs can be developed, you know, to help

4 individuals transition back into society to be more

5 effective members of their own communities, I think is -­

6 you know, is really a significant part, one that we

7 shouldn’t overlook.

8 Thank you.

9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Representative Rabb.

10 REPRESENTATION RABB: Thank you.

11 Earlier I heard a number that seemed quite

12 remarkable with regard to the population that we supervise

13 on parole and probation. And that number looked roughly

14 the same size as the City of Pittsburgh.

15 Is that accurate? It was 200 -- do you all -­

16 the number of people who we currently supervise on parole

17 and probation.

18 JESSICA BARNETT: Yeah. The current supervisory

19 rate is over 290,000 individuals.

20 NATHAN BENEFIELD: And that includes those on

21 probation and those in prison.

22 JESSICA BARNETT: Probation, yeah.

23 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: That’s a massive number of

24 people.

25 Where does Pennsylvania rate in terms of other 85

1 folks who are in the carceral state, so to speak, but not

2 incarcerated? Are we on the high end? Are we on the low

3 end?

4 And to what extent could some critics say that

5 maybe that’s why our crime is lower, is because w e ’ve

6 supervised, you know, all of these folks? Is there an

7 argument there?

8 It seems like it might be specious, but I ’d like

9 to know, you are the experts.

10 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: Yeah. So we have the second

11 highest percentage of citizens on probation and parole in

12 the country. So w e ’re number two. And the highest

13 incarceration rate in the Northeast.

14 I don’t think w e ’re getting much in return of

15 bettering people’s lives because w e ’re sitting in those top

16 two spots.

17 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Okay. And a separate

18 question goes to the very important consideration of how we

19 protect survivors of crime, and actually provide resources

20 to them.

21 I know I represent northwest Philadelphia. And

22 for folks who have been traumatized by crime, and concerned

23 about retaliation and ongoing trauma, they want to

24 relocate. But they can only get, I think, 1,000 or $1200

25 to do so, to pick up their whole family, their household, 86

1 and move.

2 And from what I ’ve been told by folks who are on

3 the ground in my community is that very few of them want to

4 move across the Commonwealth. They just perhaps want to

5 move to a different neighborhood, in the same town, in the

6 same city.

7 Is there consideration for increased funding for

8 the folks we are -- who are the most vulnerable, who are

9 the victims of crime, who need to feel safe, that they are

10 able to do that?

11 So in terms of where the money goes, to help

12 those families who have been victimized by a particularly

13 violent crime, is there actual funding to make sure that

14 they can have a second chance?

15 JESSICA BARNETT: To my knowledge, I don’t know

16 which specific programs could have more funding, but I do

17 know that it lowers the threshold for making a claim. So

18 it’s currently at $100; it would now be at $50. So more

19 individuals could access these benefits. It would also

20 increase the statute by which they could make claims from

21 two to three years. So it’s kind of broadening the net of

22 individuals. I can’t certainly say to which programs would

23 receive more funding though.

24 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: And is that something that

25 you would think would be an appropriate consideration, 87

1 providing more resources for families who have been

2 traumatized by violent crime, who are afraid of

3 retaliation?

4 Because when we talk about violent crime, we talk

5 about the worst elements of it. You're talking about -­

6 it's not just one individual, it's a whole environment that

7 is regenerative in the worst way.

8 And to remove oneself, put yourself in the

9 position of a mom or a dad, who says, I don't want this to

10 happen to any more of my children or anyone in my family.

11 I need to get out.

12 Is there room for improvement so that they get

13 the resources they need? Because when we're talking about

14 speaking up for victims, the first thing we have to do is

15 to make sure that they are safe. And they can't be safe if

16 they have no way of leaving the very neighborhood that has

17 caused the greatest trauma in their lives.

18 Do you think that would be a worthwhile point of

19 advocacy for improving this type of legislative package?

20 NATHAN BENEFIELD: I certainly think it is, that

21 certainly both the victim's rights and the protection

22 against retaliation. I don't believe there is anything in

23 this legislation that would address the relocation funding,

24 but I think that is something that should be discussed and

25 then considered. 88

1 REPRESENTATIVE RABB: Thank you.

2 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: Yeah. Agreed.

3 We don’t want to trap people in their communities

4 if they want to escape. They’re going to make the best

5 decisions for themselves.

6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you.

7 Representative Stephens.

8 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 Thank you for your testimony, I appreciate it.

11 I know you made mention, I think you said 290,000

12 people are supervised; is that right?

13 FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes.

14 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Now, does that include

15 those that are incarcerated and on probation and parole?

16 JESSICA BARNETT: It includes individuals who are

17 on probation and parole as well as some pretrial, those on

18 bail or in trouble, yeah.

19 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay.

20 And, Ms. McCauslin, I think you mentioned that we

21 are the second highest number of people supervised in the

22 country; is that right?

23 ANNA MCCAUSLIN: Yes.

24 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: All right. How many of

25 the 50 states use a sentencing system like ours as opposed 89

1 to flat sentences?

2 I assume you know what I mean. In Pennsylvania

3 we require that the maximum sentence be at least double the

4 minimum sentence.

5 FEMALE SPEAKER: Uh-huh.

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: And I think that’s

7 pretty unusual across the country, so I ’d love to know how

8 many other states use that approach.

9 NATHAN BENEFIELD: I don’t have that down — I

10 don’t know if we have that number, but we can get that for

11 you.

12 FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah.

13 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay. I mean, look I

14 -- Nate, you know I ’ve come to you guys for data quite a

15 bit and worked with you. And so, I generally look to you

16 for guidance in that regard.

17 But I think it’s, to be fair, completely

18 disingenuous to compare our state to other states that have

19 a totally different system of sentencing. If we were

20 sentencing people to flat sentences instead of saying you

21 have a two to four-year sentence, where you are eligible to

22 apply for parole after two, but the board can keep you up

23 to four, if instead we just had sentences that said you’re

24 going to do four years in prison, which is what I believe

25 the majority of states do. I think the majority of states 90

1 have flat sentences, I ’m not 100 percent sure on that.

2 But I just think it’s important to note that that

3 is a key distinction that I think has to be considered when

4 you present data, because to compare us to other states

5 that don’t handle sentencing in the same fashion, I think

6 doesn’t compare apples to apples.

7 I share many of Representative Rabb’s concerns

8 about victims, and one of the things that, you know, does

9 concern me, we just heard testimony -- and I meant to ask

10 Mr. Bergstrom at the previous panel, but I forgot.

11 We just heard testimony from a victims group in

12 Montgomery County that experiences such a horrific time

13 trying to get benefits who -- for children who are the

14 victims of abuse through PCCD, through the Victims

15 Compensation Fund, that they’ve just walked away from it

16 altogether.

17 They have an outside provider now who -- who, the

18 provider was given the opportunity to apply for victims

19 compensation funding, and said, you know what, it’s not

20 even worth the hassle to go through the bureaucracy and the

21 red tape in order to be reimbursed for these funds.

22 So, you know, I think we have to be mindful of

23 the way that w e ’re delivering these services to our victims

24 and survivors. You know, these families -- and it’s great

25 that we set these funds aside if -- as you heard earlier, 91

1 if we are able to set these funds aside.

2 But I think we do have to take a look at the

3 bureaucracy that’s associated with getting these funds to

4 the people who need them, and for whom they have been

5 designated. Because I think all too often those funds are

6 either too difficult to access or unavailable for many who

7 need them.

8 So I would hope that we could include that in

9 these bills moving forward to ensure that victims and

10 survivors of crimes are able to access these funds when

11 they are certainly intended for them.

12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

13 NATHAN BENEFIELD: And to your question,

14 Representatives, I think it is critical that the

15 reinvestment portion both -- you know, reinvesting in

16 victims compensation, and reinvesting in county probation,

17 is an important component of this, and it’s important -­

18 it’s going to be incumbent if and when this passes, that

19 the legislature and the Governor continue to maintain that

20 stream of funding and not cut it off in the future.

21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, to that point,

22 have you done any analysis as to why JRI I did not deliver

23 the results that were promised?

24 Because I think your organization supported JRI I

25 too, if I ’m not mistaken. 92

1 NATHAN BENEFIELD: It did, yes.

2 Now, I mean, there are two ends of it. One is

3 why was the funding cut off, which I think is much more a

4 political question, and unfortunate given -- you know, as

5 you know, we’ve worked with many times on how we prioritize

6 money in the state budget.

7 The fact that we couldn’t find the funding to

8 support the Sentencing Commission is very disappointing

9 given that it’s something that we should be prioritizing in

10 state spending.

11 The other thing that I think was over promised

12 was, you know, talking about savings, and cost savings, and

13 not actually seeing that in the bottom line in the

14 Department of Corrections. I think one of the big reasons

15 we didn’t see actual savings, as you know, the biggest cost

16 in our criminal justice system is personnel costs,

17 salaries, overtime and pensions. And, as you know, pension

18 costs for our criminal justice workers, as everything else

19 in state government, has skyrocketed.

20 And so, any sort of savings you might have seen

21 are not real savings, but savings from what otherwise we

22 would be spending today.

23 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, but those pension

24 costs were not a surprise.

25 NATHAN BENEFIELD: No. 93

1 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So when your group and

2 other groups were telling us about all the savings we would

3 realize from JRI I, the pension costs should have been

4 baked into that cake, right?

5 NATHAN BENEFIELD: Yes.

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, why weren’t they?

7 Why were we told that we would generate all those

8 savings but yet those savings were not realized?

9 And I ’m very interested to know where that

10 disconnect occurred. As we walk down the JR -- the path of

11 JRI II, I think that’s a critically important component,

12 because yours, as well as all the other groups that have

13 testified, have all said the reinvestment portion of this

14 is what’s critical to its success. So I think w e ’ve got to

15 figure out why JRI I didn’t deliver.

16 I know you guys talked about the great results.

17 It did not deliver the results that were promised. And I

18 think we need to understand that before we embark upon JRI

19 II.

20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Representative

21 Schemel.

22 REPRESENTATIVE SCHEMEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

23 In regard to JRI I -- and forgive me I didn’t

24 bring the data with me, but I think it actually did deliver

25 close to the dollars that were projected. 94

1 We talk about pension costs. Pension costs, the

2 same problem in those -- in that analysis of the -- you

3 know, General Assembly, and its budget making, experienced

4 the same thing, because they simply did not properly

5 evaluate the cost of pensions and went through some

6 recession years.

7 So there's no surprise that they were hit with

8 unanticipated pension expenses that I would agree,

9 Representative Stephens, should have been every 100 percent

10 anticipated, but weren't.

11 But I believe in the actual dollars, I don't

12 believe that it did necessarily underperform. It certainly

13 didn't underperform JRI I, in terms of its other

14 objectives.

15 So I think you have to look critically at the

16 criticism of JRI I, and say, you know, maybe it did

17 perform. Budgetarily there might have been, you know, some

18 misanalysis but that was the same misanalysis or wrongful

19 analysis that hit the rest of Pennsylvania's budgeting at

20 the time.

21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you,

22 Representative Schemel.

23 And I don't believe there's anything further for

24 this panel, so thank you for your participation today.

25 And we are going to move on to the final panel, 95

1 although a bit late, we do have the room for a while yet,

2 so we can continue on.

3 And our final panel today are two members of the

4 Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, Jim Fox, and

5 Attorney Everett Gillison.

6 And I welcome you gentlemen here today. And I

7 will open it up to you for your comments, and then w e ’ll

8 have any questions that are outstanding.

9 Gentlemen.

10 JIM FOX: All right. I think it’s still morning.

11 Good morning, Chairman Kauffman, and Chairman

12 Briggs, and the members of the House Judiciary Committee.

13 On behalf of Governor Wolf, Chairman Johnson, and

14 the members of the parole board we would like to thank you

15 for the opportunity to speak today about support for what

16 w e ’re calling JRI II, or Senate Bills 500, 501 and 502.

17 My name’s Jim Fox, and I am a board member.

18 Board member Gillison is here as well. And w e ’re two of

19 the nine board members for the Board. And the Board just

20 wants to overall commend you for the work that has been

21 done by the legislature.

22 We’ve had the opportunity to attend some

23 national conferences, and we really have become at the

24 forefront of criminal justice reform. People are talking

25 about what Pennsylvania is doing and they are doing that 96

1 essentially -- so it’s all the effort that has been taken

2 that’s given us this leadership role nationwide.

3 Particularly about the bills, Senate Bill 500 we

4 think really establishes this County Adult Probation and

5 Parole Advisory Committee, under the PCCD, which we believe

6 is really going to be helpful to streamline county

7 probation, clarify some of the issues between state parole

8 and county probation, and mostly provide an impetus for

9 reform.

10 I mean if you look at what the juvenile

11 supervision has done in this Commonwealth, and then you

12 start to add on to that what this could potentially do, we

13 think we can make some really good reforms for the

14 counties, and so it’s very helpful.

15 Senate Bill 501 will change our agency’s name

16 first to the Pennsylvania Parole Board, as we won’t be -­

17 have as much of an oversight role over probation anymore.

18 But it would also implement what they call

19 short-sentence parole to automatically grant parole for an

20 incarcerated individual who has a minimum sentence of two

21 years or less. And they would get parole at their minimum

22 date if they meet a list of predetermined criteria.

23 And that also is a bill that focuses on

24 lower level and nonviolent offenders. And it adds an

25 option for brief detention of technical parole violators as 97

1 a key research-proven way to reduce recidivism while also

2 protecting the community.

3 Senate Bill 502 focuses on revisions to the Crime

4 Victims Act. As w e ’ve heard, it will shift the burden of

5 notifying the victim of his or her rights to a law

6 enforcement agency to the individual officer in charge

7 rather than the agency. And it also adds to the

8 prosecutor’s duties to provide notification on behalf of

9 the victim and make some other changes in that law.

10 We ’ve evaluated this and we feel that the

11 Board is generally very supportive. So on behalf of the

12 Board, we want to thank you for the opportunity to appear

13 today, and also to answer any questions you may have about

14 these changes.

15 Thank you.

16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Questions?

17 Representative Stephens.

18 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thanks.

19 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to ask a question.

21 Thank you to this gentleman for your testimony.

22 Can you review that process we were talking about

23 earlier, there’s a statutory requirement about personally

24 interviewing every single parolee applicant?

25 EVERETT GILLISON: Yes, it’s under 6139(a)(6), 98

1 "In no case shall a parole be granted or an application for

2 parole be dismissed unless the board member, a hearing

3 examiner, or other person so designated by the Board shall

4 have seen and heard the parolee in person in regard thereto

5 within the six months prior to the granting or dismissal

6 thereof."

7 So we have to actually have a process in order to

8 see the person and actually move on the parole.

9 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: So let me just — when

10 you guys do an intake on a new parolee, I assume you do

11 some type of risk assessment to understand that person's -­

12 EVERETT GILLISON: Yes.

13 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: -- risk and needs, you

14 know, what type of supervision are they going to need, what

15 type of programming are they going to need, things like

16 that.

17 The intensity -­

18 EVERETT GILLISON: In consultation with DOC, yes.

19 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay. So when you do

20 that, I assume that that's a statistically driven approach,

21 right?

22 I mean, that's based on data, the answers they

23 are providing, and a statistical model that someone has

24 developed?

25 EVERETT GILLISON: Yes, and it's constantly being 99

1 reworked.

2 As a matter of fact, we currently are going

3 through a process now where w e ’re trying to get different

4 pieces of information before us from LSI-R, which is a

5 particular risk assessment -­

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Uh-huh.

7 EVERETT GILLISON: — to a BERK score, that is

8 part of our risk assessment, to our own 361, which is also

9 generating numbers to give us background information as

10 w e ’re going forward.

11 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay. So is this

12 requirement to conduct the interview the only thing that is

13 preventing you from reviewing the applications that you

14 can’t get to by the minimum date?

15 MALE SPEAKER: No.

16 MALE SPEAKER: No, sir.

17 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Okay.

18 MALE SPEAKER: No.

19 JIM FOX: A lot of the situations are quite

20 frankly this, a guy will get -- let’s say he’s sentenced to

21 a nine-month to three-year sentence, and he’s not even

22 showing up at the state prison until 12 months into the

23 sentence sometimes. And we do see some of those.

24 And so those, you know, we try to get them

25 docketed as quickly as we can. But it’s not only just the 10

1 docket, it’s the preparation. It’s sort of the whole -­

2 there’s a number of things/factors that go into that mix to

3 get them seen. And so, the -- but the personal interview

4 is generally a -- you know, probably about as quick as we

5 can do that is about two months.

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Two months is — so

7 that’s the biggest impediment, is that safe to say, the

8 personal interview.

9 JIM FOX: It’s one of the impediments.

10 And then the other part is if we see -- and under

11 the current paradigm, if we see they’re an individual that

12 needs some type of treatment, you know, the Department of

13 Corrections is also trying to get them into treatment, and

14 I think this bill then is going to try to kick some of

15 those individuals with those shorter termed sentences into

16 community-based treatment, rather than have them do that

17 treatment in the SCI. So it’s that combination.

18 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, so I guess the -­

19 my question is, it sounds like what you described to me is

20 somebody who gave maybe a time-served sentence and -- I

21 always thought that was crazy when I was a prosecutor, you

22 get a time-served sentence, but you’re still getting

23 transferred to, you know -­

24 MALE SPEAKER: Amen.

25 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: -- halfway around the 10

1 state.

2 Do you know if the working group looked at, you

3 know, even just that narrow issue of, okay, these

4 time-served sentences, you know where the judge is very

5 clearly -- very clearly, you know, wants to insure that

6 this individual -- or intending that this individual is not

7 supposed to remain in custody somewhere.

8 Do you know if the working group looked at that

9 at all?

10 EVERETT GILLISON: I don’t have any independent

11 information about that. Serving on the -- we were working

12 with the Sentencing Commission and had some general

13 discussions with various judges about what we call short

14 mins.

15 And I guess you might -- you understand when

16 someone is given a nine-month to five-year sentence, the

17 likelihood of them getting through parole at their minimum

18 is nil because they -- by the time they get into the state

19 prison, we will be -- and once all the assessments are

20 done, they are well past their minimum.

21 Sometimes my fellow -- a lot of the judges

22 indicate that they want the supervision of the state rather

23 than working and dealing with the nine month as the

24 absolute min. So there’s a lot of different things that

25 are going into judicial -- of what they have to -- kind of 1

1 how they're fashioning their sentences, is how they're

2 fashioning their sentences.

3 We're just trying to receive and get them through

4 and get them out as quickly as possible.

5 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: I guess what I — and

6 you just touched on something that I think is really

7 important, that I don't think we've heard about yet.

8 And, you know, there's a lot of commentary about

9 how if these folks were in the county, they would have been

10 released, right? And I hear that. That's why, you know,

11 this approach is being suggested.

12 Except there is a reason that they're not in the

13 county. I mean very -- judges -- look, judges understand

14 who's going to be supervising someone. And, you know,

15 maybe this individual has had county supervision three

16 times already.

17 And now the judge is saying, all right look I

18 don't think necessarily you need to be in a state

19 correctional institution for an extended period of time,

20 but we do need to up the ante on terms of who is

21 supervising you. And so now we want to have the state

22 supervise you. And I think that's a deliberate and

23 conscious decision that judges are making.

24 So now, you know, I guess my point is if we were

25 to just streamline the review process for you, and 1

1 eliminate that in-person interview requirement, but still

2 nonetheless give you the opportunity to conduct your risk

3 assessment so that you could decide who's going to be

4 paroled at their min, or within two months of their min -­

5 or whatever, two or three months of their min, whatever it

6 may be.

7 Wouldn't that accomplish the same goal except

8 with the added bonus of having that risk assessment having

9 been done so that you can more accurately identify the

10 individual who is in front of you, or in front of the

11 Board, and therefore decide those are the folks that ought

12 to be eligible for this, you know, short circuited quick,

13 you know, run through the system, and get them back out on

14 the street?

15 Wouldn't that be a more prudent and responsible

16 way to handle this, instead of just making a carte blanche,

17 everybody gets out?

18 (Panel witnesses confer.)

19 EVERETT GILLISON: Just a minute, I can just talk

20 with my -­

21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Yeah, sure. Sure.

22 (Panel witnesses confer.)

23 EVERETT GILLISON: As I would just — and thank

24 you for giving me the opportunity to speak with Mr. Fox.

25 I think from the Board's point of view that would 1

1 be something that we would look into and be able to look at

2 and say, yes, that would help. But we also have to

3 remember that the risk assessments that w e ’re doing, the

4 Sentencing Commission, the legislature has asked the

5 Sentencing Commission to actually put together which ones

6 and which of the assessment are actually -- meet the

7 various criteria.

8 We use a variety of assessments in order to try

9 to lessen any one particular matter. So the Sentencing

10 Commission is actually working with us to see how we’re

11 going to restructure as we go forward. Because bias,

12 whether unconscious or not, is built into a lot of these

13 risk assessments.

14 So all of these things I think would help. I

15 think taking that and saying that we would do more paper

16 reviews, which is in essence what would happen if we did

17 not have to do an in-person, we would be relying more on

18 the latter part of 6139, where we would be able to say,

19 other people in the process would be then preparing

20 information for our review, and then we would just act on

21 it without having any face to face at all.

22 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Right. What I ’m — and

23 I ’ll wrap it up with this, I know we have other places to

24 go.

25 But what I ’m suggesting is, yeah, if we 1

1 identified this group of offenders, the same group that

2 we ’re talking about just, you know, carte blanche, letting

3 them walk out of the doors. If we instead said, okay,

4 look, they're not going to have to undergo the in-person

5 interview, we're going to give them a more streamlined

6 review process.

7 And that your Board could then develop whatever

8 the appropriate protocols are for that population,

9 understanding that they are going to generally be a

10 population that's lower risk. And then you can decide.

11 Are you going to administer a risk assessment?

12 Which risk assessment tool are you going to administer?

13 How's it -- you can decide all of that, but at least then

14 it's not just carte blanche, everybody's walking out the

15 front door.

16 You guys have some review still in place and the

17 ability to identify, in some respects, those that might

18 need some additional supervision or programming.

19 EVERETT GILLISON: Your point is well taken.

20 And I think that one thing that -- not speaking

21 for the Secretary, but reminding what the Secretary said,

22 Secretary Wetzel, the persons are not just automatically

23 leaving if they are within a certain parameters of

24 misconducts and everything else. We will still see them.

25 So yes, we're trying to get them out quickly but 10

1 if they have violations of certain amounts that the DOC is

2 going to tell us, then they’re going to want us to see them

3 and then pass on that through an in-person so we would be

4 able to balance those two competing interests.

5 So thank you.

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: All right. Thank you.

7 JIM FOX: Representative Stephens, if I could

8 just add, just quickly. What I ’m hearing is kind of public

9 safety concerns around these decisions.

10 After this was put in review, I really started to

11 look closely at the cases I was seeing that were at that

12 maximum level. And I think fellow Board members were as

13 well. It would fall into this criteria.

14 And quite frankly these are individuals that we

15 parole. They really are. They come up at minimum. They

16 are at -- if they’ve been misconduct-free, they are in for

17 a nonviolent offense, they’ve, you know, done what is asked

18 of them. Those are generally the individuals that we felt

19 pretty confident paroling.

20 But I think that this, one of the major benefits

21 would definitely streamline it. So that was -- but I don’t

22 think -- when I have looked at these cases, we feel -- as a

23 public safety agency, and that’s what comes first, we feel

24 pretty comfortable with the legislation.

25 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Are you telling me that 1

1 you have paroled 100 percent of the people that fit in this

2 category?

3 JIM FOX: No. No.

4 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: All right.

5 JIM FOX: No.

6 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you.

7 JIM FOX: No. No. We do not.

8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN KAUFFMAN: Thank you,

9 gentlemen, very much.

10 I appreciate everyone's attention today and

11 participation.

12 I do want to make note that the Committee is in

13 possession of submitted testimony from the County

14 Commissioners Association, FAMM which is Families Against

15 Mandatory Minimums, Pennsylvania Prison Society, and

16 Pennsylvania Parents Against Impaired Driving.

17 And I do want to encourage folks, whether they be

18 members of this Committee, who have offered some

19 constructive ideas, as well as stakeholders to stay engaged

20 on this -- in this process.

21 This is something that we will be looking at very

22 diligently over the summer as we look toward a fall session

23 schedule. And we do -- there's rarely a perfect product

24 that comes out of either of our chambers, so there's always

25 ability to improve upon it as we work through the process. 108

1 So I just can’t say enough, that I would

2 encourage you to stay engaged and work on this to make it

3 the best product we can have as we move forward.

4 Thank you.

5 This meeting is adjourned.

6 (Hearing concluded at 12:10 p.m.) 109

C E R T I F I C A T E

I hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings are a true and accurate transcription produced from audio on the said proceedings and that this is a correct transcript of the same.

Susan Opdahl

Transcriptionist

Opti-Script, Inc.