Jamie Raskin Asks Witness About Trump Admin's Cuts To Retention Incentives For Prison Bureau Staff

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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about the Trump administration's cuts to the Prison Bureau.

Transcript

00:00Under Trump, U.S. prisons offered gender affirming care. This is a New York Times article from

00:04October 64. Thank you. Next, if I've got this right, ranking member, we have Mr. Raskin from

00:15the great state of Maryland. Thank you, Chairman Van Drew. Mr. Potter, is there evidence that

00:21private prisons are run better than Bureau of Prison Facilities? There isn't any evidence that

00:27I've ever seen. Mr. Milton, the president wants us to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars in

00:38bonuses and incentive pay to ICE agents. I think the number we saw the other day, we discussed it

00:45here in committee, was $858 million to ICE agents, which, according to Mr. Moskowitz's calculations,

00:52came to something like $45,000 per employee of ICE. And yet, at the same time, we're reading articles

01:03about how retention incentives are being cut right now for Bureau of Prison staff, up to 25 percent,

01:14effectively reducing their salaries, when you look at it from an annual perspective.

01:19So, what kind of effect is this having on Bureau of Prison's correctional officers?

01:27Thank you for the question ranking member asked. And, you know, what we've come to realize when we

01:35talk about officers, correctional officers tend to be, you know, amongst the lowest paid. And when those

01:43bonuses were removed, it certainly did, should I say the incentives were removed, it disincentivized

01:51a number of correctional officers. And certainly, it has an impact on morale. And so, we believe that

01:59investing in correctional officers will also increase morale and have a better impact on those who are

02:08incarcerated as well. The president has told us recently that the border has never been safer. Can

02:16you think of any reason why we should be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on bonus pay for

02:23ICE employees while we're reducing retention bonuses and incentive pay for Bureau of Prison employees?

02:32No, sir.

02:34What's that going to do to retention moving forward?

02:37I'm sorry.

02:38What's it going to do to our ability to retain the best Bureau of Prison employees?

02:44Certainly, it makes it a challenge. You know, removing those bonuses, you know,

02:51can speak to a lack of willingness to invest in, in this case, people. And what I think one of the

03:01things that's missing in the conversation is that whether we're talking about people who are

03:05incarcerated, or in this case, correctional staffs, these are people. And at the center of all of the

03:12solutions, we should be placing people at the forefront. As much as we're talking about the

03:16facilities, and in this case, bonus pay, it's really about the morale of people and how it's impacting,

03:23you know, those who are directly impacted.

03:25All right, so it's going to be profoundly demoralizing to the staff there now. We've heard

03:30also about an increase in lockdowns taking place because you've got the people who are the most

03:37effective and necessary employees resigning because their pay is being cut. And these lockdowns can last

03:43weeks, even months, I've heard in some cases. What impact, what impact does the lockdown have on

03:53on prison safety, on access to programming, on the mental health of incarcerated people?

04:01Yeah, well, when, when, when lockdowns happen, there is a decrease in access to medical care.

04:11There's a decrease in access to families. And so the, you know, you can't reach out to families,

04:16and families don't know what's going on during those lockdowns. And, and it creates a panic,

04:21um, and tension within the facilities. Um, and then, you know, certainly the implementing the

04:28lockdowns certainly had places pressure, um, on, on staff as well. And so, um, it, it creates a, a,

04:35a, a system, uh, where, where folks are, are now ill at ease, um, uh, during that process. And so it,

04:45yeah. So there's this rhetorical lip service to the people who've got the toughest jobs actually

04:52in the prisons, you know, managing very difficult conditions. And yet the president issued an

04:57executive order wiping out collective bargaining purportedly for more than a million federal

05:02workers, including all of these Bureau of Prison, um, employees. What is, what effect will that have

05:09on the staffing crisis? Um, and what does it do to the morale of people who work as correctional

05:15officers? Yeah. Um, certainly collective bargaining, you know, establishes a formal process for, for

05:23advocacy, uh, for people, for the workers. Um, and so by removing that formal process, uh, where folks

05:30can consider the table, um, across from each other, um, and, and find common ground on issues that are

05:37impacting, uh, the quality of life. Um, it certainly removes that opportunity, uh, to do that in a, in a,

05:43in a formal way. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. The gentleman

05:49from the great state of Arizona, Andy Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

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