Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Thursday, January 8. And we're going to hear the bill sponsors from a couple of bills. We have five forty that we're going to hear from Representative Donlin. And then we are going to have five forty nine. Are you doing that Troy? Or are you doing?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: All set. I'm doing both.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're doing both. Okay. Let's start with you on Earth. It's probably 05:49. Karen, welcome. Karen used to be a member of this committee when she was a freshman for better or worse.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Really? There's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: probably something for committee. Right?

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Yes. Yes. So it was

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a different dynamic back then. Different

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: can be good. Different can be good. Welcome, everybody. Karen Dolan. And so yes. So sharing about h five forty. And I think some folks were on the committee. I think it was two years ago when this started. Two years ago, I introduced a bill that was all about revamping restorative justice in Vermont. And was multiple pieces of it. It was precharge restorative justice and postcharge. And basically what it came down to is we focused all of our attention on the precharge piece of it and ended up passing legislation that's now being implemented going into effect. It seemed like there just wasn't enough time to also do the post charge side of it. And so what was done is that there was a work group that was established to look at the post charge restorative justice piece and come up with recommendations for the committee to look at. So that's really what this bill is, is that the committee and you may have already received the report. They submitted a report in November. I think there were some updates along the way too. But they and that is with Judge Zonay, Derek from DOC. There are many community justice centers that were a part of it. And they came up with proposed language, which is what you see in H540s. I did not add any special touches or anything like that. It was more of seeing that there was a need for folks who may or may not be aware. This language has been around for a while. So I should also share that my job when I'm not here is I work for the Essex Community Justice Center, so have been in the world of restorative justice work. And ultimately, the statutes aren't in line with what current practice is. And there's also room for us to just make it more clear so it's consistent around the state. That's one of the things. How restorative justice has come to be is it's like something changes here. We do things here. We do things here. And the goal was, can we have something that's consistent for the whole entire state to follow? And that's the same thing that we tried to do with the precharge diversion. So that's what these recommendations are doing, is trying to create clear and consistent goals for how restorative justice will be used in postcharge.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Troy? Are we the only committee that's seen this? Is this going to align with you all as well?

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Well, I was realizing that there is a sentencing piece of it, so I don't know if we would see it too, but I would leave it for a chair. Okay. The chairs to decide.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's hard to because I'm like, this all

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: sounds great.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Wonderful. Are

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: the the state's attorneys are the state's attorneys been part of this process?

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Let me see if they

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: were on the What was that, Joe? I'm sorry.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's Carrie because the state's attorneys have been

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Who sent trying to think is this the working group that language came out of us here to come back with recommendations on how it could be the community justice centers basically could be

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: more unified statewide? Yeah, that's what it is. But state's attorneys were not part of this working group. It was Judge Zuneau and Department of Corrections. So you may want to hear what their takes are on this. One of the things is on the sentencing is that sentencing, I guess that would be more judiciary, is that it could be a referral straight to a community justice center. Right now, you have to be on probation along with it. But sometimes the case doesn't make sense that you also need to be on probation. It's no, you need to participate successfully in a restorative justice process, and that's it. You don't need probation with it. So it is giving out a new alternative. And so I think it would be good to get that input, whether it's your committee or from the judiciary. Well,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the first part for sentencing is on Title XIII, but then we'll get into restorative justice program that's established within title 28, which is established within DOC. We get to work together. So we'll be working together. Shawn? Representative Donlin. Donlin? Oh, wow.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. I'm showing your question. I apologize.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: What? Can you just go

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: over like, I know what reparative program is. Is. I know I kinda know it. Can you tell me the so what's important about this post thing?

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Yeah. So a restorative justice process can be used at any point in any type of conflict, really, even before But the goal is that you are bringing together the voices of whoever's involved, in this case, a crime. So it is the offender, the victim, it could be community members, And it's having a conversation about what happened, who was affected, what needs to be done to repair the harm, what needs to be done to make sure that this type of harm doesn't happen again. And it's coming up collectively with an agreement of what the responsible party needs to do and then having maybe follow-up meetings, but having a meeting to close it out and see, did that person do all the things that they need to do? And is there agreement that it successfully closed?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: And does this kind of avoid sometimes going into the legal process?

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: Yes. So that is the piece where there's the pre charge, which is what we spent a lot of time on two years ago and reworked that for the whole state. I was maybe ambitious and wanted to do postcharge at the same time, but then that got to a work group, and now we have the recommendations from them.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: Okay. Thanks. Yeah. That's all I you know, that's helpful. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's with your local CJCs? Yep. Community justice centers.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: One of the things that we changed, again, the original legislation from two years ago is making it very clear that precharge cases go through the attorney general's office, and that DOC does Pope's charge, created very clear lanes for that, which wasn't the case before that legislation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is it just for money, but also programs? Also programs. Yes. Because the money used to come from DOC. So the history for these community justice centers or restorative justice, they kind of get intertwined, they're used together. Came about in the mid to late nineties. Well, maybe not even late it came about in the mid 90s with the former commissioner of corrections, John Gorchak. And we were in a situation where our population of incarcerated folks was increasing and we were building facilities. In the early 90s, we built the work camp in St. Jay, 100 beds for the work camp. And at the same time, we built the Newport facility. At that time, was 150 beds for that. And we were also knew we were gonna build one of the facilities in Woodstock, which was a regional facility. Our lease was coming up. So we knew we'd be building a facility in Southern Vermont of about 300 to three fifty beds. And what was also starting to happen at the time is when we started contracting out for out of state beds. So there were a lot of pressures on our correctional facility in the Chittenden facility. I mean, we were 200 people at the Chittenden facility. I mean, they were sleeping in everywhere. And that and that's when it was a male facility. Triple bunks. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty bad. And John Voortchuk, who's commissioner of the of DOC at the time, says, We can't keep doing this. We can't build ourselves out of this. And we can't afford to build ourselves out of it. So he started looking at who was taking up the beds in our correctional facility. And he and another person in DOC did a lot of work data collecting. And he came up and said, why are we spending, at that point, it was like 50,000 a year, 40 or 50,000 a year, to house folks in a hard bed who have a low risk to reoffend and

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: low to moderate severity of crime. Why are we housing these folks? We should be keeping our beds for those folks who have a high risk to re event and a moderate to high severity of problem. That's what we should be doing. So he's the one that started instigating this shift. And then he said, the folks who are really low risk and low severity in crime, we need to hold them accountable through the community that they harmed and repair the harm. And that's when these justice centers, he started proposing these justice centers. And I think the first one started in Memorial County. And now I don't know where it went from there. But he said, if we could have the community folks address the person who committed the crime and the victim there together, to bring them together and repair the damage that was done and not use a hard bed to incarcerate the person. Because we're not getting the results from incarcerating a person, the person needs to take ownership of the behavior of the criminal activity. So that's why the money started coming from DOC. And that was in the late nineties. And these community justice centers started to develop from that. And the funding just all came through DOC from their budget for these justice centers. And then over time, it's just grown. Each county

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: kind of did their own flavor of this and added pre charge and we're gonna do ours this way, which is all great. And as it grew, it was just clear that SAS, right? It's like, well, how come they get that and we don't get that? And so that's what the legislation is. How do we make this? Because it's great that you've all grown and developed your new things, but now that it's statewide, let's make things consistent across each county. So it's not, you know, you do something in one county and you might be seeing different circumstances in the different county.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It clarified the stream of funding. Yes, that was a big Clarified piece

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: the stream

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: of funding.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this was all an initiative from corrections. How many years ago you'd want to go back? Thirty years ago, who knows? To really deal with all the ground in our facilities and to not have so many people out of state. I mean, we got to We were at a point in the late nineties and early two thousands, we had 700 folks out of state. Our out of state beds down in, I think it was in Kentucky at that time.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: was 700 folks. Yeah. We're at 700. Have we

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: ever had somebody must have statistics of the state population versus these numbers? I would love to see that with the restorative justice drops down

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: because we've put in justice reinvestment initiatives over time. So our incarceration back in Was this justice reinvestment two, maybe? The projection for us back then, that was over ten years ago, over ten years ago. The projection, if we had no initiatives in place, we were gonna have over two thousand thousand three hundred people incarcerated. And we put in a lot of initiatives and it avoided a lot of folks being incarcerated. And COVID is anomaly. I wouldn't even look at COVID.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: The numbers on those COSO programs are especially staggering for reducing re offense. Definitely we should hear more, last biennium, we heard a lot about that. That's why you pair somebody with like three community members and really check-in.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Circle of support in a category. And that's through our community. So if we didn't put any of this in place, I mean, population would probably incarcerate be over 3,000. We were incarcerating low risk folks to reoffend in low severity. That's what we were doing. The other

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: thing I will share is that we see in the community justice centers is that maybe not so much with these cases, because the person still goes through a court process. A lot of the cases that I've worked with are pre charged and it is a way for folks to deal with it before they go. But even in the cases where it's gone through court, I can remember a case person went through court and the victim, the person went to jail for a little bit, but also part of his sentence was to participate in a post charge restorative justice. You can even get them to come in as witnesses or something to talk to. But the victim was a woman and she shared like, that's what she needed to fully heal and move forward on that. In the moment she needed that punishment and going through the process and doing that, but then she really needed to be able to be face to face and have a conversation and have the person understand, This is what your actions did. This is how it affected my life. This is where I'm at now. But also to hear from him and his story. That doesn't happen in court at all. There's no talking to each other and going that. We heard from

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: a former representative who went through the pre charge program as an impacted person in 'twenty four. We did a joint meeting with, I think, you guys this year, a similar story about how much resolution she got out of that.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: So some folks think of this adding onto it, but I just say it is a whole different thing. Doesn't have to be an either or. I think there can be times when maybe that's the only sentence somebody needs is participating in a process, but it can also be that you go through the whole process, maybe even have jail time, but you still have this. And the other thing to know is that we don't force it to happen. And you'll read in the bill, there's certain criteria, parties have to be willing to come to the table, take accountability. We do screening. So it's not forcing what will actually make things worse. It's hopefully making something that will help people heal.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's tough on the victim too. The victim really has to be a part of this. And sometimes victims just don't want things. It's too painful. Then other times it brings closure and healing. So it's so individualized. So this is just a tool to really help with our corrections population and really help people rehab. And these are not gonna be your more serious felony funds necessarily. I mean, there's a screening process that each justice center goes through. So not every person is a good candidate for that. Other questions? So, Karen, you know the drill that we do in this committee. Later. We talked to the members and see if they're interested in doing further work. If people are, then we'll have the drafts person come in and walk us through it. And We can reach out to you who we shouldn't have come in and testify. Go from there. But I wanna get a feel of the committing what people are interested in.

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: The only last little pitch I'll put out there is that it isn't just from like, it is coming from this report and this group with it. So it's not a me, Dale. It's just getting it out there for that report.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: My new sponsor. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, miss. Yeah. You're very nice, Gary.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Sorry. What

[Brian Minier (Member)]: are name?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: while this expression people's minds, are folks interested in working further on

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: Absolutely. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Yeah. We should

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: take work

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: on it, like, last biennium. So it'd good to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: that's a bright green onion.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It sounds more like a

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Mary A. Morrissey)]: I'm on

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's a housekeeping to mirror reality, Phil.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe. Yeah. So We're gonna Quick work. Gonna Quick work. Be Take. Take. Yeah. Take. So we'll need to schedule Michelle Charles to give us a walk through on this. And, also, if you could find that report and and post it to our webpage.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah. I'd like to hear

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: from state's attorneys, especially if they haven't been part of

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: the We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: will. We just gotta figure out. We'll we'll deal with that, but we gotta get Michelle in first.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Mary A. Morrissey)]: Which one are you studying?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Five forty nine. Focus on

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the gray.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That's not right, but our

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: picture came down. I know. What's that? Sure. What happened to

[Brian Minier (Member)]: the picture with our image? We have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to Oh, it's because it feels safe.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. I thought maybe Sweeney

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: or two from my nine is

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: a no brainer too. I haven't even introduced it.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'm just telling

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you. Let me

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: see Troy has no word. Okay, Troy, if you could introduce yourself.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'd be happy to, Madam Chair. Fredrick, state representative from Burlington, Vermont. Let's start with 549. 549 is a fairly simple, not a lot of complications to this. Right now, we give a nine driver's ID to folks as they are departing from our correctional facilities. Right now, statute requires that those folks have to have been sentenced. This expands that to folks who have been detained for at least six months. That's really the gist of the bill. I think this allows us to do two things. We have been learning within the committee the blurred line that exists between our long term detainees and the sentenced population, many of whom are going to be requiring identical service to the folks who have been sentenced. We've talked about it with regard to MOUD and continuity of care. This is another example of how that line is further blurred. The other thing I think it helps us to do I think the program itself warrants some deeper looks as well. I'm not convinced that the program is working as statute intends, meaning I think we can clean it up a little bit. And I'd like to use this opportunity in testimony as to whether or not we are doing what we suggested we should be doing with this program.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The ID program?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, yeah. The ID program in general, and then the expansion of it to detainees. That's the bill.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: I have a question. Is there something I haven't read it yet, but is there something in here? So I realize you put in a minimum of six months. But as we've learned, you guys already knew, but we learned last year, some of us newer people that you go to court, they go, hey, by the way, you're done. So how can they get that non driver's license that quick? Is there something built into here?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I think we have to talk about something we have

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to talk. It's not in the bill right now that automatically corrects for that or accommodates that. One of the things that I think we can benefit from discussing. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the six months is there for sentenced folks. So for sentence, currently a sentence person can get a non driver's ID as well. They can also get a driver's ID if they paid for. But they would have had to have been incarcerated in prison for six months or more. And that would be a person who's sentenced. So their detainee time would not calculate into that.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is that a question or is it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it's a I'm not sure which. I think

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: It's the right number too?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. It's a sentence. It says current law says an individual sentenced to serve a period of imprisonment of six months. So you have to have been sentenced and you serve six months and then you can get a non driver's ID. So this came at a request of some folks in PNP, probation and parole, And that they were saying if we could just do the detainees, or detainees who have been there for six months, if they can get an ID, that would really help when they are released for that. Because they could be released on probation. And then they don't have any ID, but the PMP office is supervised. So they said it would be very, very helpful. So, you have a big question mark on your face.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: How about if you're not incarcerated? What if you don't have a non driver's ID? How do you get a non driver's ID? If you don't have a you're not traveling, you don't have your You go to DMV.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Driver's

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: license. What if you don't have a driver's license? I mean, what what do people do if they don't have

[Rep. Karen Dolan]: an ID?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Non driver's

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I think Yeah. And what's that cost?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I forgot what it costs. It's very minimal. Through D and B, you need to have proof of identity. What is $29.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. That's for folks who want to purchase

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Purchase a driver's

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: reinstate a car. Okay. Gotcha. So my guess is that it's less than

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: It's less than

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: less than that.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: To guess. I don't know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: DOC and DMV worked up an agreement that it's take it's paid for by the state for that non driver's ID for folks who are sentenced. If an average citizen needs a non driver's ID, you go down to DMV, you have to have some ID for it. It doesn't cost very much. For a non driver's ID? Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So I guess my point is, so we give them $24 they can get a non driver's ID? Everybody ought to have an ID, is what we're really saying.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, they need it upon release. Oftentimes for identification for getting prescriptions filled, identification for getting housing, identification for You need it immediately.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But everybody needs that. Whether you've been incarcerated or not, but why shouldn't everybody have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The that idea of law is saying that folks who are incarcerated for at least who are sentenced and have served six months can have a non driver's ID.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's already in law.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What we're extending this to is for detainees.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, okay. Okay. I missed that part.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: But that's already okay. Testimony we heard and I've heard it. It's like it's that like week when you're first out is so fragile and it's just going to take going to the drugstore and not being able to get the meds you got that you go buy.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: To the seminar last week, last year. It was done. Really? So you can

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: get this in.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: To get an

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: ID, DMV has to work with the feds because there are requirements for the real ID in the So DMV has to really work with that. Wanda Nimole was commissioner of DMV when we updated the law for folks who were sentenced for real IDs, none last session was session before. And we spent a lot of time with commissioner or whatever, Wanda Minouley, because she was commissioner of DMV. DOC, it's very, very complicated. It's not something you just automatically can do. You've got to The person who's incarcerated has to work with DMV. But DOC's the linkage. Very complicated.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: I'm kind of probably in Kevin's lane here, but my question is, and I'm totally on board with this, if anyone gets picked up by the police and gets brought to a correctional facility and does not have an ID, why aren't they getting one provided for them?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because they're detainees. They're not sentenced.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: I don't

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Police officers.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: I don't but I don't care if they're just detainees. Because they could be there for three days. And that's the exactly. I still want them to get an ID.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, it might be the

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: two Can talk about that if you sent the bill representative?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: Because all I'm saying is that, like, don't going through that process last year, like, not have an ID was such a barrier. And and if you're a mess and you're if you're going to a correctional facility, whether you're detained or sentenced or whatever,

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: things aren't

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: good for the most part in your life. So I just think that we should be working hard to get that person an ID, no?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But What am I missing? Well, I was just saying, maybe I'm on a different understanding of this, but just because they're picked up and detained, they may have an ID at their house or somewhere else. Why would we go through the process recreating an ID? Well, they have one, it's fine.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: I'm just saying that they don't have one.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But how are you gonna know that? And you get a wonderful DMV to see if they have record.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Then I'm right.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: I gotcha. And this is where I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: feel like Alice may be saying the same thing, but logistically, you have people coming in and out that are short term detainees. It's the same thing I was talking about with relation to age 32. How can you ensure that when someone comes in for such a short, potentially short period of time

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Right, but

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'm playing devil's advocate here. Oh. To protect those who would provide services to anyone. Why doesn't it make sense that anybody that's over 15 gets one of these issued and if you don't have this card, I don't have to rent you an apartment because I don't know what's really you.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Benefits. I'm going the other way around.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Flies. This

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: protects society.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: No problem here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let me sum up 19 cars.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, they should, though. If it's why should you be able to just wisely that your name is valid.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why do we force some people to do this? Because it's protection

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Okay. Sorry, Kevin. I'm not a big fan. Guys? You. Gonna

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: be worse. Sure.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It will. I see that

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Conor Casey)]: that can be problematic if someone already has an ID. I'm just trying to get everyone to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have an ID. You'd have to work with DMV. I mean, DOC doesn't have a pool. They're based on what the person volunteers. But do you have to

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: appetite to take up this bill and continue

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: that if an individual is charged with a felony, they are then prohibited from voting.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Vermont incarcerated individuals just like Maine are allowed to vote regardless of Conviction.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: What's that gonna do with five forty nine, though?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, not just asking so they know you.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I have no idea, Jack, to vote.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No? No. K.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: I can show him to advocate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm gonna ask somebody for this. There's no bill

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: for ID for to vote.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Adam, too. I made the most

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: The government asked bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To take second.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: And I yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I split the shots. So what

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: I would Maybe

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Michelle could quickly I don't know if Michelle needs to quickly touch base on this. I think it's pretty self explanatory when you look on page seven, what it does. But it might be good for Michelle to give an overview of what the current statute is. Or maybe Hillary ends up doing it. But I think it would be really important for legislature to go through what current statute is for this.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Mary A. Morrissey)]: Well, we'll have to do a drive by approves because where is the money coming from?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's coming from within the budget of DOC or DMV because it's automatic in mind, but there's nothing that indicates. I can't remember. Did we have to go through the approves? Oh, we did to my It's internal to the department's budget.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Mary A. Morrissey)]: There's kind of a number of I don't know.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: In some place.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a fee of $29.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So Maybe we could look at the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: ways of commissions.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: There you go.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they may have an estimate.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I'm kind of joking.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You put that on

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the machine. But it's the person who pays the fees. That would go through. So if we could have we could have spouse or whomever go through current law. So I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: think people

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: need to know the current law. And we also need

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Free bath

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're gonna see here for safety. Much fun. And we also need I'm curious. Motor vehicles. Now if you really want out who to get from the department disability. It might be the commissioner.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is it just you?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Might wanna talk to Wanda because she was commissioner of DMV, and she's the one who helped us with this law. She could maybe help figure out who from DMV should be in the room. Thank

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you, committee. Very generous conversation. Switching gears to five fifty. This one's got a little more to it. I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about the origin story on this and the genesis of this. So this occurred it was shortly after session last year, so this past summer. I got an email from a woman named Kalani Gagne, trans identified woman who had been incarcerated within our system for, I think, sixteen years. And if you decide to pursue this, I want to let her tell her story. So I'm not going to go into a lot of depth, but I want to talk about why she brought this to me. Again, Kalani is a trans identified woman. That aside, she spent the majority of her sentence and again, I think it was fifteen or sixteen years in our men's facilities, including our out of state facilities. She has a lot to say. She would be an amazing witness regardless of whether or not we take up this bill, because she could talk at great length about what that was like for her and specifically what that was like to her in Mississippi. She's lived in a few of our out of state facilities, not just Mississippi. Anyway, she, for for the year prior to her release, they brought her back to Vermont, and she was housed at CRCF, the women's facility. Kalani has significant concerns about the health care we provide to trans identified inmates, whether that's mental health services, medical services. And she thinks that we could do a much better job at making sure that our trans inmates are better serviced from a medical perspective. I that's not anything we've heard from WellPath, so that would be some interesting testimony as well. That's all in the bill. There's things in here that I know we would have to add to the bill if we want to do due diligence to client request. The second component of this, which isn't really in the bill yet, but I want to bring it to the table because I want to be transparent about what I think needs to happen, This would require a little more conversation. Kalani also has this is hard for me. This is complex for me because for me and it's the language is in here a little bit. The other thing that happened is Ben was writing this, and then Ben handed it off to Michelle. So as all of that was happening, it got to the point of meeting the deadline. So I know there's things in here that Connie would want. There's things missing in here that Connie would want in here, and it just didn't make the deadline. So I submitted it. This is this is the complexity for me. For me, when people tell me that they are transitioning, I believe them. I philosophically know that gender is a construct and that not everybody identifies a binary. Right? There's a continuum of gender. So for what people tell me that this is who I am. This is how I wanna be known. These are my pronouns. This is my name. I believe them. I respect them, and I use that. So for me, trans women are women and should be housed with women. That's different in corrections. It's more complicated in corrections. And Kalani will tell you and again, I want her to tell her story. I don't want to tell it on her behalf that she's worried that people misuse that and misuse the ease of claiming identity merely for the sake of being housed in a different facility. This would be especially poignant if we had a new state of the art women's facility. Right? But that's where it gets complicated and complex. I had a brief conversation with Haley. They have a pretty robust policy already in place for what it would take to there's a whole review process for people who identify as trans, and they want that to have an impact on their housing. So I would wanna hear more from DOC about that policy. I don't necessarily think we have to create statute, but we may wanna make sure that statute requires the Department of Corrections to have a solid policy in place for that conversation about where people get housed based on their claimed identity. So it's a complex topic, and it's really in two parts. I think trans specific care, we can create statute around. I think how we accommodate housing for trans identified people is a bigger, deeper conversation. And there's a lot of people we would wanna talk to. I'm interested very much in making sure that we do this right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know we've asked in previous testimony how many of our incarcerated folks are trans, and I can't

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I don't

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: know the numbers off the top of my head.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Double digits. Yeah. It's the low double digits. Low double digits.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it's, like, thirteen, fourteen for that. It's regardless

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Of the 1,600 and Yeah.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: I'll use Andrew Silver for the record. From? Rutland. Sorry, Rutland.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are you representing an organization

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: No, I just used to work for the DOC when I was there. I was 16 back in 2023.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You worked for DOC?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Yeah, was a professional officer.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In the Rutland facility? Correct. What years were that,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you said?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: 'twenty three to 'twenty four.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, all right.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Serepipitous. So Did

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you want to weigh in on this?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Mean, I could. I just had the number off.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What is the number again?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: It was '16.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was '16? I believe,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: yeah, two years ago. Yeah, A year ago. System or

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: just system

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: System wide. Majority of them are, at least by DOC policy now, if I remember correctly, the individual has the right to choose based on their identity if they're at the female facility or male And in the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: does DOC honor that usually?

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: From what I've seen, yes. Obviously I was in events facility. I never interacted with any training. To my knowledge, all of them at the time were It's success. Yeah.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And again, Haley does can talk about the policies, the vetting process that is currently in place. Then we would have a question about, is it robust enough?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know we've talked on the surface of this a few times, but we haven't gotten to death.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I'll keep it short because the ground's already been trod. But as I understood it, I don't recall if it was testimony here during a tour of the women's facility. But my understanding was current operating procedure is self identification. And so that's what's happening, is what I understand.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I guess more statement on my end. The reason I co sponsored this bill was because I have the constituent that did health care work out of state, not in Vermont, for people that were incarcerated that were LGBTQ. I don't think it was trans specific, and so I just know that this is a topic we should be looking at. I had this conversation months ago. So when I saw it, I was like, you know, it kind of reminded me of that conversation. And I'm sure there's a lot that we can do to modern facilities to better reflect that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Yeah. I mean, I I think this I know very little of this issue in corrections, haven't served on this committee. But I think it could be a catalyst to talk about the issue overall there, and then delve into some of these pieces. But I'd really love to hear from the witness that Troy said. I'd love to see what the DOC policy is. I think we should, it's a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah, don't watch the hogs, I'll be fast. The issue that you raised at the end of, you know, call them bad actors or whatever, sort of policy identifying? A biorder. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Can say that. Okay. Claiming in a different way. Is there more to say about that now, is that something that you're hoping comes out in testimony? Know, what what

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's a weird one for me to talk about. Because like I said, I believe people and I respect people, but I can see how that could be manipulated. And I know that the woman who began this process with me has a lot to say about that. And I don't want to speak on her behalf.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: think having her come in before.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So for the committee, would that testimony from her be a good starting point? Yes. Yes. To determine how we want to proceed here?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: The DOC in current practice would be useful too,

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I think.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't

[Brian Minier (Member)]: know what goes first.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know which would go first. So maybe just hearing the testimony from her.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Think so, because it could open up questions we have for the OCA afterwards. Yeah, for it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I know this may be a real uncomfortable topic for some folks here, and I respect that. But we will treat this as fairly as we do any other bill. And if we find that, I mean, this deals with directions from DC, issues aren't going to go away. And particularly when you get into overcrowding issues, population increasing, it's going to put more pressure Joe, did you have any I

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: well, because I I would just suggest that the four bills we've looked at today, the other three seem to have a much more expedient path as far as what's required for testimony. So it would be good that they make their merry way if they will. Because this appears like it would require much more time than Troy. So it would be unfortunate if we ended up and we just ran out of runway in the in the session. Know?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the other bills?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So the other bills, which seem you know, that identification bill, I think, seems

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'll take more time than you think.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Well, everything takes more time here than I think. But I here. Here. I I I just they seem like they have a clearer path to getting making it to the floor and and an expedient expedient method.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Are we thinking that this would potentially be a bill that we'd wanna put in, like, a miscellaneous omnibus kind of thing if that's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the main one way down the road.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's way down the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: road. It's reading the tea leaves.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: For the record, I just saw recent numbers from August 2024. There's '22.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: August '24.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: '24, I apologize.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: August '25. August 2024, there

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: were 22. That was the latest I could find, at least very quickly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's a year.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: It's not insignificant. And

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: it's probably gone up since.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This population's gone up. So would the committee be okay to bring her in and testify? Absolutely. If you could get

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'll reach out first, Tate, and then I'll let you know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Even before we do a walk through, I think we're thinking of that.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Are we doing your 05:59, or have we already did that earlier? We just did that. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I had a conversation with Hillary. You're tax person, legal counsel. There's a whole chapter on the parole board and parole, title 28. And if folks want some bedtime reading, go to title 28 and go to it starts with the whole chapter. Chapter seven.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Chapter 11.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's chapter seven.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's good. You're welcome.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it starts with section four zero one through five fifty four. It talks about parole as a whole. And then, of course, says the structure of the parole board, which is in that chapter as well. Hillary said to me, she's going to be reading that whole chapter to understand how parole and the parole board works. So if folks wanna do a deeper a deeper dive and you gotta understand the language, folks, Spend some time reading it. Spend some time reading it because it'll give you some background for that. So we've got four new bills that we're working on. I'm going to set up a time with Katie McClain to go through page 32 and have her look at the video that we had testimony with Doctor. And the commissioner. And kind of, I really feel we need to update the statute for what's happening, practice wise.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Sorry, I didn't hear MOUD.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To update the statute for what's happening with MOUD in our facilities. Mhmm. Because the statute is not

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Doesn't match practice.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't match practice.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: There's there's all kinds of good lengthy discussion on that one. Could save for another day.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, I asked the bad questions. If in practice they're not following the law, what's the recourse?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We update the law because they've been doing this for a long time.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We update the law because they're not following the law?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No, no. It's not really awful. Have to provide that level of care and practice. It's more the practice, it's less the level of care. The problem that I think we've expressed in the committee is that we don't potentially want to see that new separate program with MOUD as it relates to because there's stuff that's not in compliance with statute right now that they're doing, but there's no alternative for them to provide it. That's my Am I off base on

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: We could do a couple hours on this one. That's not a good end of the day.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think that was I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: know we all have feelings about medically assisted treatment. Have established in our correctional system for seven years. Seven or eight years. Okay. So folks wanna repeal that. That's one conversation. But the reality of the situation is it's a program that's been in our correctional facilities for seven or eight years. And we in order for it for them to continue in the form that they're doing it as it has evolved over the years, the the statute needs to be updated for that. That's where we're at. I mean, we can have the philosophical conversation. Should we do the program to begin with? But that program has been in existence for seven or eight years.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: I think that the difference is, and I think probably where some people issue with it, is so the doc says, we don't know if somebody's a detainee or sentence, so we do it for everybody. Now, one the thing is to change the statute to say, okay, it's everybody, or there's the other side, which I mean, there's many sides, I'm sure, but the other side is, well, DOC staff needs to let the medical people know, in fact, as a detainee, they don't qualify for this. I don't see that as

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: being You're gonna have a lawsuit. Well, I was just getting to

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: the bar. Was like, I don't see that that's going to be your option, but

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think that that's probably You

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: would have a lawsuit, for sure, I'm sure.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: mean, had a conversation with Katie, And I mean, there were things that they agreed that they need to look at the statute, particularly if they want to provide more of the support treatment. I don't think the statute incorporates that. And if we really feel that they need a more holistic approach to rehab folks and DOC is willing to do this, Are we gonna say to them no? Because if we don't update the statute, you know, they really will be in violation of thought. That's the reality, right?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That's why I asked the question.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: We'll discuss.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, that's the reality. That's why we put laws in place and so that they were supposed to be compliant.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, and they're coming in with a new proposal that they haven't implemented yet, which then means in order for that to carry through our system, you need to update the law. And that's why I asked them, I said, we're gonna need to update the law.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But that's a separate question about

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the new versus updating existing Well, you've gotta we've gotta right now, and they've been doing this since really the for a long time. It's medically necessary. Detainees and sentenced folks are part of the NYUD program. The statute only refers to folks who are sentenced, and we tried to correct that last year.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To incorporate detainees. So, you know, I mean, and if they're gonna extend, try to extend this pilot project of the court accountability, there will be detainees coming in at some point. They're not all gonna be sentenced. The administration wants to expand programs and services that are provided, the statute has to follow those initiatives. So Alice, want to see who? Katie McClenn. Have her watch the video and see where we're at, what changes we need to be.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible William "Will" Greer)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because they they were they basically asked for changes to the staff to collect. Because

[Brian Minier (Member)]: you brought up the accountability docket, are we having a defender general back? Is there a plan to do so? That just felt short.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yep. That was fair.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: can. I think also if you do that, we should also have a conversation with him about his staffing struggles. Yes. Yes.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Yeah. But not tonight.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. No.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Is fine. Next week.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hey, Michael. Hi there. I made money, he's back up here. He's not always in Montpelier all the time. So, tomorrow's Friday.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It is Friday. That's our first expense report day.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That's true.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Everybody hope the weekends are Are

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: you really letting us out of here? You ready tomorrow?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yep. Time. Oh, good.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: Good. Stop talking. We can leave early.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're the afternoon. We're joining for the afternoon. And then tomorrow is just the joint meeting. It is on sex trafficking tomorrow. And we've got a lieutenant from our state police who has been working in for quite a few years on this particular issue and does all the investigations. And so we'll be giving a presentation. It's It's happening across the state. It's important for us to know. Is

[Brian Minier (Member)]: it tied to proposed legislation or is this just informative?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's really coming from me because in Springfield, we have what's called Project Action, which is a common It's just the providers, social providers, any providers in the community with law enforcement, states come together and really work at issues that are occurring in the community. It could be criminal activity, it could be behavioral activity to really divert folks from going through the criminal justice system. And we had a presentation from Lieutenant Steuben back in August or September. And it really was instigated by our PMP office staff because they're seeing this.

[Andrew Silver (Former DOC staffer, Rutland)]: That's huge.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. It's it's sort of human trafficking, but it's sex trafficking. Mhmm.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And he has worked on this and done the investigations, and he gave a great presentation. And I was sitting there going, legislators need to hear about this. So it's an information

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What room are we in?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're in 267. It's more of an information exercise just to raise awareness of

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible Mary A. Morrissey)]: why Why was it not done for all of you?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was hard enough just to get another committee I'm sure. K. For that. So so when he went to slideshow, I assume, well, no. It's just to educate us. Yeah. Mhmm. K. Alright. So then we're done at noon tomorrow.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: K.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then we'll talk. We'll figure out what we wanna do for a Friday.