Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, delivered the following opening statement, as prepared, for the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance hearing titled, "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons":

"Mr. Chairman, when Director Peters appeared before this Committee just seven months ago, I noted that oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is one of this Committee’s most critical functions. I detailed the numerous, deeply-rooted problems that Director Peters inherited when she took over as BOP Director in August 2022—problems such as chronic understaffing, rampant sexual assault, and inadequate medical and mental health treatment. Problems that will take time and resources to address.

Yet the majority invited Director Peters just months after our last BOP oversight hearing—when it would be unrealistic to expect anything more than incremental progress in addressing BOP’s most serious issues. They did so not because they actually care about those issues. Instead, my Republican colleagues are using this hearing to pursue their longstanding and, frankly, inexplicable obsession with Hunter Biden.

They have called Director Peters here today primarily to complain about BOP’s alleged mistreatment of an incarcerated felon, Jason Galanis, who testified for Republicans at one of their failed impeachment hearings. Mr. Galanis, who gave that testimony from federal prison, was a former business associate of Hunter Biden who has made all kinds of unfounded allegations against him.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the Majority has decided to waste precious committee time and resources attempting to bully the BOP into granting Mr. Galanis’s request for compassionate release, even though BOP policy clearly calls for denying this request, as Director Peters will explain.

Yes, that’s right—in service of their convicted felon Presidential nominee, the Majority is using its oversight authority to champion the cause of another convicted felon—one who is serving a sentence of more than 15 years in prison because he defrauded, among others, an impoverished Native American tribe, to the tune of over 80 million dollars.

I also expect that we will hear concerns today about the BOP’s alleged mistreatment of certain January 6th insurrectionists. I welcome the newfound interest of my Republican colleagues in conditions at BOP facilities, but I hope that their concern will also extend to the thousands of other inmates—disproportionately people of color and from low-income communities—who do not have the ear of politically connected individuals and elected officials. BOP reform could be an area of true bipartisan cooperation, but only if we recognize that all inmates deserve fair and equal treatment.

Since Director Peters’ appointment nearly two years ago, she has used her decades of experience to start the long and arduous process of addressing the staffing shortages that BOP has faced in recent years; the crumbling infrastructure of our nation’s prisons; and the rampant sexual and physical abuse of inmates at the hands of more than a few bad actors at the BOP.

Since she was last here, for example, Director Peters took the drastic but necessary step of permanently closing FCI Dublin—a women’s facility so plagued by sexual abuse that a federal judge had to make the unprecedented decision to appoint a special master to ensure the facility’s compliance with federal law and constitutional requirements, after decades of noncompliance.

The closure of the Dublin facility was an essential step towards addressing the problem of sexual abuse at BOP, and I look forward to hearing from Director Peters about how the agency is ensuring that the women who were housed there have had a safe and smooth transition to their new facilities.

I also look forward to hearing about the steps that Director Peters has taken agency-wide to punish and prevent employee misconduct, and to change staff culture to ensure that we never again see the type of abuse that we saw at Dublin and other facilities.

But sexual abuse is not the only threat to inmate safety at BOP. A February 2024 report by the Office of the Inspector General found that systemic operational and managerial failures contributed to hundreds of inmate deaths that occurred between 2014 and 2021—the period preceding Director Peters’ appointment.

More than half of those deaths were suicides. Others were attributable to lack of medical or mental health treatment, or the presence of illegal drugs and other contraband—issues that are compounded by the staffing shortages that have plagued BOP since former President Trump instituted a hiring freeze from 2017 to 2019.

Last year Director Peters told us about the steps she has taken to improve employee recruitment, training, and retention to ensure that our nation’s prisons are fully staffed with trained, experienced officers who are committed to protecting and serving the inmates in their care. I hope to hear from her today about the implementation of her new strategic plan, and about what progress has been made in the past 7 months.

I also hope that Director Peters will have an update on BOP’s continued reliance on solitary confinement, otherwise known as restrictive housing, despite President Biden’s 2022 Executive Order requiring that it be used only rarely. In the months that have elapsed since our last oversight hearing, BOP’s reduction in the use of restrictive housing has been negligible.

This is an area of grave concern—not just because it is in direct contravention of the President’s order, but also because of the devastating mental toll that restrictive housing takes on inmates. It is not at all surprising that nearly half of the suicides in BOP custody during the period of the OIG study occurred among inmates in restrictive housing.

I do want to note that BOP has continued to make progress in another critical area: implementation of the First Step Act. When we came together to pass that legislation in 2018, we recognized the need to focus on rehabilitation through programming that addresses the issues underlying offenders’ criminal behavior, while preparing them to be productive community members upon their release.

In recent years, BOP has substantially expanded the programming available to inmates, and at the end of 2023, it automated the process of calculating the time credits inmates earn for completing rehabilitative programs. This has helped to ensure that more inmates receive the FSA credits that they have rightfully earned. But, as with the other issues BOP faces, there is still so much more to be done.

Due to our reliance on overincarceration, coupled with a refusal to adequately fund the programs necessary for rehabilitation, the demand for these programs still outweighs their availability. And many inmates who have earned FSA credits still remain in custody, even though they have enough credits to be released early to a residential reentry center, simply because there is not enough bed space in those centers.

This is a problem that must be addressed, particularly since the evidence shows us that this programming works: inmates released early due to FSA earned-time credits have a recidivism rate of only 12.4 percent, compared to a 45 percent recidivism rate for inmates who do not participate in these programs.

As I said, rigorous oversight of the BOP should be a bipartisan issue. BOP’s inmates come from all of our districts, and they will be rejoining all of our communities when they are released. They must be treated with dignity and fairness; they must be kept safe; and they must be given the tools necessary to become productive, responsible, hardworking citizens when they are released. I look forward to hearing from Director Peters, and I hope to engage in a productive conversation to ensure that BOP continues to improve under her leadership.

Thank you, and I yield back."