 Welcome back, thanks for your questions and comments, keep them coming. We'll have more of you participate later in this segment. A few panelists have joined us, a few new panelists have joined us to discuss sentencing and post-sentence supervision issues of women offenders and their children in the case of United States versus Thomas. First, the facts. Norma Thomas is a 25-year-old high school graduate. She has a five-year-old son and she's pregnant. Thomas was indicted with two male co-defendants on five counts, alleging various narcotics violations. At the time of the arrest, Thomas and her son were living with Alan James, a co-defendant. Her pregnancy resulted from her relationship with James. Before living with James, Thomas and her son lived with her mother. Thomas has two older siblings who live nearby. Thomas pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base. Meanwhile, James and the other male co-defendant pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute a mixture containing a detectable amount of cocaine base. Thomas has been employed for the past five years with the county library system as an administrative assistant where she earned $9 an hour. She was previously employed as a retail sales clerk. The statutory maximum of 60 months is the guideline sentence pursuant to USSG Section 5G 1.1A and probation is not authorized under the guidelines. The authorized term of supervised release for this offense is at least two years but not more than three years. Now, Thomas does have some criminal history to wit a juvenile adjudication on marijuana possession charges. As a result, she was ordered to short-term non-residential drug treatment. Thomas admits she has had, quote, a small cocaine problem, unquote, since moving in with James. She also admits to occasionally smoking marijuana but denies using or abusing any other drugs or alcoholic beverages. Thomas also denies having any mental problems or emotional disorders stating that she's in good physical health. Finally, Norma Thomas acknowledges that she knew of James's drug dealing out of their house but denies that she ever actively participated in it. Teresa Grant, you are the pre-child services. Switch, you are the pre-sentence officer in this case. Right. What are the issues that are going to be most important to you in conducting investigation and ultimately applying the guidelines and looking toward recommending perhaps an institution or programs addressing the needs that this client has or this defendant has? One of the most important things is at the beginning of the pre-sentence interview, the pre-sentence writer explains to the defendant the components of the report and in the presence of defense counsel, those different areas would be explained in the significance of those and how they would impact sentencing. The most critical part of that contact is gathering factual background information about that defendant. In this particular case, the things that would stick out significantly as a pre-sentence writer is that she's a single mother. She has custody of a five-year-old and she's also pregnant with the child of her co-defendant. She has an admitted use of cocaine history, minimal. She has a prior juvenile conviction for marijuana. In looking at the drug component in particular, that would need to be expounded on because her explanation of small cocaine problem is not going to be clear to the reader. So you're not going to just take her word for it? Absolutely not because it's important as the pre-sentence writer that we are presenting to the court a person so that the judge can make a clear and concise decision on what's in the best interest of that defendant. As far as her children, one of the concerns would be since she's facing a five-year sentence, what would happen to the children? It's a mandatory sentence. Who's going to be responsible for them? So I would want to discuss that with defendant as to has she considered her options and also with the attorney in assisting her in making some good decisions regarding that. Another thing that I think is very immediate is the housing. She's right now living with the co-defendant and I'm assuming that she's still unbound, perhaps he's not. But that's all going to change. So because she has family in the area, then some decisions need to be made now as to relocating herself and her kids back to the home of relatives or something along that nature. And those are the things that pretty much stick out in this particular profile. Let me stop you there. And since you made reference to her counsel, let me go to Sieg Adams and Sieg, you are representing Thomas in this case. What's your role going to be during this process? How are you going to counsel her? How are you going to interact with the pre-sentence officer? Well, certainly I would be present during the pre-sentence interview and by now I would have explained to her that this is a part of the process. This is one of the phases that is involved in the completion of this case and I would have explained to her the role of the probation officer, what types of information the probation officer is going to be focusing on, who that information is going to go to and what it's going to be used for. And I would be very interested in her feeling comfortable that she can be candid about these types of things that she's going to be asked about, her background, her mental health history, her drug use history, which would on its face seem counterintuitive to be open and candid with an officer of the court about prior drug use because it's an illegal activity. But in this instance that it would be actually in her best interest in the criminal justice system to be candid about these things. I would also be concerned that given her minimal criminal history and the fact that she played a lesser role in this offense that I would be thinking about alternatives to sentencing that I might want to pursue. For example, Mention was made that she's facing a statutory maximum of 60 months under a guideline 5G 1.1A. And the reason for that is because she probably faces a higher guideline sentence but because the statutory maximum is 60 months the court is bound to sentence her into that. However, I would be looking for alternatives hopefully on a basis of role for a departure maybe under the safety valve provision. And her cooperation in this process would go a long way toward that. Bob Spagnoletti, you were representing the government in this case. Your position. Reactions to what Sig has said. Reactions to what Teresa has said. I think Sig raises an important point that is trying to get the defendant in a position where she will explain the information. She will give it up essentially to the pre-sentence report writer so that I can have that information when I walk into court. Frequently, I have very little to work with and so I have to sort of take the position that departures are not justified if I don't see the information there and there may be reasons to look at some of these departures. On the face of the facts here, for example, I don't see a basis where the government would ever agree to an extraordinary family circumstance, departure downward from the sentence. But there may be reasons out there. There might be things out there that might make me think differently. So it's very important to do that. Teresa pointed out the need to discuss with the defendant a plan for what's going to happen with her five-year-old and what's going to happen with her unborn child. Well, she's got all of that in place. If Sig has worked with her on sort of getting at her real-life circumstances, I am more apt to be able to go into court and feel comfortable about asking the judge to look at the lower end as opposed to the higher end where if I have very little information, I'm constrained in advocating the government's position and keeping the community safe. And here we have a drug crime that's different than we had before, which was a nonviolent crime. So the government will look at it differently depending on the information that Sig and Teresa can extract from the defendant. Let me go to Judge Kessler. If you could just comment on what's been said thus far. But also let's bring into the situation or our discussion a case that was mentioned to me by Chief Judge of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Thomas Van Aske, U.S. versus Sweden, which was a case that he worked on that we actually ended up citing in the special needs offenders bulletin. If we could just sort of bring that into the fold here. Judge Kessler? Well, I'm very much in a case like this at the mercy of defense counsel. That may be an odd way to put it, but I often feel that way. I know you would, Mr. Adams. I'm not just cemented that way. Essentially, the guidelines give me my parameters for what I have to do. And then if there's going to be any way to get around the guidelines or to vary them, it's going to be up to defense counsel to give me a good justification for doing that. In the area of extraordinary family responsibilities, which is the departure guideline we're talking about now, that's a very, very difficult job for defense counsel. And certainly the role of the government is significant because obviously if you can convince the government not to oppose it, you've gone more than 50% of the way because as a practical matter, that means there's not going to be an appeal. And then you just have to convince me on the merits and that might be a lot easier. The case that Mark talked about is a distressing one and an extremely sympathetic one for application of the guidelines. There were five children involved. One of those children had Tourette's syndrome. The mother was working full-time, was an extremely responsible mother. And the boy with Tourette's syndrome was a teenager going through all the teenage crises, including the humiliation that kids and adults feel with Tourette's syndrome, which of course is a very difficult condition, although not a life-threatening one. And the Court of Appeals wrote an extremely, this was the third circuit everyone, wrote an extremely long opinion, citing probably every case that had ever been decided on the issue, ruling against a downward departure and reversing the trial judge. I have to say I had enormous empathy for that trial judge who had spelled out his reasons in quite a bit of detail and who had given a very detailed factual basis for what he was doing. As to what he didn't do, I can only guess in terms of the Court of Appeals language as to what they thought he didn't do. I think if a judge is going to seriously consider granting a departure for extraordinary family responsibilities, you've got to make an unassailable record. Again, that record begins with defense counsel. You've got to have testimony from experts that's all very time-consuming. It's also very expensive because probably defense counsel is going to have to ask me to approve vouchers for those experts. But you need, let's say, in that Streeter case, you would have needed someone to talk about Tourette's syndrome and what it really means and what the psychological ramifications are. That mother spent an enormous amount of time doing everything that child needed to be done to stabilize him and to keep him in a good place emotionally as well as physically. So you really need that detailed record. You probably got to write a written opinion. You've got to make very detailed factual findings. And above all, I think you have to try and use every case in your circuit as best you can. Every circuit has now acknowledged the existence of this departure. But you will find varying case law in every circuit. And you've got to go to all the trouble of distinguishing the contrary case law in your circuit and because you're only a district court judge and there, of course, the circuit, you've got to make it clear that you're not trying to make any new law. You're pointing out why your case is very different from the existing case law. So that's a very long explanation. I'm sorry to be so long. But it's a real commitment of time and effort on everybody's part to make the record that's going to withstand appellate scrutiny if you're going to go and try and grant a departure on the basis of extraordinary family responsibilities. So, yeah, Adams, you had mentioned in your comments about departures downward the safety valve. Could you elaborate on that? Because, like with our first case, this case is based on cases that actually happened, one of which was a case that you had handled which involved a safety valve in which you were able to successfully obtain that downward departure for your client. If you could talk about how that worked. Well, that's a provision in the sentencing guidelines that applies to drug cases or people who don't have substantial criminal records who played a very minimal role in the offense who have been very forthcoming and cooperative with the government with respect to their role in the offense and thereby entitling or allowing the court, giving the court authority to go below either a statutory, mandatory, and minimum sentence or to part down further. So I would be very interested in this case as I was in the one that you referred to in setting those circumstances in motion. We certainly have a client here who has a minimal criminal history that would not disqualify her from the benefits of this guidelines provision. We also know from the facts that she played a fairly minimal role, that she was not the leader, organizer, et cetera. One concern that I would have here, though, is clearing up this last fact that you mentioned which is she acknowledges that she knew of the drug dealing but she denies ever having actively participated in it. So I would have to reconcile that with a guilty plea to admitting actual involvement and make sure that it's not constitutory equivocating so that it stands in the way of her being forthcoming with the government under this provision. I would also look for other opportunities in the guidelines to further the downward departure to try to keep her out of jeopardy of a lengthy criminal sentence. For example, she's presumably been on pre-trial release for some time, and maybe she's made extraordinary efforts in terms of post-offense rehabilitation and also under 5K 2.0. Maybe there's a combination of factors that together would warrant a downward departure that separately on their own merits wouldn't merit a downward departure. And, of course, I would want the government, in this case Bob, representing the government as a prosecutor, to agree with my position on this. And in fact, it would require his agreement. Well, let me stop you right there then and ask Mr. Spagnoletti, is this a safety valve case? Well, we don't know. It may be a safety valve case, but quite frankly it would all depend on what kind of cooperation and whether or not she's going to be forthcoming with the information. Clearly she is hedging or minimizing her involvement here given what's going on. And so SIG is going to have, once again, the responsibility of getting her to the point where she will be able to sort of step up to the plate and say, look, this is what happened, this is what's going on. And again, without knowing more about her family circumstances and what is going on, she's going to be now cooperating against, presumably, the father of her unborn child. And so it's something we need to be very concerned about because she, in that role, becomes a witness for the government and also a potential victim. And so we have to gear up that mechanism in our office to make sure that all those other things are in place for safety issues and what's going to happen with her kids in that role. So it may be a safety valve case. It all depends on how good a job SIG can do in getting her to step up to the plate. And our office, like most offices, has a departure committee that will discuss and determine whether the information that has been presented to us warrants the extraordinary measure of the U.S. Attorney stepping up to the plate and saying, we think that she should be granted this special benefit. An additional part to that is because she's also pregnant. I'm also aware of a program that the Bureau of Prisons has that will allow her to give birth to her child and perhaps stay with her child for a period of time. And depending on how we progress with getting her sentence reduced, she may be able to serve her entire sentence with her child. So I want to make sure that she's in a position to avail herself of that. And of course, her designation in the Bureau of Prisons system is going to take into account security concerns, classification. So I want to make sure that I've also positioned her in such a way that she wouldn't be barred from that assuming we get over to other hurdles because of security classification concerns. Good points. Teresa, please. SIG is the ideal defense attorney. A precinct writer would like to... It's not sugar-cut. I mean, he's just pulled all these wonderful departure issues that we would include in the report for the court to consider. And he's isolated them all. And it looks like he's done his work and he's going to present a lot of that to us. And it would just be a matter of the probation officer writing the report confirming that this stuff is factual. So then the report goes on to the judge. Then, you know, these are some areas that may be considered for departure. Okay. And you're saying sometimes that's not the case and you'll have to do your homework as well. Absolutely. But there's a lot of communication at that time. Because there are things that the probation officer discovers right away and you kind of, you know, you got this gut feeling, maybe we need to do something like a local study. There's some mental health issues. Sometimes defense... So I've had this experience where they need to leave and go to court. And the person becomes more candid, you know, with the precinct writer and begins to reveal more. So there's something that nobody knows yet except the defendant and the probation officer. So then I get a chance to talk to the counsel and the government and say, you know, maybe we need to order a mental health evaluation. There's something I discovered that you guys are not aware of. I think that role that you're articulating that sort of that, that you are an arm of the court. Right. You are... I think this is, again, highlights the complexity of this system. Again, we're talking about a defendant who doesn't have a long rap shoot who isn't used to being involved in the criminal justice system or the kind of relationships she's able to develop with her defense counsel, the kind of relationship that the government is able to establish with her, with defense counsel and with the court. I mean, there's a certain amount, again, of collaboration that's going to have to occur, but at the same time, as we discussed with our first case, we are in an adversarial situation. I wanted to go back to Judge Kessler. I know you had a comment, and I'd also like you to comment, segue us into this notion of recommendations of incarceration and the importance of identifying specific needs and programs and institutions perhaps in the role of the court in that. Well, first of all, on the safety valve issue, I just want to point out that there could be problems with it here. She's been living with this man for a long period of time, and he is the father of her new child, of her baby, and the government is going to require that she talk about his role in this offense. If there's been previous domestic violence, there's going to be a whole complex layer of her being intimidated and afraid and not wanting to talk. Even if you rule out violence, they have an emotional relationship, and for women, that can be very, very important. At the most, she's going to be in jail for five years. She'll be out after that. She will need him in her life. It's very possible both for economic reasons and for emotional reasons. She may need a family during this five-year interim to help take care of that little baby who hasn't yet been born. So, the safety valve for women has its own layer of problems and complexities. A second issue about defense counseling, I just want to follow up on what Ms. Grant said. I think that the defense bar, excluding Mr. Adams, doesn't always put the energy and creativity into sentencing that it puts into trials and fashion and plea agreements. And consequently, at sentencing, there are many, many times that we don't get the kind of comprehensive presentation that we should. So that's a great concern. And that ties in with your final point, which is what the judge should be recommending at sentencing. Let's say I have to go with the guideline range in this case, and in all good conscience, I can't grant the departure under existing case law in my circuit. I want to know, and I will ask defense counsel, what should I recommend to the Bureau of Prisons? I often write letters to the director of the Bureau of Prisons. I make specific recommendations either as to programs or as to particular institutions. She is very responsive. I must say, I don't like being embarrassed as I was recently, but I just have to tell one war story where defense counsel asked for a specific institution. I was perfectly happy to make the recommendation. I got a very polite letter back from the director of BLP saying, well, this institution doesn't even house. I'm pretty sure it was a case involving a woman. And I thought, well, she must have thought that letter was awfully dumb because I did what defense counsel requested. So I'm looking for recommendations, but please let anybody out there do your homework. So that when I make recommendations, they'll be taken seriously by BLP because they are responsive and they recognize that I know a fair amount about the case when it comes to sentencing. It can make a big difference if I'm asking for Alderson, which is relatively near the District of Columbia, or Dan Berry, which I wouldn't say is relatively near, but it's closer than California, for example, or the Mint program that Mr. Adams was referring to. So those recommendations are very significant. I want to bring Jim back into the conversation just a minute, but I want to go back to Teresa Grant as the pre-sentence officer. How are you going to help identify some of those services, programs, needs, institutions? How are you going to approach that in the pre-sentence report to help send perhaps a message to the judge who may not be aware of the programs that are available in the BLP or the institutions or perhaps if it's relatively new to the bench and is coming from a state system or really has not had a lot of criminal law experience? What's your role going to do? Well, it's going to be important that the pre-sentence writer sort all of those things out in the recommendation for the judge. And I think pretty much both attorneys by then will know that we're looking for a Bureau of Prisons placement where she can have the child. We're looking at release of custody of an unborn child as well as a custody issue of a five-year-old that those things need to be addressed. That would be in the recommendation to the judge. And then, of course, when I met with the judge in chambers, I would point out that these are the things that I've discovered. There's an option as far as where she can have the baby. There's a drug history here. Would you honor, consider recommending the Bureau of Prisons Drug Treatment Program? She has limited work history. Would you honor, consider an educational and a vocational component while she's incarcerated? And there's one other issue. I just, oh, proximity. You know, because she has these two small children, would you honor, consider recommending to the BOP that she's placed somewhere where the family can have this interchange? And I believe our sister's place you may sponsor, I think, three or four times a year from the district, which is a big problem here. Many of the families that we deal with, they just don't have the economics and the support to travel back and forth to all these locations around the country that D.C. offenders go to. I would let the judge know that we've discovered this program, our place. And if that can't be if the Bureau of Prisons does not accept the recommendation, we do have an alternative just to maintain the family ties with the mother and the children. Now Jim, I know you're jumping at the pit to get in with the mention of the BOP. We've now crossed the Rubicon and this person's been sentenced to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons. As far as the issue of making recommendations as a rule of thumb, I would recommend outlining clearly the types of programs that are needed rather than specific institutions. That's not to discourage you from recommending specific institutions certainly. But as a general rule, I would recommend outlining the needs that this individual needs to be addressed by the Bureau of Prisons. And then the Bureau of Prisons will then take that into account in determining where to designate this individual. Now they're going to, by policy, designate the individual to a facility that's closest to their home taking into account program needs, security needs, and possibly separation. It doesn't hurt to recommend that the person be kept close to home. But that's going to be the general policy of the Bureau to promote visiting and to allow as much family interaction as possible. So that would be, you know, as a general rule, how that would work. Now in this case, there are two issues that I think are most salient for the Bureau of Prisons. The first is whether or not the court will recommend the MIT program, the Mothers and Infants Nurturing Together program. This person on the face of it would seem to qualify for the program. They would have a sentence of five years or less. They would be pregnant when they came into the custody of the Bureau of Prisons. They would have to have community custody, and they would need to agree to resume care of the child once they're released from the Bureau of Prisons. That person would then, two months prior to delivery, would be placed in the MIT program, and would stay in that program for three months prior to delivery, and would then relinquish care of the child to whoever the mother identified. But it's very important that the courts weigh in on this issue and make a recommendation and let the Bureau know what they see as important and meets the needs of this individual. I mean, the Bureau is there to carry out the needs of the court, the wishes of the court. So the better that can be expounded upon, you know, to help the Bureau a great deal. The second issue is the one that we've touched on already is the issue of the substance abuse. The record is somewhat ambiguous. I guess there's no such thing as a small cocaine problem in the eyes of some. But the record as it stands would make it difficult for the Bureau of Prisons to make that judgment as to whether they would qualify for the 500-hour program. I'm sure the PSI would say more than what was in the bare bones of this outline. But the PSI should be very explicit as to what the substance abuse issues are involved in this case. Once she comes into custody and becomes aware of the 500-hour program and the fact that there's a strong inducement in the form of an early release, it's a year off your sentence for completing the program. Very often at that point they will be explaining how serious the drug problems are and we need to have that outside confirmation. So it's very critical that the PSI get into this issue and explain the circumstances. Very good. Now Mary Jean, this person, Ms. Thomas, excuse me, the offender, is going to be coming out onto supervision at some point. We don't know what the sentence exactly is going to be, but it doesn't matter. I mean there's going to be incarceration. She's going to come out onto supervision. What's the role of the supervision officer? What are the issues? What kind of pre-release activities are you going to pursue, that kind of thing? Well, we're fortunate in the Northern District of Texas to have both a MENT program and an institution. So when a female is coming out of the institution there in Fort Worth, we do a pre-release talk in the institution where we speak to the women and address women needs. We speak specifically about their children and where their children are and to begin thinking about their plan while they're still incarcerated. And we talk about whether it would be most beneficial to get them thinking of them to reunite with their children right away or whether they should come out and get themselves settled first before they reunite with their children. And what issues arose while they've been incarcerated? Were they able to have contact with their children? Did they have visitation? We get a pre-release plan from the institution prior to their release and that's our way, the supervision officer's way of finding out what happened since the writing of the PSI or since receiving the institutional report. Both documents are very important to us and we review both of those. In this case, we're going to have issues regarding custody and reunification of the children. Where are the children? What are the housing issues? Is she still welcome back into her family situation? And those are some of the things we're going to need to address as well as employment. Did she finish her 500-hour program in the prison and the institution? Did she do well? Did she have any infractions in the institution? And then did she go to the halfway house and participate in their programs there and the transitional services capacity? So we'll be assessing all of those and then based on her individual needs and driven by what she identifies as her needs, we'll go from there and make some community referrals and try to get her plugged in so we have some of this supervision issues mapped out for us. Go ahead Jim, please. I guess we were lucky to have a men program close by. There are seven men programs across the country but they would service every district so everyone would have access to a men program. I wanted to talk a little bit more about, again, community services and making the community contacts and assisting with the reentry and return to Susan Galbraith because we have a clip of Beverly Henson who we met at the beginning of the broadcast who came to our place DC, your organization if you could just set up the clip for us. Tell us a little bit about what it was like for her to come into contact with our place and then we'll go to the clip. Beverly was released from the DC jail so not from the Federal Bureau of Prisons although we deal with women every day who come back into the community from BOP facilities. She was released at 7 o'clock in the evening on a Thursday evening she was released in her jumpsuit from the jail and orange deck shoes she had no money she borrowed money to call us and we went over and picked her up. Now we had been communicating with Beverly for a full six weeks before her release we had met her through our groups at the jail and we had identified a transitional program for her to stay in we had identified safe housing for her while she went through that interview process so after picking her up we provide she came into our place, we gave her a meal clothing, she picked out clothing I was there I gave her money to go down to CVS to buy some toiletries and cosmetics and then I drove her to the place that was going to a local drug treatment program actually that was going to take her in for a full week until she satisfied everything that was required for admission into a long-term transitional program now if we had not been there for her basically she would have been released with no money not even in street clothes and really defend for herself at that point now that's different from women who are released from BOP facilities who are transferred to the halfway house and there's a lot more planning that goes into their and supervision that goes into their transition back into the community although the needs of women in the halfway house are certainly very similar to Beverly's with that let's go to the clip Beverly wasn't in the federal system as Susan said but her experience perhaps even more so her feelings and attitudes about that experience transcend jurisdiction and provide some insight into the state of mind of many female offenders upon reentry so let's take another look at Beverly and learn in her own words how community-based organizations like our place DC help women upon release from prison took jail to wake me up and it took me to go there to realize this is not what my life was supposed to be about and I'm just so thankful that that there was people at our place Michelle and Tracy Susan jail uniform and tennis shoes and she took me into the room all these beautiful clothes so nothing when I came out our place provided the basics for me to get back into society I had no money I had no ID no birth certificate anything like that I was just a number in the system for real I had no identity anymore they never said no to me they told me where to go to get my birth certificate where to get my ID just the little simple things that people take for granted it's hard for a woman to get when they're coming out of jail to do these things when you don't have anything and they provided all these essential needs that we need right down to the personal hygiene for a woman we don't have those things when they come out of jail and they provide them for you they just here here here and I was like I was really shocked I was really shocked the way they treated me it's been so long since I was treated like a human being because of what I've done to myself and I was just really amazed by Beverly did 98% of the work what she needed was just a fighting chance to get started again and she was ready and willing and I guess what I'd like to say is that she now she's been out over a year and a half she's got her own place she's in a really good job she's been clean and sober for that long and it takes so little to help women at that juncture and coming back into the community there is so little help it doesn't take a lot and I think that actually raises an important point because of course there are going to be districts out there that aren't fortunate enough to have an our place DC and if you don't then you just don't throw up your hands and say well there's nothing we can do because there might be an organization that you don't know about so you want a network to try to find one but if there isn't you can do something like what the Northern District of Texas has done Mary Jean, your colleague Wendy Landry and other colleagues in the district have set up a program a couple of programs for women offenders and we have Wendy Landry senior U.S. probation officer and drug and alcohol treatment specialist along with three offenders who are currently these are federal offenders currently in the program Reena, Pat and Janet and let me see if Wendy is with us are you here? Yes, I'm here Wendy welcome perhaps you can very briefly give us an overview of these programs that you all have in operation in the Northern District of Texas and then if Reena, Pat and Janet could tell us their stories and their experiences in those programs Yes we've found that many of our offenders reach our office frustrated angry, scared and quite frankly stuck and we as officers are often faced with these unique challenges of ways of tearing down these self-inflicted barriers in order to motivate these women as a result Rosalind Jeffers and I started our first in-house women issues group which Reena can probably talk more about about a year and a half ago and during the group we basically provided a safe environment for these women to be able to discuss the effects of their conviction on their lives the women really opened up and bonded well and Rosalind and I were able to really pay attention and evaluate the needs for further group and from that group we started a walking group for women who were perhaps depressed, feeling a little overweight not real motivated or just plain wanted to get some exercise such as in Pat's case it's really been an eye-opening experience for the officers as well as the offenders and we've really found a way to bring new meaning to enhance supervision and because of the groups the officers have become human in the eyes of the participants and it has really enhanced the officer and offender rapport which Janet can probably talk more about let's go to Pat, thank you Wendy let's go to Pat first and Pat maybe you could just tell us what your experiences have been in the programs and how it perhaps influenced your relationship with your supervision officer good afternoon the walking group has been a blessing for me I never participated as I needed to walk but I didn't actually this is my first time being in trouble I didn't really know what to expect and we started walking actually when it was real cold like in the month of February and I was really like an introverted type person when I got into the program and when I started walking I opened up as I listened to the other women that was walking the faster I walked and the more I swung my body the more I relaxed and just opened up and I lost weight participating in a major walk-a-thon for breast cancer this Saturday I'm very excited about it I find myself talking about it I find that it's very important to me and I'm just thankful to be a part of the group I'm proud of the group I feel like a person and I feel like that when I have something to say it's positive and it makes me feel good but I feel like it helps the other people that's walking with me very good before we come back to the panel let me talk to Reena and Janet as well Reena, what's your experience been? Well, I didn't join a walking group I went one time, got sick and didn't go again but I participate in all the other things I was one of the original members of the first women's group that started and at first we were all kind of hesitant, you know, what are we doing here why do we have to be here, what's going on and then as everybody started opening up and we learned so much from each other you know, we got so much encouragement to go on courage to face the next day lessons on how they have encountered things and gotten through it so how you could I also, this is my very first time to be in any kind of trouble and I was in total shock I was totally embarrassed and humiliated and just ashamed I was ill at the same time which compounded everything I basically got to the point where I was not functioning at all I was just like a lump on a log and when Ms. Landry suggested it this was like the first thing that started getting me out of my house and it brought me here and it put me in contact with these other women who had experienced things far worse than I had and it made me start putting my own experience in perspective and then they gave me so much courage and encouragement that after I got into this I saw other programs that helped me physically with my health I went through a retraining program and got trained on another vocation and actually just started working at a job it's the first time I've worked in four years so all in all this has just been very very positive we then started the book club and that's got me back reading again which I just enjoy so much but which I needed a kick to get into so it's been a very valuable experience I say the one that's turned me around is that I wouldn't still just be sitting back counting off my days if something like this had not come along Thanks so much for sharing that experience with us. Janet I want to now go to you and tell us what your experience has been in these programs in the northern district of Texas Okay well just to give you a little insight on my history I have gone through several forms of abuse in my life and I've been what I call a survivor for and I've always worked and maintained a job and pretty much I've been very independent I've been in and out of better women shelters and have lived in hotels and worked jobs at minimum wage to support my children I've always managed to do a good job in doing that and when I fell myself in trouble once again for the first time I was completely terrified I didn't know what to do, who to talk to I was calling attorneys on the yellow pages and they were asking for $10,000 of course I had no money and I ended up with a federal public defender who was excellent she was wonderful everyone said that I would probably end up doing jail time which I didn't because public defenders never help and I just wanted to say that my public defender was wonderful during the time two months before my sentencing I lost a child my child died at birth and I was very depressed I was taking care of my mother, I'm the only child I was just distraught at the time that I had my interview for pre-trial and asked for counseling at that time and the judge gave me probation and also one of the terms of my probation was that I was I had to seek counseling so when I began to seek counseling because that was something that I asked for I thought it was a good thing I was dealing with the death of my child and the probation officer that I had at the time for maybe the first two to three months was wonderful I thought it was going to be no big deal it came to my job once and we met in the hallway and I came in and I was out and that was fine well two to three months later I switched over to Ms. Landry who I've had ever since and felt as though she was nothing but a sword in my side she would pop up at my house at any time she would come to my job at any time I really felt as though she was just out to get me that her main goal was to make sure that before my three years on probation were up that I ended up in prison somewhere so I had so many things to do at that point like I said taking care of my mother who passed away just last year getting my children back and forth to their different activities trying to maintain my life at some point working two jobs just to maintain and now that I had dealt with the death of my child I felt as though since I asked for counseling that I should be able to come out of counseling I'm sorry to interrupt a few minutes left in the program and I wanted you just to briefly touch on what it's been like since you've been involved with this particular program with Ms. Landry with the women's group Ms. Landry our relationship was strained and like I said I felt as though she was just trying to make sure that I ended up in prison one other thing that she had me do was to participate in this women's group which I felt as though I had no time for once I began to participate in the group um I began to see her in a different light that she was an individual not just a probation officer and she was truly concerned about her well-being and through the group I felt as though we have established a better rapport with each other we can actually communicate now she has, I have gone through the counseling and have learned to deal with my depression and I'm on medication now which I refuse to take it in the beginning and things have just become a lot better in my life I feel as though if it wasn't for the group we would still not have a rapport with each other and things were just not going well at all so I thank her for having the group and for allowing me to attend and bond with me in such a fashion that I have grown as a person okay let me stop you there and before we come back to the panel if we have time let me first go out to my understanding is that we've got Florida probation on the line we've only got a few minutes left in the program but Florida middle do you have any reactions or comments to anything including the offenders we've just heard from our question is with very limited appellate case law on issues of departure for family ties and responsibility and only general guidance from us sensing guidelines what other authority can probation officers and other sensing practitioners apply to their analysis of this departure Judge Kessler I think that's a wonderful question there is a fair amount of case law by the way out there you'll just find it on all sides of the issue but one of the things that seems to me you can use is a lot of statistical data that's out there in terms of the impact on children and a lot of non-statistical but expert data from psychologists and social workers again talking about family unification how devastating and traumatic the loss of that unification is what it does to children and what the impact is on society when those children have a traumatic event and don't get an opportunity to remain connected with their birth family thank you Florida Middle for that question let's come back to the panel now we've got about two minutes left any reactions to the offenders Janet, Rina and Pat in light of our larger discussion here Judge Kessler don't be shy I think it's so important and wonderful for probation departments to create these kinds of programs and I think it's relatively unusual and it's just enormously productive the other thing is that at sentencing judges are going to be setting conditions for supervised release that's going to occur two and three years down the line and so I think it's very useful for judges to let probation officers know that when that person comes out of prison they're welcome to come back into court to ask for adjustments or modifications or changes based on the changed conditions for that defendant Mary Jean, quickly well put it's a fluid experience and so we do approach the court even at the halfway house level if issues are identified that we need to go back to court with I'd just like to add that the court defines a certificate for the completion of that program and it is dispersed by our female deputy chief and for some of those women that's the first successful document they've received in their lives so I think that's very important I think it's important for the judges to get involved in that and recognize their accomplishment very good we could go on so thank you all very much we've reached the end of our time here today so before we wrap it up we're going to talk about the training principles that brings us to the end of our program here today we've covered a lot of ground in a short period of time and this has been a unique opportunity to have so many perspectives represented in one discussion if you're a probation or pre-trial services district representative for this series you can continue to exchange ideas and women defendants offenders and their children by joining our current online discussion on the DCN and don't forget we're very different about women I'd like to thank all of our panelists both here in the studio and in the northern district of Texas and a special thank you to Justice Ginsburg for opening today's program and to Beverly Henson as well as always if you have any suggestions for future special needs offenders programs email me at msherman at fjc.gov and finally remember to fill out and return your evaluations and rosters your feedback helps us improve we wrap up these two hours like we began with the story of Beverly Henson first she told us where she was and then how a community-based organization Our Place DC helped her re-enter society and in this last segment she tells us where she is now and her hopes for the future thanks again for participating in this edition of special needs offenders and we'll see you next time my relationship with my family and my daughter is ongoing progress as I had my daughter in my active addiction and I did not know her you know I can't say I've done a lot for her now but I do love my daughter I do see my daughter and she knows her mom she knows her mom my family is happy for me I see my family and it's joy and love and my daughter she just takes my face and she says I love you and I'm just so happy I'm just so happy to know my daughter now to be able to just take her to the park just to look at the flowers with her my goals are to go to school and become a nurse I would be especially good at helping people who are sick I like to comfort people I like to encourage people I'm personally living in a recovery building where I pay my own rent I have my own phone and pay for my own food I'm becoming a productive member of society again I have a piece today that I've never had and that's because there were people who helped me