Norton Makes Second Visit to Federal Prison (10/11/07)

Norton Makes Second Visit to Federal Prison in
Effort to Improve Services to D.C. Inmates
October 11, 2007

Washington, DC- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will travel Friday, October 12, 2007, to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Cumberland, Maryland for her second visit to a federal prison housing District of Columbia inmates, in preparation for an oversight hearing that she requested on Tuesday, October 16, Doing Time: Are D.C. Prisoners Being Adequately Prepared for Re-Entry with Equal Access to BOP Services?. Unlike the Rivers Correctional Institute, a privately-run facility contracted by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that Norton visited in August, FCI is operated by the BOP. There has been no oversight of D.C. inmates in federal prisons, where most have been housed since the Revitalization Act transferred responsibility for D.C. prisoners to the federal government. Now with Democrats in control of Congress, Norton is engaged in oversight efforts to improve access to services for 7,000 D.C. inmates scattered across the country. Staff from Norton's office and from the committee that will hold the hearing will travel with her at 7:30 AM tomorrow from the Rayburn House Office Building horseshoe on South Capital Street.

The Cumberland visit follows a video conference town meeting and community hearing that Norton and her D.C. Commission on Black Men and Boys held last month that was the first link of its kind between D.C. residents and Rivers inmates. Norton's prison visits and her video meeting to establish first contact between the city and men and women in BOP facilities are designed to focus on services, such as drug treatment and educational opportunities, while inmates are incarcerated, on how to better prepare them to re-enter the community, where the recidivism rate is about 65 per cent.

The first official congressional oversight hearing on District prisoners since they were moved under federal control will be held by the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia next Tuesday at 2 PM in Room 2154 Rayburn.