Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Wednesday, February 4. We're back at our 01:00 meeting. We're going to spend the next hour or so with a prime research group just to get a feel for what their organization does and then also to look into some data that they have collected in terms of activity, incarceration, the costs, what they're seeing across the state. So if both of you could introduce yourselves, that would be great.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Monica Wieber. I'm the executive director of the Grime Research Group.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I used to be at DOC. I was. I'm a very sorry to say.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I figure I've been gone long that up. Yes.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: She's been here forty some years.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is my thirty.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Many of you who were on the committee during the time when I had a ten year tenure at the Department of Corrections, I'd been full at a time. This committee, although albeit it was across

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: the hall. With So me today is I'm Doctor. Robin Joy, and I'm the director of research. And I have been at this for twenty some odd years in this capacity serving Spottie.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It's all yours. Okay, so we did send you a short document that's just an overview of who we are. As you mentioned, some of you may or may not be as familiar with us. And so I just wanted to go walk through that a little bit, not really spend a whole lot of time on it. But just to let you know, as the Crime Research Group, we are an independent nonprofit organization in Vermont with a real focus on criminal and juvenile justice research. We also serve as something that's called a statistical analysis center. That is a designation that most states have from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It's kind of this anomaly thing. And you can see on the overview that a SAC has a number of responsibilities, primarily being collecting, analyzing, and distributing criminal justice data and working with our partners and our stakeholders on doing that and also conducting research that's really relevant for our state, and in particular, things that you might be considering in this building, but also working with other criminal justice partners on projects that they might have in developing those projects. So as a statistical analysis center, we contract with the Department of Public Safety to perform those services because they are actually designated as the SAC. That's the shorthand term for statistical analysis center. And through that contract, we're able to come and spend time with you. And we're also able to access funding from the Bureau of Justice Statistics to do further research on topics. In addition, we just sometimes have contracts with other people to do very specific program evaluation types of work. So as Robin mentioned, she's been doing this for over twenty years. CRG has been around as an entity for about eleven years. And so a lot of the different services we have are laid out in this document. Most people think of us as the data people. But we do provide other types of services as well. I don't need to get into most of those things. But as with Statistical Analysis Center, and I think this gets to what you're talking about, we have access to a wide variety of data sets. Do you want to do this along with your criminal justice pyramid? Robin has a

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I have visual aids.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: A visual aid. So at the bottom of the pyramid, which is not on the handout, is just people's experiences. So that is a whole lot. There's data in people's experiences. And of course, that's harder to capture in what administrative data or in a data set like we have. Usually, that requires going out and talking to people and collecting that information. But that's sort of the basis or the foundation of what we have here.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: And so as you know, a lot of crime never makes it to the officials. So it never shows up in data sets that we work. So what we want to be conscious of is whose voices aren't represented in the data. And how do we make sure that we get those experiences represented in the data? And there's various ways to go about doing that. One of the largest national surveys is the National Crime Victim Survey, where people go house to house. They used to go house to house. I'm sure it's more electronic now. And asking people about their victimization. How did you experience crime in your life this year? And what did that And look so that gets us a better understanding. That's where we get statistics like one out of four women will be sexually assaulted by the time they're 21. That doesn't come from, I'm sorry, sir. I'm not a cheerful person. Yeah, right. But that's where we get those statistics from. We don't get those statistics from official data because we know that there's not reporting on that. There's an underreporting. But then we get to calls for service, when somebody does pick up the phone and call the police. And that data is captured in two systems in the state, Valcour, which is most of the police systems, and then Little Spillman, which is Hartford, and Norwich and one other city, I think.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do they

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: do they have both systems?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No. They just use Spillman, ma'am. They did not wanna go the route of Valcour, and that's sad for them, because VALCOR actually gives us a lot of access to data that Spillman didn't. Now I want to be clear that every police department owns their own data. So if we want to ask them for their data, we can. But they own their own data. The Department of Public Safety does not own their data. And that's sometimes some confusion on, yes, well, it's their data. They're creating it. They're collecting it. They're responsible for data quality, etcetera. And you want to make sure that you have control over that somebody else isn't handing out your stuff. Now, when we look at police data and some of your communities are involved in the public safety enhancement team. And so we've been working with your local police departments and mapping your data of the calls for service that the police have. Most of what the police do, has absolutely, like, nothing to do with the the big crimes. Right? It is, small quality of life, people in crisis, that's taken up a lot of their time. And there is no consistent definition, for example, of what a call for service is for, disorderly conduct, regardless of the statute. Let's leave the statute aside. But if I'm going to call the cops and say, there's somebody acting funny in town, I need you to come look, a human being, the dispatcher is going to take my call and code it, Right? And they're going to code it as suspicious person. But there's no definition in my town, in Barrytown, of suspicious person and Barry City. It's not the same definition. It's just Right? So we don't have a common framework for some of that stuff.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Conor could be suspicious here in the building, but we just have Montpelier who's okay. He's

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: okay. Yes. So that's important to know, there is a move to get everyone to kind of call the same things the same thing so that we Yeah, can but it's very difficult. Yeah, it is very difficult.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And the only thing I just want to add is that it is difficult, and yet one of the things that we do as the SAC, and we're the only entity in the state that can do this, is we can take these disparate data sets and still analyze them and work them together. Together. Right. And that is one of the skill sets one of the reasons we exist as an organization.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, is to make sense of all of those things that don't seem

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: to make sense.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: To be aware of where the pitfalls are in the data so that we can account for them in our analysis.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: So presently, does it just get kind

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: of lost in the shuffle? No. And most of what you guys care about are the crimes, right? Because you're way up here, right? By the time somebody is in corrections, right, they have committed a crime or have been accused of crime and they're incarcerated. Those, we get really good data from something called the National Incident Based Reporting System. It's a shorthand of NIBRS. And we have been 100% NIBRS compliant. We were one of the first states to do that. I don't know if you remember him when he was at VCIC. He kind of pushed for that as well. This is a standard, right? So in NIBRS, the definition of an aggravated assault is the same in Vermont as it is across the country. So if we want to know what does aggravated assault look like here compared to New Hampshire, we're talking about the exact same definition. And the thing about this stuff is this goes through an incredible amount of review at the police department level to make sure that these meet all the requirements, that we have all the data fields that we need for an aggravated assault. So you can't submit, for an example, an aggravated assault if you don't have a victim. Where's the victim? Let's find the victim, make sure that we've got that victim's information so that we know that this primarily happened. Was there a weapon involved? What was the nature of the weapon? This is one of the most detailed data sets in criminal justice that exists. And there's been lots of research nationally, and we use it a lot as well. It allows us to answer questions about, if we wanted to look at domestic violence, what are the exact relationships in domestic violence situations? Is it an intimate partner relationship? Is it a grandparent? Is it an aunt or uncle? Very, very detailed relationship. What type of weapons are used in domestic violence? It's mostly hands personal weapons, just so you know. And what are the experiences of we have a report on our website about experiences of violence of people of color. People of color, how do they experience violence in Vermont different from, or is it, what is that experience? And what we found there, for example, the very common thing in Vermont, if we just looked at the data, half of our homicides are traditionally domestic violence. That's been the rule for twenty some odd years that I've been doing this. However, if you are, a victim of color, then that's not what the danger is. The danger for victims of color, is actually strangers and robberies, that that's where the homicides are most likely to happen. So it's a different way of, right? So how can we break down the victims, or how can we break down perpetrators and understand what's going on? And that's a really rich data set. And we use that a lot to inform you about how crime is going. Is it going up? Is it going down? And what are the parameters around the crimes? Then once we get charged, then we've got criminal court data. That's coming out of Odyssey now, or Enterprise Justice. Have, going back over twenty years' worth of criminal court data, juvenile court data, and all sorts of data. If you want to know something so last time I was here, the question that I got was, how many people who are held without bail are eventually convicted of something. Right? That was the question that I got asked. And I went home, and within an hour, had an answer. And the answer was about, you know, seventy percent eventually get convicted. Thirty percent never get convicted of anything after being held without bail for years. Your colleagues down the hall recently asked me that exact same question again. So I dug up the research that I did last time, and I ran the numbers again. And the numbers are still the same. About thirty percent of people who are incarcerated, without bail are never convicted of anything. Wow. So there's

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: detaining population. Your detaining population.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: That's looking within thirty days of, like, right. So sometimes there's something called a global plea deal where maybe I'm being incarcerated on something out of Chittenden County, but I also have some cases down here in Washington County. I'll plead guilty or I'll get dismissed up in Chittenden. Thirty days later, the case comes up here and it's all part of the same deal. So we looked thirty days on either side. And so that's where we are, that thirty percent of the people who are incarcerated without bail are not convicted of anything.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So how many of those would be there with the plea deal at all? Do you know, that 30%?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Well, there was no plea deal because they there was no conviction.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There's conviction. Right.

[Unidentified committee member]: How large a data set is it?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I've looked for fifteen years.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Do you

[Rep. Conor Casey]: want me to look?

[Unidentified committee member]: So for the last fifteen years, 30% of the detainees in Vermont were never convicted of it?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Held without bail. Yeah. I looked for those that were held without bail. Which is different. Which is different than coming in for twenty four hours. Right. Yeah, I was Or held with bail. Or held with bail, yeah. Held without bail. Held without bail. So,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Kevin? Well, hang on.

[Unidentified committee member]: I see Kevin. Thank you. All right. Shawn?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: So I guess this is just a question is like, so just that data Mhmm. Of thirty percent of the people who are supposedly awful and bad because they're not even given the chance of bail Are

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: high risk of flight. Fail is high risk of

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: flight. Flight. Yeah.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: But thirty percent of them don't they don't get Charged. Charged with anything.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No. They got charged. Convicted.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They got charged.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Oh, they just didn't get convicted.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: So they've been any

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: number of things.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Anything. There was no there was no conviction for anything, like not even jaywalking. So is that a

[Rep. Conor Casey]: bad thing to hold those people like that for? Yeah, like, isn't that like a that's not

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: a good, like American thing to do, is it?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Except No. To your courts.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: But that's a moral value question, not a statistics question.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it's part of the criminal justice crisis. And then we get up to Yeah. So we had

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: But one thing I wanna about the court data, the other things that you could ask of that data is, like, say, like, even outside of this committee, if you were interested in coming up with a bill, your constituents are saying that people who commit x crime aren't getting jail time, I'm really upset about that. You can ask me if that's true, and I will give you the answer. I will tell you, this is how many people were convicted. This is how many people were sentenced to jail, or this is how many people were sentenced to fined or whatever. You may not like the answer. You may not like the answer. But I will tell you the answer. So it's always right. We recently did something for down the hall. They're handling animal cruelty rights better than you. So we looked up, in that case, we looked at how are people being sentenced for animal cruelty? What are we really sentencing there? And then in that case, we had to actually physically look at some of the dockets to kind of get a sense of what some of the stuff is there. But yeah, you can ask us these questions as you're coming up

[Unidentified committee member]: with legislation. Yes. So for that 30%, you would assume that there's some kind of a rationale for the release. If they've been detained, someone has to make a decision that says we're no longer a detainer. They haven't been charged. No. Were charged. Right. But they've been held. Somebody made a decision. We don't we're not gonna hold a judge or jury.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. You can't yeah. You can't hold them after a case of sin.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. So is there a database that describes why that decision was made? Why they weren't convicted? Why the court said we're not gonna hold them any longer?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Well, because they weren't they had no had no authority. Right?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: So, I mean, the I think the

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: answer to your question is no.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: There's the the the the rationale for that, I mean, it could be interpolated, but it's not explicit in the data. Right. And so why? No. No. Because it's

[Unidentified committee member]: is not. Why they were being held, but now we've decided they shouldn't be held.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Just that the case is over and the reason for the case being over is a difference.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But they went back to court. They went back to the process. There may not have been enough evidence.

[Unidentified committee member]: So there's no evidence or None

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: of Right. We do not know why there was no conviction. We just know that there was no conviction.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Correct. It's the courts that make those decisions.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Is there,

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I'll say

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: it. So is there,

[Unidentified committee member]: I mean, probably are, right?

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: But is there court records that would say, I mean, would be, that we didn't have enough evidence? I mean, some people can just, obviously a jury can just be like, we don't find this right. But is it a technical issue? Do we have ways to get to that data?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Some of the times the docket sheets will give you that information. So technical is, and I'm going to be my former criminal defense attorney here, technical is usually a constitutional violation. So it may not be technical, it's really a violation of the constitution. So that's a judgment. There is, know, I But think it's a really interesting question. What's happening to that 30%? I think that's a really interesting study. It's a number that's been pretty consistent. I can't imagine being incarcerated for a year or two years or three years and then being sorry. And

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I think Robin raises a She said a word that I think is important for us to distinguish. Because we talked about data requests, which are sort of these simple things where, oh, we have a database. You can ask us the sentences. It's one database. It's a quick query. Versus this idea of a study where if you were really interested in thinking about, we want to know more about this, that is something that requires a lot more work and typically something that sometimes we could apply for a grant to get, or if it's something that other people wanted could come through another source of funds. But it's possible to look into that, but it's a much bigger question. And that's the last page of this document. It's sort of like, what's a data request and what's a research request? And that's a good example of the difference between that.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. That would definitely be research.

[Unidentified committee member]: So

[Unidentified committee member]: whether these were adjudicated or the charges were distraught, what was the average period of detention? And how many people are you talking about?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I'd have to look up what I said. I don't have that number off the top of my head. But I can can tell you that answer. I can can

[Unidentified committee member]: you public outcry, one thing, if there were all sorts of people that had been helped for years and were found innocent or just had charges dropped. Just can scatter it to him.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. We can we can we can sort of answer that question. On the data, we when I responded to the request last time, I assumed that they had been incarcerated since the filing. And I think it was a couple hundred days that people had been held without bail.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Innocent to prove him guilty.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: For a constitutional right.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Is that data point compared to other states nationwide?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I don't know. We'd have to. And other states, it's hard because other states have different bail. Bail outlined in our Vermont constitution is very narrow.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. Like risk of fraud?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, other states can include risk of predictive dangerousness, which there's no scientific way to predict whether somebody's going to be dangerous. Again, just to be out there, there's no scientific way to So hard

[Unidentified committee member]: to get apples to apples.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. Yeah, it is. And then finally, after you do get convicted or during that time of period when you're incarcerated waiting your trial, you have the OMS, Corrections Which you're familiar with. Which you're familiar with, the data data

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: from The system. Yes,

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: the offender management system that the Department of Corrections maintains. And I keep saying this is a new system. It's now old. Look, I was

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: there and implemented it.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So it's old.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Trauma. It's still

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: very, very real. Yes. And from there, we can get all sorts of information. The department keeps incredible amounts of data. And we have a nice relationship with them where we tend to sit down with them and say, this is what we're interested in studying, or this is what we're looking at, and how can we combine the data? And one of the strengths about us being the statistical analysis center is that we can take all this data and it's kind of scary to me how much I know about individuals as they go through the system. But I can track you across all these systems and understand your background, your history, as you interact with the criminal justice system. Now, there's we're working with the Department of Labor, for example, that we're going to start adding some employment records on top of the data that we already get. So how does employment that shows up in the Department of Labor not all employment shows up in the Department of Labor. A lot of people work under the table. That stuff never gets reported. But how does the data that gets reported at the Department of Labor impact recidivism rates, for example? Or are people who are employed at the time that they're charged, do we see that they're able to keep their employment during the charging period? Clearly, can't if you're incarcerated. But what impact does court dates have on your ability to keep your job?

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm reverting back. The thirtyseventy blows my mind. And who and how does research requests get to you?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: They did it. Yeah, I mean, a few ways. I mean, obviously, if it's something that this committee is really interested in, then that's a conversation around, well, we wanna know if you can explore this. And then the question always comes down to, how could it be funded? Is it something that's appropriate for us to put in a grant to the Bureau of Justice Statistics? Would that be something they'd be interested in funding? Are there other revenue sources that could be provided so that we could do it? I would say it'd be more timely with another revenue source than it would be through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. So, the different Those would be the two main things. It's sort of like, are you interested? Is it something we feel like

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: we could answer? And then how should we So, generally makes a request for research? Well, it usually just, you didn't get it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It usually

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: comes out of a conversation like and then we will kind of have that analysis amongst the two of us. And then a lot of times when we're writing our proposals, we incorporate that into So our one

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: example was when we did Council of State Governance too. And we had some new initiatives and we wanted to collect the data to see how effective it was. And we put in legislation, language, the crime research group would do it and we found some money to do So it comes from different avenues.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, it comes from different avenues. So in this case, with this 30%, we would talk to our colleagues at the Defender General's Office and the State's Attorney's Office and the judiciary and say, Okay, what's the best way to measure this? What

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: we really looking at? And then what do we expect the end result to look like? What questions are we really going to answer from this? And so that would be it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's a good segue into Your legal document.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. Oh, that one. Yes. Which one?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Do

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: you No, have

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: give me

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I have a few of them.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: We're going to do two things. We're going to talk about two things that can help you go about your job. One is that document, which was the cost benefit analysis that we did. And just to plug ourselves, we won an award, a nationally peer reviewed award, for that work. Thank you. And so this was something that we did in something called Results First. And Monica has Well, I don't know. I mean,

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I have something I can show up on the screen if you want me to join the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That would be fun. Tate can help you.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Tate has sent me the link. You know, I just need to turn

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on the microphone first. Yes. Noise, wings. Yes. I've got a lot of that today.

[Unidentified committee member]: I

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: can't guarantee, but I'm just trying.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So while we're figuring that out, Results First was an initiative that your joint fiscal office hired us to do. It was sponsored by Pew Research and MacArthur T, Catherine D, all those foundations. Right?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Shawn Sweeney and Catherine D. And

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: we were a state that participated in this. And what we did is we calculated the cost of adding one more person to the system. How much does it cost to arrest somebody? How much does it cost to prosecute them? How much does it cost to house them? This is something called a marginal cost. So it was a way, we used time records from the police. We used weighted court studies from the judiciary. Monica, when she was at DOC, did a lot of work like helping us understand how much does it cost to add one more person to the system. And what this allowed us to do is tell you how much it costs to prosecute somebody, which is a lot, and also to understand the way that your criminal justice actors work. So for example, we did this in 2015, 2016. Around that time, the legislature also decriminalized pot. At the time, possession of marijuana was one of our top five criminal charges in Vermont. It was a huge amount of time and energy for the courts. And the interesting thing that happens here is that you decriminalize pot. No one lost their job. No police department cut funding because their police no longer had

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: to arrest. Nor were there any cells or units in

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So corrections the city

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: that was shut down because of it.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Because of it, right? It was a public policy decision that had very little impact on the cost of doing criminal justice. Part of that was because what the police were doing instead of arresting people for smoking pot is, well, now maybe they're doing the D. R. Program, or I don't think they do DARE anymore, but you know, or now maybe they're spending more time investigating robberies, or they're, you know, it turns out the people who were using pot were also the people who were using heroin. So, well, that wasn't helpful in their time management. It didn't shut down any facilities. It didn't shut down any beds because those cases largely weren't getting sentenced to prison anyways. But as you begin to understand how the criminal justice system works and how people manage their time, because it turns out if you just take away a part of the system, people are going to spend their time doing something else. And there's always something else to be done. If you were to take away five bills that this committee is doing, you're not going to go home early, are you? No, you're going to spend more time on other bills. And the same thing is true with the criminal justice system. But when you're trying to understand what programs work, what programs cost money, understanding how the cost of the criminal justice system helps. And so what we did is, we're still having

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, it's my computer. It's decided it doesn't like to put it the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: same house. There's tape to put it up.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Okay. Just send him the link.

[Unidentified committee member]: I think it's too much for him.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. What? Tape is a

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: he is some No. I can we'll send it to you. Okay. It's fine.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Have Although I

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: have it here, it's on our website.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No, it's something different.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. I'm gonna I'll

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: leave it.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Kate's not joking. Yeah. One of the things that we did with this, we went through, not only did we cost out the criminal justice system, but we looked at programs that we were offering or that we could offer. And we calculated the cost benefit of those programs to Vermont. Because not everything that works everywhere is going to work here. It's not that we're so much different, but some of the problems we don't have, some of the infrastructure we don't have to make certain programs successful. And so what programs could, given limited dollars that the Vermont has to spend on criminal justice, what would be the best way to reduce the cost to society of crime? To reduce the cost of, you know, not just to society, but how are we going to, well, also to society, How are we the benefits of stronger families or the benefits of less crime. So not just less crime in the cost of crime, but also the human cost of crime. I'm sure a few of you still remember from probably ten years now the film that was going around about children of incarcerated parents, right? So, right, that's the cost of crime. The children who don't have their family intact. And so we cost out all of those things. And colleagues across the country measure certain programs to see. And this is on your joint fiscal's website. These were all of the ones that we did for results first. We did the hub and spoke, that works. It also helps reduce crime. We did intensive family based services from DCF. Got some heads on that. The program inventory and the criminal justice actually, Tate, if you don't mind, if you click on the criminal justice preliminary results, then you'll see what we did. And just scroll. That's all the Keep going. Yeah. And so we gave you You and I have a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: little bit of at

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: all or not? Can read it

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: to you. Not you, Kate.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: There you go. And

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: so It's Okay. Perfect. So what we did because sometimes people see the price tag for some of these programs. And programs are expensive. But what we expect, for example, drug courts as an alternative to incarceration, we would expect that that would actually reduce the recidivism. And this was measured, by the way, recidivism here was just another new criminal offense during the study period, not a weird definition like the department has. We just looked at any new conviction. It would reduce recidivism by about 18% if we had more drug courts, if we funded drug courts, as an alternative to incarceration. And because people are out in the community potentially paying taxes or that those kids aren't going to come into care because the parents are home, people aren't dying from drug use, that's very expensive. The net benefits to Vermont was about $4,000 per program participant. And it was about a 100% chance of being successful. Now, when you compare the same program to probation, it wasn't actually cost effective. And that's because according to the departments at the time, probation doesn't cost much. It doesn't cost much to add one more person to the system, Right? They've got the same It's not until you get to the level where the probation officers have 150

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: people or whatever. Right. If people are on sort of that risk management supervision, where they have a lot more contacts, collateral contacts and in person contact, if they're on any other type of monitoring, that just increases the cost. But if you're on administrative probation where you're calling in, right? Yeah, right. It's a very

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: cheap program. And so compared to that, drug courts aren't cost effective, doesn't mean that there's still not a good program. So these were things that we did at the time. I want to just point out here supervision risk with high at the time, we weren't quite offering that. It wasn't up and running yet inside the facilities. I have since evaluated the program, Risk Intervention Services, that Kim Bushey, who just retired after her many years of service, started inside the facilities. There's two programs in my career that I've evaluated that have done really, really well, Diversion and that program. That program is the only program that I've ever seen reduce domestic violence recidivism. It did really well inside the facilities. So we weren't able to do a cost benefit analysis. But that report is on our website, and we can send it to you. It was by far one of the most effective programs, and I hope it survives her retirement.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we have a question here, Troy, and then Conor.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm saying this to you, but it's for the benefit of my committee members. This is a sincere question because there's going to be a reaction to it

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: when I ask it. Okay.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: If we look at correctional industries in prison, and the net benefits are at $49.19 how much of those net benefits are because of the low wages

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: that we pay within correctional districts?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Sort of not really. Because when we were doing this one, and we spent a lot of time on this one, and you were part of

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Well, and so, yeah, there's

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: a couple of things I

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: do want to say about this one. Because this one is clearly the industry's program, which is no longer operating in in correctional facilities. It's, again, was that huge shift. And so the low wages you're probably talking about now are just for the employ the employment wages, which is different than what this correctional industry is was about. So I just wanted to make that clear.

[Unidentified committee member]: I didn't understand what you just said.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Okay, I'm sorry about that. So at the time this study was being completed, there was actually something in Correctional Industries. And people had jobs like there was in the Woodstock, where industries would go out and bid on projects. They made a lot of furniture.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: sold furniture. Then in that process of building that furniture, there were incarcerated individuals who were employed. And industries at the time, the way it was structured, was supposed to be a self funding type of a project. And so those incarcerated people worked for industries. That's different than having a facility job like working in the kitchen or cleaning the facility. And now correctional industries has been revised and revamped where it doesn't exist the way it did at the time of this study.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: And so part of it was because it was self funding, right?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And it

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: was losing

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: money. Because it could not compete. It had Emmons is laughing because this was a large conversation. But it could not compete for various reasons. And so it wasn't able to get the projects it needed to. He structured it in a way for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it not to

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Not to compete.

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

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And that's a real aside from this, but it relates to your question, representative.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: We also looked at, if you go farther down, thank you, things that weren't offered in Vermont, but things that we could have looked at at the time, whether or not these would, looking at a change of reduction in recidivism and then whether or not it was going to have some net benefits to Vermont. So all of this was based on studies that other people had done on the cost, really rigorous studies that sometimes we can't do in Vermont because of our small size. We also, Vermont likes to just give a program to everybody at the same time and not give me a nice, we're only going to do this program in this county and then I can have these other counties as a control group. We don't do a lot of control group work here. We just like to pass a policy and let everyone do it. Don't do that. As a researcher, I always am like, just let me have my control group. Because then that's how we know whether it's something that's different than the status quo. One of the things about this process, and we continued to do that, so like you saw on your joint fiscal's website, there were a lot of ways that we use this. At the end of the day, though, happened at a time this results first happened at a time that this body, the whole building, was going on this journey called results based accountability. And, results based accountability, there was some thought, and we disagreed with this, there was some thought that results based accountability conflicted with results first. There was a problem because they both had results in the name, and this was a problem. And so at the end of the day, the faction that wanted results based accountability won, and this project never continued. So, yeah, it was something that we had hoped that would continue and that this body, the building, would find useful, and this is how we're doing. We thought it worked well with results based accountability. It helps show how to turn the curve or whatever those.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, they could have supported each other. Yeah. They could have supported each other. They could have.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. But, But this is here. And the Washington State Institute for Public Policy has continued this work. They actually pioneered it. And so if you do have questions about, hey, we're thinking about starting this program, reach out to us and we'll tell you what the research says about whether we think it would work with our population or not. Yes.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: Sure. So I think this can answer it. I've got a theory, like all things being equal. If you think our out of state population, a core civic in a private prison versus people housed in Vermont correctional facilities. We heard testimony yesterday that the incarcerated population generally likes going to Mississippi, right? Because it's not as much programming. It's pretty chilled out. You get a playstation. This is all great. You're used to be able to smoke and everything. So, not having that programming. I just wonder, is there any way to say Recidivism rates are higher amongst those who have spent substantial time at a state in a private facility, to the point where it negates the savings that you pay moving to these tiny towns and paying people minimum wage to be CEOs?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: That's an interesting question. That's a research question. But is

[Rep. Conor Casey]: that the type of thing we could look into?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, we could certainly explore that. I think one of the questions I would have though, and this would be for the department, because I know that in the risk intervention services, they were bringing people back close towards the end of their time.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: That's where it gets sticky.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So that they could benefit from the programming, that as they were getting close to the end, could benefit from those programs. So we'd have to explore it a little bit. And also time framing it of who's going out of state when and when they're coming.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: Yeah, yeah. This is the most positive response I've heard. Usually people say, No, you can't do that. Yeah,

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: and part of the reason I think you might be receiving that, testimony. Those individuals who spent a lot of time out of state in CoreCivic and then came back to do their programming in Vermont would have done that same time in Vermont prior to getting their programming in Vermont. So the time frame was the time frame of that unprogrammed time. Not to say that those people wouldn't be they could have been engaged in a lot of other things. They could be taking advantage of lots of other opportunities, depending on what facility that they're in. But they may not be in risk intervention services. But they could be doing voluntary educational programs. And they could be doing a lot of other types of So that issue of that time is still that time regardless of what facility they're in.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: That makes sense too. And so then the next thing that we want talk about, there should be another link in there, Tate, for Act 40. Oh, yeah. So I

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: can talk briefly about Act 40. I think I sent you the just to give you an overview and the chair obviously mentioned this. So in 2023

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: It would be on this page or

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I sent that to you yesterday in the

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's off of one of the other reports. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: sent it to you in Yes. We go. Okay.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: So here we go. So this

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: is our web page, and this

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: is where we basically have put the results of Act 40. So in 2023, I think you were here, passed a bill, as Jeremy said, and required the Statistical Analysis Center, which became us, to produce a report with a tremendous amount of data, including recidivism rates, clearance rates, incarceration. And so we worked with all of our criminal justice partners and really were able to acquire a variety of new data sets, which is really exciting for us and for Robin to be able to Robin's. But it was a good opportunity. And so if you scroll down a little bit further, Nate, you can see that we've split it up into these different sections. So these were the required sections of the report. And so for each section, we have our own Basically, it's an interactive section. So you want to start with bail?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, let's do bail. So if

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: you click on bail, it'll open up to I'm sorry.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Open up to this interactive page. It takes a little bit of information.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Please wait. There we go. Yay. So

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: all of these follow the same kind of

[Unidentified committee member]: Format.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Format. Yes, thank you. Of what you ordered us to do, what the legislation ordered us to do, and then what I did with it and what we learned. The bail data was really interesting. And so if you scroll down, let's do so in all of them, just so you know, we have comments on the data sources, the data quality, because that's always an issue, caveats around the data or some policies that may be affecting the data, and how we handle those. I think it's always important for us to be transparent about how we handle the data and so that people can criticize us, or we can learn, or they agree that I'm correct, which is usually my assumption.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Sometimes it's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: ours. Sometimes it's ours.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. So one of the things about the bail data that we learned so some of the things that have happened is that the move to Odyssey, the enterprise justice, this allows us to get a lot of data that we were never able to get out. But it's a huge endeavor to get an entire court system onto a new system. You think of all the folks that are working in the courts and all of the pieces of information that courts collect on a daily basis, hourly basis. And bail is one of those things. And so we're still working with the judiciary to understand how they're capturing the bail data because it's very and whether people paid it. That was a big question. Did people pay their bail? And that's the question that isn't clear in the judiciary's data that we're still working on them to figure out what's happening. One of the things that we did uncover while we were working with this data is that Addison County, the clerks there were entering data incorrectly. And so that's part of the benefit of doing these studies. Okay, this is happening. So now they can go back and fix all that. But we talk about how that happens. But if you go down to, let's say, do analysis of DOC data. You can just click that. You can just click on that. And then just go, length of stay by charge. We'll do that. So there's all sorts of, yeah, just scroll down here. If you stop here, so in this box, can choose any type of any crime that I've done and you can see how long people are staying incarcerated on pretrial detention. Most people are out here in zero days. And if you hover over this, you'll see something will pop up. There you go. It's asking people who were incarcerated for one day. I think this is zero. For violations and conditions of release. Now, is the charge that they were held on. One of the things that always, and DOC tells you this every time they come in here about detainees. Most people are cycling in within those twenty four, forty eight hours, that these folks that are here for a long time, they could be here for another reason. But it's important to figure out somebody who spent fifteen hundred days. That's a lot of days. Well, is it because they were held without bail on another charge? Right? So there's all different ways to kind of- Which is likely the case. Which is is

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: likely the case. Conditions of release is that there's some other more serious charge that's associated with it. Because this isn't unique. It's like everybody's charge was associated.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, this violation of conditions of release, that is regardless if the person was on probation or furlough.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Is the criminal charge, not the returns violation. This is 7559E.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That doesn't mean anything in this world.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It's different than the way you think

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: about it.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. Thank you. This is the criminal charge of violating your conditions of release whilst on bail. While on bail?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. So you're out in the community. You haven't been convicted. Right. You've been charged.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: You've been charged and you've been given all these conditions when you got bail. And we just finished a study on conditions on violation of this type of violations of conditions of release last year where we looked at how many people are committing new crimes while they're out on bail. It's actually a very small number of people. I actually think it'd be easier for this committee if we picked a different crime. Yeah,

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: so if you want to just go from the dropdown.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That one's important because if we do pretrial supervision, you're working with these folks. Yes.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: But I do think it's important to understand is that these outliers who were here for a long time have other charges, it's likely the other charge and not the violation of condition of release charge. So it is keeping them in

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

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: And it may not even be related to this case. Because that's the other issue with the folks that are involved in the system. It's people don't just wait for their case to be over before something else happens to them. They could have case one that's going on. They could be on probation on this other case. And then they get a new arrest. So, it's all curlicues. But you can see if you go through these crimes, domestic assaults, how many people are spending time on pretrial detention. So they've been charged. They've been charged. This is just on bail and pretrial detention. They've been charged. They've been charged. No convictions. No convictions yet. And one of the things I was talking to, one of the things that is always in my time here, this is from an economic perspective, not a justice perspective necessarily. But the amounts that it costs to process somebody, for them to be inside on bail or waiting for their bail to be paid for less than twenty four hours. Because you have to we were talking about this. You have to screen them. You have to do all the intake forms. And then three hours later, they pay their bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it's DOC who does that. So it's part of their budget.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So it's part of their budget. And

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: the health care screenings, as you all know.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Health care And screenings.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Monica, I'm going to pick your brain on this. You're not going to remember. Folks go through our correctional systems on a yearly basis, 4,000? Is it a size 4,000? Overall, the total number

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: of people? Oh, it used to be a lot higher than that. I don't remember. I know it went down. It's around 4,000 for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: some reason that go through our booking areas.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. I mean, we used to When I started, again, that was 2012. It was like 12,000 people. If you looked at how many people who just churned through and it But would that

[Rep. Conor Casey]: be unique people you're talking about? Would each

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Well, no.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: Pretty tough.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: A It's churn. It's a churn.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: It's It's repeat.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because it's taken the same amount of time from

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It has gone down significantly. I don't know what the number is, though, right now.

[Unidentified committee member]: Troy?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I want to ask you a question based on things I hear routinely, especially in Burlington. Jay, can click the drop down to retail theft 900 or less? One of the things we hear consistently is, especially around retail theft 900 or less, is this constant they're in and they're out, they're in and they're out. We clearly still have, for this charge, plenty of people detained for two fifty, 500, seven fifty. So what is the data telling us, just from this screenshot, how does that compare to the rhetoric?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So two things about the rhetoric. So people are coming This is still You're still innocent. Right? So at this point, you're still innocent. And what this is telling you is that 400 people came into the system, were innocent, spent time a day or that's probably one day up at the top of Yeah, your one day. So almost 400 people during the study period went through the process of being booked into the Department of Corrections for twenty four hours or less for retail theft. That's And so somebody's life was picked up, moved for twenty four hours, and then they were released because they met the responsibility of paying their bail, or somebody paid the bail. And they were back out on the street, yes, within twenty four hours. But they are still innocent at that point.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I agree. Yeah. But that doesn't help the people who are on Reddit talking about all these people on Church Street who I see continually bolting from Lululemon with. I saw them yesterday, and I'm going to see them next week.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Or I saw

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: them two weeks ago doing So my question is, how do I access this to put some data to that?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So this is supporting what people think they see. Right. This is supporting what people think they see. We've talked to some communities, and sometimes and we spoke to Burlington. And I know that they were doing a lot with bringing people in, here's the Vermont Constitution. The accountability court that has started up there, that impact something, that may make people feel a little bit better about that something is being done. Justice takes a long, long time. And we do not have a Judge Dredd kind of I'm dating myself here. But at least some

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: of you laugh.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: We don't have that kind of system. One of the things that people like retribution in American jurisprudence and in American criminal justice, but it is the one government policy that has consistently failed for centuries, that for as long as retribution has been part of jurisprudence, it is a value of multiple societies across time. It first shows up in seventeen hundred BC. It's the first time it shows up. But if you look at the value of retribution as a society, what have we gained from that? How are we better off as a society because of retribution? And that's where it's not an evidence based policy.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. It's taken it to a different and then catching people on red.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Right. It's a perception. But as far as government policy goes, retribution has not done its job. Yeah.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Type that into Reddit and see what happens.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Ex EPO, at the bottom of, if you go to additional Act 40 reports, these

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: all the other reports that we did. And so if we do returns to incarceration from community supervision, so this is the other violations. Is the violation that you guys are used to talking about in this committee. In this one, what we did is we DOC gave us all the data about people coming back in. You guys changed the policy. That was something that happened. And if you go down to just keep scrolling. There we go. So we can start here. So this is just number of individuals by the number of times they are returned. So this is after they've been released from the facility, they've been convicted, they're on any number, it's different statuses. Most people are coming in just once, but some people come back seven times during the study period. So we want to understand who are those. But this is a really important kind of slope. This also gets to that churn. Like, is it the same people? Well, most people are just coming back. That slope is pretty clear. There's a few outliers down here. Yeah, most people. But most people aren't. So then we did reasons for return, if you go to that.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, right. A little reasons for return.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, there

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: you go. Yeah.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: And so this was great. And here you can see your change of policy. And there's also some change of the way that Well, yeah, I mean of this data. Right. So you can see here clearly at

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: the time, it was hard at DOC at the time, the absconders status wasn't captured quite as well as it used to be. And so, you can see that the violations were pretty high up until 2021, well COVID and then 2021 when the policy changed, and then data changes, and then course, the sconders go up because of the change in the data collection.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: But this is your change of policy. So you did change policy and you changed behavior. So congratulations, this is what you wanted and this is what happens.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, a lot of those returns were technical violations.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Well, as you can see,

[Unidentified committee member]: these were

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Return. Yeah. Violation and then new crime.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: We were able to distinguish So, between new

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a violation of a condition is not sentence, correct?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Right. A violation of the condition of their supervision.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's not a sentence because some folks are confused about

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: this.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. Okay. Yeah. And then you can see if you scroll down a little bit more, we gave you the returns by different field offices. So you can see how your policy was impacted and carried out in the field offices. You can see that Burlington certainly had a lot of technical violations, and then that just kind of stopped. And the same with Barrie City. And then St. Johnsbury here, this was the issue with COVID. So that's what you're

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: seeing there is the COVID. The gap that there's absolutely no returns was because the St. Johnsbury Field Office was very focused on the Northeast Correctional Complex, which had the, for those of you who were here, that had the first COVID outbreak. And so there was a lot of deployment.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But it's interesting that Bennington, there's not much data for Middlebury, But Bennington and Springfield stayed pretty consistent.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. These are the daily

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

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: try over and over something, see if it pops up. Yeah. These are very those are two these are the day to day. We were interested in how many times how many people are coming back in a day. But yeah, so it's not very many people. And overall, not very many people.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I say consistent.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, I say consistent.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The law, it was pretty consistent,

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: those two candidates for the PMT. Yeah, so that indicates that you're violating, right, there was a culture in the offices that was contributing to the violations, right, as opposed to policy, perhaps. Because you changed the policy and nothing

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They stayed the same, but the culture changed.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So in Burlington and Barrie, the culture really changed.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, in addition to the policy.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Right, right. Well, and the policy helped change the culture.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So prior to changing, and the change was in terms of technical violations when you pull them back and for how long, right? So some towns like Barring Burlington, the culture was even if you had one violation, boom, it came back.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Well, I do I mean, I understand that this return policy, in addition to some of the other things related to the bail policies, the combination of those, I know has now been something that's been reconsidered because of potential impact in communities. That's my understanding. I'm not there anymore, so I can't say you have the Department of Corrections that's doing it now. But it did have the effect. What we show is that the policy and the legislation that was passed did have the impact it was intended to have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then that changes over the years because the legislature changes.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And the legislature changes it again. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And there's different focus, and then there's pressure from the community. So then we undo laws that we put in place that may be working, and then we undo them thinking we're doing better. Correct. Sometimes we do better and sometimes we do worse.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: So the commissioner was in a couple of weeks ago and he said, good news, like incarceration is going down nationally at a pretty high rate there. And usually Vermont's a couple of years behind. And we're optimistic with that. But I think we've had trouble connecting the dots like why that might be true. Don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, well, crime is down.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Crime is down.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So The United States is about to have the lowest homicide rate since 1900. And so crime is down, so that helps. What's interesting is we don't know why crime is down. Just attended a webinar on this, so I'm gonna spare you the whole lecture, but we don't know why crime is down. It just is. Part of it, they think, is a few things, especially homicide. So specifically, this was about nationwide, our homicide rates going down. One of the things that's interesting is and this would affect Vermont and what is considered fine. Because people have gone to a mostly cashless society, the benefits from robbery are a lot less. Interesting. And robbery is a crime that leads to high fatalities. So I may not intend to murder you when I hold you up, but something happens and that happened. So we're seeing fewer robberies because there's no benefit. But what we are seeing, that doesn't mean the property crime has gone away. It just means that it's not showing up in the data. And if you think about it, one of the things that they're talking about as far as prime data and statistics, let's say you notice a fraudulent charge in your credit card. You're not calling the cops. You're just calling your bank. Right? None of us would even think to report that or just waste anyone's time with it necessarily, right? Because we get our assault, right then and there. So a lot of property crime is not even showing up in the data because we aren't as people. We're affected by it, but we're affected by ourselves.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: We have a different Right.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: You wouldn't even necessarily consider like I've been a victim of a crime. That is much different than if one of my purse gets stolen or something like that. Right? You're go to your credit card. Right. You're just gonna go to your credit card. A $100

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: charge of your credit card you didn't. Right. Right. You've been victimized, but you don't think

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: of it. Know, can call the police. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're gonna call your credit card.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: You're gonna call your credit card company. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Charge loads it too, and then you deal with the credit card. Right. And

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: none of gets ported

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: into the And none of that

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: gets in any of the data sets. Except for the very bottom, people's experiences, in which case, you know, you or may not. You may

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: or may not. So as this kind of identity theft or that kind of crime has happened and continues to happen and grow, if it's not a crime or people aren't reporting it, then your crime prevention rates are gonna go down.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: Yep. So, we still see the incarceration rates high in Vermont, right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes, they are high. But

[Rep. Conor Casey]: do we think maybe the national trend eventually will come here and we'll start to see that ticking down a bit?

[Unidentified committee member]: One

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: of the things that we're going to start doing in our data when we testify or about sentences or so on and so forth, and I'm stealing this from the district attorney in Philadelphia. They do a lot of good data. They're very good with their data. He reports out every year how many subsequent years. So let's say everyone who gets sentenced for a burglary this year, it ends up being that Vermont judiciary has sentenced people to a total of one hundred future years of incarceration, because they just keep sentencing everybody to incarceration. So he's reporting out, it's a very interesting number. This is how many people were sentenced to jail this year. This is how many years cumulatively they were sentenced to. This is how many years the state of Vermont is obligated to house them. And that's a different way of kind of looking at our data, I think, which is very interesting. We kind of talk about what is a fair punishment for a crime. And we hope that the punishment is somehow related to the crime and that it makes sense. But how many future years of tax dollars are promising that the state of Vermont is going to pay for? And in kind of doing those projections. So I think the answer would be, I would have to look to see what the judiciary is currently doing with their sentencing policy. And are they sentencing fewer people and for less time?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then it's your cumulative amount.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: But then it's the cumulative amount.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So someone may be ten years, another person is five, and then you're fifteen years, and then another person's a ten year twenty five years.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Twenty five cumulative years of incarceration.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 90,000 a pound. That

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Vermonters will pay for.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So then the question becomes, is it cheaper to incarcerate folks? Never. Than it is for the amount of money it's costing the community for the crime.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I have never seen any study that supports the idea that incarceration is cheaper. The only time that incarceration is cheaper is compared to the death penalty. It is more expensive to execute somebody than it is to house them for life. But that's the only studies that I'm aware of where incarceration again, because there's all these collateral consequences of incarceration. It's not a healthy environment for the person to be in, first of all. And there's the damage to the family. There's the loss of income for that person. There's a lot of collateral consequences just for the act of incarceration plus the cost of incarceration.

[Unidentified committee member]: How do you calculate the cost of the affected citizens? Sure.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So there's actually lots of studies that tend to look at what those costs might be. So when we try to look at it, in our cost benefit analysis, we did look at the cost of victimization. And so the cost of victimization include things like a loss of work for the victim, loss of time to go to court or to go to medical appointments or counseling. So in order to calculate that stuff, we worked with the prime victim services who does a compensation fund. But what

[Unidentified committee member]: are they compensating people for?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Things like changing your lungs. And not everyone accesses these services or can, so we calculate that in. We also look at the cost of loss of property and the values of property, the increased cost of insurance for your retailers and brokerage or so on. So there is a lot of costs that go on to crime and that we calculate. But incarceration has never limited those costs. What you're asking is how many people go on to commit crime again. And so that person may not be committing a crime with all the time that they're incarcerated, but that's usually not enough to move the needle in most cases. There are absolutely cases where we can see that somebody's been released back into the community and the crime rate in that community goes up a little bit. And that's in Vermont. Nationally, you usually don't see that. It's just that we're a very small community. But overall, policy wise, no, incarceration has never made an impact on the decline rate.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: James?

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Because I'm sure that people have questions about this, is incarceration is not always about money. There's plenty of things that, you know, there's rehabilitation, blah, blah, blah.

[Unidentified committee member]: Just

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: throw a good example out where it's not about money. Jeffrey Dahmer type person should never be out in a society. It's just, it's going to cost a lot of money to keep them in prison, you know. So just like when people were thinking about this, that it's not, we are talking about money here. We are also talking about most people probably can be rehabilitated, etcetera. But there's exceptions. It just doesn't mean it's still not cheaper when we talk about it. Or even a death penalty when you think about it in your head, go, how's it more expensive? And you start thinking about the legal costs and all the things that we have in our system that add to the cost, which is why the death penalty costs more money than in prison. It's not, nothing's cut dry. There's no bad. You know, if you start thinking like, oh, this is the way it is, you know, to start going into a little tangent, start looking at the food or your nose. I'm talking to you, I'm talking to everybody in the But it's always more than what we think. There's reasons why things that don't sound right on their face often are.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: I love this testimony because everything's under your umbrella, we can just ask for that.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's a

[Rep. Conor Casey]: beautiful thing, really. Wonder, so I was used to get ticked off. I worked for a VSEA and people would say, we have so many state employees compared to other states. But in truth, like a lot of other states have county systems, right? And county jails and city jails. Right? How do you get like an apples to apples cost comparison for incarceration when we're working in such different systems? Like county employees that have completely different pension plan county to county in other states, right? And does that figure into the cost of incarceration?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So what we do in Vermont is generally we look at the cost of an out of state vet. That's generally been the What does an out of state vet cost? That's what we used in that report because that was a much expensive-

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Well, my recollection of the reason was because if there was going to be any reduction in incarceration, the goal, as is always the goal, was to try and stop using the out of state beds. So if we were to think about what would be the saving and what would be that we want to compare it to, it would be those beds versus the in state beds. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: Okay. Got it.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: That's what I would do. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This also doesn't get calculated, even though it may be whatever it is a day or a year, $2,530,000 a year, and you save one bed, doesn't mean you've saved that $2,530,000.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No, no.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Because I think that's important for people. On. Yeah.

[Rep. Conor Casey]: Because

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there's cost that you're not going to

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: absorb that. And what shown, and I think there's been other studies, is around the savings needs to be around reducing the population enough that you can close the unit, stop using the at the same facilities. That requires I mean, I believe that's why the justice reinvestment too was started in Vermont, that it can reduce it enough.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Go to Joe, if have anything.

[Unidentified committee member]: All I was gonna say, I think it's kind of what you were hitting at in your research with maybe comparing it with other states or other jurisdictions, is that you can't really I don't think anyone's trying to achieve economies of scale with prisons. It's like if we were to hypothetically triple our prison population, it would reduce that bed number or cost per bed, but you're not really shifting costs. So it's all rooted in public safety.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. And the public safety, the things that reduce crime are generally broader based community supports. Education reduces crime. When we're looking at how do we stop people from committing crimes. Deterrence only So one of the right ideas behind our punishment system is deterrence specific in general. Specific deterrence is, I'm not going to commit a crime because I'm afraid. General deterrence is, We're all not committing crimes because we don't want to go to jail. There's not a lot of research that supports corrections as a deterrence. There is research that supports cops as deterrence. And it turns out you're less likely to shoplift if there's a cop right there watching you. This is very obvious, we think. And but there's a lot of research that supports that. So it is often cheaper to put more police officers on the streets than it is to increase infestoration, and you would have an increase you would have the the corresponding decrease in crime because, when they are visible and they are out there, then science does say that people are deterred from committing that crime.

[Unidentified committee member]: Question to hear that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes, yes. The death penalty, a lot of people say the death penalty deters crime.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: It does not. There's been no evidence of that. The only justification for the death penalty left is retribution. And again, that's the policy that's failed. None of us are doing So say that one,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the only justification for For the

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: death penalty that's left is retribution. It does not rehabilitate right? It doesn't rehabilitate the offender. It does not It deter other people. It certainly I mean, you could argue that it incapacitates him, but does prescient people. So the statistics

[Unidentified committee member]: don't happen. Wow. A murderer or murder again, statistics don't support that?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I'm not sure, I understand. Someone who murders someone,

[Unidentified committee member]: if you don't incarcerate them or take their life,

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: they- Well, incarcerating them is different than killing them, right? So, They yeah,

[Unidentified committee member]: can't kill if they're in the prison.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Right, that's incapacitation. That's incapacitation, yes. So what does statistics show about- Actually, so our homicides here in Vermont, because they tend to be so personal, they are not likely to recidivate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Got rid of their problem.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Have very

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: low recidivism.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So our homicides in Vermont are very low recidivism. Nationally, when you look at homicide recidivists, it depends on the type of homicides you're talking about. Oftentimes those robberies, something like that, or things like that. That's incapacitation. It's not necessarily deterrence, though.

[Unidentified committee member]: But Yeah.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Does the death penalty make the people who it has done something to their loved ones, is there data that shows that they are happier with that outcome?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So I really hope we're not considering bringing the death penalty back while you did this. Yeah, sorry

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: about that. Yeah, that's all right.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I will say, because I actually was a death penalty attorney. And so the studies are very is some The night of the execution, there is some relief or it's over, etcetera. But long term psychological benefit for the psychological impact on the families of the affected. There's a lot of studies that say that it's not None of is good. None of it is good for anyone. Heals people. It does not heal, it's people.

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: That's a nice way to

[Unidentified committee member]: say it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't heal as people.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm trying

[Unidentified committee member]: to remember, just on this retribution topic, I've been trying to remember, this has been a few years ago, when I was reading this book about criminal justice statistics, and if I remember correctly, think it was on the death penalty and I think it showed that eighty eight or eighty nine percent of people, it was high 80s, did not, and maybe it had just been about incarceration, so I'm getting my basis of it fuzzy, that they did not wanna see what the sentence was for that individual actor, and they wanted to see it to a lesser degree. There's a mixture of responses from people saying that they wanted a restorative process to really mean with the individual and try to come to some resolution on their own terms, and the court was also part of that. Now, I don't know how outdated that statistic is. I didn't know if I'm-

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I don't know, but that definitely, if you go back in history to the movement, the victims' rights movements, is 1970s is when it really kind of took forward. And then that coincides with our restorative movement here in Vermont of making people whole and making the community whole, which is different than retribution. It is different than incapacitation or deterrence. It is a different value that is being espoused. So I'm not surprised. A lot of times, people do feel like the criminal justice system is not responsive to them, regardless of the death penalty or not. Even if you talk to some of your shopkeepers, may not feel that the criminal justice system is responsive enough or that the punishment was what they wanted or that they were made whole. So Vermont, as it tries to incorporate more restorative practices, you may see a change there. And one of the things that we do know, there was a recent study that just came out, which I find fascinating. If you were born and raised in a high homicide state, so I'm going pick on Alabama, and you move to Vermont, a low homicide state, your risk of being killed by homicide is exactly the same as if you had never left. And that's because they think what's happening is that you grew up in a place where you do not have faith in the systems, that the systems didn't work for you. And so people handled their business outside of the courts, outside of the government, and that leads to your high homicide rates. Right? And when you move to a place like Vermont, because you don't have the faith and the value in those institutions of the police, of the courts, that they're going to do what you need them to do, then you still are in that same position where you're outside of our formal social control and protection. And so you still have the same risk of dying of homicide as if you'd never left Alabama.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that true in the reverse?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No, not necessarily. But the researchers admittedly didn't look at that. I mean, that's definitely an interesting question. But this interstate migration and you leave one place hoping for a better life than another, and your risk of being killed if homicide still remains the same.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is it your perception of the system? Right. And lack of

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: trust. And what are we doing? This is also something that works very well for client control, is how do you increase people's belief that the system is going to work for them when you need it to. And that is definitely something that I think we could work on.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: We've got to make the system better.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. Well, thankfully, you are right in the right spot to do that, aren't you?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Being punitive doesn't always work. And being rehabilitated works in some cases, and then other cases doesn't always work either. Because sometimes people have to really hit the bottom before they Right. Rehabilitation is

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: a continuum. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: want to thank you for coming in. I hope it helped the committee. And the crime research group is an asset, and it's a tool that we can work with. They're there to help. In the past, we've done legislation and really incorporated the crime research group, work on the data, come back. Monica, you've been around enough? We've both been around enough.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes, yes. That Act 40 reports, there's an order in the statute we're supposed to update it. The feds just is this real wood?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. We just So we had almost a year since the grant. It's a year late, the grant that we typically apply for to do this research. It was just released, thankfully. And so, we are applying to continue so that we can update the Act 40 report in 'twenty seven, which is what the statute requires. But we won't know if we have that money. So Yeah. So then we will let you know, because I think that's a discussion That is a discussion. That people miss building as to whether or not that's something that you want to continue and how do we continue it. But that is our plan.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Can you send us the data or the research for the 30%?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, it was an email, but yeah, I can resend it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Sometimes.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. No. That's fine. I will I will send it to you. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: To all

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of us. Yeah. To the whole committee. To the

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: whole committee. Yep. Sure. Okay. We'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. Hey, good man. We'll just send

[Unidentified committee member]: it to

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: you. We'll just send

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it to you. Yeah. I want to thank you for coming in. Hope it was informative for the committee and know that you're out there for a resource. Yes. Yes. You might want to back. A few minutes because we're going to hear sponsor for a bill on. Aren't time?

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Oh, okay.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: don't know if I'm mentally ready for that. Many of you don't know, but you know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You can hang around. But Yeah.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I can

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: hang around.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: You're the

[Rep. Conor Casey]: set sponsor of

[Monica Wieber (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: the film.

[Unidentified committee member]: I can be

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: the sponsor of Fun. Very cool.

[Unidentified committee member]: Let's see. I'm gonna

[Unidentified committee member]: make it out

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of the room. Chris, that we are gonna take about ten minutes worth of testimony from number Scott Bill.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: It can do it in half of that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. That works. And Good. We love it.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Pretty accurate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 52. Thank you. So happy to

[Unidentified committee member]: help you. Good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 52. And welcome. We had a few minutes that we could squeeze you in. Because our

[Unidentified committee member]: Thank you so much.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Has been chucked slow for the last couple of weeks. So if you could just identify yourself.

[Unidentified committee member]: Sure can.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: For the record, I'm Chris Pritchard. I represent the Bennington Rutland District. So the towns of Pollitt, Middletown Springs, Rupert, Wells, I share with Patty McCoy, and Paula. Good afternoon, and thank you for for having me and giving me this opportunity. I wanted to start by thanking chair Emmons and her committee members for allowing me this opportunity. I also wanted to recognize chair Emmons who graciously and willingly assisted this new representative when I reached out to her for help and guidance for the spill. Chair Emmons introduced me to Isaac Dana and the staff of the Department of Corrections who are helpful in answering questions and verifying facts. Thank you, chairmans, for your thanks. I have come here before you today, to present NASA's committee's consideration for h two fifty two. I was asked by one of my constituents if I would submit this bill on behalf of her husband and others that have lost loved ones at the hands of individuals that have been convicted of multiple felonies. In the case of my constituent, the person responsible for her husband's death had a criminal record that consisted of over 30 misdemeanors. And prior to that tragic day, this individual was a nine time convicted felon. This person was willing to place his own mother behind the wheel of the vehicle he was driving to take the blame for his own actions. He is now serving time as a 10 time convicted felon, and his sentencing included habitual offender enhancement. The crime that resulted in the death of my constituent's husband does not disqualify the convicted from the exceptions in the earned time law that is in effect, which grants this person through good behavior in prison the means to reduce the sentence he was given by nearly 25%. What h two fifty two does is this. It allows a first time convicted felon a second chance, provided the crime they were convicted and sentenced to was an list a listed exclusion. It allows them a pathway to reenter society sooner, get their life back on track. And I believe that in most all cases, we all deserve a second chance. But a third, a fourth, a tenth. I appreciate the hard work this committee does. And I know it's difficult work you undertake to make policy that offers equitable justice for all. I believe h two fifty two is a step in that direction. My discussion with Bennington at legal counsel was very difficult in some cases due to no defined law or statute to list specific definitions definitions such as murder. After some discussion with Eric, this bill was just written to include all felonies. And when I thought about it, I really couldn't think of a worthy exclusion. Is there really such a thing as a good felony? The change which relates to 28 VSA 18 is this. It would add to the section eight eleven, these additional 14 words, to offender's sentence for a felony after having previously been convicted of a felony. H two fifty two was the first bill I have introduced, and it's probably gonna be the last one. And the timeline for the submission for the first half of the biannual was approaching fast. I did my best to reach out to as many representatives in person as I could to speak, to seek support as cosponsors in the limited time ahead. This bill comes to you with tripartisan support. Nearly a third of all house members have cosponsored this bill, and among those are seven of the 11 members that sit on this committee. I've since had several dozen members offer their support for this bill, which is close to nearly half of the legislators that represent Vermonters in this house chain. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present this bill for your consideration. It is my hope that this committee will be willing to have a conversation about H two fifty two and that my constituent will also have the opportunity to share her story with this committee and the justice she still seeks ten years later. H two fifty two is about hope. The hope of restoring justice, fairness, and respect for the victims' families and their loved ones and the loss they have to endure every day. I thank you on their behalf for your consideration.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So do you know how long the sentence is and if there's a minimum and a maximum?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I don't I didn't bring all those details with me. I have those. I had hoped the constituent that asked me to submit this on her behalf. I sat down with her and we have a portfolio of those things. And I felt I I felt that she should tell you her story and explain what she has been through. So I wanted it short and sweet and just to tell you what it was about and the reasons that she asked me to bring it forward.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. We reached out last year a number of times.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: This this committee was wonderful in helping me do that. Her and her husband had a farm, a horse farm, they take care of those pastures, hay, and they worked that together for years and years. And she is trying to keep that going. And she really, it's hard for her to get away and make a two hour drive up here.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: You know, it's

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: But, Did you explain to her even though it's better in person, that she could do it in

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I I I I did too. I I I did.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So really hard.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Yeah. It's a powerful story.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I just wanna say, depending what the sentence is, doesn't matter when their minimum is up. Once a person's minimum is up, they are eligible for the lease. Doesn't mean they will be released. They can be released on furlough or they could be released on court. Either version, they would have to be reviewed by a DOC based on many, many factors. And quite often people are not released at their minimum for a variety of reasons. If they are trying for parole, it's the parole board that makes that decision. So there are checks and balances as we go along. The way. So even though there's earned time that is earned, when they're due to be released, it's not an automatic because there is a review of that. I just wanna put that on the table. And if there are some major violations of DOC rules while they're in facilities. They could be violated through a disciplinary report, major disciplinary report that would disallow them from receiving some earned time. And if they were re incarcerated while they were out on furlough or parole for a new violation, then they could lose their own time. So it's not just the blanket they're gonna get it automatically. There are behavior issues that the person who's incarcerated has to abide by, with the security and safety of the facility in an order for our staff to have some management tools. So I just want to put that out on the table so people can balance the whole conversation.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Chris, thanks for coming in. I know that wasn't easy. And I guess I don't I don't wanna take away anything from the testimony that that that your, you know, constituent would give, but do you mind just explaining, like, what happened? They as I said, they they they had a horse farm. She still does. She's trying to keep it going. Yeah. And this happened about ten years ago, and her husband was walking down the road they live on, it's a rural road, it's in Timnath, and to go to the next horse pasture. When he was run over, this person ran him over, left the scene, left him there dead Yeah. Side of the road. And when they they when they finally found him, there was he's his mother had he I I don't think he lives that far down the road. I don't know all the details of this, but he had tried to put his mother as the driver of the vehicle that that caused this. He was under the influence of drugs when he was arrested. Thanks. That's helpful. Thank you.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I also want to express my gratitude. And I want to ask just a clarifying question. Because the sentence that you amended in the statute is pretty broad. And like Shawn said, too, I'm just incredibly grateful that you bring this to us. I'm a firm believer that when our constituents ask us to do this, that we do this. It's a privilege to be in these seats that not everybody has. So thank you. And I don't want to answer your question that you asked about, is there any such thing as a good felony? But I want to distinguish between violent and nonviolent felonies, because that is a distinction in our statutes. And we have five classes of felonies, A to E, increasing levels of violence and impact. So did you think about that at all, about between A and E?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: We we did. I spoke well, I spoke I spoke to Eric about it. And originally when when I originally, I started the bill with Ben, and I had my constituent on the phone, and we talked about it. And his his I believe what he was was convicted on was vehicular homicide death result and or something like that. And so, you know, what my constituent's concerned, she just wanted listen. If somebody is murdered or somebody, you know, loses their life, you know, death resulting in in whatever, these these should be covered. And and what Ben said and Eric said is there's no Vermont doesn't define murder. There's no definition of murder. So you would have to say, well, if you do this or this or this or this, and pretty soon you have a list three, you know, 300 different things. So, you know, I said, well, what what happens if you just say all felonies? He said, that would cover it. So I guess what I say to this committee is this bill is here for your consideration to fix, if if you will, or to look at. I don't know. You know? Certainly, what happened to my constituent and the circumstances, that person should not be allowed overtime. He just should I I find it morally wrong. So, you know, as as representative Headrick said that, you know, there's nonviolent. I know. I I know that. And and and and that's for your consideration. But there's certainly six exclusions in this. I think I believe there's six exclusions in the earned time. It's not enough. It's just not enough. And it doesn't if it doesn't cover what I just the story I just told you, it's not enough. So all I'm asking is is to think of these families and and think of what they've gone through. And just and and think of this situation because there's a lot of them. And just make it right. That's all I'm asking for. That's all I'm asking for.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So do you know if your constituent is receiving notice from DOC about how much

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: That's been a problem. That hasn't been a problem.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Been a problem in what way? Has she opted in? I mean, is she on the list?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I believe yes. I believe she is. And she still she was she was she was actually in court two weeks ago with ongoing issues with this on the on the civil scene, I think. On the what? On the on the civil side, I believe. I'm not Civil side? Yeah. I I I I I don't know all the details, chair Emmons, but she has been in and out of court related to this death since her since this happened to her husband.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So there's more layers here.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: There there is more.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There is layers. But I'm wondering in terms of what if he's received on time, she can receive notification of that from DOC, how much he's earned or a change of status. And I'm just wondering, is she receiving any of that information from DOC? Because that's part of the law.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I don't I I know we had a discussion about notifications she should have been receiving that she hasn't.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: From

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: But those are, I I believe, from DOC. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'd be

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: curious why she's going back to court for what something's if he's already been convicted and has a sentence

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: He's been serving time for a while.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But why go to civil

[Unidentified committee member]: court? That's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what I'm

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: She's she's been back to court. I thought she said civil court. I I I I can't tell you that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, just

[Unidentified committee member]: I appreciate what you said, Chris, about the consideration, because I know you've told me this, and you've told it to other people as well, that this was, again, constituent led, and that we'll find some way to consider different paths for this, I think, and trying to find that, again, justice and making sure that it all works. Just wanted to say.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Do have anything? Well, I do, but I

[Unidentified committee member]: want to, I

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: was hoping I'm not an idiot. One thing I would just say in my opinion is not to get too deep into the details during a presentation, not testimony on the actual bill, we're not picking up. But the other thing is like, it may be a civil thing, would just assume, I don't know enough about this, maybe liability or financial stuff versus you get your criminal side where you're to prison or punitive, whatever you want call it. And then you have the other side, which is, hey, you caused this damage and we're coming to get the money that you should owe us. Those are my two comments.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Yeah. I I don't know all the details of the ongoing things. You know, really what I tried to to bring to the committee today was my bill and a little bit of of why I brought it. My point. You know, there's a whole whole few details. I truly wish my constituent could sit before this committee and tell her story. And and chair Emmons has been reached out. I I I mean, Phil went. Jumped through hoops to do this Mhmm. For us, and I and I appreciate that. She just it's hard for her to leave. She's We are.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey]: Mary A. Mitchell? Well, part of your bill that really gets me is and I hear it all the time from my constituents, you're now talking 10 felonies. When is enough enough? When do we say someone needs to be held accountable? And that's why I'm 100% behind however we, you know, just decipher to do, but we've got to stop this pretending that this is just going to go away and we're giving them benefits for something they've caused 10 times down the road?

[Unidentified committee member]: Well, for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: earned time, if they become reconvicted of another crime, they lose the earned time. So I think that has to be clear too if you look at current law.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. I I I would certainly be interested if if if we can to hear from your constituent, Chris, and and hope that we have time to understand how the statute currently reads and maybe the perspective of, you know, DOC regarding the matter and other parties. But but certainly, in the class of felonies, I you know, certainly, it would be something to take it under consideration as representative Headrick pointed out. Mhmm. But, yeah, I I I I I don't think a a several time violent felon should be treated the first as a first time nonviolent felon. There's a point in time where where one shouldn't be afforded the same bird time opportunities as as others is based on the track record. I I don't know where that is. I I would really need to hear a lot more information.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Consideration.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's take a quick break because we have DOC coming in. And let's come back at 03:00.