Rep. Laurel Lee: House Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing, Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons

thank you Mr chairman for having this hearing director Peters thank you for being here with us today and for your testimony about your work uh with the Bureau of Prisons the last time you were here with us one of the things that we discussed were the conditions at FCI Dublin and the incidence of the abuse of female prisoners and you shared with us uh your plans to ensure uh that oversight and accountability were brought to that facility and of course since that time the facility has been closed would you share with us more about your efforts in that regard uh and where the women who were housed at FCI Dublin are now thank you congresswoman so as we spoke previously we poured so many resources into that institution in hopes that it would succeed additional Staffing additional incentives additional psychologists trauma informed training gender responsive training um we changed the executive team three times over um and unfortunately concluded that it still was not meeting expectations so we temporarily closed it we did move individuals to other female facilities for those individuals that had less than five months on their sentence we moved them to CAC our facility in Washington to ensure that they were as close as they could be to family um others have been distributed um throughout throughout the country at other female facilities you also mentioned earlier some of the changes that you've made internally to increase accountability and prosecutions for those who do commit these types of violent acts against people who are in custody specifically you touched on a very large increase in the number of of uh people assigned to Internal Affairs and changing the reporting process to not go through a warden but instead go straight to headquarters would you give us a summary of your assessment are those changes working were the people who committed these crimes at FCI Dublin held to account would you share with us your perspective on what has been done to ensure this type of treatment of female inmates doesn't reoccur I think it starts exactly where you're at employee accountability uh and for the record I'd like to say the super majority of our employees come to work every day doing the right thing are ethical and are as disappointed as you and I are when people engage in this type of egregious misconduct so the realign that you talk about the additional staff that we brought on is working we've closed since August of 22 when I started we've closed over 9500 open matters in the office of internal affairs um we have seen more prosecutions there are still investigations pending out of Dublin we may see more I've worked very closely with the US attorneys as has the deputy attorney general to ensure that they're Prosecuting these cases the importance of holding people accountable is so important and then we've done so so many other things we work closely with the Inspector General who is engaged in unannounced visits the office of the Deputy attorney general has created safer teams that have now visited every single one of our female facilities we've done cultural assessments cultural assessments now at all of our female facilities to see if we can see warning signs so we don't ever get to a place again um where the uh where we have a culture that is as egregious as the one at Dublin um and as I mentioned earlier I am pleased with the passage of the oversight act which will shepher forward more announced and unannounced visits from the Inspector General because I truly believe we can't do this work alone and I was interested in exactly that point what about the federal prison oversight act do you believe that there are Provisions in there that are going to be specifically impactful of course I'm very pleased to see it pass the House pass the Senate uh are there Provisions there that you think will help prevent further abuse of women who are in custody I do because the ACT really enhances what's already happening with the office of the Inspector General it just allows for more of it the unannounced visits youing using data to look at any concerns that we have so that we can see a culture change before it gets um into a more difficult place um so we'll be seeing more announced visits more unannounced visits from the Inspector General and then I think the otsman pos position is very powerful as well for to have a place where individuals can bring forward complaints and somebody there to ensure that those complaints are asked and answered what about women in custody who are feeling threatened or are in danger what options do they have to ensure that their concerns are heard and that they are kept safe so I think it's Our obligation to create a culture where they feel safe coming forward and that's one of the things that we really work on with our trauma informed care and our gender responsibity but they have the right to come forward to any employee that they feel safe talking to they also have the ability to contact the Inspector General through Anonymous channels to be able to report any complaints or concerns that they have thank you Mr chairman I yield back thank you uh