Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Groener]: Yeah. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the people that count. Oh, oh, welcome, folks. I was on YouTube. Welcome, folks. This is house collections and institutions. It is, whatever date today is, Wednesday, We January are running a little late. We just finished off with a joint meeting with another committee that ran a little bit over, so we apologize for running a little late. We're We gonna shift gears a little bit. I know for some members, this this project is not new to folks. And for other members, this is brand new. But this is a continuation of what was called a PRIN project that started back around 2020, basically. And it was work with the Urban Institute, with correctional working with DOC, as well as working with the University of Omaha. Really, the goal is to put in new initiatives within corrections to help our folks who are incarcerated, but also to help staff. That project finished up, I think, about last year, year and a half ago. And DOC has still been continuing working with UVM to carry through this research project. So Abigail Crocker has been one of the spearheads. You've been here since the beginning, still working within the Springfield facility. We have a member from the Springfield facility, we call him Geo, who really works on the you know, allowing volunteers to come into the facility, but also working directly with with Brandon. We have some other folks in central office here from DOC and former correctional officer who's now went over to the dark side. I gotta give that little dig. But it's really I just wanted to bring the committee up to speed in terms of what's happening here because it will impact some of our policies going forward. So, Abigail, welcome.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: Fantastic. Thank you. Let me get myself organized here. And start start. So for the record, my name is Abby Crocker. I'm an associate professor of statistics at UVM and UVM's director of the Justice Research Center. And as Chair Emmons mentioned, I'm a research partner with my colleagues here from the Department of Corrections. And I'm really grateful for them being here as part of this because it is truly a partnership. So just really want to name, like, Deputy Commissioner, Kristen Calver, and Michael Groner, who leads our steering committee, and Anthony Giordano, who is the champion down at our anchor facility in Southern, and Haley Summer, who helps bring everything together with communications and policy through our steering committee. So there's still a lot of folks involved in the effort that are not part or not in this room, but really grateful to have the folks here who are. So what I really wanna do today is recognize that I was here in this committee last February. So I'm sure everyone remembers every detail of the testimony then. We're gotten. Yeah. So, like, there we go. But I thought maybe what I'd do is just give sort of a a quicker sort of background and make sure we still have that footing of what print is, make sure we understand the structure of it, and then really share some highlights of what we've done over 2025 to stabilize that infrastructure. Because as Chair Emmons mentioned, the Urban Institute work ended in 2024, but the work is really important in Vermont. So the steps we've taken together to make sure it sustains. And then really where the plans are moving forward, how we can collaborate more and be a help to those in this room to do that. And please ask questions as we go. So just even stepping back to sort of the what is PRIN, and at its most functional, PRIN is a research practice partnership between UVM and the Department of Corrections. It's unique in that it really recognizes prisons as an ecosystem where staff and incarcerated issues intersect. And we really value the lived experience of correctional staff and those who are incarcerated in the facilities as expertise. So those are our core partners in understanding what it's like to be inside corrections. Another core value that drives PRINT is this independent data and research, recognizing how important data are to understanding these systems and using that information to drive action. That's really the role of UVM. UVM is the independent data person, and our job is to work with those with lived experience to make sure that the data represent their experience. Then collecting data for data's sake is useless. And so really, the other key piece of this is we need an infrastructure that we can take what we learn and drive transformation and action. And that's sort of that innovation piece that Chair Emmons mentioned. And really, all of these things together are how we use sort of the people who know the system best to create data and use that data to drive change, and then also measure to see if these changes are working. And really, why did print exist? Like, where did it come from? Like, prisons are the least transparent and the most understudied public institutions in the country. That lack of transparency means it's really hard to understand what's going on inside of them and use meaningful and then use that sort of and then actually make change based on that. So it's it's really that that black box of a prison system is is unique. And historically, where data do exist in prison settings and research do exist, it doesn't really center the voices of those who know the system best. So typically, historically, the way that prison research has worked is people from the outside or outside systems come in and analyze and leave. What do you think about a research partnership between UVM and the Department of Corrections? And real they were really interested in exploring that. Said, well, let's let's give it a try. And so we spent that 2019. We traveled down to Connecticut, went to the True unit together. We went to Maine and went to the women's reentry facility in Maine together, really to try to think how could we use this research partnership to modify and change corrections. And it was sort of good timing because in 2020, the Urban Institute put out a call for applications for states to apply for funding to be part of a national learning consortium where departments of corrections and independent research entities would come together to try to use data to transform prisons. So it was sort of like this grant was written exactly for us in that moment in time. So we applied for that together, and we got the award and joined this five state consortium with Delaware, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, and Vermont. And then that grant really helped us with the technical assistance to set up what is the structure of PRINT today. And that structure is really grounded in this community engaged approach to research, which means we value the lived experience and the independent data. We had a pilot facility that with Southern. That's where we really tested out sort of this research partnership, the lived experience model, and innovations. And we set up steering and exec committees. And steering committees really were the central office and the leadership team there, because that's going to be really important when we get this information to actually drive change. And the executive committees, which are sort of the higher level, about when corrections can't make all the changes themselves, we're gonna actually need help from those outside, including legislators. I know that Chair Emmons was a big part of that committee as well, that executive committee. And so that really helped give us this infrastructure and this time to really learn about Bryn. And just sharing a couple details about some of the photos we have here. The top photo is the culminating experience from the culminating convening from the Urban Institute. This is everybody across all five states coming together. And that was in March 2025. And then the bottom left is the research and action, this is concepts of lived experience and researchers working together. And then also highlighting some of the great stuff that has come out of PRIN, sort of indirectly or directly. We don't really know. But the idea of opening the doors has brought great things, including I love this picture because it's a great moment where the National Prison Debate League was inside the facility, and a lot of the PRIN Council members, were part of that group. And we've got Gio right there in the middle, which is good. And and, you know, it's it's one of those, like, bright moments inside. Because a lot of times we hear about sort of the all the negative stuff that's happening inside the facilities, And this was a a really great moment where these folks prepared for this debate about the nor Norwegian model of corrections and and debated the Wake Forest debate team, and they won, and it was great. So it was a it was

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a fun moment there. Stuart? Yes. What's the magnitude of the grants,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: and how was it divided amongst the five states?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: So a great question. So the actual funding mechanism to support urban of this project, the the original funding source was Arnold Ventures. And so Arnold Ventures gave millions, I don't know the total amount, to Urban Institute, and then Urban Institute created this five state consortium model. And that model was basically, like, each state got some funding, and each state got a technical assistance team. So urbanists who paid for their team and the framework to keep everybody together, but then what they distributed to the different states was a $100,000 grant to the Department of Corrections, and that went in the first year. And that was really to make sure that they could use it for capacity. Because as we know, corrections gets really busy, and it would be very easy for corrections to say, Yeah, I'll do this. Oh, by the way, we're too busy to do it. So that $100,000 was really meant to be like, Nope, here you go. Here's some staffing for that. And then UVM got a $100,000 over the course of each year to actually do the research piece.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that money is not ongoing.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: No. It's over. And so this is why we needed like, it's one of the big things we've dealt with is how do we keep it going without this national partnership and without that consistent funding. And so very central, I would say, like the heart of PRIN are these prison surveys. And the surveys themselves are the root of the trusted independent data, and they're really meant to fill the gap in what's been missing, is the data around the voices of those inside has really been not part of the conversation. And that's what these surveys are really designed to meet that need. They're really valuable because they are trusted and they are independent. And so why are they trusted? And they're trusted because they're co created with people inside the facility. And so we really spent a long time just asking people in the facility. If you were to create a survey about what it's like to work here, if you were to create a survey about what it's like to live here and be incarcerated in here, what should be on it? What do you wanna know? And we did focus groups and interviews, we just talked to a lot of people. We spent a lot of time in the facility. And then we used that information to turn it into sort of a valid, rigorous survey. And that's what this is. And when we administer the survey, it is anonymous and confidential, and that's really important. And that's really important that the folks who are taking it know that it goes into the hands of UVM and not into the hands of the Department of Corrections, and sort of that confidential piece. And it really gives us a lot of information to dive deep and understand what the challenges are for those inside. Then it starts to the more we administer it, us to see are we moving the needle on some of these big challenges. So it really sets that baseline for statewide trends and insights. And we saw the success of the survey right away because I think I've shared this before, but the survey's super long. So there's 150 questions for staff and 150 questions for incarcerated folks. And as a statistician, I would say, Way too long. Nobody's gonna take it. And I was wrong. I was completely wrong. When we worked with our partners, the big feedback was, can't remove any question. Everything on the survey is important for people to understand what it's like to be incarcerated here or work here. And we really saw that in the feedback we got on the survey. So typically with a survey, you get about a 25 or 30% response rate. And we got response rates of between seventy five and eighty five percent. And the thing that impresses me more is this 150 questions. I would expect to see about 15 or 20% of people take a little bit and stop. But we actually had completion rates of about ninety nine percent. So people started to take it and were like, Okay, this is the right information I want to share. And they took the whole thing. So it's really sort of a treasure trove of insight of what it's like inside the facility.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I mean, did you get the same number, high percentage returns from correctional staff as well as incarcerated folks? Or was

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: it more incarcerated folks responded than staff or more staff that responded? So we got very high rates for both staff and incarcerated folks, slightly higher for incarcerated folks. But if you look at it by role in the facility, the security staff inside the facility had about a 96% response rate. So that was really high. That's really high. And again, everything we've done over the last five years gives us better information for what we're gonna do moving forward. Point of the surveys isn't to collect them and pat ourselves on the back, though. The idea is we created all these insights, and this is where the structure becomes important. We need our leadership team and we need folks in the facility from corrections who want to see these data and want to do something about it. And so what we did was we set up systems to try to use the information from the surveys to guide insights and changes. The way we did that was if you look at the survey, which I think I've shared copies with you of the 2024 survey, It's overwhelming. There's so much information. You've got 300 data points that are completely interconnected and complex. So where do you even begin? And so what we did was we did this thing called the data walk. And that means we took the surveys and we printed copies of all the results and gave them to everybody in the facility. And then we put up posters throughout the facility of the results and gave prompt questions like, what's important for decision makers to know about this? How do we better understand this issue? And asked folks inside and said, of all the things that are happening right now, you see all the challenges, what are the most pressing? If you could pick one to focus on, what would you focus on? And the information we got from the data walk really helped add context to some of these things. And the first thing that I want to say is the staff overwhelmingly identified staffing challenges and staffing shortages as the thing that needs to be addressed first. Incarcerated folks overwhelmingly identified preparation for release and getting ready for reentry process as the thing that needs to be focused. You can see that here, ninety four percent of staff, and this is in the first survey we did in 2021, said they don't feel there's enough staff to meet the needs of the prison. And eighty three percent of incarcerated individuals said they do not feel prepared for release. So that gave us our focus. Now what do we do? And we added some context here. And you can see that in the quotes. This is one by talking to people about the data from inside. The prison doesn't prepare people for release. The prison doesn't have enough staff to operate the facility.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Maybe you're gonna talk about this, but I hope those numbers change, if at all.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm gonna talk about it. Don't worry. I'll

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: leave you to it.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: Yeah. It's coming. And it's a good one, so I'm gonna save it. Yeah. And we also heard that like, feedback of, wow, people are talking to us, you know, and and really recognizing this difference in this approach. Because, you know, typically, somebody might you know, who's not in the facility and not having that lived experience would be the one to make a decision about what to do. And and you could see that that's a problem exemplified in this other quote here. Other people make decisions about our daily work, and they have no understanding how their actions impact people who actually do the work. So that disconnect of who makes the decisions versus who implements the decisions they've made was really apparent. And that's one of the things PRINT is designed to try to address, is that structure to move things forward.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I resemble that. Don't

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: look at me.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was like, was I was like

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: And so these insights really helped guide focus. If we think about how complicated it is to deal with the challenges of incarceration, it helped provide focus, and it really helped guide some real changes. And so those changes were at the operational practice and culture level. And I I really wanna emphasize culture because that's harder to measure. That's harder to measure, but you can sort of see it and feel it and experience it every day. And and it's, like, sort of a you know, something to help us keep the pulse of what's going on. But there was a lot of effort put into staffing support and recruitment strategies. The Medicaid eleven fifteen waiver was advocated for and really starting to think about reentry and health care services. In the facility, there's a beautiful coffee shop that helps staff and incarcerated folks come together. The Honors Unit was launched. So you could see things at sort of different levels and how each of these things actually starts to move culture. And one of the things that I think was also a big takeaway from Prinn is this recognition that prisons have been such closed door systems. They're trying to do everything for everyone all the time all at once by themselves. And this idea of opening the doors and being like, actually, wait, let's bring other people inside and doing this work has sort of, you know, the immediate help of we need different services inside as well as sort of this cultural change of, well, it helps in a new way of thinking and a new way to bring things in. And we really saw that with the partnership with UVM and DOC. Opening the doors of bringing researchers in allowed us to ask questions along the way, allowed us to sort of be like, why are we doing things this way? Maybe maybe there's a reason. Maybe there isn't. Maybe there's an opportunity to rethink. But it also resulted in, like, a nice approach of bringing more community based services inside. And and that has, like, a twofold potential impact, where the services that the incarcerated folks are missing, get provided by the people who do that really well in the community, which means staff don't need to do it, and it creates a warmer bridge for those going on the outside. So the intent around this is really great, the idea is a really good one. And knowing that over this five year period of working with corrections for PRIN, we learned a lot. We really, truly learned a lot. I think the biggest takeaway is just, progress is not linear. And it's a hard system to change for a lot of reasons. And we've learned a lot from the successes we've had, but I would say we've probably learned more from the failures that we've had. And the failures are where our strengths shine. Admit them. Oops, this didn't work. How do we change it? How do we modify? And how do we move forward? Because if we can't look at those things, then we're not going to actually make change. If we just think we're going to do this, it's going to have x impact, we're done, then it's not going to work. It has to be more like, we're going to do this. Shoot, it didn't work, why? And really be able to investigate the why so that we can move forward. And I think central to that is two things. Number one, the data help give us focus. So everybody has to trust the data. And that means the people who are the data, the people who are using the data. And that's why that sort of lived experience and rigorous research approach is so important together. And we need to use the time we've spent together to make sure we have the trusts and relationships so we can have those difficult conversations of it's not working. And I think those are some of the biggest values PRINT brings at this stage, and why it's more valuable today than it was five years ago. And that's why I think we all recognize that. And I think that's why we're sort of all here together today. It's like, we do want this moving forward. And that gave us this tricky time because we got through a lot of highs and lows between 2020 and 2024 because we had this national partner making sure we did. And so if things maybe got off rails sometimes, nobody could really walk away because we had this commitment to each other and this national lens looking at us. So knowing that we were getting rid of that at the 2024, what was the system we needed in place to make sure that we could take all the great stuff we've done and have it move forward? And when I was here last time in February, we were just getting ready to launch these things. And we were sort of that gentle prodding of, come on, guys. Let's do this. And the good news is these are the core things we really needed in place to move this forward, and we've done all of them. So we needed the contractual agreement between UVM and DOC, that infrastructure, to embed this as part of our institutional fabric. And that contract came to place this summer. And I really appreciative of all the work the deputy commissioner did that to make sure that that happened and it had the language in it to make sure that this was sustainable. We really needed to take all those lessons learned from the pilot facility, all the hard work that's happened down at Southern with GEO and the print council that GEO has pulled together there, to really make sure we could have that pilot facility become the anchor facility, the facility that can be the model and the mentor as we expand to all the facilities in the state. And then we really need to institutionalize this at the justice at UVM. Because, as Chair Emmons mentioned, it was like a it was like a project for faculty. And that's not a sustainable model for long term partnership. And so in April 2024, we established the Justice Research Center at UVM. And the former Commissioner Demel was there as part of that sort of launch and that sort of shared commitment moving forward there. So with all these things in place, it really gave us that foundation we needed to transition out of the national platform. And when we think about setting up that research practice partnership, we really look at sort of it has six core components to it. One is the steering committee. And again, these four components really came out of the last five years of working with Urban Institute. But that steering committee is so valuable. And that steering committee is that connection to the central office leadership and making sure that anything that happens in the facilities and at UVM can have that infrastructure for change. The anchor facility is that lived experience for. That's really where the PRINT Council is, and that's a group of incarcerated folks that Gio's been convening every week and preparing to make sure that they are sort of a key part of this team. And so then I go down to the facility and meet with that group and make sure we have this strong relationship and connection. We have the network facilities, and that's really when we're starting to think about how are we gonna onboard the other five prisons in the state into this model. And over at the UVM side, we have data and research, making sure we have the surveys. But not just the surveys, but also the the qualitative and the narrative that can help add context to the findings, as well as the capacity to analyze administrative data and secondary data sets that can also help us with a bigger understanding. We also have the Scholars Program, which I'll talk about in a minute, which is the mechanism to build capacity for this and really have more of a connection between the Department of Corrections and the university so we can really leverage the resources we have there. And then also recognizing that we really need to branch out into the community. And this community connection is really Exec like two point zero. How do we make sure that the people who shape the conditions and provide these services are part of this

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: structurally? I'm just curious, do the other four states have similar partnerships with a university?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: So during the time of Urban Institute, three the states, the partnership was three of the other states' partnership was with a university. What that partnership looks like now is different in all of the states. One of the states, it was the State Statistical Analysis Center, which is in the Human Rights Division, I think, of their group, that they were the independent partner.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, I lost focus just to make up the community connection. Is that the people involved with the facilities, or is that the greater surrounding community?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: Greater surroundings. So that's taking place for the Exec two point zero. That's our executive committee from before, and this is the future vision of that. So that's really saying that direct connection of what happens in corrections is influenced by everybody outside. So I would see the role here. Would say, me being here today fits in that bucket kind of thing. Community connection, the broader conditions. And I'll talk about the structure of that in just a sec. Okay. So what have we done to really implement this infrastructure in 2025? Things that are more work than they see. Like our expanded steering committee. So when we said, oh, we're continuing print, we're doing this, let's start now really making sure we have this consistent group of people meeting at the Department of Corrections. And so now we have an expanded steering committee. This is the thing that that Michael Groner champions for for the department. And it really brings sort of key players in the leadership office, brings Gio and myself, and and also as we onboard new network sites, brings everybody into that room so we can have that space to be like, this is working, this isn't working. And already that space has proven valuable. Where things start to go wrong or get off track, we can come back to that space and be like, wait a minute, I don't know if people understand the impact that's happening. And we can get so much accomplished just in that brief period of time where we can come together. We also launched UVM's PRINT Scholars Program, and this is really to address that gap of prisons being the least transparent and most understudied public institutions in the country. So how do we grow research capacity and be a better partner in this community driven approach to research? And it requires a lot of care. It's not just opening it up and saying, everybody come on in. It's really orienting to the process. And so this is what the program is about. And we launched that this summer. We brought in a team of like 14 new people from UVM, and we continued it this fall, bringing on six more people. And we have a new program launching this spring. So it's something we hope to keep growing and keep curating. As part of that, we worked with the council inside to develop these site visits, orientation site visits, which really bring people into the facility and help understand what PRINT is, do a facility tour, be able to ask questions. And that's really driven by the PRINT Council. And the PRINT Council are a group of about eight or so currently incarcerated people who we work with as research partners in all of this work. And we started the foundational expansion work with Marble Valley. So Gio and I went to Marble Valley. Beautiful reception from the superintendent there. They've already identified a print champion who will be the contact person as we expand into Marble Valley, which we're hoping to do this month. And really, that was sort of great sort of foundational work to have those folks identified, and they're definitely ready to have us there. And we have community partnerships as well. So just being in the facility, recognizing the community partners who are starting to come in, like bumping into Turning Point Center folks in the hallway, bumping into the Restorative Justice Center folks in the hallway, the CCP folks in the hallway, really helps spark relationships and create sort of that ripple effect of change. And really just wanna highlight some of the pictures here. The picture on the top is some of the the Prince Scholars group from the summer who who came down to the facility and spent a lot of time there. We've got the photo of Marble Valley, which is where we're headed next as our first expansion site. And then this picture of this cool art project happening hanging on the fence at Southern is really comes out of that community partnerships. Like bumping into the restorative justice folks in the hallway sparked this new quilting project, this arts based creativity this arts based creativity and communication project that's now happening at at Southern, which is very cool and has its own little ripple effect kinds of things that are happening around it. And so that will be something that moves forward next year as well.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And my Ms. Cherns, what do the scholars do?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: So it's really it's like trying to mentor them to bring them on to print so that they can get work done. And what they're gonna be doing is, like, data projects. And so and I'll share more about this in just a second, is the survey has so much information in it. And yeah. And if I don't answer your question in a second, let me know. Actually, I think it's right about here. And representative Headrick, this is yours. So so we're really and this is also to that point is the surveys are huge, they're immense, and they give us all this information. But the what we've also noticed, and this is sort of the point of the scholars program, is when it's a team of one or two people at UVM trying to do this, it's not going to work, which is why we establish a center. We need this capacity so that we can take all these data and really do these deeper data dives. And we started that this summer. So we really focused on talking about the complexities of reentry. We see this eighty three percent of incarcerated people don't feel prepared for release. So let's go ask them why and talk about it. So that's when we talked about these data dialogues. That's what we really engaged with this summer to really get this deep contextual understanding. And what we learned was from those dialogues that it is so complicated. There are so many different reasons why people don't feel prepared for release. And it's complex. It's interconnected. If you talk to this person, you get one piece of the story. If you talk to this person, you get a different piece of the story. And it's all really interconnected. So it's things from societal stigma to challenges with the process itself and availability of casework staff to lack of housing, jobs, training, all of those things. And one individual experiences that is different, but really helps add context. And that really helped us say we really identified the need that we need to better understand the conditions that shape those challenges, as well as we really need a deeper dive to understand how all those efforts we're putting in to address this, like turning point centers, CCV, peer recovery, all those reentry efforts, how are they actually working? It's a great idea to say, I want to do this, but then does it truly get implemented in the facility? And if it does, what makes it thrive? And so really the implementation of all the efforts to respond to these challenges. And I want to name a couple of things why these data are so important as you look at these trends. So in 2021, we showed ninety four percent of staff do not feel that there's enough staff to meet the needs of the prison in 2021. And then when we did this survey in 2024, that reduced to 84%. And the little green box next to that means that is statistically significant. So it started to move in the right direction. And so 84% of staff feeling like, hey, there's not enough staff to meet the needs of the facility, is not good. But what is hopeful is that we can start to see that we did something and it started to move the needle, if you look at these data that way. That's why it's helpful. Because what we really wanna do is meaningful change towards a goal, and we need to see that it's moving. And yes.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Sure. Have we actually synced those up to what the staffing levels were in 2024 compared to 'twenty six when we get this discrepancy?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: That's one of the things we're doing now. And so that's one of the things why it's helpful for us also to have this contract with the Department of Corrections that we can have access to administrative data as well. Because it might not be So it speaks to exactly the bigger interconnected issues. So it could be a lot of things. It could be staffing numbers went up. It could be operations in the facility made it feel like we didn't need as many staff. And this is gonna be really interesting when we do the survey again in 2026, because it's not so much about having more staff, it's about the right staffing ratio. And as we see way more people being put in our facilities, we might have had the right number of staff at one point or not, but the more the incarcerated population goes up, that's gonna have an impact as well. So it's really about the staffing ratio and how it's used inside. That's why deeper context and more data are so important. Then we also saw really clearly, we haven't really touched the needle on reentry preparation. And so that's been pretty flat across all three years. And so how do we really start to move that needle? We have to understand what's happening, what's causing that, what all the contributing factors are, and how the implementation of the efforts we're doing to address it are actually happening in reality. So that's really what we're doing now in 2026. It's the point of the scholars program is so that we have the capacity and the team who can do this work. So right now, we're working on a series of data briefs that bring this information together and do this deeper dive of the survey data and bring all the contextual information together. We're also modifying the survey to make sure that it's ready to go in both Southern and Rutland in Marble Valley starting June. So that's going to be really interesting information to get when we administer those surveys to see how some of these big benchmarks have changed. And we also have this way to bring some of the individual stories we're getting together through this approach called the composite storytelling. And so the idea here is we want to understand what the reentry process is like for everybody. But if you talk to one person, you can't design a whole system around one person. But what we really need is, all the stories so that we can uncover the complexities and bring them together in a way that illuminates that and humanizes that. And that's what this approach is really intended to do. And that'll give us a framework to then look at that and be like, Okay, what's my role in this? How do we do this? And all of those direct service providers that are coming together and they have a role to play in that process, what does that illuminate for them? How would it change their work? What about their work is dependent on somebody else's work? And really help us give structure and focus to what's been a really complicated conversation to have and is often happening in different rooms and in different siloed places. We also really focused on and this just came out of our our last meeting in the steering committee. It was a clear process to, like, what ideas come up for innovation? How do we decide? What are the new things that are gonna be added here? So, like, we talked about the coffee shop, the honors unit, all these sort of partnerships with new states. Where do those ideas come from? And how can we keep them coming without it becoming a list of demands? Like, I wanna do this, I wanna do that, and this is my idea. And that process to innovation that Michael Groner just sent out sort of a It's got that kicked off, and that needs to come from the steering committee and this clear process for how we can actually make that happen. And that's gonna be something we really need to pay attention to as we roll it out in 2026, because it it could go really well, and it we could also have situations like we did in the first round of print where it didn't go very well. So, like, that's really why it's so important that we have this history of what works and what doesn't, so that we can use that history to really move forward. And as we move forward, know we need to create spaces for more than just corrections. We need to have more folks at the table. And that's this idea of the Health and Justice Collaborative of saying, Okay, the PRINT research, what we found through the surveys, the qualitative stories, now what we can do, deeper dive to the administrative record, really illuminates stuff, gives us issues that we can focus on. The department's done things about that. They've made operational, cultural, and partnership changes. And we know that it can't end there. The conditions outside of our prisons actually influence what's going on. We see that now with numbers going way up, the kinds of communities that people are coming back into. And so we need those people at the table as well. And that's what this sort of collective impact approach is for working with the Vermont Public Health Institute to ramp this up and really have this follow our executive committee structure being sort of that bigger group that can help make these changes in the hopes of what we want to see more of a reality. And we need just that clear space to do it without feeling chaotic or siloed or disconnected. And that's work that really stems from UVM's role as the research arm of the National Center on Restorative Justice. And that's like this national approach to say, like, we got to do things differently. They're sort of funding that mechanism there. So now I'm going to pause and say thank you. And thank you to the steering committee members and the anchor facility folks and the people in the Justice Research Center who aren't here, and the ripple effects of the community collaborators that are joining and growing in this sort of effort for real systems change.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We are gonna have questions.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm thinking about the survey being rolled out not only more times but to more places. We've heard many times how there can be different characters from facility to facility. So that one question is, are you using the same one and how well is it going to fit? But also, when you go to Marble Valley, even if they know that this was put together with the collaboration of other folks inside, it wasn't done by them. So what does that look like? How do you do the survey?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: Yeah, it's a great question. And it's really something we have to tend to. So we aren't going to change the core of the survey, but we are modifying it now for exactly that reason. So a Marble Valley has to see themselves in it. Yeah. And so does the new generation at Southern because, like, right off the bat, we developed this at the height of COVID. So we have a whole section about COVID. We're gonna get rid of that. Like, knock on wood. Like, you know? So, like, there are things that need to be updated. We don't need to start from ground zero. There are things we aren't getting rid of. Those are staying the same. But we are paying explicit attention to that and making sure that it's useful for folks like you, folks like the steering committee. How do we make sure that works? And that involves a couple things. We have strong partnerships inside Southern. We can do that there with our PRINT Council, and we're leveraging that to give us a foot in in Marble Valley. And so we've talked about sending some of our PRINT Council folks into Marble Valley, because hearing it from a if you're currently incarcerated in Marble Valley and a currently incarcerated person from Southern comes in and says, Hey, we've been doing this for a while. Let me explain it to you. That peer to peer connection is so much more valuable than me coming in and being like, Hey, let me explain this all over again. And so really leveraging what we have built at the Anchor facility is going to be essential. And that's also why Jesse Rose is going to be really important. Jesse's the contact that's been identified at Marble Valley, and he's got the characteristics of the GEO, the one who has the understanding of the facility, the relationships with staff and the incarcerated folks who can come in and build community inside and start building trust with those inside. So that's really why we're doing the surveys in June, because that process is happening now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, I keep going back, but every correctional facility has a different culture. And it's really important to get buy in. I looked at Joe and I looked at Mike, and how are you folks feeling about extending this, expanding it to the other facilities? I mean, is it gonna take something from central office to get some of the folks on board in some of these other facilities? Or is it gonna be grassroots because they have a connection with you folks?

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: The department's already taken the initiative, at least from my side, to really expand this print into the other facilities. Our time with me and I went down at Rutland was very welcoming and I'm looking forward to getting into some of other facilities because I just don't have that culture that I would like to learn and kind of evaluate this long process. So the department itself is already taking the initiative. We have plans to go to Rutland and female facility and hopefully continue to expand from there. Right now, we're just putting that foundation to make sure that we have success while we're doing it.

[Michael Groener]: And I think we're taking, excuse me, a very measured approach. There You was some thinking at some point about just doing the surveys across all the other facilities at once. That was our reaction because it needs to be organic. It needs to be community based. And we've taken substantial time in identifying, like, Marble Valley's GO slash Roaner and finding that person who has the chops, so to speak, with both sides of the house, as I like to call it, both the incarcerated folks and the folks that work there. And it's been a very, very deliberate process. Superintendent James and Jesse have been involved in steering committee meetings for a number of, like, possibly months at this point. So they are getting a better understanding of PRINT and what it entails. And as far as central level support, that's that's me now, along with, like, deputy and other folks. I've been shanghaied into this. So I am able to speak to the folks at Rutland and the new generation along at Southern along with GEO having that having the two of us having been through it previously. And then also with the resources that I have available at Central and the connections there, we can provide the support to Rutland. I'm very optimistic that it's gonna go very well at Marble Valley.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what you need first, just to let the committee know, what I'm thinking. You need the superintendent of that facility first to be open to it. And then have those key folks like a geo in the facility that can bring the partners together. But the other piece, really need the buy in of the Gretchen officers.

[Michael Groener]: Yes. That is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's where I'm looking at you.

[Michael Groener]: Right. That's probably one of the most challenging aspects just because the incarcerated population has no qualms airing their grievances, for lack of a better term. The fact that UVM is involved and that it's a completely anonymous survey is very helpful when it comes to dealing with security staff. They need to understand how confidential it is, and we'll go through the same mechanisms that we use at Southern with the lock boxes. The DOC doesn't have the combination to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There's no retaliation?

[Michael Groener]: Well, I mean, there wouldn't be any way. But yeah. But there's you know, it's not like the survey and I don't mean this in a negative way, but it's not like the surveys that we take for HR. Yeah. Like, hey. It's completely anonymous. By the way, how long have you worked for the state? Which department do you work for? And are you logged into your state issued computer with your first and last name? We really don't know if you sent this. They probably don't, but, you know, we're all we're all some level of tinfoil hat. But and part of that is Anthony and I spending time in Model Valley speaking to staff as much as we can in our current roles and convincing them that it behooves them to be open, honest, and engaged with the process.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And how does UVM feel? How do you get the staff engaged? I understand the folks who are living there full time, they're craving people to hear what they've experienced. But the staff, how do you get them engaged? That's a great question.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: And really, and I think for anybody, for incarcerated folks and staff, for me, my seat at UVM, is a physical presence on-site. It's a physical presence on-site starts it and people get to see you and are familiar with you, and you can have hallway conversations and that kind of thing. And then but that alone is not enough. You need the trusted relationships with the key players inside, the influencers. And Michael Groener was that person. That's how we did it. It was walking around and saying, like, you know, for staff, that was Groener. And then we have similar influencers for the incarcerated folks. But you need that because you alone can't build the fun relationships. You have to build the right relationships and then use that influence to spread for both staff and incarcerated folks. So that's one of the big things we're focusing on now is, how do we do that with staff? We need to be ready to roll out. And again, that's hallway conversations, consistent presence, and credible messengers. Credible messengers.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: that's why we're in a very different place rolling out to Marble Valley than we were launching in Southern. It was Groner going around saying, everybody take this survey, do it. They were big partners. That was the fact that we're here now today with everybody in these different roles is, I think, a testament to its potential. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I've got two questions. We're seeing a real increase in folks coming into corrections. So what pressures is that gonna put on? But also, we're really seeing an increase in DTME numbers coming in. How is that gonna impact? What's currently happening, where it's established and some, but also expanding it out to Marble Valley. How is that going to play? And then there's going to be movement of inmates to other facilities. So how's all that going

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: to play out, do you think? So a couple of things. I have some thoughts and would love to hear my partner's thoughts as well. So number one, when we talk about sort of a snapshot in time of what's happening in the correctional facility, it's important for us to get valid information. So that's the state of affairs. People are coming and going all the time. We have questions on the survey about incarcerated folks' status. So like, are you a detainee? Are you hearing technical violation? Are you a sentenced individual serving your sentence? That will help us see if the distribution of those categories changes and look at how people respond based on those things, they're different based on those populations. The key is how we leverage the trusted relationships. Those are the hardest things to build. Those are the hardest things. It's easy to administer a survey. It's hard to get a survey where people take the whole thing. And the reason they do that is because of trust and relationships. That's the thing that's hardest. So we've taken some efforts to really focus on the designation of the print council. Who's on that board? How can we make sure that council meets the criteria that they can stay that council? And what mechanisms do we have to support that? And then they build relationships inside the facility for us. And then that's something that we're gonna have to address as well when we move to the other facilities. Because if we have to introduce ourselves for the first time every time we show up, it doesn't move forward. And I think a big chunk of 2025 was spent on making sure we had the right relationships, the right people, the right systems in place to keep those intact. And I don't know if my friends want to add to that.

[Michael Groener]: Recently drafted an internal guidance document that kind of lays out the criteria for the incarcerated population beyond or would be considered for placement on the councils and then the department's obligation, preferred steps to take as far as keeping those individuals at the sites that they're serving on the council and there's like time frames involved that you know we would prefer sentence folks to just because we want someone who's going to be there. And then as far as detainees and sentence folks, Abby will capture all that data in the surveys, and I'm interested to see because Rutland, as you and most of you are well, everyone's aware, Rutland's a very different population in Southern state. I'm interested to see the differences and

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Or the similarities.

[Michael Groener]: Or the similarities or just anything really like how is the Rutland population survey results going to compare to Southern states and how do we fine tune the services to each facility in response. As far as staffing goes, know, Haley's been working on signage and messaging for Marble Valley to kind of give staff at Marble Valley a list of what PRINT has gotten staff, for the lack of a better term, because you know this has been going on since the pandemic. Some things that new staff just it just exists on their first day, right? Like our relationship with Lori Gurney. Like, oh, they have an on staff psychologist that staff can follow whenever they want. If you're a rookie CO, that's just something that's always been here. But we need to remind staff that we didn't always have this. This was in response to survey results. So these are the positive things that we can get if you take the survey. And you can put questions about central office first on the next round of surveys.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You went over to the dark side.

[Michael Groener]: I did, so that's fine. I told Abby that. I was like, if you want staff to take the survey, put the questions about central in the first section and they will rip right through it. Now I'll take my medicine.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: And that's accurate because honestly, that's what happens.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There's another question about the survey. You all did a very good job, obviously, including people in the construction of it. I'm assuming you've thought about the interpretation of it. Obviously, you've to do

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: the

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: analysis. But when you see that things have gotten statistically significantly better, who gets to tell the story? And is it about the end of COVID? Is it about more people inside? Is it

[Michael Groener]: about more staff? Who gets to do that?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: That's exactly why these councils and our relationship side is so essential. Because if I were to do it, it'd be through my bias lens. And that's exactly what we don't want, is we want the story of the folks inside to help us interpret the information. That's where the relationships are there and the data dialogues explicitly do that. That's what we did a bunch this summer. Because if the data team at UVM sits there and says, Well, what factors are associated with reentry? Let's examine what's in the literature. What we can learn from the survey alone. We're gonna come up with the wrong answers. What we actually need to do is go in the facility and say, well, what do you think is causing this? And that's really based on what we've heard so far is just everybody has a story. Like, everybody has a story, and those individual stories all need to be collected. And that's this idea around this composite storytelling is get that information, help us make sense, and make sure that when we are looking at these statistics, it's grounded in the stories of those inside, but not the anecdotes. And I think that's a huge distinction. An anecdote means, hey, I have the power. I'm sitting at this table. The whole system's gonna be designed by my one story.

[Michael Groener]: Yep.

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: And that doesn't work. And that doesn't work. And what does work is that story is so important, and so is this other person's story, and this other person's story, and this other person's. And together, those stories help illuminate the context. And that's why we need this process to do it. And that's what the composite storytelling process will do.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And that's this data dialogue, which you've already been doing normally. Okay. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know we're bumping up on lunchtime, but one stupid little question. Do you have a picture of the coffee house? The coffee?

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: I do, but not like it's embedded in my You

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: know, would really like the committee members to get a feel for what that little coffee shop feels like, because it is very different when you walk in there. You don't even know you're in the correctional facility. And one thing I mentioned yesterday, when Steve Howard was here, that would be great to do that in the break rooms for the correctional officers. Just a space. I tell you, you walk into that coffee shop, you really don't think you're in a correctional facility. I mean, may change, it may have changed now, but when it was first put in, I mean, just know you're in a different environment.

[Michael Groener]: Well, vibes are still pretty good in there. Every time the vibes are still good

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

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: coffee shop.

[Michael Groener]: Every time I swing in there at Southern, I go, I get a coffee and I just I hang out. It's very different.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the staff goes in there too. But if if we could do something like that with the staff break rooms and have the the there actually do the work, you know? I just think it would be I

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: don't have a good one right now. I'll get you one. So I think

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it would be very helpful.

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: Yes. So there are opportunities for staff as well. I know you're down your mister Bellam, we took some initiatives to re to upgrade a lot of the break rooms and all the facilities and stuff. But what was unique about Southern State was we took the opportunity to really create a space that kind of co hooked created, like, coexistence for both for staff and the impression of the population. Kinda really break down some of those barriers of us versus that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that was the coffee shop.

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: That was the dog shop.

[Michael Groener]: Really did that because there was a lot of

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: people that were weren't engaging initially on the staff side because the incarcerated folks were working in the coffee shop. But as time continued and we start to break down some of those barriers, it's not uncommon to see a staff member hanging out having a cup of coffee with the impression of individuals and socialize about their day. So we've really come a long way to that coffee shop. Very fortunate with our state, we have the footprint to allow that type of space. Now being around most of the facilities, they just don't have the floor plans that we were fortunate to have in Springfield to accommodate such a thing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe the break rooms

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: in those

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: facilities could be used for that. The other thing too, and I want to thank Mike Bruno for this, I remember three or four years ago, whatever it was. Oh, there's

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: the coffee shop. There's the coffee shop.

[Michael Groener]: Pretty accurate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. And that's painted on the wall. That was not real. That's not real. That paneling is not real. That's painted on the concrete wall. And the pictures up there on the wall, that's painted, But it looks real.

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: Like a telephone you're seeing right there on the wall that is painted. That's not like the incarcerated population.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You walk in, you think it's real, and it's not. It's sweet. Really. It's really.

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: This is

[Abby (Abigail) Crocker]: where we host for print council meetings. It actually is very humanizing, I'd say. Because when I meet with people in the community, we meet in a coffee shop. And so when we come down here and we meet with the print council, we meet in a coffee shop. And we drink coffee and we talk. And they may serve you because they're there. It's pretty beautiful.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: A few years ago, I don't think it was during COVID. Don't remember.

[Michael Groener]: It's a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a blur. But I know I was invited for having a conversation with the correctional officers down at the Springfield facility. And the one thing, and you were there, and the one thing that came out loud and clear was air conditioning. That came out loud and clear. We never thought of it. Up here, we never even thought of it. But the correctional officers at this meeting, to talk about whatever, that came up. And I brought it up to the committee when he came back in session. And it took a while, but now it's in the governor's budget. We put the money in first, but it came from that meeting. So I want to thank you for doing that because it really got people it got BGS thinking. It got DOC thinking and looking at all of our facilities. And now the governor for the last year year or two, last couple of years has actually put the money in the budget to actually start doing this across all facilities. It's taking a lot longer than we wanted, but at least it's happening. And hopefully Springfield, hopefully, will be online. Hopefully, maybe this summer. I don't know. Keep our fingers crossed. But it came out of a little meeting like that. And you never know what's going to happen if somebody makes a suggestion or asks for something. A little seed gets moved. And it works, and that will happen with print. Thank

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you, Abby. Thank you. Thank Thank you, everybody. Thank you, too.

[Anthony 'Gio' Giordano]: Thank you for your time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: for coming.