‘It Is Fundamentally Cruel’: Cory Booker Laments US’s Treatment Of Incarcerated Individuals

4 months ago

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) spoke about the trauma imposed on women who give birth while incarcerated and on all people in prison.

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Transcript

00:00pregnant and postpartum women in America's prisons and jails. And I'll

00:10yield to Senator Booker. Thank You Mr. Chairman. There's a wide room here for

00:16bipartisan work and I'm grateful for my experiences with the FIRST STEP Act when

00:22we came forward on these issues and found from the White House then that the

00:29Trump White House to Republican colleagues and others. I want to

00:33particularly step thank Senator Durbin who really has been the champion of so

00:37many of these issues and under his leadership and having the chance to

00:41partner with him on the FIRST STEP Act we were able to make some progress. But

00:47clearly we still live in a nation when what goes on in our prisons is horrible

00:54and what compounds that horror is the abject lack of knowledge that these

01:00things are going on. I mean I'm still shocked that our government which is

01:08responsible or excuse me our Article 1 branch of the Constitution, Article 1

01:13branch being Congress, has a responsibility to provide oversight. We

01:19spend billions of dollars to incarcerate human beings but there's an utter lack

01:23of knowledge about what our regular routine practices in our American

01:29prisons, not to mention our American prisons and jails. And the testimony here

01:37today which is gut-wrenching and painful and I thank the witnesses for being here

01:44and retelling what has to be trauma in your lives and that is your family. It is

01:51so urgent that this truth-telling happen because it shocks the moral conscience

01:55of a country that allows these practices to go on. And here is the painful truth

02:04that we throw people into environments that re-traumatize folks who often have

02:10been traumatized and most of the people that go to our prisons and jails come

02:16out again now more harmed and more hurt than when they went in. And so if this is

02:26really about public safety we do things that undermine and insult the idea that

02:37our prisons and jails should be places yes of punishment but also should be

02:43places that empower people that when they come out they should never return.

02:49That empower people on pathways of redemption and rehabilitation. And it is

02:58grievously painful to know these details only some of which are being talked

03:08about here about what happens to the most vulnerable people in our society

03:14who are survivors of sexual trauma who struggle with mental health issues who

03:23have often been victimized and who often struggle with addiction that we would

03:32put them into an environment that would so compound these problems. I cannot tell

03:40you the horrors of being put into solitary confinement. Most countries call

03:46what we do to vulnerable people torture. It's humbugger to you being in the

03:53immediate hours of postpartum and being put in solitary confinement after being

03:59traumatized not for days but for weeks is unconscionable that it happens in

04:05this country. Unconscionable what you were put through. Senator Durbin says it

04:13is cruel. It is fundamentally cruel. And I know Ms. Suffren knows this. Dr. Suffren

04:21knows this. That all the data shows that we empower women. We facilitate their

04:28connections to their children. We give them not just medical treatment but

04:35sociopsychological support that they actually have recidivism rates that

04:41crash to the floor. And the bonds of their families not only are they

04:49supported but the data shows clearly that even their children's run-ins with

04:56the law go far down. We know from evidence and research that trauma is

05:04generational and we are creating not only assaults on individual dignity of

05:10the women but we are hurting and harming families in ways that will haunt our

05:18society and those individuals directly affected. And so Mr. Chairman I am

05:24grateful for this hearing but I ache. Every prison and jail I've gone to shows

05:32me how much we waste taxpayer dollars causing more and more harm to our

05:38society and individuals we incarcerate and how there are obvious obvious ways

05:46that we could be investing in the well-being of people behind bars that

05:51would empower them to be successful in lives and their lives and empower their

05:56families. This is one of the more shameful elements of American society

06:03when all the data all the research all the evidence shows that we could do this

06:11in a better way that would make us safer and stronger as a society. I do hope we

06:19continue to hold hearings on this because I I know my colleagues on the

06:25other side of the aisle. There is no way Mr. Chairman that that shining lights on

06:30this can do anything but move us and inspire us to find bipartisan solutions

06:36so that these horrors that belong in a long-forgotten Byzantine age should not

06:43exist in our society today. Again I'm sorry that you had to come here. This

06:51should not be necessary and what's even more painful is to know that the stories

06:55you told are not rare and not unusual but exist all across this country at a

07:03rate that should shock the conscience of us all. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you

07:10Senator Booker. As you all may have noted Senator Ossoff had to depart.

‘It Is Fundamentally Cruel’: Cory Booker Laments US’s Treatment Of Incarcerated Individuals

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