Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Testimony on H-four 10. And just by a little way of background for you, well, we have the defendant general to testify next. But by way of background, the version that you're looking at, the H-four 10 is gonna probably be fairly significantly changed. So I apologize for that. We're concepts, but we certainly want your comments. I shouldn't say significant, other parts of this are going to stay. The significant changes, it's not going to be like DOC, you're going to be doing this on an annual basis. We need to figure out another entity that can actually produce the information we want. Definitely want to, you know, we definitely want to have your input on the definition of recidivism and this concept of class one through four recidivism in the body because that is continuing. But I'm only mainly say it because some of the language is not clear, and we're already working to clarify some of language. Okay. But over to you.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Yeah. Mhmm. I'm not the wary. I'm the defender general. You know, I read it. I understand what the words say. I over a long many years, Vermont's definition of recidivism has never really matched, like, the federal definition of recidivism or recidivism in other states. I really couldn't tell you why. The only thing that I could surmise in this discussion has come up any number of times in my last twenty five years I've been in this job is that Vermont apparently would wanna count things differently than other people wanna count for some reason. That's what I don't know why, but it is different. And I know to these folks in the crime research group who are here in the room, that's really kind of annoying to them when they try to compare apples to apples, when, you know, recidivism rates in one state versus another state versus what the feds do versus what we do. Nothing really matches up because ours is different. And so if somebody comes in and says, well, you know, the recidivism rate in Hawaii is, you know, 30% lower than the one in Vermont, and then you look and they're not counting the same things, and we can't compare anything to anybody because there's nothing that is you know, it just doesn't match up. You know, we we do this a lot of this too has to do, you know, when we're comparing, like, violent crime rates and when we're because what do they what do they count there versus and, you know, misdemeanors are not really even dealt with that much on a a federal and other state level. But it's it's you know, the things that we seem to be interested in, other states are not particularly interested in or not interested in at all. So comparing you're not ever comparing apples to apples. It's always, you know, apples to Volkswagen buses or something. It it's not you're not even in the fruit category sometimes. So the question you know, I had a lot of questions about this. Like, why? Why are we doing this, changing this now as opposed to, you know, leaving what we had. Because, you know, when you start a new counting type situation, anything you did before doesn't matter either. So we can't even compare, you know, what we were doing before to what we're doing going forward. You know, unless you're running, like, two simultaneous calculations of the same thing that would have a different definition. It just makes it hard for policy makers, you folks, and people in my job and and DOC and other places to it'll it takes a track record to kinda understand what's happening when you change the definition of what you're doing. And so my when I the first thing I thought of when I read this was why. What is

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the intent of of why we are doing this?

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Now it could I could infer that well, we wanna decide to count different things than we have ever counted before, and that's perfectly fine as long as you don't wanna compare it to what we did for the last thirty years or fifty years or whatever it is, however long it's been there. The second question I or the next question I had was, well, we'll do this, and how would it be used? Like, what is the point of, you know, having information just to have information is not particularly useful. What is the what would it be used for? And of course, I have to think of things critically about you know, what nefarious uses could this be put to? And or, you know, what how could this in some way potentially be used contrary to the interests of our clients? When I look at definitions, measures of and classifications of recidivism, one, two, three, four, and, yes, there are language issues and the like all in there as you as you discussed. You know, the the analytical side of me would look at it and say, hey. This looks like a backdoor way to do sentencing guidelines. You know? This is the kind of thing that would take away potentially what is, like, fundamentally, like, a big thing in Vermont. And I don't know if I don't know what judge Zonay said or if he said anything yet. But when you start putting people into these classifications, you know what you may the potential is that it could be used to pigeonhole groups of offenders into classifications that would call for a particular sentence without actually looking at where the the defendant is at a particular time. Because statistics tell you a lot of things, but what they tend to tell you is what people who statistically look like this person, what they have done in the past, they don't tell you what this particular person is going to do now or in the future. And, you know, what gave rise to what puts somebody in a classification, you know, that that you might see here? I I'm just gonna give you an example. So you get somebody who comes in, and they get charged with a couple of felonies, unlawful mischiefs, or or the like. And when the case ends up getting resolved and then there are a bunch of trailing misdemeanors. When the case ends up getting resolved, the deal is, well, we're going to dismiss the felonies, but we'll admit to six misdemeanors and put you on probation with for six misdemeanors. Well, these when you start putting people in a these classes of recidivism, you can have offenses that arise over different periods of time that get resolved all at the same time.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: the reason you're pleading the six or eight charges is to get rid of felonies, but then they still have something hanging over their head. So you may end up in a higher recidivism category than you would have if you pled to one felony. And if this is just for our edification as opposed to some other purpose, far as, like, sentencing or programming or release at DOC, like, it's not gonna be used for any of that, which I don't trust that it wouldn't be. Wouldn't. Wouldn't. Yeah, mean, I think it would be. I mean, I said it with multiple negatives, which is a typical lawyer thing, and I love it. But, you know, you it upends the way resolute cases, because there are collateral consequences that go like with felonies that don't go with us, for example. So you make decisions about what your risk management is for a for a client while you can still access, if if services are an issue, accessing certain services with misdemeanors that you can't access with felonies, your ability to get housing, your ability to get certain jobs that you can't get with felonies that you can't get with misdemeanors, all kinds of decisions that you're weighing. So the you know, when I think about this, I think about how can these classifications potentially be used in a way that impedes the person's ability to become a contributing member of society going forward. You know, when we put people in these boxes that are statistical boxes as opposed to evaluations of the person where they stand at the time they're sentenced. There's a lot of reasons why you go into various sentences, and there's a lot of reasons why you might actually even pick up charges along the way. You know, at the time certain charges were picked up, maybe they were transient or homeless or something like that. Well, at the time it comes time for sentencing, they no longer are, so they're at risk of retail theft or unlawful trespass and that sort of thing is not the same. But they did have 10 charges over a period of those seven or eight months that they happened to be unhoused. And now they fit into the box of recidivism class III or but that doesn't really tell you the story about the person. So if these classifications of recidivism are something that might be used to influence or limit the discretion of a judge to sentence the person as they sit, that wouldn't be a good thing. Vermont, over a period of years, with multiple versions of the sentencing commission, has always rejected the concept of sentencing guidelines. And so when we dump people into buckets of classification, which is exactly what sentencing guidelines does, that is a policy decision that pretty and I'm not saying pretty much. As far as I can tell, and the folks some of these I mean, I guess there's a couple of us who are on that commission. You we unanimously have the professionals who work in this area, and the legislature too, has rejected the concept of sentencing guidelines for our state repeatedly over the twenty five years that I've been involved. And and so I'd hate to open that door. And if that door does get open, I'll be trying to kick it shut as hard as I can. And I think that there you'll probably find the judiciary would feel the same way unless they decide not to feel anyway, which they do sometimes when, you know, there might be a disagreement. But even prosecutors have never supported that concept. This and I it may not have been intended in any way, shape, or form, but it's smacks of the kind of thing that's a precursor to that. And I'm always wary whenever this kind of thing comes up, when you're putting people into buckets of of, you know, buckets of bad, I guess, as I would say. I'm wary of that. I'm also wary of the way the Department of Corrections and perhaps the parole board and anybody else who would have decision making authority post adjudication on the release of people, what information is available to them to make decisions about release and what they do. This is another one of those kind of things that I think could be used negatively to individuals who are not being looked at as individuals, but as individuals who fit in a bucket that we have now defined in statute. So those are, like, the general concerns or ideas that I've I've looked at. I think that Vermont could use a reworking of the definition of recidivism that brings us more in line with what other jurisdictions do so that we can try to compare apples to apples or even apples to oranges, we tend to be kind of an odd outlier just because we kind of make things up. And it's not necessarily bad as long as we're comparing us to us. But if we're trying to see, like, what works in other places and what what doesn't, you know, getting some sort of conformity with what we do on the federal level, what we do in maybe neighboring states that might be akin to ours. You know, in you know, what does New Hampshire do? What does Maine do? Massachusetts or around whatever? New England or or states that sorta look like us, even though they're way bigger, North Dakota, South Dakota. I don't really know what their definitions are, but, you know, rural states that have rural criminal issues. And that might be a way to look at at this. And if you know, my guess is, I don't know, sentencing commission doesn't really I think it still exists in statute, but it doesn't, like, do anything anymore. Okay. But if you and I'm going to guess what the Senate and Commission would do, but why not? I'm guessing what they would do is think about that in a similar way, only because of the discussions we've had in the past, is that if we wanna see kind of what works in other jurisdictions that look like us, then maybe we should make try to make our recidivism definitions similar to those places as opposed to kinda going off on our own. And maybe the better thing, if some of these changes in the definition, the facts are interesting, maybe it's the kind of thing that prime research groups should study, these particular things and let us know what is happening in these kind of new areas that we have Vermont has particular interest in as opposed to changing a recidivism definition. And by the way, we have this recidivism definition. I've been a lawyer now for approaching forty years, and I've been twenty five years in this job. I haven't used the recidivism definition for anything, ever.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We haven't adhere either. We had to say they say something wrong. I don't

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I so I'm not you know, on the one hand, they're like, yeah. Go ahead. Change everything. I don't care. I've never it it doesn't matter. I've never used any definition we've ever had regarding this. And every now and then, you know, some number pops up and, yeah, recidivism rate is, you know, fifty eight percent or something within three years. And, you know, and then you're looking at, you know, what does the effect of drug court, you know, in in short amounts of time? Well, the recidivism rate's really low, really. And then after three years, it looks like everybody else. Well, you know, every now and then, that kind of thing is happening. But I I can't ever think of any policy that has ever been made or any use that I've ever made of a recidivism rate. So on the one hand, it's, like, totally benign, and I and that's wonderful. On the other hand, I always have to think of, you know, how it could be used badly and how it might apply to individuals unfairly, and how it would change the way people, like, think about collateral consequences of plea agreements. So where in the past, you know, you're looking at, we really don't wanna have people have felonies on their record. Well, maybe at some point, it might be better to have one felony than it would be to have eight misdemeanors or something. I used to have a guy who was pretty smart relative to the system. He never did anything terrible, but he was one of these guys who would come to November, and this was back in Rutland in the late '80s, early '90s. And I don't know if any of you folks know that area at that time, but we used to have the old Rutland Mall. And the old Rutland Mall used to be up where now the Home Depot is over there. And every, like, November, the dude would go into Ames and just, like, walk out with a television set or, like, a or a tent or whatever. And then they'd arrest him, and he they would charge him with, like at the time, felony retail theft was, like, a $100 or something. And they charged him with that, and nobody really cared about that that much. And every year, he would get assigned to me because I had represented him for some number of years. And he's like, you know the deal. I'm like, yes. He's got we don't plead any misdemeanor. No probation. You just want some time to serve, and then you'll be out in April. Yep. Okay, and we'd go and do that. And he would do it every single year, year after year. And then when he got in his early 40s, he got off heroin and actually married a drug counselor, and they got and they lived their lives. You know, he had health problems and other types of things, but he didn't wasn't doing criminal stuff anymore. But the bottom line is this guy would have had I don't know. He would have been a level four plus with a red star or something. Because he would do the same thing year after year after year and pick up multiple misdemeanors right around the time when he needed a warm place to sleep between November and April. And he would always do time he would he would do straight sentences to misdemeanors so he could do that and be out in April and, you know, then paint houses, which is what he would do even when he was on heroin. Painted my house. You know? He wasn't didn't show up early in the morning. He'd get there, like, you know, ten, whatever. He would also work till, like, 09:30 at night, Perfectly happy, staying up there on a ladder. He was always afraid he was gonna fall, but he could manage it well. Yes. In any event, he these things that happen in the justice system that, like, don't make sense than normal kind of people who aren't hooked up in this could have different types of consequences for these people who aren't really I don't know what to say about it. Not really that bad. But, you know, they could look that bad as you start classifying. And that's all I'm really, really talking about.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. And I would think that we could might be able to get around that in a manner. I mean, that's not the intent at all. It's the intent to have a performance measure that actually we could possibly use unlike what we currently have in statute. And, you know, we could put in intent language for that use only, that only de identified information. There's different ways we can try to get at your point. But the idea isn't that, oh, this guy is a class four recidivate. So that's not language to avoid. Do

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: you mind telling me what actually were you trying to do?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What we were trying to do? What are

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: you trying to do with that? Well, we're trying to get rid

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of the old one, which is useless. We could even keep it there and just not call it recidivism. They can bang out this report without a clock and any money at all, they say they can keep it. And there are questions in, stepping back, it's because others wanted us to do this so we thought we'd take a look at it. And when I saw it, it's like, yeah, if we can get this right as a performance measure that we can use, then yeah, that's what my goal is. That over time we can use it to test how well we're doing and we can test historically and relative to like other New England states or whoever. So that, I think, is at least that's mine.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: I would I do think there is some value in looking at our recidivism definition. I think that the closer we can get it to comparable would be best. Yeah. That's incredible. I don't I my I guess my suggestion would be to get rid of the buckets, because you can still look at the same information without classifying somebody. And you can, you know, take the identifiers off of them and all those kinds of things. But, you know, I would not want DOC to go in and say, Hey, here's this definition in statute. We're going to create a policy, you know, regarding you know, we're with some of this stuff right now about, like, their risk measures on release that we're actually litigating. And I don't think that they are legally doing what they're doing regarding the release of some offenders, and we have multiple lawsuits pending right now. But that'll work its way out at some point. I just wouldn't want to give many more, you know, fodder, so to speak. Right. Right. Another, you know, lister class that, you know so it's part of you know, I I love to have you know, we have all these yeah. We get the we have the listed crimes, and then we have the designated crimes, and then we have the super special designated crimes in for where it's you know, it'd be lovely to actually there was a reason why we did those things at one point, and then they grew into something else. Right. It'd be great to, like, shrink those down into a meaningful thing and tighten up this definition into a meaningful thing. And then, you know, kind of preserve our ability to make decisions individually as judges on sentencing people as opposed to people who fit in a category. Right. Right. So Questions from that? Well, thank you. No, thank

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you very much. This helpful. This is helpful. I appreciate it. And we'll try to reach out to get the other witness sometime next week in the age five.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Yeah, and I've been talking to her like we've been coordinating. You know, if if if you can't get Camille, just just keep copying me with if you copy me and Camille between the two of us, it's it's Camille's fine for everybody in, like, central office, but when I'm pulling somebody in from the field, she's probably not you know, she has to be on it because she deals with the calendar, but I probably have to be involved in that. So it's the easy thing is just copy with it, copy me with everything, and I'll figure out what I don't need to look at. Thank you. Alright.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's hear about Kim next, and then we go see what kind of time we've got.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Remind

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: me why we want this, by the way, after you introduce yourself. Sorry. Excuse

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: me. Hello, everyone again. I'm Kim McManus, Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. My comments are going to be very brief, mostly because I need to be in another room at 02:00, and because I was listening to the earlier testimony and know that there's plenty of rewriting that's going be done. So I'm not going to go through dotting every I right now. Why do we want this? We did bring this up last year. Our department brought it up as something that we wanted to fix. And our primary fix that we want is changing the definition of recidivism. The other sections, as far as classifications, I believe we were sort of being overachieving little students thinking of these magical future reports that would have these lovely charts and how everything would fit together. And wouldn't we like to all have these definitions that we all agree on, and that's what would be in those charts? So we're thinking ahead to the what if and when we can get there. We are not tied to those classifications. We do not want anything past the definition to slow us down on changing the definition of recidivism. And it's for the reasons that have already been articulated that the current only definition of recidivism we have on our books doesn't reflect, I believe, how most of us are using the term, whether we're talking with colleagues or talking with members of the public. And there's just a disconnect there. And we would like to just all be on the same page with that definition so that when we're using it, when we're seeing it in reports, that's what we're tied to. And understandably, I know those who write those reports will more than likely say, and yet we may change that definition depending on what you're asking us to do the report. And that's fine. But it's noted that it's a change versus all of us using a slightly different definition. As far as what that definition should be, we suggested tracking from conviction to conviction. And then because the conviction then is a known set point, and that you can then go back to the offense state to track when the person committed the offense again. You may recall Lynn Wieland Wurst testified last spring. And she had mentioned in her testimony, we're in the middle. We're not going from arrest to arrest. We could go further out as far as how we're defining it, but we're kind of hitting a middle. Sweet spot's not the right word because nobody's going to be happy with whatever definition we get to, but we're hitting the middle. And basically, what we're suggesting right now is as good as any other definition from her point of view, looking at how others also define this. The practical fixes as far as before we get bogged down with the definition of recidivism. If even at just a basic level, we change the name under DOC of what they're collecting, And this is we suggested last spring. If you're calling that reincarceration, when you go onto their website and you check their dashboard, right now it says interactive recidivism dashboard. And so again, members of the Republic are taking that as what maybe they're thinking recidivism is. So just simply, at basic level, changing the word recidivism in the definition in '28 BSA four to reincarceration would be step one. And then if you were so inclined and thought it was of value to you all, changing the recidivism, having a definition of recidivism, again, that better reflects how we're all talking about it. Big picture, our hope from our department would be that, yes, we're able to use this to see what is working, what isn't working, where are we having success, where are we not, as changes are made to criminal law, procedure, programming, all of the above. What's our simple and we are open to being helpful in whatever way as you come up with language and want to run language by us. We'd be happy to be part of that process, of course.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Great. Appreciate that. Questions? We can no questions. All right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: People. Okay.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Hi. Hi, it's our turn.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, it's your turn. So can I ask you a couple of questions to kind of guide? Know you have a lot of

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: things Do you

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: want us to introduce ourselves first?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, please.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I'm just following the

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: rules. Thank you. I've been told about how I've neglected to stay on task and rules. Okay, yes, yes. I take that input and hopefully improve myself.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Hi, everyone. Nice to see you.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: I'm Monica Weaver. I'm the executive director of the Current Research Group. And I'm Doctor. Robin Joy, and I'm the director of research for

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Novartis. Okay. So I mean, I could have you just comment on everything that was already happening, but Well, we had some

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: comments that we were still just going to go with, but you can ask whatever you'd like to do.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, I mean, since I have you here, I mean, so I think we should, I like the idea of relabeling what DOC is providing, not necessarily just getting rid of Put that aside, maybe I'll have you comment on that. And then having a recidivism definition that can be generally used. Then the question to me is, what am I doing with that? Am I asking you for an annual recidivism report? And is there such a thing? And I suppose there is. And understanding that there's a lot of leeway for specific ad hoc reporting. Like if we want to know how many arrests are happening for retail theft and arrests. But having this like one, not the category, I'm a little I also want you to comment on how important having these classes or categories. Can we get away with like one? That's a lot. I'm

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: going to start with the generalized population conversation. The history, The history. So one of the things we wanted to bring to your attention, and I think it was part of some other people's testimony, well, why do we actually have this particular measure in statute right now? So Act 41 from 2011, it was sort of a culminating act from the first round of justice reinvestment. So if you actually look at that act, I think actually the title of it even says the war on recidivism. And it actually has a lot of some of the initial first round of justice reinvestment changes that happened. Defender Valerio probably remembers a lot of those, but that's when some of the multiple furloughs came about. Anyway, we don't need to get into that history. And then there was this brief section four where this definition of recidivism was added. And the reason that was added was because the late Senator Sears, in all of his conversations with the Council of State Governments, really wanted to be able to compare Vermont to say, Arizona. And I think Arizona was the example that was used. And because of the way our system is structured as a unified correction system, no jail, no prisons, and the way our sentences are without having these, one year felonies, which is the way most states would be doing it, we came up with this definition so that we could compare ourselves to other states.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Or at least Arizona.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Or at least Arizona. I don't know what Arizona's definition or methodology right now is, how they calculate recidivism. And I will say, it is going to be different across every state. So the idea of comparing, across states is going to be really challenging.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: And one of the reasons why it's different across every state is because different states have access to and different quality data. So for example, Massachusetts, they've got great arrest data. They've got lousy conviction data. So Massachusetts on their rap sheets, especially those that get right, see? Yes. So they arrest everybody. They don't try or convict anyone according to their rap sheets, which isn't true. It's just the way that the record systems are developed. And so that's why they don't use their Corey data. We use convictions because we have excellent conviction data, but we don't have good arrest data because we don't fingerprint a lot of people who are arrested. We'd have to use a different system. We'd have to add a different system. So a lot of times, the definition of precidivism is based on convenience of the data that are available. And that is true when you're a researcher, and it's a true when you're a policymaker. These are, these are the, these are the data that are available that we can make this decision on, or we can create this definition on. And the definition that you're currently operating under with the department of corrections, the Department of Corrections can calculate that all within their own system. They don't need anybody else's a definition of convenience. And they would need to add other data or the statistical analysis center, who's currently us, would have to do it with the criminal histories to get a better definition. So that's one of the things I want to be really clear is that the definitions of recidivism in studies that you read, that advocates bring in and say, oh, look, the recidivism rate in drug court, for example, is this. Well, they only looked at the town that the person lived in. So you've got to dig down.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: That's a little bit the street. And the Department of Correct has been able to calculate it independently since that definition went into effect in 2011 and had a small change in 2013. But when we think about that definition, which we admit is very limited, it's only people who are sentenced to one year. It doesn't include anyone who might be on community supervision. That's something that's pondered in the new bill.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: But it misses a lot of

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: people who just have shorter short term sentences. Technically, it would have missed the person that the defender was talking about, because that person was only probably sentenced for six months. Right, Matt? Yeah. So alright. So so they wouldn't have been included. But just sort of going back a little high level, this generalized recidivism measure, whether or not the one we currently have and the ones that are being entertained in this bill, is not a performance measure. And this is a term that I've heard a lot of people say today. It is not a performance measure. It is a population indicator. So it just tells you long term what is happening generally about the criminal justice system. It does not tell you, for instance, that you put a policy in effect two years ago, and then two years later you see a change, and you know that this is the reason there may or may not be a change in your recent visit, right? It will never give you that answer. That requires a specific type of research study and then a different calculation of the recidivism rate based on that particular study. So as an example, I've got a couple of them. Of course, one that you're all familiar with is our diversion study from 2019. There's a recidivism rate calculated in that study, shows that diversion is very successful for first time offenders. We also did one for the Department of Corrections Risk Intervention Services. We gathered very specific information about that program, about what that program was doing, about the activities, about the people who were engaged in that program, and calculated a recidivism rate. By the way, it's a very effective program. You could read that report online. So a generalized recidivism rate and I feel like I'm bursting bubbles here it's not going to tell you whether or not a specific program or policy is actually making a difference.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So what will it tell us? Why do I want a report that does recidivism in this new definition?

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Because it can give you an overall sense of the criminal justice system. It just doesn't tell you why and which factors may be contributing to that rate. So it's sort of like and that's why it's called an indicator. It indicates something. You need to start going and looking a little bit more deeply into what's bringing what's being involved in that.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah. So one example in the Act 40 report where we did do a recidivism rate of the furlough furloughees and returns on furlough after justice reinvestment. So that's one of the websites that we created for you guys. The reason why your recidivism rate went down is because you changed the policy. That's really clear. We can show it. And what you changed is that you can't bring people back in for certain violations. And so you can see that in the data. So that one you can see. But it's very specific. If that was rolled up to the general population, you wouldn't see it. So we

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: have to kind of So let me ask you. Let me ask you. So if we have this definition of conviction to conviction, we have that definition in here, we don't ask even necessarily for an annual report. Maybe we do, but we say, okay, we want to know how our furlough changes have done. And what you do is you do a recidivism of, you do a study of what the recidivism rate was before and then after the policy. But we at least know that that's the definition that's being used. Yeah. Or for any number of policies that we might pass. So you can look back in history to get a recidivism rate from prior times before we have the policy, right? That's kind of, this is an ad hoc, obviously ad hoc type report. Okay. And then after we've given it three, four years, like pre charge. Except I don't know that would It doesn't work. My conviction is that we would ask you for an ad hoc report. We have the definition then we compare how that definition looked before and after. But at least we have this consistent definition for those specific asks that we have. Whether we do an annual report or not, which is the second question.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, I think makes if it easier for folks to digest the data, that is you don't, it's one less footnote you have to read. When I do the reports on recidivism for other projects right now, I always include the statutory definition and it's always zero because generally that's what is it, because nobody in diversion is eligible to be in that. It's just not a good definition. So that's always zero. So I always do that. I do it because Senator Sears would yell at me if I didn't. And so I did it. And then I would do what I wanted to do. And sometimes, usually it's a one year, three year, five year. It depends on the quality of the data going back or something. So if you want something, so there's one less footnote for you to read, that's my definition of recidivism, then Well, it might

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: just be one less footnote read, but just a kind of a general understanding unless we hear differently.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: In this body. Yes, in this body. Yes, in this body. But when the defender general or the state's attorneys comes with you about a study that was done elsewhere, it's incumbent upon you guys to ask those questions. What is that definition? Can we know who is the population? And I remember years ago when drug court was just kind of starting, and said, what do you think about these studies? And my snarky answer was, well, when we get public transportation and a meth problem, it'll work really well. And thankfully we never got the meth problem to the extent that some of these other places did. We still don't have the public transportation. Right. And so, but that's one of the things that impacts, you know, attendance at these specialized courts that have a lot of requirements for folks to come in. So, so yes, I think that having a definition that you then all internalize and that you go forward with and that you agree with is helpful. Helpful. Think the details on the violence stuff, and this gets to the details a little bit, I would actually just say because I think about what you're going to ask me when I come in and do a recidivism. So sorry. Give you a people, let's say you decide the violence issue. And I say, Okay, the violence recidivism rate was forty four percent. And then someone here is going to ask me, well, what is it for domestic violence offenders? And I'm going to say, well, that's not what you asked me to calculate. I'm going have to go back and we're going to have to redo all the math, which is an unsubstantial, to answer that question. So you know you're going to ask me about domestic violence recidivism rates, so put the domestic violence statutes in the bill. That's the one that you want. If you know you're going to ask me about sex offenses about rape and sexual assaults, put those specific statutes in the bill. I would add DUI because that's a What really common

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: statutes in the bill? Put those

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: The reference the

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: statutes on sexual assault. So the three twenty five I forget what they are.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: If we were going to put in for reports here, mean or if we ask you for a report in the future, you would say go to our recidivism definition for the report or you'll provide I mean, that will be the presumption. And then Yes. Maybe Right. So if

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: you don't do anything specific in this bill other than define recidivism, and then you leave everything else to ad hoc reports, that's fine. If you were going to put this violence category in there, I'm suggesting don't and just do the specific No, not right. That'll take too much.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. I think let's take a smaller step. Just being the recidivism part.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So all right.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Yes. So, Okay, so just looking at recidivism, yes, absolutely a definition. Working on a better definition that encompasses what is the business of the criminal justice system in Vermont is important. And the business of the criminal justice system in Vermont is misdemeanors who mostly don't get sentenced so you're in prison. And so figuring out, what that should be. And we can, we can help you with the details on, you know, you want to use the incident date as the next date as the date of when the person offended. That's where you do the calculations. And I can show you how those calculations can be done. To the defender general's point on how are these data going to be used, Traditionally, no one's used this data. It's never shown up in anyone's rap sheet. The Department of Corrections, at this point Does not.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Does not take that cohort of people and then put it on a record somewhere and said, this person was a recidivist in 2018. And I don't think the statute envisions that either, but Yeah.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Or if the statistical analysis center does it, then the statistical analysis center does not have any overview over any humans in the system.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: On the other hand, I do think taking out the If you wanted these yearly breakdowns, could still keep in there where we want rates at one, three, five, and ten years. You just don't need to call them classes of recidivism. Right, right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, mean, we can even keep it as simple as we're measuring eviction to conviction and we're determining the subsequent conviction on the arraignment date, period. And when we're asking, if we ask, if we decide that there's a valuable annual report, and I'm not convinced that there is at this point, then we can decide what of the how long. And then for any ad hoc report, we know at least it's gonna be conviction to conviction with arraignment as the date for the subsequent conviction. And we can say we want three, five, ten years. We can do it that way. But I think so one of the big questions I'm gonna And this is kind of where I'm scared. I'm gonna try to have this as our next version for us to comment on. But I do wanna understand from the committee and from stakeholders and such, is there an annual report that could be of value for us that it's worth having you doing? And I don't know if that's your if you're able to answer that or

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It's always the question of what I mean

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: To Counselor Johnson's point earlier today, I think that there is a value, maybe not for you necessarily, but for the people of Vermont to see their experiences reflected in the data that is produced by the government.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And so there's that. So just a general recidivism rate for the whole popular lever?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: So I would add a few things to that. Mean, if I get to just play. So the recidivism rate is something that people feel strongly about. I think right now, in this time that we're in, people also feel strongly about how many people are committing new offense and lost out on bail. That's not going be covered by that recidivism rate. But you want to know and here's something where you are effectively trying to do some policy work, where you would want to see that number kind of go down a little bit. Or maybe you would see it go down in Chittenden County where you've piloted enough that you could say, now we need a real study because we're seeing some anomalies here that we want to explore a little bit more. So there's that. There would also be, and I was thinking some states do reports on how many first time felons are getting prison sentences, how many first time offenders are getting prison sentences, how many first time offenders are going to divert it, How many people going through the system have a criminal history? And what does that sort of stuff do? I mean, I'm going you may be with me for a minute. But these are also types of things that used to be reported. They used to be reported.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So you wouldn't ask recidivism.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I did.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, that's just good. I I don't know if if this is the bill we got.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: It said other measures. So I'm just throwing them out there.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No, management.

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

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The title. Yeah. Oh.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Yeah, I mean, no, it's not. So sort of.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, well, I mean, we can Are those just one time reports? Or are these reports that have in the past been done?

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: So the Department of Corrections you might remember, some of you will remember, a document called Facts and Figures that the Department of Corrections would publish every year. And in that report, it did have first time offenders. Was 200 pages of charts and graphs of things. And it was well beyond, actually, the data that the Department of Corrections was responsible for reporting at the time, which is why now, I think, they pulled back, which makes sense. They shouldn't be reporting the activities of the court. But that was all in there. But some of those things were very They were in that. And then there were other things around juvenile justice. Yeah,

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: we to publish. We used to publish an annual book on juvenile justice. And we used to publish an annual book on DUIs and on crashes as well, separate from DUIs, because DUIs are still one of our most common crimes in the state. And how does our policy look around that? So it depends on it's one of those things where I think that people used it, and then sometimes they didn't, or they forgot about it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What we normally do now is I think we've tried to sunset the reports. Exactly. Yeah. Right. So we would have to to look at it again.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: But that was sent to the legislature. That was just

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: a public

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: report It was that they did. It usually came out at the very beginning of the session. And was a tool that they used during the testimony. And I think the important thing there was that there were recidivism measures in there, but there were all of these other measures as well that provided context. And I think that the recidivism measure on its own, like I said, it's an indicator. What is the context that you want around it? I think that's a question for So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: let me just So I'm not hearing that there's a recidivism report based on whatever definition we have that would necessarily be valued, a good use of whatever resources we could possibly muster for.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It's valuable in that if there's change there, it gives you that time and you know it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So why don't we why don't we we're gonna throw this out. We're gonna have more discussion tomorrow on this, but that that we are we're gonna move this to title 13 somewhere. It's gonna be a criminal justice data reporting. We're gonna get rid of this DOE or we'll rename the DOE definition DOC And we'll have this new definition there. And we will decide among ourselves like what are some reports we want to start for like a three to five year period. And then we'll see if we can find the funding for that unless that's also included in what you already have in the BPS.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: It's not included in the current fund drive to be at.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Or maybe we can find out how much money we can get. We can say how much can

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: we get for thousand dollars Just

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: taxpayer dollars. Want to know what the hell is going on and if we're making any difference.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And it is a very legitimate use of the statistical analysis center. And this is what statistical analysis centers do.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I mean, we can put this in here and we can say, these are the reports we need to be able to tell to our, to the Vermonters and to guide our own policy making and such. And it will all, of course, be subject to whether there's funding. We understand. Right.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: That's a question that is about this. We're gonna get to play a little bit, we gotta think about things that would be helpful. I really appreciated the question that Barbara asked earlier, and the point that you just raised about why recidivism generally doesn't, is not a performance. Right. It's a performance. Whose responsibility is it to request the types of reports that would help inform policy decision making? NPR's. Making sure. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Or it could be the exactly. It could be DPS.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Well, that's what I'm I'm getting at. That, like Are are are they are those the services of the company that is that Sutter available to Yes. So for instance branch,

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: for instance. If if they are interested, of course. I mean, in some ways, you know, as a the Department of Public Safety, of course, is by executive order, the statistical analysis center. And by contract, we provide that service. So the SAC is an arm of state government. It just happens to be a contracted service. And the contract that we have envisions a certain body of work, but it doesn't need to stay that way. And it can be expanded. And arguably, I would say, it should be expanded. That and related to your other question, there are oftentimes when people who are organizations who are implementing a program on their own, they have a grant, they build an evaluation money in that grant, will hire us as the nonprofit entity that we are, so that they can get those kind of studies as well. So they're all interested themselves in the impact of their programs. It just depends on whether or not they've got that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, and so the Department of Public Safety is growing a so called data lake. They may be doing reports themselves. We should find that out and we should find out which ones we're going to direct DPS to give us. And the same goes for the Attorney General's Office on Restorative Justice. We're gonna be getting that data, but there's stuff. So I like the idea because it's all over the place of maybe having one place in Title 13 that is kind of criminal justice data and we'll take care of this thing here and we'll start building up Vermont data portal. Vermont data.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I'm thinking about the legislature's relative inability to be particularly responsive to agile.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: I'm sure we are.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: I But

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: just want to understand clearly. I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly that there is this other entity that works three sixty five days a year that is the executive branch that has the same ability in many ways to request the types of information that we're now spending time brainstorming without the added benefit of working in the jobs that would benefit from this information. And we're hearing from the executive branch that we need to pass this bill to change the definition to provide a performance measurement that isn't going to provide that performance measurement, all the while, they could do the thing that we're now here spending our time trying to do without all of the information that they have. Just to make sure I'm understanding that correct.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The only thing I just will correct, Jay Johnson's testimony went beyond this kind of standard. She's talking about rest breaks. Mean, was going further to stuff that might actually tell

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: you something. Into the context. Performance

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, likes She was getting away from just this one report on this recidivism thing that we have here to actually where she could answer some questions.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And as Barbara mentioned, it's still a very high level data set. And it's

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: not telling you, here's the thing you did. You should have visited. Yeah. No. It will not. So it's

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: not taking into account the things that we take into account evaluations. We take into account criminal history as you have a way to score what that person's background was. How much therapy did they get? The drug court databases that they use are fantastic because that gives me the risks, the drugs that they used, how often they use them. They get all sorts of stuff. So then we can tell you, here are the people that drug court's really good for. Here are the people that aren't being served by this. And then you go back and you change that. Why? So there's a lot that goes into program evaluation on what program is working and what program isn't working. The recidivism as a general 44% I'm making it up. 44% is around there. Reoffend within a year. That just tells you that or three years. That just tells you that there's a lot of people that something is something isn't right.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Something isn't working. We don't know

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: what it is. We don't

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: it is. Know There's a circle, and we don't know what it is. You're right. And so.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And it can be anything you can.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, Yeah, just on your point. So yes, it can be frustrating that the administration, that the state government that's there all year round, and it's not even partisan, it's not even just the current governor, but the past that they have the access to this data. And they may be using a lot of it and are they providing it to us? You know, sometimes when we ask the specific questions, but so I think, yeah, that part is true, but I'm putting that aside. Let's figure out what reports would really be valuable for some of the things that we're trying to track or anticipate tracking the next four or five years. But Ian, do want to weigh in

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: on I just wanted to clarify two things. So first, I really This, by the way,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: seems like discussion, but that's Okay. We're with our data friends. Yes. Yes. And then I'm going to start with a little discussion. So I really appreciate the direction

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: this is going. I think moving away from felonies or violent crimes or felony violent crimes, something like that, or a year or more or anything like that, is not going to capture the vast majority of what's going on. And so moving away from that and just going to conservatism generally, I think, is the move. And that makes a lot more sense to me. My one question is, in your example around VCR, violations of conditions of release, I want to make sure I understand. I would assume that would be captured in the precipitous data.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No, so it's if you not necessarily. Because really, one of the things that we know is that a lot of those VCRs

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Dismissive.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Are dismissed. Yeah. And so we do have a nice report that I finished last year on VCRs and how many of those attached to another new offense. Because that was one of the things I had to look at was what's just not a new offense and what was they didn't update their data or whatever. So we do have a report on that. Yeah, I mean, but people are interested in, and I think that especially on the VCR discussion out in the public, they hear the VCR, they assume that a crime has been committed or something along those lines and that may not be the case. And that's where you have to dig into what else was happening, what else got filed.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So if there was a plea agreement where the underlying conviction was their underlying charge was a conviction and they attach on a couple of VCRs, then

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: It depends on those dates, right? And I can show you how that works. So for example, on those global plea agreements that y'all like to do, if Chittenden disposes of the case at a different time than Windsor does, I have to do them. Like, I usually do thirty days. Did it get disposed of within thirty days? And I think that maybe it's all part of a plea agreement that you all agree to. But sometimes they've seen global plea agreements where the next court date and then the other county is in front of them opening up, and I miss

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: it. Thing about There's

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

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, I'm just trying to

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: yeah. Because a

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: lot of this is all

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: happening within the same year.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And the way it's about it, it's calculated now, right, is you get cohort of people who have been released in the year of study, right? So 2025, who was released during that year? And then the Department of Corrections will follow those people for three years. And the first time that person meets the criteria, it doesn't matter why. It doesn't matter for what crime. It's like you have met the criteria, which is you have now been returned to incarceration, and you were there for ninety days or more. That's all that's looked at. So those types of things are not part of the, you as a researcher, sure, you could go in and do that. But you don't need all that detail to actually calculate the And

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: so if we want to like you guys did last year, you want a more specific query about things like that. Okay, that makes sense. And my only other question, more to Matt's point, was using this for other things. So, can you explain to me how you wouldn't see something like habitual offender enhancement, but somebody just goes like, woah, woah, why don't we just use the recidivism? Just explain it so that I

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: can care about it. So I'm going talk from my perspective and what we do at the Civil Analysis Center and then a little bit from DOC's perspective. From my perspective, I answer to the Institutional Review Board. I don't survive a subpoena. If you were to subpoena me for research records, I generally don't survive one. I would have to turn over my research records. So in order to avoid that possibility, I have two things. Sometimes I have federal funding and that puts a shield over me. And that means, nope, you cannot subpoena my research records. But just in case that fails for whatever reason, I actually separate all the names and dates of birth in any identifying information. It's all in this other file that I keep only until the results are published. And then I overwrite it with a series of Black Sabbath albums. And then you can good luck trying to get it out.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: You're Right? Very

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: and so that even if you did subpoena me, that data is gone. Right. You're not getting that information and you will never know that, you know, 24601 to use John Belzan's number in my study is actually me. You're not going to know that. So that's how I do it, how I protect the people from any subpoena that might be used. Then, of course, you have all your rules of evidence that are going say that my data is not the official record of the courts, that I wasn't using all of those sorts of things. From the DOC's perspective, that's a little different. From the DOC's perspective, they're not. That's a lie to match up this particular person who's already been released and out of their custody, who now is coming back. And it's a different It's just the DOC

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: data and research team does it. They're not, at least as far as when I was there, we wouldn't go and submit. I didn't get the cohort and then get all the people who were recidivists and then spread it around the department and say, Okay, here's your recidivist list for this year. Here you go. Because the idea of recidivism is it's just a population level thing. It's not an individually based piece of data. So it's not supposed to be applied to reverse. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, of course.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: Thank you. So back to Angela's point, what if we, and I'm thinking Tom and Martin will remember this. There was a time when we always had to do results based accountability. Everything's going be results based. And it was like this I remember these days, but used to

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: how does that matter? I mean, and that's sort

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: of where I'm pulling this from, because I How much you gave me? Was

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: self amorphous, though, but okay.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: But it was, it did accomplish. But we now change laws, we start programs, and I think just even like two days ago, were like, How will we know if this is working? So if we built something into some measure, and I guess this is not with existing resources, we're doing Vail Reform. So it has to include a three year data set or something. Yeah, we've been talking about that. But I don't know how we keep to it. So here's my thinking

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: on this. It goes back to a new chapter in Title 13. This would be our criminal justice data. We're gonna deal with this craft fair. And this is gonna be where it doesn't matter if it's bail somewhere else in our statutes. We're gonna have a paragraph there for what we're gonna be collecting. It's like this is gonna be where all the data that we're collecting, whether it's like an ongoing thing, that's the other thing I'm about But to it could also be, all right, we're passing something to deal with this policy. We wanna have data associated. We'll have it, maybe we have it in two places or maybe we have a cross reference to that title. But we're looking for This is where all the data is. I get lost as far as what we'd asked for already. And that's something we could do. But the other thing is, My what intention is to do what I just said, but like in six weeks or some, it's not gonna be right away. I want us to kind of get back together and say, well, what are we gonna have as the first data things that we wanna have in there? And what I'm gonna ask folks to look at is the S-fourteen or is it Act 14? Act All that data that is already collected and should what we're trying to get funded going forward be some subset of that continuing data that we already have a start on. I know that you have interest in the time of incarceration that hasn't been updated in a little while. Sentencing data. Sentencing data. We can look at what we are passing and just to get kind of just to see that concept that we have in one place. I mean, it's a terrible Tell me this is a terrible idea. We have this one place where it's like our criminal justice data collection. And so we'll kind of return after we've all had some chance to kind of think, well, what data going forward will help us? And is there any particular thing we pass? And we'll have like expiration dates or sunset dates on things that we only need for three years. But that's been a frustration is not knowing what data we have, not having that. So if I can ask you to send us an email because I think we need a little break before our next testimony. What are some of the types of because you know the data that's available. Yeah, when you're to list, you started to list and I can't put you off the that's a

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: good shot. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: Those are, yeah. Yes, yes, I can do that. And then there were just two other things I wanted to say as you're thinking. So you're wanting to point on the juveniles. So we do have all that data. We actually have all the names and dates of birth of juveniles to go through system in family court. And I do have a contract right now with DCF to do recidivism study on 18 year olds who are in family court, the racy age stuff. I would ask that you guys not do anything until I finish that study once I get to work with that data. But I do want you to know that that data is there, that we've been collecting it. And as a statistical analysis center, we have an MOU with the courts to get that data. So it is there. We can do something with it. It's just, let me work through this process first before you throw anything in that legislation.

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: And on that,

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: do you have data regarding conditions of juvenile probation?

[Dr. Robin Joy (Director of Research, Crime Research Group)]: No, no. We know that they got probation. We'd have to work with with the judiciary to see if they're putting in those conditions in Odyssey and whether that's an extractable field. There's a whole lot that goes into that, but not right now. Okay. Thank you.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Thank you very much.

[Kim McManus (Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Okay. All

[Monica Weaver (Executive Director, Crime Research Group)]: right. Thank you. Thank you. New Year. We'll talk soon. Nice to be back.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any final input or comments? I

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: have to go to the house. But I will say, the only thing I will say is that my conspiracy theories about what this stuff could be used for was just based on the fact that what was proposed didn't say it could be.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. And

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: it didn't say anything about you know, private identifiers or any of that stuff.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: understood what I know what they're doing now with it. But Yeah. You know, when you change something

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Something.

[Matthew Valerio (Defender General of Vermont)]: Right. You know? I I appreciate it. And you can't trust everybody.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I don't know if you know that. You can't trust everyone. That's