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From Los Angeles Times

Alabama enacts anti-illegal-immigration law described as nation's strictest

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signs a bill that, among other things, bars illegal immigrants from enrolling in or attending college; prohibits them from applying for or soliciting work; and makes it illegal to rent them property. The ACLU says it will sue to try to overturn the law

by Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times

June 10, 2011

Reporting from Atlanta

Alabama set a new national standard for get-tough immigration policy Thursday with Gov. Robert J. Bentley's signing of a law that surpasses Arizona's SB 1070, with provisions affecting law enforcement, transportation, apartment rentals, employment and education.

The new law, combined with legislation passed in May by neighboring Georgia, has arguably made this swath of the Deep South the nation's hottest immigration battleground, with the region's troubled racial history fueling the fire.

Opponents here, perhaps predictably, often refer to that history in denouncing new laws they deem to be not only unconstitutional but motivated by bigotry.

The 72-page legislation known as HB 56 also touches on issues as diverse as contract law and voter registration. It makes Alabama the fourth state, after Georgia, Utah and Indiana, to follow Arizona's lead in enacting significant statewide immigration laws, potentially mollifying those voters frustrated with Washington's perceived failure to deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

Other states, including California, Florida, Nevada and Texas, have seen SB 1070-style bills fail during this year's legislative sessions, and portions of the Arizona law — including the provision requiring police to check the immigration status of those they stop and suspect are in the country illegally — have been blocked by a federal judge and may land before the Supreme Court.

The American Civil Liberties Union declared its intention Thursday to file a lawsuit opposing HB 56, arguing that it would invite racial profiling and require police to "demand 'papers' from people they stop whom they suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S."

"This draconian initiative signed into law this morning by Gov. Robert Bentley is so oppressive that even Bull Connor himself would be impressed," said Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, referring to Birmingham's notorious segregationist public safety commissioner from the civil rights era. "HB 56 is designed to do nothing more than terrorize the state's Latino community."

Inside and outside Alabama, however, proponents of a more robust immigration policy praised the law, whose main legislative sponsors included a construction company owner and an electrical contractor.

"We have a real problem with illegal immigration in this country," Bentley, a first-term Republican governor and Southern Baptist deacon, said after signing the law, according to wire service reports. "I campaigned for the toughest immigration laws and I'm proud of the Legislature for working tirelessly to create the strongest immigration bill in the country."

Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said he expected the law to be effective in curbing illegal immigration.

"I think this shows one more case of states moving to do what the Obama administration is unwilling to do," Krikorian said. "This wouldn't be happening if the administration were credible on enforcement, but it's just not."

In an echo of the Arizona law, the Alabama legislation requires that police, in the course of any lawful "stop, detention or arrest," make a reasonable attempt to determine a person's citizenship and immigration status, given a "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an immigrant, unless doing so would hinder an investigation.

It outlaws illegal immigrants from receiving any state or local public benefits, bars them from enrolling in or attending public colleges, and prohibits them from applying for or soliciting work.

It forbids the harboring and transport of illegal immigrants, and outlaws renting them property or "knowingly" employing them for any work within the state. It also makes it a "discriminatory practice" to fire, or decline to hire, a legal resident when an illegal one is on the payroll.

The law criminalizes "dealing in false identification documents" and, beginning April 1, will require every business in the state to verify employees' immigration status using the federal E-Verify system.

It deems invalid any contract to which an illegal immigrant is a party if the legal party in the contract has "direct or constructive knowledge" that the other person was in the country illegally. And it requires a citizenship check for people registering to vote.

For opponents, one of the most disturbing provisions is a requirement that officials in K-12 public schools determine whether students are illegal immigrants. It will not ban the students from schools, but rather require every school district to submit an annual report on the number of presumed illegal immigrants to the state education board.

But Ali Noorani, head of the National Immigration Forum, fears that simply asking parents about their children's immigration status will cause them to pull their kids from school.

"At the end of the day, for a teacher to be required to act as an immigration agent and ask a student for their immigration status will have a chilling effect on immigrant families, and it will lead to discrimination," he said.

Krikorian, whose group supports stricter laws against illegal residents, said many of the Alabama provisions were entirely new.

Others are similar to immigration enforcement efforts by state and local governments. Last month, the Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that required businesses to use the federal E-Verify database.

Based on that decision, the high court this month ordered a lower court to reconsider its rejection of a much-publicized law in Hazleton, Pa., that would have denied illegal immigrants business permits and penalized landlords who rented property to them.

The wave of Latino immigration in recent decades has not transformed Alabama as dramatically as it has other states, but the presence of the new arrivals has been felt.

People of "Hispanic or Latino origin" currently make up about 3.9% of Alabama's population of 4.8 million, according to Census Bureau figures. The state was home to about 120,000 "unauthorized immigrants" in 2010, up from an estimated 5,000 in 1990, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alabama-immigration-20110610,0,2484697,print.story

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30 more gang members arrested in continuing crackdown in Central Valley

Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris announced Thursday that 30 alleged gang members were arrested in Tracy, the day after a similar law enforcement operation netted 75 suspected gang members in Merced and Madera counties.

Wednesday's sweep in Tracy was part of an effort by local, state and federal authorities to crack down on street gangs associated with Nuestra Familia, a criminal enterprise run out of the state prison system by inmates using coded letters and packages.

Gangs in recent years have been menacing many small farm communities. After law enforcement conducted raids in Salinas last year, gang leaders moved into other towns. Police say the gangs have ties to drug cartels in Mexico.

"Today the Department of Justice delivered another blow to the criminal gangs that have been making inroads into California's Central Valley," Harris said.

Agents from the state Department of Justice served 28 arrest warrants and 24 search warrants Wednesday and recovered 11 guns and about a quarter of an ounce of methamphetamine. The suspects were booked into the San Joaquin County Jail.

Wednesday's sweep involved more than 200 law enforcement officers from the state Department of Justice, the state prison system, Tracy police and the FBI.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/30-more-gang-members-arrested-in-continuing-crackdown-in-central-valley-.html

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California prisons: 'Non-revocable parole' is too dangerous

The parole program, designed to save money and resources, is poorly run and frees too many dangerous offenders.

by Ted W. Lieu

June 10, 2011

In Culver City last month, Zackariah Lehnen was charged with the murder of a young woman and an elderly man who were stabbed and beaten to death. In Los Angeles last July, Javier Rueda shot and injured two Los Angeles Police Department officers before he was fatally shot.

What's the connection between these violent incidents? Both Lehnen and Rueda were on the streets after being released from state prison — without any parole supervision or parole restrictions — under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's "non-revocable parole" program.

How many more innocent people will be injured or killed before we end this failed experiment?

The program, created by Senate Bill X3 18, became effective in January 2010. Under this program, the Department of Corrections is allowed to release from state prison a limited number of nonviolent, nonserious and nonsex offenders with no parole conditions and no parole supervision. These felons cannot have their parole revoked, even if they commit future crimes.

In theory, only the least violent and least risky felons who have served their time would qualify for non-revocable parole status, and the parole system would use fewer resources and cost the state less money. In practice, thousands of violent and dangerous prisoners have been erroneously freed without parole supervision or parole restrictions.

Last year, I requested an investigation into how the law was being implemented. Two weeks ago, the Office of the Inspector General concluded its yearlong investigation, and the results were stunning: In just a six-month period last year, the Department of Corrections released up to 2,075 prisoners into the program who didn't fit the criteria established to qualify for such release, and 450 of them were at "high risk for violence."

The report concluded that the department had "compromise[d] public safety" by "understating offenders' risk of reoffending and releasing high-risk offenders to unsupervised parole."

As a former prosecutor, I know supervision and deterrence work. That is why most felons are placed on supervised parole and given numerous parole restrictions upon release from prison. A gross violation of a parole condition could result in the parolee being sent back to prison. I believe ex-convicts behave differently when they are on the non-revocable parole program because they are not supervised and their parole can never be revoked.

Where do the problems with the program come from? The Legislature mandated that the Corrections Department conduct a risk assessment before qualifying convicts for non-revocable parole status. The inspector general found, alarmingly, that the department's computerized risk-assessment model had an initial error rate of 23.5%, followed by an ongoing 8% error rate that continues to this day. In Washington state, with a smaller population of offenders, a similar program strives for a 0% error rate and achieves a rate of under 1%.

In actual numbers, California's error rate means that nearly 1 in 12 prisoners released by the program are actually too violent or risky to qualify. Consider that as of last month, there are 13,554 ex-convicts on non-revocable parole status, and over time the high error rate would apply to hundreds of thousands of prisoners, resulting in a large release of dangerous and violent felons onto the streets without any parole supervision or conditions.

The inspector general discovered that one reason for the high error rate is that the database the Department of Corrections uses in making risk determinations is missing critical information — the disposition of prior arrests and convictions — for nearly half the cases. In other words, of the more than 16.4 million arrest entries in the database, 47% are missing data on whether a conviction occurred, which is a crucial data point in the formula for eligibility for non-revocable parole.

For example, a prisoner about to be released for drug dealing, a nonviolent offense, may be deemed eligible for the program because the database doesn't include an earlier conviction for shooting at a police officer. The data are entered by 600 law enforcement agencies and the state's 58 counties, sometimes years after the fact, according to Bruce Monfross, the inspector general. Fixing the database would take time and money, both of which are in short supply.

The inspector general concluded the risk-assessment program has only a "weak" predictive ability for whether a parolee will receive a future felony conviction. Sadly, that's not much better odds than flipping a coin.

The dangers of the program are not theoretical. Absent an accurate database and the funds to maintain it, non-revocable parole must end. It is time for the Department of Corrections to decertify its failed computerized risk assessment and halt the program — before more people die.

State Sen. Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance) is chairman of the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lieu-nrp-20110610,0,6496317,print.story

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Keeping Children and Teens Safe Online: June is National Internet Safety Month

June is National Internet Safety Month. With the school year ending, kids will be spending more time online. In fact, according to the National Cyber Security Alliance, children and teens aged 8-18 spend an average of 7 and a half hours each day during the summer with electronic devices – where they may be vulnerable to cyber bulling, cyber predators, and other criminal activity.

To ensure a safe cyber environment, each of us plays a part. Parents can talk to their children and teens about cyber threats, and follow these easy steps:

The Department of Homeland Security's “Stop. Think. Connect.” Campaign encourages students, parents, and teachers to remain vigilant about their daily Internet use and offers the following advice to parents to keep their children safe online:

For more information on “Stop.Think.Connect.” programs and opportunities, visit www.dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect

http://blog.dhs.gov/2011/06/keeping-children-and-teens-safe-online.html

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From the Department of Justice

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Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Northwest Indiana Cyber Security Summit

Hammond, Ind. ~ Thursday, June 9, 2011

Thank you, U.S. Attorney Dave Capp, for your kind words, and your two and a half decades of distinguished service here in the Northern District of Indiana.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and as interim U.S. Attorney – on no less than three occasions – you've proven both your leadership skills and legal expertise. Today, in your role as United States Attorney, you serve as an advisor to me and as an example to your colleagues. And the contributions that you and your team are making are felt across – and far beyond – this District.

It's a pleasure to stand with you this morning – and I want to thank all of you for welcoming me back to Hammond. As Dave just mentioned, I had my very first jury trial here – in your old courthouse. What Dave – very graciously – failed to mention is that I ended up losing that case. But I learned an awful lot here – and it's wonderful to return to the Northern District today.

I am deeply grateful for the outstanding work that Dave and his colleagues – along with the FBI's Indianapolis Field Office, the United States Steel Corporation, and so many other law enforcement and private sector partners – have done to bring us all together.

In particular, I'd like to recognize Michael Welch, the Indianapolis FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge, for his dedicated service – and for taking the time to be here this morning. I'd also like to thank each and every one of our participants – from across the private sector and every level of government and law enforcement – for your leadership in addressing one of the most urgent, and complex, global challenges we face: the problem, and increasing prevalence, of cybercrime.

It's a privilege to take part in this critical summit – the very first of its kind to focus exclusively on cyber security challenges and solutions. I appreciate this opportunity to salute the proactive, innovative, and collaborative approach that has been adopted here in the Northern District to address this issue. Not only is this approach working, today it's being strengthened by the diverse group of stakeholders assembled here – ready to work together, to share insights and expertise, and to lend your voices to a growing national dialogue.

You are attorneys and investigators, business leaders and public servants, prosecutors and law enforcement agents. You represent major industrial corporations, burgeoning tech companies, government agencies, and private security firms. And although you may bring different perspectives to the issue of cyber security – in one way or another – each of you serves on the front lines of this fight every single day.

As we open this landmark summit, I know we are united by our common goals: security, opportunity, openness, and prosperity. But we're also bound by our shared values – and joined together by our collective concerns.

In this age of seamless global commerce and instant communication, more individuals, companies, institutions, and even governments are reliant on electronic networks and information systems than ever before. As communities across Indiana and around the country struggle to overcome the effects of an historic recession, we all stand to reap enormous benefits from the commercial and technological advances we've seen in just the last few decades – but only if the information technology being used to drive social, economic, and political progress is secure.

In recent years, we've seen clear, and alarming, advances in the sophistication and commercialization of crimes involving electronic networks. And the staggering volume of money being stolen online today has the potential to threaten not only the security of our nation – but the integrity of our government, the stability of our economy, and the safety of our people.

That's why conversations like the one we begin today are so important. Many of the 21 st -century threats we face – to both our national and economic security – have no precedent. They know no borders. And they demand – not only our constant attention, but also a comprehensive, collaborative, and well-coordinated response. One that's nimble enough to fight complex – and constantly evolving – transnational threats.

Of course, the success of any such response must be founded on strong cooperation between key public and private stakeholders at every level. It must focus on breaking down traditional barriers to communication and cross-sector engagement. And it must be predicated on bringing new partners to the table – and making the most of precious resources.

Today's summit is an affirmation of this promise – and a vindication of the collaborative approach that you've helped to pioneer. With this gathering, we send a strong and unmistakable message: that a new era of public-private cooperation, engagement, and vigilance has begun.

This is now true all across the country. But, here in Northern Indiana, you were ahead of your time. Nearly a decade ago, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, area FBI and U.S. Attorney's offices convened partners from across the region to help identify and combat emerging national – and cyber – security threats. Since then, the interdisciplinary relationships that you've forged – and the steps that you've taken to keep pace with emerging challenges – have been nothing short of remarkable.

During this same period, we've also seen major progress on an international scale. Since I became Attorney General more than two years ago, I've worked to make certain that cyber security is a top priority for our nation's Department of Justice. And I've traveled all over the world to engage key allies in this work.

Several weeks ago, I met with a number of my international counterparts in Hungary – where I spoke at an event commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. A decade ago – just as your Lakefront Infrastructure Working Group began holding its initial meetings – the United States became one of the first nations to support this unprecedented, much-needed agreement, which provided a path for allies around the world to collectively address cyber threats and criminal activities, while also safeguarding civil rights.

As a result of this and other joint efforts, we're now working with our international partners to advance investigations and prosecutions like never before. We have agents and attorneys in place across the globe, where they work alongside local law enforcement teams to identify and combat cyber security threats. We're able to respond to potential problems more quickly and effectively than ever. And the results of such unprecedented levels of collaboration are clear.

In just the last few months, the Justice Department has brought cases against a number of criminal conspirators for their roles in coordinated cybercrimes that, according to court documents, netted nearly 1.5 million dollars from U.S. victims. We've announced takedowns of significant criminal groups operating from Romania, Egypt, and elsewhere that had been victimizing American businesses and citizens – including children.

We also conducted an extensive operation to disable an international criminal network that had infected more than two million computers worldwide with malicious software. Until we stepped in – with the help of industry and security experts, as well as key international partners – this malware was providing criminals with the capabilities to capture bank account numbers, user names, and other sensitive information online.

The Department has also joined with other agencies across the Administration to strengthen our efforts – both nationally and internationally – in combating intellectual property crimes – something I know is a top concern for area business leaders.

And as we've seen here in Indiana – as recently as last summer – such crimes are not victimless. In August, FBI agents arrested a Chinese national – who had served as a researcher for Dow AgroSciences, headquartered in Indianapolis – on charges of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government. Before being fired from Dow in 2008, he allegedly violated his company's confidentiality policy, stole trade secrets as well as property, and sent them to the People's Republic of China – where he is accused of directing others to further research and develop them, advancing Chinese national interests and potentially costing his former employer as much as 100 million dollars.

This case – one of only a handful that's ever been brought on such charges – is being prosecuted by the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana. It is slated to go to trial in the fall. But it's just one of many examples of our work to keep critical financial information secure – and to prevent the electronic transport and use of sensitive and proprietary materials.

Another key example of our success in this ongoing effort is last November's “Cyber Monday” takedown. On the Monday following Thanksgiving – which is now called “Cyber Monday” because it's known as the busiest online shopping day of the year – the Department announced a coordinated law enforcement operation that seized more than 80 domain names to prevent the sale of thousands of counterfeit items. Weeks later, we joined key government and private sector partners – including several of our nation's largest Internet companies – at a White House summit to discuss ways to curb intellectual property theft and strengthen IP enforcement.

In looking back on what's been achieved in recent months, we can all be encouraged. But, as you've discussed here this morning, the fact is that – despite the progress we're seeing and the technological advances we're constantly making – the challenges we face are urgent. And they are increasingly sophisticated.

So, this is no time to become complacent. As President Obama has repeatedly indicated – and as your groundbreaking work has proven – we must, and we will, take our global fight against cyber threats to the next level.

Today's summit sends a resounding signal that – together – we can, and will continue to, fight back. And it proves our unwavering commitment to preventing terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the Internet for planning, financing, or executing attacks; to engaging with an expanded network of partners across government and the private sector; and to strengthening our efforts to establish the rule of law in cyberspace.

I'm proud to report that this work is – and it will remain – a top priority not only for me personally, but for our nation's Department of Justice, and for this Administration at the Cabinet level.

Just last month, at the White House, I joined with Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan – and with Secretaries Clinton, Napolitano, and Locke – in announcing a new International Strategy on Cyberspace that will guide our nation's global efforts to prevent and to combat cybercrimes. T his strategy will allow us to build on the record of progress that's been achieved in recent years – including right here in Indiana. And it will help us ensure that the Internet will continue to provide a forum for open discourse, a marketplace for commercial innovation, and a safe environment for our children to communicate and learn.

But – especially in this time of growing demands and limited budgets – the fact is that government simply can't do this alone. We must replicate the partnerships you've established here in the Northern District, and bring even more local and national private sector partners into this work. And we must continue to seek out ways to expand our base of knowledge, to break down traditional “silos” of responsibility, and to broaden the range of resources we can bring to bear in this fight.

To achieve this, we'll need your help. And we'll continue to rely on your expertise.

From criminal syndicates, to terrorist organizations, to foreign intelligence groups, to disgruntled employees and other malicious intruders, the range of entities that stand ready to execute and exploit cyber attacks has never been greater. But I believe that our commitment to preventing and combating these threats has never been stronger. And, as I look out over this crowd today, I can't help but feel optimistic about what we will achieve together.

Once again, I'd like to thank you for your leadership of – and contributions to – the Justice Department's cyber security efforts. I am grateful to count each of you as partners. I look forward to working with you. And I urge all of you to keep up your great work, as well as the critical dialogue we're beginning today.

Thank you

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2011/ag-speech-110609.html

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Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli Speaks at Justice Department Anti-Violence Event in Roanoke

Roanoke, Va. ~ Thursday, June 9, 2011

Good morning. I would like to thank U.S. Attorney Heaphy and all of you for both having me here today and for joining us in this important discussion about how to make the Roanoke community safer and stronger.

As Tim said, I am the Associate Attorney General, the third-ranking official at the Justice Department. I am also happy to say that I'm a life-long Virginian. And so, this forum has special meaning to me. I take pride in the Commonwealth and making sure that my kids and yours grow up in an environment that is free of violence.

Everyone knows that the Department of Justice and our U.S. Attorneys enforce federal law and keep our communities safe by pursuing and prosecuting the worst offenders, especially in areas like gang, drug, and gun violence. But if we really want to reduce crime and improve our schools, neighborhoods, communities, cities, and towns, we have to do more than just respond to crime after it has been committed.

At the Department of Justice, we are investing in more effective enforcement strategies, but we are also investing in communities across the country in proven strategies for preventing crime, in particular for reaching vulnerable young people before they commit crimes or when they begin going down the wrong path, and we are also investing in providing a transition for individuals coming out of prison, what we call reentry, because if we can reduce the recidivism rate, we can also reduce crime.

We make these investments because we know and the evidence shows us that a concerted focus on helping our young people avoid lives of violence and crime – and providing support to those who've served their time and are struggling to rejoin and contribute to their communities – is a proven public safety approach.

It also makes economic sense. Only by pairing strong enforcement with prevention strategies and a real focus on reentry can we be both tough and smart on crime.

That's why Attorney General Holder has challenged the 94 U.S. Attorneys across the country to develop an anti-violence strategy to address and curb violent crime locally, through robust engagement with our community partners—like all of you in this room—with a holistic approach involving effective crime prevention, intervention, enforcement, and reentry strategies.

At the heart of the effort are two ideas. First, U.S. Attorneys need to be more than prosecutors – they need to be community leaders. Second, engagement with the whole community – everyone from local law enforcement and prosecutors to service providers to advocates to educators to health care professional to business leaders – is critical. We only succeed if we are all working together.

That is why the forum today and the work that Tim Heaphy and the U.S. Attorneys' Office has been doing is so critical. Tim exemplifies our approach to public safety and he has been a leader not just in the Western District of Virginia, but nationwide in developing and helping the Department make communities safer.

You read about his and his office's efforts at cracking down on violent criminals, but what you probably hear less about is the work that we have been discussing today – working with the whole community on preventing crime before it occurs. Tim has been tireless in this effort and, through his community outreach coordinator Gwen Mason, he works every day to bring all the resources of communities in Southern and Western Virginia together to improve public safety. Those outreach and coordination efforts will pay long-term dividends for the people of this district.

Tim will talk more about what is happening on the ground here in Roanoke, but let me talk a little about the Department's work across the country.

As the U.S. Associate Attorney General, one of my many hats is to oversee our grant programs: those administered by the Office on Violence Against Women, Community Oriented Policing (COPS), and our Office of Justice Programs. Each year, those programs provide several billion dollars to support community efforts to reduce violence and assist local police, prosecutors, and communities to address the problems that they face.

Many of these investments focus on enforcement – putting local police on the streets and giving them the tools that they need to best respond to crime in the community and to identify, apprehend, and remove violent criminals from our streets.

But prevention is also a cornerstone of these efforts. In this Fiscal Year, more than $900 million was allocated to support violence prevention programs, a notable increase to the amount of money given to community-based education and prevention efforts to combat violence before it occurs. We are also investing in research to help us identify the most effective ways to reduce crimes.

And what we have learned is eye opening. As an example, through the results of a 2005 national survey on children exposed to violence, we've learned, sadly, that children are more likely to be exposed to violence and crime than adults. The study showed that juveniles and young adults ages 12 to 19 were more than twice as likely to be the victims of violent crimes as the population as a whole. And that exposure to violence significantly increases the likelihood that that child will show up at some point in the criminal justice system or face a host of other problems.

We also learned that we have opportunities to end that cycle of violence. Research tells us that for every child that comes in contact with the criminal justice system, there were 20, 30, 40, 100 moments in time where early intervention could have made a difference; had one of those missed opportunities been taken, one often would have found a child affected by violence at a young age who ultimately found their way to engaging in criminal behavior themselves, taking drugs, having trouble in school, etc.

This is why the prevention prong of this initiative is so important.

Prevention and enforcement are two-thirds of the puzzle. Seamless prisoner reentry, that reduces the probability of recidivism, is also key. When 1 in 100 American adults is incarcerated and a very high percentage of those who transition out of our jails and prisons are eventually rearrested, we know that even making a small reduction in the recidivism rate will have a meaningful impact on crime. That is why the Department has requested funding to implement the Second Chance Act, and this year is investing over $100 million in support for programs which offer employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, and family programming.

Tim will talk in more detail about how these approaches are working and working effectively in Roanoke, and how he and his office are focused on public safety in all its forms. It's an honor to be here with Tim to highlight his and the Department's efforts. Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/asg/speeches/2011/asg-speech-110609.html

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