Former Police Chief to Testify as New Chair of US Parole Commission (9/22/09)

Former D.C. Police Chief to Testify as New Chair of U.S. Parole Commission on Reducing Crime by Ex-Offenders

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WASHINGTON, DC -Former D.C. Police Chief Isaac Fulwood will make his first appearance as the new chair of the U.S. Parole Commission (USPC) at a hearing requested by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) Tuesday, Sept. 22 on "The Local Role of the United States Parole Commission: Increasing Public Safety, Reducing Recidivism, and Using Alternatives to Re-incarceration in the District of Columbia," at 2:00 p.m., room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing before the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia, on which Norton serves, will examine current and planned policies and practices of the Commission in its unique role that enables it to improve public safety and reduce recidivism and re-incarceration in the District of Columbia. Chairman Fulwood will offer his agenda for transforming the federal agency to meet a public safety mission for a local jurisdiction. The hearing will be webcast live at https://transportation.house.gov/.

"Incarceration and re-incarceration are very expensive and have not proved effective in keeping ex-offenders free of crime upon release," said Norton, who recommended Fulwood to the President as USPC chair. "To its credit, the Commission has been seeking the difficult balance between protecting public safety and using alternatives to re-incarceration that can enable ex-offenders to remain law abiding and employed instead of re-incarcerating them for minor parole violations."

The Congresswoman has visited D.C. inmates in Bureau of Prison (BOP) facilities, where they have been incarcerated, at the requests of the District, since passage of the Revitalization Act of 1997 to relieve the District of certain costs. Because most crime in the District is drug-related, Norton worked to get D.C. inmates equal access to the BOP's state-of-the-art 500-hour drug treatment programs, which uses reduced sentences as an incentive for successful drug treatment. Recently, she was able to convince BOP officials to keep inmates housed closer to the city than planned.

Besides Fulwood, the witnesses are (in order of appearance): Adrienne Poteat, Acting Director, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (CSOSA); Laura Hankins, Special Counsel, D.C. Office of the Public Defender; two former inmates Tony Floyd and James Parker, D.C. Code offenders, both under USPC/CSOSA jurisdiction; Jesse Janetta, researcher, the Urban Institute; Martin F. Horn, Distinguished Lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; and Cornell Jones, Chairman, Returning Citizens United.

The USPC, created by Congress in 1930, assists the successful re-entry of inmates in the District, as well as federal parolees. Fulwood will discuss some new approaches and his collaboration with the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), whose current supervision officers serve parole officer functions.