The GAO has been making select reports available via FTP, at cu.nih.gov:/GAO-REPORTS (login: anonymous, password: guest). Lately a series of transition reports prepared for the new Congress and administration have been made available. Here is an excerpt from a report on National Security Issues, and most of the text from a report on Justice Issues. -- Chris ------------------------------------------------------------- from CG09T93.TXT (National Security Issues): "In the post-Cold War era, the military services will be challenged to perform new and enhanced missions in such areas as peacekeeping, narcotics interdiction, and disaster relief. United Nations' requests for DOD assistance--including supplies, military airlifts and sealifts, logistics, and personnel--for peacekeeping operations have increased substantially in the past 2 years and may likely continue in the near future. Similarly, DOD's involvement in narcotics control and the agency's assistance in drug interdiction efforts have expanded considerably: DOD's contribution rose from $300 million in fiscal year 1989 to $1.2 billion this year. DOD has also increased its involvement in providing humanitarian and disaster assistance in such places as Somalia and Bangladesh as well as within the United States. The value of these missions, as well as the resources devoted to them, must be assessed in the context of the military's more traditional role of protecting the nation." _______________________________________________________________________________ Title: Justice Issues Subtitle: Report No.: GAO/OCG-93-23TR Date: December 1992 _______________________________________________________________________________ Author: United States General Accounting Office Office of the Comptroller General Addressee: Transition Series This file contains the text of a GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. No attempt has been made to display graphic images or pagination of the typeset report. Footnotes appear in brackets at the reference point in the text. Underlined text is indicated by underscore characters (_Introduction_). Superscript characters are preceeded by a backslash (\a). Figures may be omitted or replaced with tables. Tables may not resemble those in the printed version. A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO Documents Distribution Facility by calling (202) 512-6000 or faxing your request to (301) 258-4066 or writing to P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, MD 20877. _______________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS Justice Issues Strengthening the Department of Justice's Leadership and Management Functions Investigating and Prosecuting White Collar Crime Making Needed Policy and Management Decisions on Immigration Issues Responding to a Rapid Rise in the Federal Prison Population Making Antidrug Efforts More Effective Related GAO Products Transition Series - Economics - Management - Program Areas _______________________________________________________________________________ Office of the Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 December 1992 The Speaker of the House of Representatives The Majority Leader of the Senate In response to your request, this transition series report discusses major policy, management, and program issues facing the Congress and the new administration in the justice area. These issues include (1) strengthening leadership and management functions at the Department of Justice, (2) investigating and prosecuting white collar crime, (3) making needed policy and management decisions on immigration issues, (4) responding to a rapid rise in the federal prison population, and (5) making the government's antidrug efforts more effective. The GAO products upon which this report is based are listed at the end of the report. We are also sending copies of this report to the President-elect, the Republican leadership of the Congress, the appropriate congressional committees, and the Attorney General-designate. Signed: Charles A. Bowsher _______________________________________________________________________________ JUSTICE ISSUES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The role of the Department of Justice in dealing with the nation's crime problems has expanded significantly in recent years. Today, the Department has more staff and is conducting more investigations than ever before. Between 1981 and 1992, the Department's budget increased from $2.35 billion to $10.4 billion. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is housing the largest number of federal inmates in its history. Between 1986 and 1992, the federal prison population grew by more than 70 percent to 80,000, as of November 1992; from now through 1996, the government will have to spend more than $2 billion to build new prisons. Inmates convicted of drug offenses now comprise 57 percent of all federal inmates, demonstrating that the Department's antidrug efforts have met with some success. Nevertheless, significant challenges remain. When we issued our first transition series report on justice issues 4 years ago, we said that the Department needed to strengthen its central management capabilities and to set priorities for its antidrug programs. Both of these issues still pose major challenges today. Greater progress has been made in resolving other issues that we raised in 1988--reforming sentencing, reforming immigration, and preventing discrimination caused by immigration reform. The decentralized operations and independence of organizations like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Attorneys complicate efforts by the Department of Justice to coordinate and direct a wide variety of initiatives and programs to fight crime. The central issue facing the Department of Justice is how best to provide leadership and ensure that its priorities are carried out as effectively as possible. Since 1988, the Department has taken new steps in the area of immigration, built new federal prisons at a record pace, and dramatically increased its budget for drug control. It has also had to respond to significant new challenges, such as the wave of criminal referrals and prosecutions generated by the savings and loan and banking crises. Financial institution fraud has also become a major problem. In some areas, the volume of work is overwhelming the justice system. In this environment, the issue of leadership is even more important today than it was in 1988. Additionally, to respond effectively to a rising crime rate, an exploding prison population, and an intractable drug problem, the Department requires strong management processes and systems. _______________________________________________________________________________ STRENGTHENING THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE'S LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leading the nation's law enforcement and administration of justice effort has always been a difficult task. A balance must be struck between the need for strong leadership in important areas and the benefits of a decentralized law enforcement mechanism in the hands of U.S. Attorneys. As world history has shown, too much central police authority can lead to grave abuses. In our country's system of justice, the creative tension that exists between centralized and decentralized management and leadership functions has led to progress on various issues. Nonetheless, given the national scope of some of the law enforcement issues that we face today, it may be necessary to reexamine the leadership role of the Attorney General and the relationship between the Department of Justice and its components and the U.S. Attorneys. Too little central direction can stymie implementation of national initiatives as well as lead to inconsistency and inefficiency. During the 1980s, mounting public concern over crime in general and drugs in particular turned law enforcement into a growth industry at the state, local, and federal levels. However, after a decade of higher spending and promises to reduce the nation's vulnerability to crime, the incidence of violent crime continues to grow. In view of this growth, the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department of Justice is critical. However, the success of the Department in accomplishing its mission is complicated by its highly decentralized operations and the independence afforded its agencies and offices. The Department needs to strengthen its central management systems to ensure that they provide the Attorney General with the information necessary to effectively establish, communicate, coordinate, and oversee national goals and priorities. There is an issue as to whether the Department is currently able to give proper perspective to the interrelationships among its components. Coordination among the various components of the criminal justice system is essential. At present, in enforcing drug laws, FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) independently develop investigative strategies and priorities, operate separate intelligence systems, and use different systems for reporting and measuring their effectiveness. This degree of independence requires good central oversight to ensure overall efficiency and effectiveness. Anticipated federal budget cuts and the continued growth in violent crime--particularly in the use of firearms-- further highlight the need for better interagency coordination. It is also important to ensure that field level decisions are sufficiently in keeping with national law enforcement priorities. Justice components, located throughout the country, have the flexibility to structure their programs differently. They are able, for example, to set different operating thresholds for investigating and prosecuting offenses for which mandatory sentences have been established by law. Yet despite the existence of workload constraints and local priorities, as well as the desirability of prosecutorial discretion, strong central oversight is needed to ensure that national law enforcement programs are focused on--and consistent, efficient, and effective in pursuing--national goals and priorities. Such oversight, however, cannot be brought to bear without good management information systems and meaningful measures of performance. In each of these areas, there is room for the Department to improve. For example, after a number of false starts and over a decade of effort, the Department still does not have in place a case management system that can track cases being litigated and the total number of staff in the litigating organizations working on them. Similarly, while the Department has several numerical measures of its activities, these measures do not readily indicate the degree to which the Department's national goals are being achieved. The Department also needs to resolve jurisdictional disputes. For example, within the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), conflicts exist between the five OJP bureaus and OJP management over individual bureau autonomy. To address the disputed lines of authority, the Attorney General in 1991 conferred on the Assistant Attorney General for OJP certain grant-related authorities traditionally held by the bureau directors. This solution not only created additional management problems but violated the statutes establishing the bureaus. Although OJP and the bureaus are working to resolve the management conflicts, tensions remain. Given the national significance of law enforcement issues and the problems inherent in addressing them, it is important to assess the appropriate leadership role for the Office of the Attorney General. Central to this assessment is achieving consensus within the Department on how to focus federal resources effectively on key issues. _______________________________________________________________________________ INVESTIGATING AND PROSECUTING WHITE COLLAR CRIME ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted for t.p.d audience] _______________________________________________________________________________ MAKING NEEDED POLICY AND MANAGEMENT DECISIONS ON IMMIGRATION ISSUES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted for t.p.d audience] _______________________________________________________________________________ RESPONDING TO A RAPID RISE IN THE FEDERAL PRISON POPULATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A growing prison population was perhaps the most visible result of the increases in federal resources--investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial--devoted to federal criminal law enforcement in the 1980s. Policy initiatives--such as an expanded "drug war," implementation of federal sentencing guidelines, and the enactment of mandatory minimum sentences for a number of drug and firearms offenses--have led to a rapidly growing federal prison population that generally serves longer sentences. This rising population has strained prison capacity and budgetary resources. Indeed, the major issue facing the federal corrections system is finding less costly ways of achieving the corrections goals of deterrence and public safety while providing inmates with humane care and services that equip them to become law-abiding citizens upon release. Between fiscal years 1986 and 1992, the federal prison population grew from 41,500 to 70,630; by 1996, a population of about 106,000 is projected. One reason for this expected future growth is the implementation of federal sentencing guidelines, which took effect on November 1, 1987. Reflecting the "get tough on crime" policies of the last decade, the guidelines offer judges fewer nonprison sentencing options for most offenders. Consequently, a greater proportion of convicted offenders are going to prison for longer terms, decreasing the turnover in the federal prison population and increasing capacity requirements. In 1990, about 74 percent of offenders sentenced under the guidelines were sent to prison, as compared with 53 percent in 1986, before the guidelines took effect. The length of the average sentence in 1990 had increased by about a year--from 53 to 61 months. Moreover, because parole had been eliminated under the guidelines, an inmate could expect to serve, on average, almost 3 years longer--from about 19 to 52 months. Drug offenders will continue to have a major impact on the federal corrections system. Inmates convicted of drug offenses now comprise 57 percent of all federal inmates, and they are expected to constitute about two-thirds (71,000) of the 1996 population. Under the guidelines, almost 9 in 10 convicted drug offenders are sentenced to prison for an average of 83 months--at least 70 months of which they can expect to serve. The costs of housing and caring for this growing population continue to rise. Between 1986 and 1992, corrections budgets, primarily for federal prisons, nearly quadrupled from about $600 million to about $2.3 billion. Despite the increased use of 2-person cells and plans to activate 44 additional facilities with a capacity of about 30,000 inmates between 1992 and 1996, BOP expects the growth in the inmate population to outstrip the increase in capacity by about 6,000 inmates. The estimated cost of constructing these new facilities is almost $2.2 billion. BOP estimates the costs of operating these new facilities, over their useful life, at about 15 to 20 times the construction costs. These rapidly rising costs have focused attention on the costs of traditional incarceration. Given an average annual cost of about $18,000 per inmate for traditional imprisonment, the Sentencing Commission, BOP, and the courts need to explore means of reducing corrections costs. Where possible, less costly minimum security facilities should be used. The current limited use of prison alternatives--such as "boot camps" (also called "shock incarceration") for first offenders, halfway houses, electronic home detention, and intensified supervision--should be evaluated and expanded where feasible. Furthermore, BOP may need to use intermediate forms of confinement, such as halfway houses, more extensively to reintegrate long-term inmates into the community upon release. To do this, BOP must also work more closely with the federal courts' probation service to provide prerelease plans that include an inmate's medical profile, substance abuse history, and other information needed to develop an appropriate supervision plan. Regardless of the form of confinement used, BOP faces a challenge in meeting the medical needs of its growing and aging inmate population, many of whom have special needs. About half of all entering inmates have a substance abuse or dependency problem, but fewer than half of these are receiving treatment. In 1992, BOP spent almost $5 million treating about 1,200 HIV positive inmates, about 200 of whom had AIDS--a problem that is expected to grow as the prison population expands. In the close confines of prison life, the emergence of a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis is also a potentially grave medical problem. The female inmate population, now about 8 percent of the total federal prison population, is growing faster than the male population and requires special medical procedures, such as breast cancer screening. BOP is grappling with the rising costs of meeting inmates' medical care needs and hiring trained medical staff. BOP reprogrammed over $4 million in 1991 and 1992 to provide for increased outside medical care costs and requested an additional $4.5 million in fiscal year 1993. BOP must decide whether to increase its own medical care capacity or meet rising medical care needs through contract care. Even with the additional capacity planned between now and 1996, BOP anticipates that its ratio of medical beds to inmates will fall from the current 27 beds per 1,000 inmates to about 23. Building even more medical facilities would add to an already costly construction program, and BOP may have difficulty staffing any new facilities. Despite an enhanced recruitment effort, at the end of fiscal year 1991, BOP had filled about 59 percent of its authorized positions for nurses and 66 percent of its positions for medical officers. Given the difficulties of recruiting qualified medical personnel, predicting the amount and type of medical care that inmates may need, and meeting the costs of increasing existing medical care capacity to accommodate those anticipated needs, BOP should consider alternative methods of health care delivery. These alternatives might include contracting out for prison medical services and enhancing preventive care programs. In contracting out, health maintenance organizations or preferred provider models might be used. _______________________________________________________________________________ MAKING ANTIDRUG EFFORTS MORE EFFECTIVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To combat the drug problem, the Congress created a Drug Czar--Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)--in the Executive Office of the President. Starting in 1989, ONDCP was to plan a drug war (establish a national drug control strategy, including long- and short-term goals), annually develop a governmentwide budget to carry out the war, and annually report to the Congress on the progress of the war and revise the underlying strategy as appropriate. Despite the creation of ONDCP, the drug problem persists. Under ONDCP's guidance, the federal government dramatically increased drug control funding in three key program areas: (1) stopping drugs from entering the country, (2) enforcing domestic laws against drug trafficking and possession, and (3) providing drug treatment and prevention services. For fiscal years 1989 through 1992, the federal government committed $39 billion to reduce drug use. Of the $12 billion currently spent each year on drug programs, over 70 percent is expended on law enforcement as opposed to treatment; almost $3 is spent on law enforcement for every $1 spent on treatment. While the number of illicit drug users has declined somewhat, the numbers of drug-related homicides and hospital emergency visits and deaths remain near record highs, as does drug use by arrested criminals. Policymakers will be asked to consider what more can be done to alleviate our nation's persistent long-term drug problem and halt the spread of drug-related crime and violence. Should the new administration stay the course, as ONDCP advocates, or place greater emphasis on drug prevention and treatment? ONDCP's annual strategies have not set clear expectations for each drug control program. Without such expectations and without objective data to measure progress toward meeting those expectations, there is little basis for judging either the efficiency of the strategy in committing resources or the efficacy of the strategy's program components. For example, intelligence data indicate that overseas production of cocaine has grown consistently over the past 10 years and that domestic prices are much lower today than they were 10 years ago. Neither the strategy nor the drug budget relates these conditions to the missions of drug programs or evaluates the implications of these conditions for current strategy. In short, accountability is lacking for the billions of dollars being spent on the nation's drug control programs. ONDCP, through its annual drug strategy, should and must establish accountability for the billions being spent on the drug war. Developing accountability and performance measures is difficult. However, tying the financial costs of drug control programs to program results is fundamental to making informed policy decisions. To achieve accountability over the nation's drug control efforts, ONDCP needs to develop outcome-oriented goals for each drug control program. Currently, the drug strategy does not include such goals. Furthermore, there is little information for judging whether the new administration should place more or less emphasis on drug prevention and treatment programs. Specifically, ONDCP needs to develop databases to collect baseline data on law enforcement and treatment efforts. During 1993, the Congress will hold hearings on the reauthorization of ONDCP. As a focal point for these hearings, ONDCP, the drug control agencies--including the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services--and the oversight committees need to focus on identifying appropriate measures of accountability. By and large, these collaborative efforts should be aimed at reaching agreement on the best available benchmarks of performance and the most reasonable expectations for programs, given the level of resources committed. _______________________________________________________________________________ RELATED GAO PRODUCTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _Office of Justice Programs: Discretionary Grants Reauthorization_ (GAO/GGD-93-23, Nov. 20, 1992). _Bank and Thrift Criminal Fraud: Information on Justice's Investigations and Prosecutions_ (GAO/GGD-93-10FS, Oct. 5, 1992). _Sentencing Guidelines: Central Questions Remain Unanswered_ (GAO/GGD-92-93, Aug. 14, 1992). _Immigration Control: Immigration Policies Affect INS Detention Efforts_ (GAO/GGD-92-85, June 25, 1992). _Asset Forfeiture: U.S. Marshals Service Internal Control Weaknesses Over Cash Distributions_ (GAO/GGD-92-59, May 8, 1992). _Drug Control: Difficulties in Denying Federal Benefits to Convicted Drug Offenders_ (GAO/GGD-92-56, Apr. 21, 1992). _The Drug War: Counternarcotics Programs in Columbia and Peru (GAO/T-NSIAD-91-9_, Feb. 20, 1992). _Bank and Thrift Fraud: Overview of the Federal Government's Response_ (GAO/T-GGD-92-12, Feb. 6, 1992). _Adolescent Drug Use Prevention: Common Features of Promising Community Programs_ (GAO/PEMD-92-2, Jan. 16, 1992). _Prison Alternatives: Crowded Federal Prisons Can Transfer More Inmates to Halfway Houses_ (GAO/GGD-92-5, Nov. 14, 1991). _Prison Costs: Opportunities Exist to Lower the Cost of Building Federal Prisons_ (GAO/GGD-92-3, Oct. 25, 1991). _ADMS Block Grant: Drug Treatment Services Could be Improved by New Accountability Program_ (GAO/HRD-92-27, Oct. 17, 1991). _Drug Control: Impact of DOD's Detection and Monitoring on Cocaine Flow_ (GAO/NSIAD-91-297, Sept. 19, 1991). _Drug Treatment: Despite New Strategy, Few Federal Inmates Receive Treatment_ (GAO/HRD-91-116, Sept. 16, 1991). _Prison Expansion: Staffing New Facilities Will be a Challenge for BOP_ (GAO/GGD-92-75, May 12, 1991). _The War on Drugs: Arrests Burdening Local Criminal Justice Systems_ (GAO/GGD-92-40, Apr. 3, 1991). _Border Patrol: Southwest Border Enforcement Affected by Mission Expansion and Budget_ (GAO/GGD-92-72BR, Mar. 28, 1991). _Federal Prisons: Revised Design Standards Could Save Expansion Funds_ (GAO/GGD-91-54, Mar. 14, 1991). _Financial Management: INS Lacks Accountability and Controls Over Its Resources_ (GAO/AFMD-92-20, Jan. 24, 1991). _Immigration Management: Strong Leadership and Management Reforms Needed to Address Serious Problems_ (GAO/GGD-91-28, Jan. 23, 1991). _Information Management: Immigration and Naturalization Service Lacks Ready Access to Essential Data_ (GAO/IMTEC-90-75, Sept. 17, 1990). _Immigration Reform: Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination_ (GAO/GGD-90-62, Mar. 29, 1990). _Immigration Control: Deporting and Excluding Aliens From the United States_ (GAO/GGD-90-18, Oct. 16, 1989). _Controlling Drug Abuse: A Status Report_ (GAO/GGD-88-39, Mar. 1, 1988). _Justice Issues_ (GAO/OCG-89-13TR, Nov. 1988). _Justice Department: Improved Management Processes Would Enhance Justice's Operations_ (GAO/GGD-86-12, Mar. 14, 1986). _______________________________________________________________________________ TRANSITION SERIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================================== ECONOMICS _Budget Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-1TR). _Investment_ (GAO/OCG-93-2TR). =============================================================================== MANAGEMENT _Government Management Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-3TR). _Financial Management Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-4TR). _Information Management and Technology Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-5TR). _Program Evaluation Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-6TR). _The Public Service_ (GAO/OCG-93-7TR). =============================================================================== PROGRAM AREAS _Health Care Reform _ (GAO/OCG-93-8TR). _National Security Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-9TR). _Financial Services Industry Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-10TR). _International Trade Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-11TR). _Commerce Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-12TR). _Energy Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-13TR). _Transportation Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-14TR). _Food and Agriculture Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-15TR). _Environmental Protection Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-16TR). _Natural Resources Management Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-17TR). _Education Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-18TR). _Labor Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-19TR). _Health and Human Services Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-20TR). _Veterans Affairs Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-21TR). _Housing and Community Development Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-22TR). _Justice Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-23TR). _Internal Revenue Service Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-24TR). _Foreign Economic Assistance Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-25TR). _Foreign Affairs Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-26TR). _NASA Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-27TR). _General Services Issues_ (GAO/OCG-93-28TR).