Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Thursday, January 15. This is our 09:00 meeting, but we're running a little late. We're having the parole board back. Mary Jane Ainsworth, senior director. We do have a bill that pertains to kind of cleaning up a little bit of the makeup to the parole board. Doesn't really get into their function, their daily function or weekly function. But we wanted to get a more in-depth knowledge of how the parole board operates and a little bit more of conditions that may be set on release, those violations of the conditions in terms of what happens. Also, part of that is really looking at the data to substantiate any decisions we make going forward. So Mary Jane, I'm going to turn it over to you. If you could identify yourself properly.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Mary Jane Einsworth, the director of the Vermont Parole Board. Thank you, Madam Chair, thank you committee for having me again this morning. I'd like to apologize off the top for two different handouts and one that was a little bit later this morning. We do not have a data system, so we track everything by Excel spreadsheets. So it takes a little bit longer to pull data sometimes. So I was finishing my data collection this morning to get you the condition stuff.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is your system separate from DOC's system, or is it part of it?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So so the parole so parole has a module in the offender management system. However, both corrections and ourselves enter in some information. However, we, as our own record keeper, keep our records separately, and then we also track some data separately as well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Kevin, were you gonna ask something? Don't.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Thank you for your work this morning.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah. Oh, no worries. So I got you I I got one handout to you just with the general data, which I've done before for this committee. I came in last year. Chairman George and I did Parole Board 01/2001, and a lot of this data is similar to last year. It's just updated with the 2025 numbers. How many people remembered Parole Board 01/2001?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I've been through it how many times.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: All good. So the document titled Parole Board Data is more of the generalized numbers. And then I went into with the parole conditions and violation of parole conditions, I went into more of the conditions. So I more look at, lean to the committee to more of where you'd like me to spend my time this morning to make it the most efficient for you all.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why don't you go through briefly the conditions that can be set? Because you need to understand that before you get into the data because that deals with violations.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we're back to conditions of release. Yesterday, we had conditions of release that pertain to pretrial supervision that's set by the court. There's conditions in terms of what the person can do or can't do. Right? Yeah. When there's parole, if they're on parole, it's the parole board that makes those decisions in terms of what the conditions are for the person being on parole. So it's different. It's a different path.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So over the last eight years, the parole board using technical assistance through BJA grants with the center and using experts at the Center for Effective Public Policy, has reduced their number of standard parole conditions from 15 to six. Part of that is really to allow more emphasis on what conditions do every individual who is on parole need, and then what conditions do only some of them need based on their risks and needs. So that way, it allows the board to target the individuals more specifically on what their risk and need areas are. And statute does give the board the authority to craft the conditions of supervision, and it directs that the conditions be designed to protect the victim, potential victims, and the public, and also to reduce the risk to reoffend. So currently, we have six standard conditions that everyone who is granted parole have on their parole agreement. And I'll go through those quickly. You shall not commit any law punishable any commit any act punishable law by law or violating any court order. You must report to your parole officer if you have contact with law enforcement. You shall report to your parole officer as required and notify your supervising officer of any changes to your residence or employment. You shall allow your parole officer to visit you at your home or place of employment or elsewhere as necessary. You shall not purchase, possess, or handle firearms or ammunition. And you shall not leave the state of Vermont without permission from your parole officer.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you could leave the state of Vermont if you have approval from your parole officer.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yes, absolutely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For furlough, you cannot leave the state of Vermont. Parole, you can, but you need permission. So if you live along a border and you work in Massachusetts or you work in the Hampshire, that would you wouldn't be able to do that furlough, but you could do it if you were poor.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Or if you wanna visit your family in another state, the parolees do go visit family in other states and so forth. They just plan it out with their parole officers.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sure. Well, you can do that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just quick. So how is that enforced? Like, let's say the person lives down in Bennington Yep. Or, you know, even in Shelburne, because it's not that hard to get over to New York State. You know, how do they how do they

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think most of this, I think the majority of the time, if A lot of the time, parole officers will find out either from another individual or oftentimes they will have law enforcement contact out of state. We have had many parolees get stopped. 91 in Massachusetts is a common area. That seems to be one of our common ones where individuals will get stopped for a traffic violation and then a new crime will come out of it. And then we find out that they've been arrested, slodged in Massachusetts and so forth, Okay, down that

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: thank you.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But they literally have to break a law to find that out, Or is there a database that says this individual is on parole for the following conditions? Is there any kind of database to that effect?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I believe so there is a connection. So in this there is this Department of Corrections database that has all the individuals that who are on role and their conditions in it. I don't know what databases that might talk to. However, I don't think there's any natural database. There's no database that we can't, as an individual, you can go up and look up somebody and find out what their conditions are. Is that kind of what you're referencing?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I wouldn't expect individuals, but I would think that people that have a need to know, state trooper pulls somebody off.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Oh, yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And they let They have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They have that. Okay. But, yeah, probably got pulled over for speeding. Oh, understand. For their carloads and.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We do have a database Yes. That has that individual in there. Yeah.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah. They've been our man. If you pulled

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: over, they're gonna pull your name up and whatever you have that data. Just the And

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: to information of the kind of go on that hand, there is a database that I believe DPS runs that connects to the law enforcement. So a lot of times with condition two, where parole officers may find that somebody had contact with law enforcement, it may not be around a crime, but they may have been an individual in a car that was had, or they might have been an event where a law enforcement officer was there. And parole officer will get an email from that system saying so and so had this contact with the law enforcement officer.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: P and P officers know pretty much what's going on. Yes. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is know how much it's by them. They know pretty much what's going on. Bryce, I

[Brian Minier (Member)]: think this is relatively minor, just because we're talking about number two. What's this business about acting as an informant? Why is that there?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Because there's oftentimes that law enforcement does ask for individual supervision to be an informant, a confidential informant a lot of the time. And it can be a sensitive area, especially if somebody has deep ties to substance use, where we don't want individuals to get necessarily tied up in, say, want to do buys for a drug dealer or something to that effect. For law enforcement, we really want

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: push them, their treatment and becoming a productive member of society. And that's part of the reason why we have that restriction.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So at least notionally for their protection, not because they're unreliable or something

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: like Correct. It's more for their protection and their treatment.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: All

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: right. Are there specific plans for specific situations

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: for a specific I will give you the special conditions. I'll give you a quick rundown of what they are. So we have one around, you must participate any programming, screening, or counseling required by your parole officer or the board. Usually the parole officer, we look at the parole officer to determine what screening should happen. They are the ones working with the individual, whether it's mental health, substance use, domestic violence, sex offender treatment, whatever that programming is. Transitional housing fits under a program as well because they have Transitional housing, treat that in Department of Corrections treats it more as a program because when you enter in like a Pathways apartment or into a Dismus house, you're signing a contract with them that you're going to abide by their program rules. You should now purchase, possess, or consume alcohol and submit to a test when asked. Same thing with drugs or regulated drugs without a prescription. You shall abide by a curfew if your parole officer has caused a point one. You shall not associate with anyone identified by your parole officer or the board to be potentially a risk to you. This is oftentimes who they, co defendants or people that they may be hanging around with that you know that they're not going be a good influence on them. So the parole officers have that ability to restrict them from associating with each other.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: What's the value or what's the point in specifically listing number nine? That's already illegal anyway, is it not?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: It is illegal anyways. But as you will see, when we look at our violations, unfortunately, they still use. A lot of individuals are still using, even though it's illegal.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I mean, it doesn't surprise me. Yeah. It's sort of like an extra flag to them or I

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: reminder think an to the individuals.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay. And if you don't have that and you get caught, we'll bring you in for this. And the lawyer goes, well, it wasn't a condition of parole. That's freaking lethal.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But still say, okay, we're start something

[Brian Minier (Member)]: new. Then

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: moving on to the next page, 12 is around court ordered restitution. We put that in even though we cannot revoke parole based on non payment of restitution. Very frustrating at times because there's individuals that owe a lot of money to crime victims and they just aren't paying. But you have to balance that also with all the other fees and responsibilities that these individuals have. They're having a hard time paying for housing, their groceries, their regular living expenses on top of all of this. So balancing, I know there's supervision fees, there's program fees, all of those fees together. So we do put that condition on as a reminder to at least contact the restitution unit, talk with them, let them know your situation, because a lot of times people won't respond to the restitution unit and so forth.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's almost a setup for failure with a I mean, you just look at your own life and how you're making do with an income coming in. And then you've been incarcerated for ten, fifteen years and you go out without jobs. No place to live, but you're expected to be functioning. And it's unrealistic expectations for anybody. So that's

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: why we've moved more to stressing to make sure you're in contact with the restitution unit, to make sure that they know what your situation is. The next one is around electronic monitoring, permitting the use of electronic monitoring when directed by a parole officer. Electronic monitoring, I think is Department of Corrections uses two forms. One is GPS tracking. It's not real time. I don't believe they run reports. And then the other one is SCRAM. It's alcohol monitoring. We have special conditions around for domestic violence offenders, and those are on a separate page. I didn't list them here. We also have specific conditions around for sex offenders. Those are on a separate pages because there's a lot of those. Then we have, you shall work and reside only where approved by your parole officer. This condition is a balancing act. And really, this one is one that the board grapples with a lot around what individuals need to have their housing approved and what individuals don't need their housing approved. Because oftentimes finding approvable housing can be very tough for anybody. Housing can be tough for anybody, but then you add on the individual's circumstances. How do you balance do you need to have it approved or not? And so oftentimes we will have individuals who will remain incarcerated for a while until they can get through a waiting list for a Pathways apartment, or they can get through a waiting list to get to Dismuth, or can find an approvable housing. Because a lot of people don't, They couch surf or they are proposing campers on a friend or a family's property and so forth.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I'm sorry. Got a ton of this morning, apparently.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Okay.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So I've heard this before. If there's not housing available, so one can actually choose to remain incarcerated?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: If we issue this in department, if we have condition 16 and the department has not approved housing for the individual, they will remain incarcerated until they have an approvable residence.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: What if you're going be released, you're broke, you have no connections, and you're not very hopeful? Can you choose to remain? Like it's your release date?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: If it's their maximum release date, they cannot choose to remain. But if they've been past their minimum release date and granted parole, if they have this condition, they would remain. Or they may wish not to be granted parole, which we do have many of those that wish to stay incarcerated and max out potentially. And then

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Board of Honor does that.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah, if they choose to waive their hearing, the Board honors that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Then we'll see those numbers in the data.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those that waive their hearing?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: We'll have the ones that waive their hearing in the data. I will not have specific how many, how long it takes somebody to get out.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You never got to feel as if 1% or 10% or 20. I mean, just war for the magnitude of people who can't find approvable housing, they choose to stay incarcerated.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think you have to be careful they choose to stay because DOC is the one that really looks if it's appropriate housing. So we gotta be careful with that one because quite often someone who's incarcerated thinks that they do have housing, but DOC doesn't approve it. And how many choose to stay in? And then we have to be really I careful with

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: can get more of the data around who waives their hearing that would like to max out their sentence. Or I could get the data around those who wish to waive their hearing because they would like to continue to earn the seven days earn time. I don't have those specific. I can go through the waivers and look at the reasons, but I don't.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just the rough order is all I'm not

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I couldn't even guesstimate that one.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The issue would be more of the earn time.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: The earned time we're seeing a lot more, even with furloughees who are out doing they're being successful on furlough. They're choosing not to come before the board, even though the board is asking to see them.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you they're getting earned time on

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: their furlough, but they're not on parole.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we tried looking at that on parole. So if we had earned time on parole, we might have more people on parole, which puts more work before you. But again, you're not eligible for furlough and you're not eligible for parole until you've met met your minimum. And even then, it's not automatic. The only time that it's an automatic piece is when you've met your maximum. Whether you've done programming or not. You've done your time. Well, let's quickly keep going

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: through Then the last conditions are, you shall be restricted in traveling to specific areas. This often comes up around victim safety. We may have a victim come in and say, we would feel safer if this person was not released to, say, Bennington County or to Barrie or so forth. The board will look at the scenario, look at the individual circumstances where Oftentimes, the release plan is to go to a different community anyway.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, that's interesting because I'm thinking they couldn't go to their house. But are you thinking that you're telling people that are Broly's like that like, you can't go to Chittenden County. And they have to abide by that. But do they all abide that?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So as we look at the data, in 2025, we had nobody come back before the board for a violation of condition 17. Wow. So

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: they're taking it seriously, 17.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Which is which is that travel which is which is that traveling that specific traveling one.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Right. That's good.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I mean, which could mean they just didn't get caught.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: But we can't scratch. We can't put a GPS Right. Place on everyone.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: You gotta go for that, Threx.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So some of you, at some point in time in your legislative life, will encounter where there is someone who's committed a crime in your neck of the woods, whatever that may be. And they are due to be released. And you will get a lot of calls from the public.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And from the victims, right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: From the public. Oh, what are Not the victim. Sometimes, but the public. Yeah. Don't want this person back in the community. We don't want them back, particularly if they're a sex offender, particularly if they're a gay, some real egregious from. Right. Don't want them back here. Don't want them back here. But they've participated in all the programming. They've done what they should have done. Or they've maxed out. They gotta go somewhere. So then you're gonna hear, well, they came to my community, but they're not from my community. So why are they here? Mhmm. So you're gonna hear that too. Well And the reason maybe they ended up in Washington County versus Bennington County was precisely that there was some real issues down around that area where the person committed the crime and didn't want to put that person back. So they end up in another part of Vermont. So you're gonna hear both of those arguments. Mhmm. You just have to balance out the information.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yep. I have a question about that relocation. What are the reasons for are they always relocated, or is it only under certain criteria? It's like they would be in that Washington County, Bennington County situation.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think it depends on the nature of the case. A lot of the time it is around what Madam Chair mentioned around the victims, the egregiousness of the crime, the community sentiment. Sometimes it's around resources, community has the resources that can provide the wraparound care that the individual may need. Those are the main reasons for the relocations. It's not as often as you may think it is, but it's really for those high profile cases.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's your sex offenders and then your most reachous, like murder. Those are usually the ones. The sex offender in particular.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yes. I see.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You'll bring it up.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And then the last condition we use is a additional conditions with a blank. It's a blank condition that the board can set specific conditions for an individual. Sometimes this is used, as you will see, in all of these conditions, there was no condition around victim contact. That is mostly specified in our domestic violence and our sex offender conditions. However, if we do have a murder case or an aggravated assault case and the board wants to restrict victim contact, that will be put in Condition 18. This is also used for our interstate compact cases where the board may be paroling someone and they are going to be transferred to another state through the interstate compact where we will issue a condition that says you must abide by your conditions set by the other state as well as our conditions. One condition and one thing that we've been using, the board has been using this more for is in response to violations around, there's been a heightened need and a heightened cry for individuals to go to residential treatment before they come out in the community. So the board will often continue someone on parole and add a condition saying you shall only be released to report directly to residential treatment. Then if they don't qualify for residential treatment, we'll come back and look at that condition. So they'll go to treatment first, then they will go back into the community. That has been a common response.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, if they go to treatment first, they're still considered on parole? Yes. Yep.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And then

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'm sorry.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, go ahead.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Residential treatment, is that state owned residential or is that privately owned that

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I don't believe we have any state owned in any state residential. We may

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: contract out a little bit here

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: and there, but we don't own it anyway. It's mostly Valley Vista and Serenity House. I don't know if this committee will hear about those entities, but that's the majority of There's very limited. And those stays are generally fourteen to twenty one days, I believe.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's where we watch our state budgets so that we don't have a lot of overhead. We end up contracting.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But the offender has to pay for that or the state pays for that?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The contract out and could be Medicaid. Insurance pays for it. State doesn't. That's where we watch our Pay for it through Medicare. Our pennies. Yep.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So that's kind of the overview of our conditions. We do have, I'm not going to go through specifically unless you want me to, but I think that because we do have three conditions around domestic violence offenders, victim contact programming, abiding by relief from abuse orders. And then we have a lot of sex offender conditions, because this is more targeted around their risk and need areas. And I'm not going to go through all of these conditions for And I get into some data. So as we went through those conditions, I then, before I preface into this conditions violated data, I want to go into the violation hearings data and give you a little brief overview of violation hearings first, if

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

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: don't mind.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just bear with me.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So we're in the same document, or are we in this Now we're in this document. Apologize. We're on page

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 13. 13? 13, we're in the back.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah, because we're skipping right to violations. Yeah, that's fine. So in 2025, the board held 179 parole violation hearings.

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

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Is the That's other

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: high.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: This. And this is actual hearings.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Is that for unique individuals?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: No, that is not for unique individuals. I do not have That was the one number I forgot to write down this morning. We individuals did come before the board multiple times. I would say it's And sometimes the second time they came before the board, they waived their hearing. So I think there's a significant number that would really skew this down tremendously. It's gonna be under 20.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: It's be under 20.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: That came before the board twice for a violation. I think we might've had one that had three violations. The board gave them a few tries.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And then they were revoked?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: They were revoked, or sometimes they might have, it might have stuck on the second continuation. We did have those cases too. So then in 2020 so out of those one hundred and seventy nine, one hundred and sixteen individuals were continued on parole and sixty three individuals were revoked.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Of those 116, would you have changed their conditions at all or added some? Sometimes

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: they might get conditions added. Very rarely, I think the board takes conditions away, but most of the time they may have gotten a condition added. That is just the actual hearings. So also in 2025, we did have an additional 41 individuals who waived their violation hearing. And when you waive your violation hearing, you are saying, I'm not coming before I'm the accepting that my parole will be revoked. So on top of that, we had another 41 individuals.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you don't see them at all.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: No, they don't come before the board at all.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That's an average of three and a half Broly hearings a week if you're working fifty two weeks a year. That's a lot of work.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're working hard. For not

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a lot of pay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're not It's almost 25¢

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: per So

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: hearing days generally run We run 12 to 16 hearings on a hearing day, generally.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah. And a hearing day is nine to noon, generally.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Would you say how many a day? Twelve to sixteen?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Twelve to sixteen is generally what

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we have scheduled. Sometimes

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: it goes longer. The last two days have gone longer. Today, we only have three hearings scheduled. So it varies sometimes.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And if you have three compared to 12, how does that impact the depth and the quality of those hearings? My worry is that if you're doing that many in three hours, we don't do this deeply. And this is not me criticizing the folks on the parole or anything, but how much true conversation can be had with that individual about current state of the meeting?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: That's the scheduling dilemma that we in the office challenge a lot. The average parole hearing is approximately fifteen minutes minutes between questioning and having conversations. Some individuals are a lot more talkative. Some individuals aren't talkative at all. Have had parole hearings last up to forty five to an hour. It really depends and the case will kind of ebb and flow as they need to. So if we do run over that a lot of time, we run over that a lot of time. If we have individuals who come to speak on behalf or against parole, they are allowed to speak as well. So it really depends. So we ebb and flow with the nature. We don't have set cutoffs in time. Same thing with violation hearings. Violations, some of the ones that involve new crimes can turn into mini trials where we are subpoenaing witnesses to come in to testify because the individual, the parolee has a right to confront their accuser. So those hearings can We've had them run an hour all the way up to two and a half hours before, and those can take a lot of time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: the board, you can see some board fatigue, I'll be honest, as you get later in the day, sometimes it really depends on the nature of the cases and how difficult those cases are. Because now with all the justice reforms and the low level, what used to be more of the low level individuals are not coming before the board. The more complicated cases, the more egregious crimes are what the board is seeing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because that's what's being incarcerated. Correct. Your low level crimes and low risk to reoffend are not coming into an incarcerated setting. We're keeping our hard bits for those that really need to be there because it's so expensive on the state end to house them. 90,000 a year are in Maine. And that comes out of our state budget. So if people wanna cut budgets and you're looking at general fund, one of the places to go is DOC because our budget's all funded through general fund. There's no federal dollars.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So the more complex cases are the ones the parole board sees more often is what I'm hearing.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah, because that's the nature of the incarcerated population.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And would it be fair to say generally that's a question of whether they broke the law or didn't break the law? Or is it trying to figure out, okay, they broke the law, but the circumstances were such that we really should just slap them on the wrist rather than put them back in incarceration. That I'm trying to get

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a feel for what the

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: board is trying to figure out. Okay. It's true or false or or how to deal with the that they have re offended.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So you've got two different pieces of the puzzle we're talking about. So we have the parole hearings, whether they're gonna grant parole or deny parole, those more focus on, is this individual ready to go out into the community? And can they be a productive member of society? Then you have the violation hearings where you determine the board first determines, was there actually a violation that occurred? And then they determine after that happens, then they move on to should this individual remain in the community or not.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a lot of those violations. We may think, oh, they committed a new crime when it was a violation of a condition. Those are called technical violations. It's not a new crime. It's a technical violation because they violated a condition that was set. Right. As Those can are important terms to differentiate between.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: As you can see kind of the pie chart on page 13, the majority of the individuals that the board is hearing are coming back or that involves some type of either a new crime or a combination of a new crime and a technical violation. So the red and the blue all involve new crime.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Sorry, I thought the red was just technical.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Oh, no, sorry. Red is technical. I'm sorry. I read that back. I read that wrong. I apologize.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So half of the violations we're coming in are technical violations. Still

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 34% are new offenses. That's quite a bit.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Well, plus the 14, so 48%

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: still new offenses. Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 24%. Agreed. And I understand when you say technical, but drinking alcohol is not a crime for you and I. It's a technical crime for the proee.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Based on their underlying conditions.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Hear what you're saying. It's not for everybody, but they are breaking the law because they're released on parole.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, they're not breaking the law. There is no law.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: There's no law

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: against drinking. But for them,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's a special law. No, it isn't.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: A condition.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And what's the difference between that? Because if they break that condition repeatedly, they're going to be incarcerated. No. It's just

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: provision in their release. It's a provision. That's it. I understand. Mean That's all it is, Kevin.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Pretend that we're in somewhere else. So Alice is the boss. She can say, hey, you guys are

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: gonna be here at 09:00. And if you're not, then you're gonna go to lunch late. Right. That's not a lot. If you came in here

[Brian Minier (Member)]: with cocaine,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: that's a law violation. It's against the law of obsessed cocaine.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Or pornography.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Semantics. I got it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. It's very different. It's not semantics. It is very, very different. It is not illegal to drink. It is illegal to drink and drive, But it is not illegal to drink. Same thing with marijuana. Right. But if your criminal behavior is triggered and part of your alcoholism or substance use, then the parole board knows that's a risk. Knows those are triggers. So it's not illegal for that person to go out and drink because it's not illegal for anyone. But it is a condition that they have set that this is a parameter that you have to work within. You're not violating a law. You're violating a condition of your release. We want you to be successful. So it's just it's just like a kid.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. So, like, your and your understanding of that condition, is that give the parole board more flexibility? Just like in seeing that it's a condition? Because do they try to Is that a good thing that it's a condition?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think so. I'm having a little hard time following when you're saying is it a good thing. Think with a condition, I think it gives more ability to tailor the case and the supervision and what resources need to be used for this individual and so forth. And I also think it also, those conditions can help with, there's a lot of evidence out there that sometimes the less conditions that are applied to an individual, the more success you may have with the individual versus really a lot of states will load a person up with a lot of conditions when they're released. And if you think about it, if we're loading somebody up with all conditions, are we setting them up to fail? And so really balancing what are those conditions? It's a hard balancing act of what conditions are really necessary and which ones are not.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Thank you. That's helpful.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So wherever you look, the pre trial supervision program, there are conditions around that. It's not laws, not new laws on the statutes, on

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: the books.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those are conditions for that specific situation. Probation. The courts will set up conditions around probation that the person who's on probation has to abide by. Furlough. DOC will set up conditions of release that that furlough will need to abide by. And the parole board does that for the parolees. So you're going to hear conditions of release throughout this whole system.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And conditions can also overlap with crimes as well, like the substance use condition that we have. Sometimes a new crime, they may have committed an act, they may have been having substance use. The board will only hear the substance use. They won't hear the condition one about the crime. One, either it was found through a drug test or there was no prosecution. It's more of addressing that substance use and what's the best way to address it and trying to address it in the manner. So oftentimes that will come before the board without that new crime aspect, even though drugs are illegal. So I wanted to really look at the conditions violated at parole violation hearings, which is in the other packet. I'm sorry, keeps stomping around. On page 11. Numbers, try not to compare these numbers to the hearing numbers because it's not going to happen. Very

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: want to preface that because I want to most individuals who come before the board for a parole violation hearing are not coming for one condition. Most of the time, there's multiple alleged conditions violated. And so I wanted you to just see a picture of what conditions people are coming before the board for. And it was hard to rank. I didn't want to rank which one trumps what condition trumps which conditions. So I wanted to give you more of an overall view of what are the conditions. And I also apologize if some of my numbers don't match up because I didn't have a chance to double vet myself before coming this morning. That's fine.

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

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: So I just am really, the ones that really stick out to me are new prime. New prime pops up a lot. So the reporting changes to residents or employment, that's also if they're not input the entire condition, but it's also if they're not reporting to their PO. These are a lot of our individuals who have gone from supervision, where they just aren't answering phone calls. They're not coming in as they're supposed to. They're not reporting when their residents are changing. So their parole officer can't get ahold of them. And in a lot of these cases, we may be issuing an arrest warrant for them because the parole officer says, I can't find them. Their whereabouts is unknown. Please issue an arrest warrant. And then we look at purchase, possess, or consume illegal drugs. That's the next one that's high up there. That shows that substance use is a real big hurdle for individuals who are released. They're reverting back to their old ways. It's hard to reprogram someone. I've even experienced it in my family of having an individual coming into a The substance use is what they know. That's the communities that they flock to. Even if they switch locations, those are the individuals they still end up with. And I've personally seen that firsthand as well. I don't know if you want me to go through this completely, but it just kind of gives you a picture of what individuals are coming before the board for. And usually it's some kind of combination.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So as we're hearing this testimony, I'm thinking too it would be helpful for the committee to hear from DOC, to hear how our field offices, our PNP offices are working and how our staff, we call them parole officers, probation officers, they're supervising everybody. They're supervising folks around probation for low parole that's not distinguished. But it would be good for the committee members to hear how it really plays out in the field

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: and I within would totally agree with that. That's what the board hears a lot. And a lot of the time when individuals are coming before the board for a violation hearing, it's not because the parole officer hasn't tried. The parole officer has issued many graduated sanctions. They have worked with this individual many, many times, and it's gotten to the point of, I don't know what to do with this individual. Help us.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So they have graduated sanctions within the parole world as well as Yes.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I don't know if we they sanction them. I don't know if it's necessarily graduated sanctions, but they will try lower level interventions before they make it to the violation. We also have a reprimand process as well. If they've tried some interventions and they want them to come before the board, but they don't feel like it rises to a violation, they may bring them before the board to talk with the board to see, does the board want to treat this as a violation or just reprimand the individual and have a conversation?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And have you already told us that out of 100, as an example, parolees never come back. They successfully launched. They're released. You shown us those kinds of numbers?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I don't have those kind of numbers. I don't have that readily available of how many don't ever come back. I don't know if that's something that DOC could look in their system because they track violations as well. I don't have an easy way to, without going through every parole file, to see if they've never been back before the board for a violation.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Really? Yeah. So in a given year, we have a record of everybody who's gone through the parole board, but we don't know how many have maintained their parole conditions. We don't we don't have that kind of an honor.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You gotta be careful with that because people will complete their time on parole. Yes. But they may have a violation here and there, but it didn't get revoked. So you're asking the question that they never never had a violation, never came before the board. Right. That's what you're asking.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think that It's probably gonna be pretty slim.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Why is that difficult? I don't understand. We got a list of a 100 names, and 50 of them haven't shown

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: any How many folks have you got on parole?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Say six. Six hundred?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Six hundred?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So out of that 600 have we been successful in getting them back into a state that they don't get caught again. We don't have that kind of a number?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That depends on success, too.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, that's success. I'd like to hear what our success rate is.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: No, I'm saying there are different ways of defining success that you can interpret.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That they haven't been picked up on either conditions or breaking of the law.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, if they stay on parole, even if they've had a technical violation, I would still call that a success.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's a quasi success? I'm just

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I wanna a little other perspective into this a little bit too, because also looking at that, if I was to look at myself many times, if I was under some of these conditions

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Violate them?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I violate them just for not I may miss an appointment. I might forget to call somebody. Might I think it's it's really like really, how do we look at success and really drilling down to what does that success mean? And I think a lot of individuals may have a bump in the road or they may have a hiccup. And I think with this population, I think that it would be hard to look at the individuals that to find individuals who may not have had a bump in the road, because I think every human being has some kind of bump in the road. And to look at these individuals that may have had some minor bumps, and they may have got past it, is a huge feat for this population.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, I agree. I was just hoping we could say half of them through the system are able to be law citizens. I I wouldn't be breaking some of these violations regularly, whether it's speeding or-

[Brian Minier (Member)]: But Hatrick comes back on technical violations. There's the law abiding citizens.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Right. And I think that's-

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Like if they have a drink, that's associated with re offending, which is why we're putting this as a condition, they haven't violated the law. They stay on parole. They're successful.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Dropped that discussion because it wasn't-

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I think they're taking care So

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Will, I am going to actually have to And not like I don't agree with you sometimes, Kevin, but particular on this point about the 600 people, which was the rough number we received, and understanding how their technical violations add up, I do think that's important because just how Brian and Kevin were saying that they define success differently, I think that that data would be helpful for us to figure out what are typical violations and how can we adjust that so that maybe it's not as consequential or maybe certain violations are more consequential. I think that could be helpful to have that kind of data moving forward.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And I respect that, and I can see that. I think the hard part is going to be is how far do you dig? Because a lot of Do you just want the ones that are coming before the parole board, or do you want the ones that are having the interventions early on that might have been a violation of a condition? They never showed up before the board they are mitigating these. These are teachable moments where people are learning how to become, as an adult, how to become members of law abiding members of society again.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yeah. My other question, this is my last one, is when you mentioned that we all had slip ups, we are human. But I think maybe for the people that may be watching this, but also for us, I think some reassurance around that you guys are not giving special treatment or privilege or exceptions for things like that, because I think that's something that a lot of people think is that there's just this unlimited number of second chances people get. And I think maybe touching on that, I think would be helpful to

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Thank justify you for saying that. And I think that is a very important point of how do you define it? I know that the community often sees these individuals are getting multiple chances. They're getting multiple. It's catch and release. You hear that in the news all the time or even in community members all the time. And I think it's a balancing act of really looking at the circumstances of, did they oversleep today and they miss their appointment? Or are they just willfully avoiding coming in and really looking at what are those circumstances and what's behind it. And I think everybody, I would hope most could look at and understand that a really tough job to be a parole officer. And I think to hear from them, I think would be very helpful around what their work is and the challenges that they experience because it's balancing all of those factors. And they're the ones in the community as well dealing with all of that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I have some questions, Conor and then Shawn.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, sure. So part of this discussion, obviously, is we're talking about the autonomy of the parole board, what resources you need. And we're throwing a lot of number requests at you. You talked about data at the beginning. Do you mind going into that a little bit more? What sort of tools would you want or need, do you think? Because we don't want you to just be the stepchild of corrections. They've got researchers. That's another example, right? Yes. You don't.

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

[Conor Casey (Member)]: You're doing the work if we ask Right? It's you.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: It's myself and one of the administrative staff takes the Basically, we track a lot of data on our hearing schedules. So we have our public hearing schedules, and then we have our internal that we also track data on. And that all gets put into an Excel spreadsheet. And then between for myself, we then extrapolate the data into different forms. So, yes, data analysis.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: That sounds burdensome.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: It can be burdensome. A lot of this I was doing by hand last night.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So what ideally would you need or want, do you think? Are there tools? Could probably not throw more positions your way, but Yeah.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I mean, position My goal would be a position eventually, at least one. But I think even just because I think sometimes we lack some of the people's strength. Because for a while, it was hard, I think, from when I first started, the parole board had just got back its second full time administrative assistant that I lost in cuts back in 2008, 2009. It took up until 2018 to get that position back for folks to realize that the board needed more administrative help than just one full time staff, a director, and then a tech position. So I think to really look at the board, to be able to provide the training, to provide the services, even just facilitating hearings takes up the majority of my day, like on a hearing day. Right now, one of my administrative staff are running hearings. We have hearings going on right now. But I do the majority of the hearings. I'm the one introducing the hearings like a docket clerk. I'm the one getting everybody set up and ready to go. I'm the one sequestering witnesses and all of that. So it takes away from training the policy. I know I'm kind of skirting around your question because it's really hard.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It's helpful because managing what are essentially volunteers is extremely time consuming in itself. You're

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: making life decisions.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Right, right. I'm sure you're taking calls at like 08:00 on a Thursday.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I can't get my computer to work and say it's 07:00 at night and it's ADS is off because it's outside of business hours, because they are doing their hearing prep when it's convenient for them to do their hearing prep, or to get messages out to individual board members and try to stay within the state network for public records requests, because everything, all the work we do is public, but also to have them check their state emails that they might just have on their state computers when they may be off for a week or two and not have a hearing. And so just trying to do all of that balancing act. I'm sure some of you all manage it as well as you have legislative emails plus personal emails and all of that.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah. So we just send a text message that says, Hey, by the way, check your email. Yeah.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I do that sometimes. Or I'll send an email to their personal emails that says, Hey, I sent you an email about such and such about please check your state email. Yeah. So just trying to balance all of that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is helpful. I think we underestimate the amount of work that our state employees are doing because they're putting in an awful lot of effort. We've got to balance out here in the legislature. We've got to balance out all the budgets. And there's always a push to spend. There's always a push to cut. But where the rubber meets the road is that our state employees are really coming up to the plate and putting in a lot of hours that they're not being compensated for. Because this is what we're hearing. Absolutely. If you're working in the evening, you're not gonna pay for that.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: No. I'm an exempt salary physician. If I go on vacation, generally, I don't turn off my phone. I try to sometimes, but I think it was last year, two years ago, I was on vacation in California and I still appear before this committee one day on an important bill because I felt like it was important enough that I needed to be there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I think people forget that. They're absolutely face. Whenever we're dealing with budgets, there's a human being behind that that's carrying out the work. And that's what we have to balance as legislators.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And then

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and sometimes we have to make some tough decisions either way. But I think this is good testimony for people to hear because usually we don't hear something this. And we just kind of see the buildings and think all sorts of stuff is happening inside there. And well, if we cut that department or we cut that department, cut that, it's not gonna be a problem. But over time, it may accumulate and we don't know. Just don't know.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And I think to go back to I appreciate you taking that into our employees and our board into concept two, but also to step back and really look at what is the board doing and the nature of their work and the liberty interests that they are dealing with and they're overseeing. It's a liberty and something. It's a very important topic. And it's not just our livelihoods. It's livelihoods of many individuals that are locked behind bars. And the community. Yeah. And in our community and trying to balance how do we keep our public and our victims safe on top of balancing the individuals who need to be rehabilitated and to be able to have them come back and be members of society. The state takes away their liberty. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have a response to them because they're under the custody of the state. We have limited their over the knee. Shawn?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: More anecdotally, and it's a little different, how and just, I guess, more because you've been in it for a long time. People who are on parole, what kind of funding are they receiving from the state? None.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think most don't think there's any direct funding for the state. I think there may be some funds to maybe help them get some housing funds, possibly Medicaid. I think there's also a lot of the individuals who are on supervision are receiving SSDI, so the disability.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Veterans.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Those are the main that's the main drivers, but I don't believe there's as many there might be some grants for housing that are going out to, like, transitional housing folks. I don't know how that all I don't know how all that budgets that funding streams.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're not getting a paycheck from the state. No. You know, it's kinda it's It smells might

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: be eligible for

[Brian Minier (Member)]: for benefits. Not as helpful Yes.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Me for a bigger picture thing, but thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. That's why sometimes they can't find housing or

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And I think there's also, I think one of the initiatives of the Agency of Human Services over the years is like a one person model to really try to work on linking individuals because many of the individuals who are incarcerated or out in the community supervision also are receiving benefits from say DCF, economic services, other benefits from other agencies, and how to integrate all those state agencies together. They may be receiving housing money or so forth. And how do we integrate all those agencies together to know?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Do you think that that's done well right now?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I wouldn't even venture an answer to, I'll be honest, I'm not gonna venture an answer to that question because I'm not directly involved in it. So I don't know if it's done well or not. I think it's hard to communicate. I know from my experience when I worked at DOC and the offender management system, it is very hard to work technically between agencies because all the systems are so vastly different and also in different stages of their updates or age. I mean, I don't know if there's still some systems out there from the 70s because at one time, so having to integrate all those systems and have them talk to each other is a nightmare. Lived that for a while.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Did in this committee for a while because the capital bill was being used to update some of our IT systems. Yep. You're talking millions and millions. Absolutely. You're not talking 100,000. You're talking forty, fifty million, 100,000,000 at least. At least. At least. That's for one system.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Oh, I know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For one agency. Where? Other thoughts or info? How many folks and you may not know this, but what would be the average length of time for someone to be on parole and complete it? It would be like six years, eight years. And people do come off with parole. They do complete their parole.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: People do complete parole. There is an early discharge clause in one of our statutes. We do have individuals who come before the board. Don't have an average length of stay because I don't look at our folks who expire. I will say oftentimes a lot of the individuals who come before the board for say early termination, they have been probably on supervision for at least two to three years. But I don't have those numbers because I'm just not looking at the folks that are expiring. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you're saying there's 600 folks now off the road. Do you think that's going to level off at around that number? Because in the past, we made some changes, your parole numbers were lower than that.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: I think what's really flipped, the parole numbers, I think, have stayed, they've stayed pretty steady. And I say that with a caveat of the population has changed. And the parolee numbers are drastically different. So I think the parole numbers have stayed about the same, but there's not as many individuals under supervision. And I think that's even true for probation as well. I think I've heard that somewhere recently as well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we made a big change in probation where someone was on probation and then there was no cutoff for it. So we've had a mid midterm review after two years of probation. And if someone is doing really well and they've abided by everything, then their probation goes away. If they haven't been doing well, then they continue. But before, they could be on probation for twenty years. Until further order of the court. Right. And they didn't even know they were on probation.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yeah. And I think so I think it very and I think that's why I have a hard time answering some of that. But I think I also don't know how the numbers are going to play out when the court catches up as well. Because we do have that higher number of detentioners and there is the court backlog where I think I'm waiting for the day we start to catch up and we start because I have a feeling that a lot of individuals, we may see a spike when the court starts to catch up because a lot of individuals have been detained for a long period of time and they may get a minimum that's satisfied by credit for time served, and then we're gonna immediately be seeing them within like thirty days of sentencing. So we may see a spike coming up, whether or not they're granted parole, but we could see a spike in hearing. So it's really that balancing act. Also, our grant rate for parole was down this year, and I think that's reflective of just the nature of the cases that are coming before the board. And it's tougher. I think it also shows a little bit of potential tougher. Also, it shows it's hard to release plan some of these individuals because is there a place for them to go? Is there resources out there to support them and so forth?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep. That was a change.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: At least the last two things is just out of curiosity. Do you have people on parole for ten, fifteen, and twenty years, or is that not?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: Yes, we have individuals who are on parole right now that have a life sentence.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay. Yep.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And the other thing you said that your grant rate is down, you mean like

[Brian Minier (Member)]: you're denying parole at a higher rate?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: The board denied at a higher

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: rate then. Tougher folks. Complicated issues. I

[Brian Minier (Member)]: just want make sure I understood.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You have more substance use. More mental health. Got health issues. Marjory is crimes.

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: It's not your low offender. Your low risk offender is low crime. You've got folks with behavior issues. They're repeat offenders that have been in and out multiple times.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because our whole corrections population has changed over time. Absolutely. These have changed.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm enjoying the conversation. I think I'm developing more of an appreciation for this work, and it's like kind of a heavy responsibility for volunteers. You're the ones who dictate whether somebody's free or not, And you can base it on certain metrics and everything. But so much of it's gonna come down to intuition too, right? And what sort of trainings are there? Do you study human behaviors? I'm also worried, like the short period that you see people too. It's like, how can you assess like in half an hour of somebody?

[Mary Jane Ainsworth (Director, Vermont Parole Board)]: And where I think it looks on the experts at DOC to provide the information to the board. And also it goes into our training conversation that we were having last week around having the resources to develop some of these trainings around human behavior, because right now we have limited resources. We're trying to do our structured decision making framework training that has some of that human behavior, have that risk looking at the evidence based risk areas and so forth. But really, without a lot of resources, it's hard to provide a lot of training for the board members. It is a balancing act of prior to having a decision making tool, now they at least have a guide to go by before that, the board would look at the risk assessment that they had. But a lot of it, I think it was more based on what their experience was that they had prior to becoming a board member.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm just former legislators. Become board member.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Was the chair, wasn't he, for a while?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: One of my district mates.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. He was a good guy. Joe, was your district?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: No. No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We've got a close-up because we're scheduled at 10:30. Thank you, Mary

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Jane. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: think for the committee, I think we're going to keep working. Is there still interest in the committee to work on five fifty nine to look at the plural board? Yes.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yes. Absolutely have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We'll schedule more testimonies and get figure that out. So we're gonna stay on YouTube. We've got Yeah. People, if we take a quick, quick

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Five minutes. No more, please?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So we'll go out with you too. Real