On June 8, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Corrections, and Victims’ Rights held a hearing on safety and abuse in prisons. The hearing was called to further examine the findings and recommendations of the report, Confronting Confinement, released by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. Among the 30 recommendations made in the report, particular emphasis was placed on combating violence within prisons, addressing the correctional system’s failure to provide adequate medical and mental health care to inmates, lack of prison oversight and leadership, and poor collection of statistical data.
In his opening statement, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said, “For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”
His words were echoed by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who said, “What kind of experience inmates have in prison, how we prepare them to rejoin society, and how we integrate them into the broader community when they get out are issues that profoundly affect the communities…I believe strongly in securing tough and appropriate prison sentences for people who break our laws. But it is also important that we do everything we can to ensure that, when these people get out of prison, they enter our communities as productive members of society so we can start to reverse the dangerous cycles of recidivism and violence.”
