Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Welcome back to the House Judiciary Committee. It's now Thursday afternoon, February twenty eighth, continuing some testimony on h four ten Second and and first, I think we were gonna hear from Ken McManus first. No, first. Actually, you know Oh! Oh!

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: I think that makes sense.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I need to hear from Monica and Robin first, because we need to talk a little bit about the definition of recidivism, which is really what I'm asking Kim and the DOC folks to weigh in on. So there's almost maybe some confusion about what the definition is. Well, we'll explain that. Excellent, well perfect! So you can identify yourselves and We're live already? Okay.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: We are. All right. Okay. I'm Monica Weaver. I'm the executive director of the Crime Research Group.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: And I'm Doctor. Robin Joy.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: I'm the director of research for Crime Research.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: So, yeah, there was a little confusion. So we're looking at version two of H410 from 12:02PM now. Ledge Council sent out a new draft. In section one, definitions. Definition of recidivism. So the second sentence here is, I believe, the change that was made. So the first sentence is basically recidivism is defined as an individual that's convicted of a crime after receiving a conviction for a previous crime. So that's drastically different than the current definition. The second sentence is describing how that will be calculated. And so currently, it says that the recidivism will be calculated from the date of the prior conviction to the date of the subsequent. So what we mean here is you're guilty of one crime, and you become a recidivist when you have been convicted and as guilty of a future crime. The previous part of that death generation had an arraignment date. The arraignment date is the date on which we would say you became a recidivist, so that we can calculate the time in between. Became a what? A recidivist, which is not really

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So we're looking to see, did you get convicted again? So that means everyone thinks you did something. We all think that something happened. You did something and you got convicted. But now we want to know how soon after you were eligible to release, after you were eligible to be convicted, did you actually commit that new offense? And because it can take a long time for somebody to get actually convicted, we go back in time and look at the arraignment dates. That was the date that you were going to say you became a recidivist.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: So you became a recidivist one year, two year, ninety days. The arraignment itself does not qualify as becoming a recidivist. It needs to be the conviction. So in the example we discussed, if we're looking at a three year period and someone doesn't get convicted until four years, then they're not a recidivist in that cohort until the next time.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So we have an arraignment They're

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: not a recidivist. Is relevant. The arraignment's irrelevant.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: The arraignment will be like a chart that we show you that says the time to recidivate, This is often the question. How long did somebody go during that three years to recidivate? And that time is going to be calculated from the date they're eligible, which is either the date the DOC releases them or the date that they were sentenced to a non custodial sentence, and to the date of the arraignment of the next conviction within those thirty six months. So this is cutting kind

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of a flying line. You're not called the recidivism until the conviction, but you've recidivated. But that doesn't make sense either. You haven't recidivated until you've actually been convicted. But the date by which you actually had you could actually go back. Why are we looking at the date of arraignment? Why don't we look at

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: the date the crime? Because not all the data sources have that information. So that's why we use the date of arraignments, that that is consistently accurate across all data sources as opposed to the date of the incidents, which may not be accurate, right? Because you may go away on a three day weekend to not realize that you've been burglarized. We don't know what date that happened. The date of arrest isn't always in all data sources. So trying to limit and also increase reproducibility of our work, the date of arraignment is the date that we would use to calculate how long until somebody that's the closest we can get to say that somebody this is how quickly people are reoffending.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. And I guess then why don't we go back to where we talk about the date of the arraignment being the date that you calculate?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: it's either not relevant for this. I I don't think you say, all right, you become a recidivist at the date of the second conviction, but you recidivated at the date of arraignment. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's one or the other.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: I think what we're saying is there's, as Robin said, the time that it took. You're a recidivist when you had the guilty conviction. That's very clear. The other measure is a different measure. And so both of those things can be calculated and shared. The recidivism definition is very clear.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So by using the arraignment You folks are the numbers people. And I mean, you understand numbers better than anybody. So with with that, by using your arraignment date, do do you believe that it's gonna give you more accurate information, I guess?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: It gives you more information about the criminal behavior of the people that you're measuring. And so we can give you a percentage and say that people who are convicted of this crime or whatever, people who are convicted are reconvicted. Again, the recidivism rate is ten percent. I'm going throw out and make it up numbers here. Ten percent. That tells you a thing. It also tells you something that seventy percent of people who were recidivists committed that new offense within a year. What that tells you is that we tend to give programs about three years of influence on somebody. So, if I go to treatment, we think that that treatment will last about three years in adjusting my behavior. So, if I'm, if everyone is going through that program, for example, is incidivating within a year,

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: might want to get back over.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So it's just giving you two different pieces of information that you can use. One's going to be a number with a percent sign next to it. The other one's going to be a chart. And it's going to show you, here's how many people within one year of being eligible were committing a new offense.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: On November. If you worked out conviction for that number, would that be unreliable because you may not have a conviction that is gone in a global resolution or something as well?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So we're looking for any conviction within that period of time. So this isn't when we're going have to count plus or minus thirty days to kind

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: of Theoretically get into wrapped up in the one that you've already counted.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: Only count once. Yeah, yeah. I just checked, did you get a conviction? What's the first arraignment date for that conviction? So I'll take the early. So if you've got a lot of convictions within that three year period, I'm going to take the first.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I've got two questions. Think I know the

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: answer is one of them.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: If somebody's not innocent, then obviously they're not a recidivist, which is important why it's eviction. Correct.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: And that they are. But what if there's a plea deal? How do you account for that? If the plea results in a finding of guilt, so I admit to guilt, whether it's no contest or whatever, doesn't matter, then if the court is treating it as a guilt,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: will you be, I guess that doesn't matter for recidivism, but will you be looking at what the charge was and what the plea was?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: No, not for this measure. No. Right. Okay.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Okay, let's dump and do. Do you want us to go sit down or do you want us to have another question

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: on this. Why do we need the second sentence at all then?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: That's a good question. It could be a carryover because in the current definition of recidivism, it does outline how it's calculated. But that's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: You mean the current bad definition of the current

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: The current definition in title 28 does describe how it should be calculated. And so it may it you know. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright, well, why don't you proceed to us about the reports?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Okay. So now we'll be in this section on reports. Annual reports, we wanted to talk about the dates,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, that was one thing, right. Right.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: And so I think our questions are, we can make a variety of dates work. I think what I would say is if we're looking at something like NIBRS or judiciary data, we're going to want an entire year of data. So we'll get judiciary data for December, in January, and then we can start to update it The earliest we could get something to you for a calendar year would be March. But it really depends on when you want to look at things and what is more important for your decision making and policy. And then we'll kind of work around that. Some data then would be older or newer, based on the timeframe that you pick.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I think the timeframe's more of when, how soon can we have the previous year's data. Or maybe it's the year before that. I don't know how that works. So I'm looking to, like, when is the data available? How long does it take you generally?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Also for NIBRS data, it's usually like NIBRS 25 will come out later this year. September. September. So then we give you 24 NIBRS data

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

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: so we can always update it with whatever the most current year is for NIBRS with the judiciary data. If we wanted it in a calendar year, then we need to wait a couple months into the new year.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. Well, I'm asking what would be the date that you would want. Okay. Because I understand, it's like when can it be available? And we adjust by that. I mean, if the data is not available, you don't have the time to get us the data, why should I put a January 1 date? Because that's important. Right, right. It may be data that's going to affect the following session by the way it's going. Because, yeah, we're not going to have data that we can incorporate into bills for a current session that's based on the three d system.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Then I would say you could do it sort of later into the year, more

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: fall. Can say July 1.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: You could say July. I was kind of thinking something around those lines.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And then again, if we get it still during session, if it's available, then we can start thinking about what we're going do in

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: the following sessions. That's right too.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: So if you wanted it in March, April. April 1. Let's do that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Nice little negotiation back and forth. It's a memorable day. Do we like to say April 2 so we're not, you know, saying that that is April fools on us on that Five. Fine with April. She'll make sure

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: I don't actually pull an April fools joke on you.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Yeah. That's it. The board. That's right. It's on

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the could March 31, and then thirty one days of March 2. Yeah. Right. Would you prefer March here first? Okay, we'll do a April 1. I'm negotiating against myself somehow. Okay, moving on. Here we

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: go. Okay. Bail rates, I don't have anything to add on the bail rates. This is language that came from Act 40. We have already produced a fair amount of these data in our Act 40 report. We're continuing to work with the judiciary to update the extract they provided us because there were some questions, so we're working on those. And we're receiving information from the Department of Corrections. So we'll be able to combine these two data sets to be able to provide what we think will be a very helpful study on that. Do you have any questions?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right, go ahead. I have a question, but I'll be taught first, and then I'll ask the question. No, it's the recidivism.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: The recidivism measure. Okay, so the recidivism measure, we've already described the definition, which is repeated here. And so that rate will give you a rate annually that is and it's a lagging indicator. So we're going to be looking at people who are eligible to recidivate. This is going to be different than the way it's currently. So we're going to be looking at people who are eligible and their eligibility. So on April 1, or prior to April 1, we think about if we were doing this on March 1, right? We'll look at everyone who's eligible, who we're able to follow for thirty six months. So that's the three year window. And then we'll look at those individuals, and we will calculate the recidivism rate based on that thirty six year looked back period.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So you essentially would take the cohort of 2024, if we're going to do it for 2020 and look at whether they have committed crime in those previous three years. Correct. Yes. The following year, you would You would do 2025. You would do 2020 But you would look at the 2024, '25, and '26 cohort, because you could have somebody from last year who

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: Don't think of it in years.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Yeah. We're not doing So

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: it'll be a measure of those people who are eligible to recidivate for three years or more. So just did They're they have eligible

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: to recidivate.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So eligible to recidivate means they were released from custody. And so they're out on the streets and all of life is happening to them, or that they were sentenced to fine or they were sentenced to probation. So your date to be eligible to recidivate depends on those factors. So from the date that you became eligible, did you have at least thirty six months to recidivate? And if you did, then your three year recidivism rate is I see. Right? So don't worry so much the way that it's been where your cohort by year of release, which is how the current system is done or by necessarily year of conviction. You're looking at overall, did you have thirty six months to recidivate? And so you're about to get a report from us on DUI recidivism. We covered ten years. We looked at people who did you have three years to recidivate? This is how many three years to recidivate. This is what your recidivism rate is. And we looked at five years. Fewer people were eligible to recidivate for five years, but this is what that five year recidivism rate was. Even fewer people were eligible for ten years, but this is what that ten year recidivism rate was. How much more complicated if

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: we would decide we wanted to do three, five, ten year? But what does that do to the cost of such a

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: It doesn't. If the

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: code is already done. Code to

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: our The code is already done. The difference is how far back because I do have to give people ten years to recidivate. So for this cohort that we did for DUI, some of this is pre COVID stuff. That COVID backlog is impacting some of those recidivism rates, at least on the time to recidivate calculation, not whether they did. You'll see that in the report. So yeah, it doesn't matter. I just think that I don't know that I would start with ten years right now.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Is it 3.5? Yeah. Just if it's

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: I can tell you that out of the DUI report that we're about to release, that seventy percent of those people who did recidivate recidivated in the first three years.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Yeah, so this definition of recidivism and this method of calculating recidivism is dramatically different from the system that's currently in place, and

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: so But there really is a

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: it's the way that you calculate recidivism, it sounds So

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: is that the question?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah that was my question. So

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: the next section on arrests.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So you do other studies that you calculate recidivism different than what changing?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: No, no, no, no. We do studies that are and we use the way that's being presented in four ten.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: Right, right. Correct. We do not use the way that

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Because it currently

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: your recidivism for DUI one would be zero because they all get fined. They all

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: get fined. Right?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: They're not fined. Right. And that's not true.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Okay. Right. So arrest and clearance rates, again, this is from Act 40. We just added, asked legislative counsel to make sure that it was clear that we were going to be using data that comes from the National Incident Based Reporting System. These data are already available in the Act 40 report, so people can start looking at those.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: And they are also public, and you can download these data on an individual level basis and conduct the analysis, or people can reproduce our work.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Session four, I know that the title of this was and so we actually have some ideas and questions for you. Right now, it's called most adjudicated crimes, which could mean these are the crimes where people were most We found could do most charged crimes. We could do both. We could do top 10 or top 20.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: There's not much difference between whether it's Since you want the sentences, then the guilty is what matters. There's not much difference between the top 10 charged and the top 10 convicted. They're really the

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: same. Is it?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. Right.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: And the question is, do you want to expand it to 20, the top 20 offenses?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: The

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: reason for that is because, as Robin has said many times, it's really just in the coding. And once the primary coding is done, it's not that hard to expand it to something. So

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: the thing is, then you're going to get down into small numbers that don't matter. So if I looked at Let me just actually make sure I know what I did. So I'm just going to get you the top 20 in 2025.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So one of the questions is whether to call it the top 20, or are we going to say most?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: You can say I've got convicted. Prevalent. Typically people will be like, what does that mean? Right. I mean, I think if we want to be really clear, think

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: it's helpful to say that it's not 20. Just

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: If we're thinking most prevalent as far as language goes, then I use the top 20. Was gonna say it. Top 20, yeah. Yeah. So if you wanna use convicted. So it makes it sound like we like these crimes. How about Oh, okay. So it's

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: like a list of like popular crimes. All right, yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: 20 crimes. So 20 crimes with the highest number of convictions.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Okay, that's a good word to say. Okay, we'll do the convictions.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Karen, may I speak? Please. Just trying

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: to understand what we're getting at with this. So this is ones that lead to conviction. Yeah. Correct. I just feel like that is very different from those that are charged. Right? Because you could have crimes that are charged, but it doesn't actually lead to a conviction. So what are we trying to get at with that? Like, we wanna know what ones have gone through the system. I feel like I would also be interested in knowing what ones are being charged and then don't lead to anything.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: It does include the type of it's it's so we'll give you the number, the type, and we'll give you the sentences for it. So I think that's the interesting thing too, because a lot of times people are asking us about the sentences most common charges. So it's really related to the sentences.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We're trying to track trends of what the sentences are. And those crimes may be shifting as far as whatever top most sentence crime, we're getting an idea of what the going rate is of sentencing. Right.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: But they might not be the most prevalent crimes.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: They are the ones that are the most convicted.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: They're doing often the same.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Yeah,

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: yeah. In the years that I've been doing this, it's violations of conditions of release, DUI, misdemeanor retail theft, misdemeanor assault, misdemeanor domestic violence. DLS is just forever in the top there. So it doesn't really change. What gets charged and what's get convicted, It's about the, yeah, you're not missing that much.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: All right. So you'll change that using the language of human discharge. And that's fine. Yeah. Okay. So now this one, for B, is this interesting idea around the total combined years of probation and incarceration sentenced by the court in the prior year. So it'll give you actually, Robin was just doing something back with the napkin analysis here.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So this comes from the district attorney out of Philadelphia. And they're a very data driven organization. They have a whole university attached to help them. It's not But he publishes every kind of what is the lifetime years that the system sentenced folks to. So just looking at 2025 and only looking at sentences to straight time and only one sentence per docket. So if somebody was sentenced to five consecutive or five, it's usually concurrent, but five concurrent sentences, I only looked at one. In 2025, the judiciary sentenced people to a total of nine eighty one years, lifetime years of incarceration. So take the nine eighty one years, multiply that by the cost of an estate which is sometimes what we used to use as a measure of the cost of the system. If everyone does the minimum, that's how much nine eighty one years of incarceration of the judiciary science people.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. But I don't know how much we can compare counties unless it's per capita, the type.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: So this would look at, so all right, so nine eighty one years, what's driving that? It could be, and this doesn't include life sentences because that's on the map. So this is the MIN. So on the MIN, what's driving that nine eighty one years? It could be that what's driving it is and I'm just

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: going to pick on Windham.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: It could just be or actually, you're a loser. So it could be that the Windsor State's attorney is actually just sentencing everyone who does violations and conditions of release to twenty days. And that's actually what's driving that number, not, say, sexual assault or some of the things that actually really give big clients. So it's going to look at what crimes are contributing to the minimum sentences. And then is there a difference in the counties? And you can get rid of counties. You just always ask them about counties. So if I

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: So we just put it in there to preempt the question. I will say.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Maybe this was already covered, so I apologize. But with these different reports, are we demographics at all? Yes. For all like, that's just assumed in all of these. Okay. We don't need to

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: be specific number or anything.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: You can if you want.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: You can if you want. It's something that we do standard, but we're having a problem with your health.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: But is that I'm just thinking for the

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: I think it makes sense to add it just to be clear.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: If it's not you, it's not that No, we had in the act 40. Yes, definitely. So the idea is, and I will suggest to folks between now and tomorrow, if you want to really understand what this data is that we would be buying, we all agree to this, is look at the link I sent to you that will show you essentially kind of along the lines, similar to what the reports on the Kite data I'm referring to the Act four. But

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: do you agree that we want language in here

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: to make that clear? Yes. Okay. I mean, I don't if that's No. That makes sense. Case somebody else in the future

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: Somebody else in the future. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: There was language along those lines in in

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: There is language in I 40 about about that. Okay, so that's that section. Any more Do you have questions? Let me I

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: don't think so.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: And then the data sharing, again, it was very helpful to have this. I will say our partners are really wonderful, and other than the usual challenges in data sharing, we don't have any barriers to accessing the data that we need. So I'm very happy with that. Great relationship with the Department of Corrections and the judiciary and our other partners. And we're

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: not saying that because they're in the room. We just want Yes, we just would say that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We would say that anyway. And so do we need any of the other language at start? Or I know in the act four, you talked about the data and the deficiencies or the issues you've faced, or is that pretty common practice you'd be doing that, whether you put it in here or not?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Something about the data quality in it, and the data quality and the limitations is very standard in So the reports that we

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: we don't need to put in everything that's standard in here. Any other questions for us? I was going to have you show us those, but instead I think

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Oh yeah, no, I think that's fine.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Folks on the whole thing here.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Think we can start with program.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Like you were saying, if somebody does treatment, think So about three are the options or variables significant if somebody is housed at one facility versus another, or if they are in the I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm trying to think of a group or whatever.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Doesn't matter. None of those variables are going to be In terms of the recidivism measure, yeah, they're not going to be brought into that analysis. It kind of goes back to what we said last time, talking about and around if you want to do some specific research into something specific.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: More patient specific. Right. Yeah. And

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: just in a point, an important limitation of administrative data. Administrative data is very easy to do this work on. It does not tell us how well supported that person was when they were relieved. Did they get treatment? Did they get employed? Did they have family that cared? None of that is there. This is just there you go.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: And remember, we said it points you to whether or not there's something working or not working in the criminal justice system. It doesn't tell you what that is. That requires more study, more research. Exactly.

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

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: So going back to this seems like a great deal,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: the fact that we have a few

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: 100 things here, an affordable option for you all. I so

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: but just knowing that we are in a very faint budget year, like, there's no guarantees on things. So I just wanna clarify that if that funding isn't there, even though it is a great deal, we wouldn't expect these reports to be done.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: That's my understanding. Clarify that

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: in here, because we're testing

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: for these reports every year. Right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But I think that it's clear, I can ask appropriate. I just want to, and for us to be

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: clear that

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: if funding isn't there, we're not getting it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Happens a lot where the bill goes out there, they strip money and it ends up with the bill policy, it's all the way through. The money's not there, and then the policy's not issued. But we can just double check. These are not retired, bondage.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. Right.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: You for raising that point.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So if you have your arraignment date and then your conviction, that's the only date of sex. Suppose they don't get a convicted for some strange reason. It's not included in, and there's no way to determine really why that did die?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: They all I know if they're

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: dead. I

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: will know if they passed. And so we always report out on how many have passed and remove them from the analysis.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Actually, have one other question on the definition. We talked about in this updated draft, zero two still has the a habit of, and we were talking about in line 10. It should be, as used in this chapter, recidivism means a relapse into criminal activity, and getting rid of a habit of.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: That was the recommendation I gave to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Getting rid of a habit of or putting in a habit of? Getting rid of it. Okay, all right. So when other folks are commenting on this, I just want them to know that that is going away. All right, thank you very much. So, Kevin, if you could join us and certainly can weigh in on anything, but mainly wanted you here to weigh in on the recidivism definition. And if any of this data is stuff that's going to impinge on real world, which

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Good afternoon. The record, Kim McManus, Department of State's Attorneys and Chairs. The definition, we do support the definition. This was something that we had recommended last year as the change, and so we do appreciate it. And I have had to have Monica and Robin explain to me at the point with the arraignment. So it takes a few times to go through it, but then it makes sense. And when you see it on paper, it really makes sense. So we do appreciate that, and we do support it. I do have just a few comments. And then I think some of you noticed already, but only to set our expectations on what we're going to get from this data. For the bail piece, just a reminder that these are snapshots of what bail is. Fail can change over the life of the case. So I imagine the report will put that qualifier around it of when that bail information is being captured, whether it's at arraignment or soon after. But just a reminder that bail fluctuates in the life of the case, so that's always a moving target. But, again, as long as that's captured.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And think that And just on this point here, rather than saying, do essentially what you did for the Act 40, because the data on Bail, as I've read it at least, captures those things. And the intent is that it's going to be capturing those same things without having to have an exhaustive list of all those things. We

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: just wanted to highlight that because we know And again, what we greatly appreciate about this is that the Statistical Analysis Center would be pulling all these data points and putting all the data points together in a report so that we can then all look at it and analyze it and see what's in there. But bail is always a tricky one, so just highlighting that. I think this has been corrected now in the previous conversation that subsection four, that you're looking at convicted crimes. We were going to suggest a different word than adjudicated because that's a bit confusing since that just means a formal judgment, which could mean in any direction. But if you're just looking at convictions and what's convicted, that is fine. I would like to say, Representative Dolan, you raised an excellent point. The convictions, that section would, of course, just be showing convictions. There are many crimes charged that go to diversion. So we would be not capturing that difference. But if we're looking at convictions and we would get that information, you would not be getting everything charged and then kind of where it goes from there. That would be a different data point.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I think that that's already separately getting caught or caught in the diversion report that getting, I mean, the number of cases that have been diverted and how many successful. With some

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: of that,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I know that'll be next time.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: Okay, we're not in great and do it.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: But I do just want to highlight that that is, while I appreciate the testimony that they are often similar lists, it is different, especially given what we send to depression. The last point, we are not one of the data sources, and we shouldn't be. We don't want to be. And what we appreciate very much from Vermont's statistical analysis center contracted out to CRG's work is that they often circulate their draft reports to the various stakeholders involved. And we would just I don't know if this needs to be codified since it is working practice, but we do appreciate that draft being circulated so that we are able to offer any comments to that. And they often will reflect that in their reports. If you thought that was important to add as a requirement to the report, we would support that. I don't know if we necessarily need it, but I did just want to raise it that we do appreciate it because as practitioners, sometimes looking at the numbers slightly differently than the analysis.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Can we put that in? Is

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: mean, no. We'll do that, but

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And could you email the precise language that would do that? Sure.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That doesn't mean if somebody doesn't lead to data,

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: you change it. No. Yes.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: No, it often will happen. The report will be circulated, and there might be a term used. There will be like, we don't use that term. We would say this. And sometimes we might push back on there's some commentary to the analysis, we may say something. And then often there's a note, state's attorneys, district attorney, something like that. This report seems very cut and dry as far as numbers. It's less digging into the whys of the numbers. So I don't see that as

[Unidentified Committee Member]: a nice The language, it's just not Can they just give people the Right.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: To review the draft report before final submission. Review and comment, something like that. But we can provide something. Right.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: And we do that also because sometimes we have questions. Sure. We wanna check ourselves. So we find that very important. We might have done that in Act 42. Well, Act 40 had the little sex dinner about any collaboration with.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. Martin. Yes. Of course.

[Rep. Kevin “Coach” Christie (Ranking Member)]: Does it make sense? Just thinking in terms of the the the nature of the data itself to try to figure out what it would cost to have it presented in a dashboard format, you know, so that, you know, those folks that are end users, you know, like him and her group or any of the other ones, VCIC or anyone, that's linked into that because it wouldn't be manipulating the data. It would just be able to call up the data real time.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That well, that kind of is the presentation format already that I'm anticipating that it's gonna be followed, but the same as Act 40, which I would call that a film,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: not really.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: Yeah, yeah. So Coach, we don't like to do dashboards the way that you're sometimes used to seeing them, because there's a lot of tiny, tiny print that goes along with them. We We just like to make that tiny print really bigger in paragraphs than in a report. So all of our new reports are interactive. So you have that dashboard functionality where you can explore and say, oh, how does this affect domestic violence offenders? Or how does this affect women? Or however you can choose variables. So we have that interactivity so they even interact with the data. Just not a dashboard.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's an interactive report.

[Rep. Kevin “Coach” Christie (Ranking Member)]: Well, that makes sense. You know, as long as that functionality is there. Yep. You know, I I would think that that would be helpful to all of the practice practitioners. So thanks for the clarification.

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: Yep.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Anything else?

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: That is it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. So we'll go to am I going to Jessica or Haley next?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: I'll set up there again.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Excellent. And I guess the questions that you are same questions, but also want to give you a view of whether we should be deleting 28 VSA section four or just calling it something because it's not recidivist. So I'll let you proceed, however. But I do want that answer, if you can. Yeah.

[Jessica Kingmore, Research and Data Unit Director, Vermont DOC]: So I'm Jessica Kingmore, research and data unit director at

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: the DOC. You can call me Jess. I'm Noah Sommer, director of communications for DOC.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Both good to be here.

[Jessica Kingmore, Research and Data Unit Director, Vermont DOC]: So your first question, I'm okay with you guys getting rid of it. We don't use it. It's a lagging metric. So if you think about the average commissioner's tenure is typically two years in corrections. We've had commissioners who've lasted longer, but across The United States, that's your average tenure. So if you have a lagging metric of three years internally for operational reasons, it doesn't help us. We typically rely on measures like reincarceration for people released to the field and things like that. But we share those internally and we present those in different ways. And so I guess from our perspective, recidivism was always something we calculated because we had to, but we didn't really rely on the metric. It is an indicator metric, and those are always lagging, so that's okay. It's just operationally, it hasn't been that meaningful. And for all the reasons I'm sure you all have discussed about this definition, it has its major limitations too. Thank

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: you for that. I'm just hearing that you don't use that. I'm curious if what you do use for recidivism, does

[Jessica Kingmore, Research and Data Unit Director, Vermont DOC]: it match what we're doing now? No, we don't really take the more research perspective for it. Again, we're wanting to track For instance, if we're wanting to track the influence of a policy, we're going look at shorter term outcome measures. Like if we expect a policy to result in less returns to incarceration over a short time period, then we're just gonna be looking month to month to month, is that trend line going down? We do test indicator measures internally. Obviously, indicator measures are really important for population level health, but that's not gonna affect day to day operations. They're more of larger policy level implications, like what you all are looking at.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: So this is not gonna be confusing then that DOC is coming out with recidivism rates of your own that Well, I

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: don't think we'll continue

[Jessica Kingmore, Research and Data Unit Director, Vermont DOC]: We won't continue to calculate it this way. If we do anything, we would define reincarceration rates ourselves, and we would call it reincarceration rates, and that's what we would publish. So we would never do dueling recidivism with the current research group.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And if you want to comment on any of the other parts?

[Jessica Kingmore, Research and Data Unit Director, Vermont DOC]: I don't think so. Like current research group, partner with them. It seems like all we have to do is provide releases information for your, what was the phrase, eligibility criteria. We can do that. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great. Well, thank you very much. Thanks. And before we for a few minutes, until we start our next, I am gonna add one thing to the bail rates, and that is making it clear, even though I kind of expected we were gonna do this anyway, that it'd be county by county, there would be a county by county breakdown. I just figured that we should probably make sure we have that in here. Any other questions on any other needs for this bill? We still haven't debated whether we feel that we should buy this data or not, but that we can talk about tomorrow.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Ian? Following a couple things, the one that and we talked earlier about you're going off the having the arraignment as being the starting point that it was actually occurred. Will I have to actually have occurred the arraignment or would they have just been on the docket to appear that?

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: I'd have to work with the I'd have to go back to the judiciary to see what dates they're giving me. We call it the arraignment date, but I'd have to go back and see what date they're actually calling. It's the date, and I understand the question. It gets a little complicated because it's also the date that shows up in everyone's rap sheets. And so the consistency of being able to have our work reproduced and using the rap sheets as the major, that's the easiest and most accurate way to do it. But I can get back to you on that question. One thing that I envision on this is that over the first few years, we're going to be giving you lots of stuff you didn't ask for, and we're going

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: to see how it all works. The arraignment date be, court's hand sufficiently caught by the court, the date they were arraigned, meaning that they had to be there as opposed to a date that they had

[Monica Weaver, Executive Director, Crime Research Group]: to There's lots of dates.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: There's lots of dates. But for the purposes of this, we're interested in is, did the person start a new conviction? Yes. Okay. Now what we're doing with that arraignment date, whatever date it is they're really giving me, is trying to figure out how soon after their eligible date did they actually get in trouble again. So it's already a proxy. If they didn't show up, it still holds true that this is close to the time that we think that they got in trouble again. Just because they didn't show up doesn't mean that they didn't get in trouble. So where it becomes where this kind of how numbers can change over time. Let's say he goes on a runner and doesn't show up for three years. This can happen. Interesting. Then he shows up in year four, gets a new conviction. Then the arraignment date will be the first day he didn't show up. So then he gets put back into that three year recidivism rate, even if he went on a runner. We'll have lots of footnotes.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

[Dr. Robin Joy, Director of Research, Crime Research Group]: All right.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, that's perfect timing. So appreciate the testimony, everybody. Yeah. Thank you. I think we will so we're all bright eyed and bushy tailed, we're gonna take a a ten minute break just so we can grab coffee and Cool off.