Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We are live. Hi. Welcome to

[Rep. Martin LaLonde, Chair]: the House Judiciary Committee this Thursday morning, one day before her crossover deadline. It's six bills on lead to be voted on this tomorrow. So everybody will just keep their questions in three words. I'm just kidding. So just by way of introduction, we're doing a proposed amendment from age six forty two that I hope will be a committee amendment. And it's something I worked on with Ken McAnnis, did some work over the break, I've worked with Eric to try to address what we heard when we first took this up as far as what we're trying to accomplish. I just want to just explain really quickly what this bill is trying to accomplish. It is situations with the youthful offender who are essentially climbing out of the system. And towards the end of the jurisdiction that we have with respect to youthful offender, they may not show up for violations of probation that are filed or motions for modification or revocation. And that's kind of an issue that a couple of parts in this tried to resolve. The other is we heard from test witnesses when we took this up last as far as that courts use different standards as far as determining whether there should be revocation or not. We expanded the list of what the court should look at, needs to consider when they have a revocation bill. Those are the two big things that this does. It also has a little bit of different language, which Eric will talk about with respect to a person or acknowledging the harm that they cause. So those are what's in there. We didn't touch anything on the victim component of it. But with all that, I need to leave for a couple other things, carry it over to Tom, then we're gonna know Derek. So thank you very much. I'm sorry.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Out of the stage. Thank you. And good morning, everybody. Eric Fitzpatrick with the office of legislative council here to walk the committee through

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Eric, before you go any further Please. Not that you have to do it, I'm gonna request from the committee to because end of the you know, we have a crossover coming. We're in a pinch for time on a lot of stuff. If we can just wait till Erica's done with the presentation before we ask questions, things seem to move away quicker that way. Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, representative Burditt. So the walk through this morning is the new proposed amendment to eight six forty two, which is an activating the youthful offender proceedings. As the committee may recall, there's a couple of different pieces to this. The first one involves the and this is in section one. This involves the the initial decision of whether or not the young person is gonna qualify for youthful offender status. Remember, the YO status is a different thing than either juvenile status or being treated as an adult. In the criminal division, it's this sort of between it combines some elements of each of those proceedings. And has to be a determination by the court at the outset as to whether or not this person is gonna qualify for youthful offender treatment. So what was going on in the first section, and this is over on page two, there's a list of, actually, that sort of starts at the bottom of page one. First thing the court has to consider when it's deciding whether, this young person is gonna be, qualified for youthful offender treatment as and this starts very bottom of page one. It's whether public safety will be protected by treating the youth as a youthful offender. So over on to page two, the existing statute contains this lengthy list, a through j, of factors that the court has to consider when it's making this determination of whether public safety will be protected. So remember, the the, existing or the bill as introduced proposed to add one factor that the court would have to consider when it's making this public safety decision. And that factor is line sixteen and seventeen, page two, whether the youth has acknowledged that harm was caused by the youth's alleged conduct. So that part remains the same from the bill was introduced. You see the highlighted language, the proposal is to, add that additional language, and this is just providing that whatever information the youth provides while acknowledging that harm was caused by their conduct can't be used against the youth in future criminal Yo or juvenile proceedings for any any purpose. Now that language is just tracked on language that already exists in several places in current law. This particular piece, I faced not quite verbatim, but it's pretty close to verbatim from what you have in the risk assessment statute right now. So in other words, you know, when a young person participates in a risk assessment, there's similar language that says any information you provide or statements that you make, that kind of thing, can't be used against you later on. It's So the same concept that you have and a few other points. I think it's in the diversion statute as well, possibly. But anyway, that particular language is more or less from the risk assessment statute that provides for the same thing. So that's that first change. I can move on. I'm not seeing any questions at this oh, I forgot about that. Sorry about that. Forgot about that. Yeah. I'm bored here. I know. I did. I'm almost violating the rule of the deal. Will happen. Yes, it's true. It's true. Alright. So moving on to section two. Thank Yeah, absolutely. So this is the sorry, think about another point in the chronology of a person in youthful offender treatment. Though they get a they get a disposition case plan, they get conditions of probation, typically. And so this statute involves what happens when they violate their conditions of probation. And one of the things that happens under existing law, see bottom of page four over on the top of page five, is that the court this is sort of line nineteen and twenty, page four. So the if the youth violates their judicial sorry, their juvenile probation, a motion for line 18 a motion for modification or revocation of youth offender status may be filed in the family division. So there can be a motion, hey. They're gonna revoke this status. Remember, there's this whole idea that the y o statuses can be lost if the person doesn't comply with their conditions of probation and their case plan, and so this is the procedure for that. Court sets the motion for hearing and then the hearing that occurs. And so then the provision that you see added on age five lines four to 10, the concept here is that, you know, because a person can have youth offender status up until age 22, but sort of think about a hypothetical situation where the young person, say, violates their probation at age 21 or 20 or 21 or something like that. They and the court can only have jurisdictional abuse offenders until the age of 22. So if they violate when they're close to age 22 and the proceeding gets delayed, the court could lose jurisdiction over the person. There wouldn't be any any ability of the court to impose sanctions, to try and get the young person to comply with their plan, that sort of thing. So this attempts to address that situation by allowing the court to extend jurisdiction past the young person's 20 birthday in situations like this when you'll see lines five and six. When a motion for modification or revocation is pending pursuant to the section. So in other words, state's attorney has gone in, filed this motion for revocation or modification, and it's getting close to age 22, the court can say, oh, well, we don't wanna lose jurisdiction over this young person because we wanna be able to have them comply with what they're supposed to do so they can extend it. Actually, it's required. It it does say that jurisdiction shall remain in effect until the youth is discharged or until probation is revoked. So they're able to retain jurisdiction over the youthful offender even after age 22. And the second sentence provides that family division may extend its jurisdiction over youth beyond the youth's 20 birthday to the extent necessary to maintain jurisdiction through this subject. So that's the idea. So it can keep jurisdiction over the young person, even after age 22, if there is a proceeding going on for revocation or modification of the probation. So that's that one. That's change number two. Change number three, over on page six, this has to do we're still talking about the this revocation hearing. Right? Their youth has violated probation. There's this revocation hearing going on. I'll just turn back actually, I'll just turn back for a second to page five, lines thirteen and fourteen, because that's kinda telling the court or the finding that it needs to make. It says if the court finds after the hearing that the youth has violated the terms of the youth's probation, the court may, and then it we've gone through this before. There's some options that the court can do there. They can maintain their status as a YO but modify conditions. They can revoke the the youth status. That's line 17. Transfer the case right to the criminal division for disposition. Remember that, because that's the whole carrot and stick thing. The stick over the youthful offenders, that if they don't comply, the case can be sent to the criminal division. They don't get the benefits of juvenile treatment. So that's all existing law. But the proposal is over on page six. The bill is introduced. It said, well, if the youth violates and there's an element of the new crime that involves an act of violence, the case can be transferred right to the criminal division. So the proposal is to don't go that route. Instead, say, for purposes of this determination that the court has to make, in other words, what are we gonna do with this young person who's violated probation? Are we gonna keep the YO status, modify probation, transfer the case back to criminal, etcetera, for purposes of that decision? This is clarifying some criteria that the court has to consider when it decides that. And basically, three are the same things that the court considers when deciding whether a person is qualifies for youthful offender status. So, essentially, what he's telling the court is you have to consider reconsider whether or not this person still should be given youthful fender status. Use the same criteria you used before, but it's given that they violated probation, it makes sense that you should revisit that decision. So they have to redecide it based on the fact that using the same criteria, but based on the fact that the young person violated ended up in this hearing. So that's what's going on there. Last change, you'll see actually, if you notice this, but this there are two options on the page here for this last change. And this starts at the bottom of page six, goes over on the top of page seven. And this is the situation, well, what if the youth has violated probation? Remember we just said, when they do that, the court sets it for a hearing, right? Well, what if the youth doesn't show? Don't show up at the hearing. That's what this subsection tries to address that situation. So the draft that you're looking in front of you provides two options for what the court might do in that situation. So if look at the bottom of page six, if the youth fails to appear at the revocation hearing, the court has to and must have found the cause or the failure to appear either, and this is policy choice for you folks over on top of page seven, are your two options. The first one was in the bill as introduced. So you see those first three lines, top of page seven, one through three? That's the same as the bill as introduced.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Did you skip Not a question. What was

[Rep. Martin LaLonde, Chair]: it? I

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: think we skipped c on line 16 through 18. Yeah,

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I sort of summarized that. I didn't go into detail, but that was when I was saying that the same criteria that the court has to consider when deciding what to do with this person who revoked it is the same criteria that the court considers when deciding whether the kid gets YO in the first place.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: I didn't know if that

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: was That's all part of that. Yep. Thank you. Yep. So, yeah. So the first option, top of page seven, is the one that's in the existing bill as introduced. Sorry. Court could, if the youth fails to appear at the revocation hearing, revoke the youth status as youthful offender, transfer the case to the criminal division for sentencing. So that's remember, that's always an option for a a violation anyway, because remember, we did when we're just looking at on page five, line 17 through 19, existing law, that is an option may, in other words, required, but may the court is allowed to do that under current law when the youth violate. So the proposal here is if they if they have violated once, they don't show up at the hearing, then you make it mandatory. It shall transfer it to the criminal division for it's kinda like strike two. You could take it that way. Alright. So that's one option. Second option, see also on page seven, it could also summon the in other words, so the kid the the young person hasn't shown up. So you could say to the court, court has to require the person to appear. If they haven't shown up, summon the juvenile and that should be youth offender. Sorry. Summon the youth offender to appear before it or may issue an order for the juvenile's apprehension for purposes of transporting you to the court to appear at the hearing. So in other words, not saying this approach doesn't tell the court what it has to decide. You don't have to necessarily transfer, you know, revoke the youthful offender status, transfer the case to the criminal. You don't necessarily have to do that, but you do have to since the youthful offender hasn't shown up, you do have to find a way to go find them, bring them to the court for purposes of this hearing that they that they skipped first time or shouldn't say skipped. We don't know what circumstances may have been involved and why they couldn't detect. So those are the two options. And this language, I should say, the second option is is based roughly on language that's in juvenile probation violation section now.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: So can

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: get you to cite, but it's 28 BSA something. I'm gonna pause it since I don't know where it's sure one of the other people in the or your future witnesses will be able to cite you to that, but it's based on juvenile probation revocation statute that's in title 28 now because the court also can do a similar sort of thing when a juvenile violates probation currently. So that is the and I think it's the last of the changes. So that's the end of the walk through of the new draft of the proposed amendment.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie, Ranking Member]: Chair Burditt?

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Yeah. Hang on just a second, representative Christie. Representative Oliver is first, and and then you Thank

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: you.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: On option three, it's a phone there over Stateline living in Lebanon.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't know the answer to that off the top my head. I mean, maybe I think, hopefully, maybe your witnesses would know the answer to that better than I am not certain of the existing way that works. So what they would do in a current situation if the if the offender was out of state? I can do it, but I'm not sure off the top of my head.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: What's up? Yeah. Representative Christie?

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie, Ranking Member]: Yes. Actually, the two questions. You know, one is, similar to representative Oliver's question. Are some standing memos of understanding with the Lebanon and West Lebanon police, for example, On the border, you know, because it's so transparent in our case with Windsor County. So it'd be interesting to ask. Representative Burditt's excuse me representative Oliver's question to the to the state's attorneys to see what that agreement is. My other my other quick question is related to so it's clearly stated, Eric, that it's an appearance and it's a required appearance, right?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You mean what we were just talking about? The the Yes. The yes. That's right. Yes. To the option is to summon the youth offender to appear before the court. That's one option. Or issue an order for the for the oh, it should be why I'm trying

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: to check.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: For the young person's apprehension for purposes of transporting youth to the court to appear at the hearing. That's right. It doesn't sort of dictate what the court would decide at the hearing just to try and transport the youth offender there.

[Rep. Kevin "Coach" Christie, Ranking Member]: Well, you have to be there, basically. You know? I'm just thinking, you know, because I worked the border for a number of years, and having that authority is a powerful tool, you know, as far as convincing sometimes, you know, them to come to Jesus so to speak. Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: I think Judge Davenport may have a clarification here.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Yeah, we're talking about retired court judge and on behalf of the Council for Equitable Justice. The youthful offender would be on probation. A standard condition of a probation is that you appear before all your hearings. So they, not showing up at a hearing is a violation in and of itself of probation. So just in response to Coach's question, it's yes, they are required. They're required by their conditions of probation to appear and never hear.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Rachelson? So I have a question about page six, Sub C. This says there were insufficient services in the juvenile court system and in DCF and DOC to meet the youth's treatment and rehabilitation needs. I'm wondering why then

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: we

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: transfer them to the adult system if DOC doesn't have the resources either. Is this reading as the programs that DCF does in partnership with DOC? I'm just confused.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I think youth offender does get It is a joint operation between DOC and PCF. So that language, and I just realized there may be a typo there, but we'll see. That language is basically look at page three, for example, lines nine to 11. That's part of the that exact same language is part of the determination that the court has to make when it's deciding whether to grant youthful offender status in the first place. That's one of the criteria. So the idea here is that if the youth has violated, then the court should revisit that and basically look at the same criteria that it used in the first place to decide whether YO status was appropriate. Well, if they violated, revisit that, look at those criteria again, see if youth YO is still appropriator.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: And remind me, I don't believe the law says before we transfer them to the adult system, we need to see if there are resources that are appropriate that are going to serve them.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You mean currently?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Currently, but definitely there is an amendment for it. So I'm just wondering, it's only if DCF doesn't have the resources that we're going to transfer, but we're not looking to see what treating them as an adult is gonna offer the kids.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think that it says both, right? That they look at the services available in both the juvenile court system, DCF and DOC, to meet the most treatment and rehab needs. Maybe I'm not understanding your point.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Yeah, and it may be that I should be asking some of the witnesses yet. But my concern is we're

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: willing

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: to use that as a reason to have kids give up youthful offender status when they're not in control of what programs DCF has. And so I'm wondering why we're not looking at what we're sending them to. Because if what we're sending them to is less than what they could get in useful offender status, it seems unusual to not We care about it here, but we don't care about it here.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: And you may be right that it's

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: I was just gonna

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: say the same Now I understand your question. Think you're right. I'm actually not gonna talk about that. But if possible, just in a more typographical sort, I noticed that on line 16 of page six, it says there are insufficient services, whereas in the other thing, it's sufficient. So I think that in probably was just a typo for consistency's sake. For example, for some reason, that never got litigated. People would point the court saying, why did they say insufficient here and sufficient over there? So I don't, of course, look at those kinds of things. So better to be consistent.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Any other questions for Eric?

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you, Eric. You bet. Thank you.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: And next up, we have, Ken McManus from the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs. Just so everybody knows,

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: well

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: as close to 10:30 as possible, we'll take ten minutes and hopefully a quick ten minutes and everybody comes back and jump right back in the queue. Thank you, Kim.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: I'm feeling that the room is on the clock, so I will keep my comments.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Not trying to rush anybody.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: No, not feeling rushed. I'm shaving you have a lot to do. For the record, Kim McManus, Department of State's Attorneys and Chairs. All right, we're just going to jump right in. Section one, the amended language, We had raised this issue when we were last together that we would understand that we would want some immunity around a youth if they were going to say anything at the consideration hearing. From our perspective, this language would seem to provide that. We'll let other witnesses speak further to that, but we have no issue with that addition. Section two, again, we really appreciate that the committee heard the stakeholders last year when we discussed the age out issue, that it is a new fold there that needs to be fixed. And we worked with the chair to present this, because we definitely heard the committee at our last hearing not liking the automatic revocation option. And so we appreciate this approach on page five, extending jurisdiction. If a revocation motion has been filed before the end of the youthful offender's probation period, that it would allow the court to extend jurisdiction so that they can deal with that issue. And I think the very important thing for the committee to understand is, as written, it could extend past '22, have the youth in maybe at 23, 24 to deal with the revocation issue. If the court revokes the youth at that time, this case would then go to criminal court and the youth would be sentenced. And we do think that wouldn't be for all cases. It would be for very particular cases that this would happen. But remembering that we have some very serious charges that go into useful offender. And it's our understanding over the years that there's a real push for more and more serious cases to be considered as useful offender. And if this catch at the end exists, if puts the end parentheses on useful offender, this would be helpful for our department to even consider more serious cases being under consideration for useful offender if we believe that if somebody is trying to run the clock out and avoid that we are able to pull them back and have them held accountable. Also important, though, to note that the court could discharge the youth at that time. They don't have to revoke if the person's brought up, so that would be a question at the discretion of the judiciary. So we support the language on page five as written. The issue that Legislative Council just brought up on page six the criteria for considering at a revocation hearing. It does mirror the consideration hearing, except there's two funny things. In the consideration hearing, the language is or the second criteria would be the youth is unamenable and then there are insufficient. So it's written in the negative in the consideration hearing. We should either mirror it exactly. Or if here we're thinking more in the positive that someone is amenable or there are sufficient funds sorry, sufficient services, there's just a little disjoint there. So we can either mirror the consideration hearing language exactly, or if we're going to have it be amenable to treatment, then whether there's sufficient services. That makes sense. It's just a little off at the moment, but I think it's just a quick correction.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Can we wait to see Doug? Eric, did is that assume you

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Eric has been for recent council, and thank you, Doctor. Rutland, pointing that out. It's funny, I just noticed when you said that if you look at the existing web page, it's funny, it appears to be both. I'm not saying it's generally consistent. The other one says, first one, top of it, the court denies the motion of the youth is not under. In line six, the court grants the motion of the youth isn't. So, I agree with consistency. I'm just not sure what's the best way to go here.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Right, for that B1, page one, I'm sorry, page two, line 21, it says the court shall deny the motion if the youth is not amenable or if there are insufficient, and then shall grant the motion. If so, I think it's matching the Oh,

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I see, right? The interjectory.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Yeah.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: But it's still slightly confusing.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: So to that point, representative, so on page six, it's the court is finding that continuing to treat the youth as a youthful offender, so it's decided that it will continue to, then it would make the most sense for it to be the youth is amenable. And then I think just that question is, should it then be there are sufficient services? I think that makes more sense.

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Excellent wordsmithing, everyone.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: On the issue of if the youth does not appear at the probation revocation hearing, there was an issue after we all spoke last time. I heard from a few of the practitioners who primarily do these cases that the good cause issue of whether there was good cause and litigating that, there was a sense that it really wasn't going to be valuable at the time. And so clarity and option two of the court being able to summon or arrest the youth to appear at a hearing, I believe would be the preference of our department. I would just point out two things. So we're on page seven right now, line five. This language was copied from the delinquency statute to some extent. There's a little bit of a change there. And that's 33 BSA five thousand two and sixty six. So when it was copied, says summon the juvenile. Youth full offenders are not juveniles. They are youth, and we have very different definitions for this. So we would need to summon the youth to appear before it and then substitute again youth on line six for where it says juvenile. And to Representative Oliver's point, one

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: of

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: the issues we have found is that we we've have heard heard inconsistent, differing opinions from family court judges on whether they can issue an arrest warrant for youthful offenders. And so often, it might be a judicial summons or we call it a juvenile pickup order. If a youth is out of state, a judicial summons is not to pull them back in, only an arrest warrant will do that if it's an extraditable arrest warrant, if the judge issues it that way. Our preference, the wording here, order for the youth to apprehension for purposes of transporting the youth, it sounds like an arrest warrant. We would prefer that it be explicit, at least for those over the age of 18 who are a youthful offender, the court can order an arrest warrant. Then we can, if we ask for it, ask for it to be extraditable, and then we would be able to bring a youth back from outside of the state to finish the process here in Vermont. Those are the

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: only pieces we have.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Barbara, and then Karen.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: I'm wondering, I get that there may be some youth that are trying to run out the time, But I'm worried that this language is too broad and will One thing that seems odd is when we look at the research about brain development, it's not like, Oh, the brain is developed when they didn't show up at court or when they violated a condition. It seems like there could be methods to try to address those amplified behaviors in the useful offender side and not make that automatic transfer, which will have not only lifelong repercussions, but it looks like every research study I have found shows that recidivism rates are higher when kids are transferred to adult courts. So if one of our premises is public safety, I feel like it's antithetical to them.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Well, and that's where there's an option for this committee to choose, that automatic revocation or we need to get this youth into court, find out what's going on. And the court at that time, when they get them in, is going to be deciding what's happening and will be either going forward with that revocation hearing or saying, we're not at this point discharged from probation.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: And what are your thoughts about the fact I don't

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: know if your practitioners are frustrated that there aren't a lot of good treatment options for them as a useful offender. And again, we're taking a system failure of our government and changing policy that affect individual abuse because of that. And I'm just wondering how those issues play out from the comments you're hearing.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: I mean, that's part of the struggle with youthful offender, is that this carve out is created with very good intentions. And to your earlier question of this idea of sufficient services, During that consideration hearing, there's this real check of who can do what for this youth. And DOC is put in a very tricky position because their services are designed for adults. And so having a youthful offender who's 19 and otherwise would be considered an adult, we're not really going to treat them as an adult. Can they be in the group of adults that are in criminal? It gets very complicated as far as and then GCF, as they've testified repeatedly over the age of 18, really have limited, very limited options of what they can do. They have some options, but again, they're desiring to treat. But don't you think we should hold

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: DCF or state government to it rather than I feel like we're punishing the wrong victim in this case. It's like they need diabetes treatment, and we don't have that. So we are going to send them to It just feels like it doesn't flow well for me.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: If any of the juvenile prosecutors could be here, they would ask for as many services as possible. We don't want these youth to fail, and we do not want them to continue on into criminal court as an adult. So we absolutely hear that what we don't want to do is ignore the problem in any way. And again, we have victims in the community to speak to of, look, we're going to handle this case through YO because it's this rehabilitative process. Oh, but some can not finish the process.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Right. And I guess it's, again, I'm curious. I will definitely ask the other witnesses this too, and I'm just curious because, again, if DOC has 100 more people come down the pike, there's no question that it's just we'll pay for that. But we're not doing that. I feel like it's almost age discrimination. We're not giving the youth what they need because there's no mandate to.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: It's a very particular population and it requires particular skills. And I think we've heard that from DCF repeatedly. And to your point, if there was more resources put towards working with this age group, that would only benefit and hopefully have less

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: than

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: what we're seeing. This isn't hundreds of cases, but they're important cases.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Yes. Thanks. And thanks for working with folks that offer this language. I feel like it is shifting right in direction, so I really appreciate it. My question is on the effective date. When we reviewed the original version, I have made a note that, and I can't remember if it was you or somebody had mentioned that the effective date passage wasn't going to work, but there was gonna be time needed to implement things. Do you have thoughts on that?

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: My only thought is that I believe you would be correct. I wouldn't be able to give a time frame off the top of my head, but I think we would want to hear from the judiciary and others, I think more on the judiciary side, needing any additional forms or whatnot of somewhat delay before it goes into effect just because it would be a new practice. It would be implemented. We would want to do training. We do our training in June. The judges have their training in June. So something a few months after would be appropriate. Great. Thank you. Kim, you mentioned, as we

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: were going through the bill, you said something about on page six, lines 19 through 21, you said something about there was a desire not to litigate that of good cause.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Just the feedback that I received was understanding that there's going to be an argument against these automatic revocations, that there's a due process issue here. And then there would be a good cause argument about why someone isn't showing up or not. Some of our practitioners are just like, this is going to be an argument that is going to be difficult and confusing and basically unhelpful. So let's look at tightening up the being able to have an arrest warrant and get the youth back into court and have the hearing. And so basically, didn't need to push this idea of an automatic revocation. Okay. We're saying go with option two. We would like the language to be more clear that the court can issue an arrest warrant for a way to

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Okay. So that makes sense to me. I'm focused then. My question is still on page six in that section, 19 through 21, unless it finds there was good cause for the failure to appear, we have false judge on eighth as well. When does that argument happen? When is that case made?

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: So if this language, say revocation hearing is scheduled, I walk in, defense attorney walks in, the youth does not walk in. At that point, we would be arguing, if this was here, the defense attorney would be, oh, the youth's mom is in the hospital or the youth is in the hospital, something. And there'd be a back and forth of, is that a good reason? Is that a good cause to

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: miss this hearing? Good cause is there's a general understanding of what that means and what qualifies.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Well, that's where, again, our practitioners were like, you know what, yes, but it's mushy. It's going to be very it's highly subjective. Again, this is an option. So it's either eitheror. It Oh, sorry. Sorry. The first clause, sorry. That's included. So I apologize. Sorry, I apologize. Yes. That's our starting point. The starting point. But I guess if we're connecting and having to argue good cause with this automatic revocation, again, because of the due process, issues connected with the automatic revocations, what good causes is going to be heightened, understandably. And it's just not necessarily going to be an effective use of everyone's time. So we can leave the good cause language in there for line 20. I apologize for confusing everyone. Confused myself. If we're going with option two on the menu, so to speak, page seven, line five through seven.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: No, it's all That's Okay. Get what your confusion was, and I'm still just wondering about what constitutes good cause and how subjective that is and how that may be treated differently by different judges. But I will ask if I get the opportunity. Then just one more question, if I may, about that option. So on page seven, lines five through seven, the second item on the menu. You've described it a little bit, but I want to have an understanding of what it looks like when a youthful offender is summoned or arrested and brought into court. What does that transport look like? Who's conducting it? And yes. Those questions. So,

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: depending on the arrangement between DCF and DOC. So both are involved in supervising the youth. Depending on the age of the youth or the case, one might be primary, so to speak. And so it would be a conversation Well, sorry, let me back up. If It was a judicial summons, my understanding, and there's other law enforcement in the room. They cannot always help. The court has issued that the youth would be handed that and told they need to be in court on a certain day, then they would, on their own, come in on a summons. It's getting an official document telling you to come to court. It's being cited.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: That's handed.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Or I think they can be mailed, but I would ask the judge as well on this. Arrest warrant, it would be in the system. It's an arrest warrant. The youth's defense counsel would know about it. They'd probably be having a conversation. If it's an arrest warrant, you could either come to court and get that arrest warrant swatched, or it's going to be out there. And so if the youth then had contact with law enforcement for any reason and that arrest warrant popped out, they would then arrest the youth. And again, this would be for 18 and over. So depending on the time and place, I would either be bringing the youth to court or detaining them and then bringing them

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: to court the next business day. Okay. So handcuffs and?

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: The usual procedure of the rest. Again, and that's why we're saying for 18 and over, as huge. Okay, thank you. Any

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: other questions for Ken? Great, thank you, Ken. Next, Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Morning. Doctor Jones, Department of Public Safety. Good to see you all. This draft is kind of a continuation of the conversation before town meeting break on the first draft, and I think it addresses some of the concerns that time that were raised. And so that is good. I think this draft is going in the right direction. I want to emphasize the scope here of what this bill is getting at. There is the broader policy conversation about juvenile justice generally and raise the age and the next step of raise the age. This committee will be likely revisiting that next year because that is up again for increasing raise the age to the next cohort. This bill is more narrowly focused on existing structure with a youthful offender and addressing the relatively narrow issue of what to do under the circumstances in which you have a youth and youthful offender status who is not necessarily engaging with the process and is at risk of aging out of that process. Of course, the focus on making sure we have a procedural process to address those circumstances becomes heightened when the underlying conduct is particularly severe. The thing with youthful offender status is that we do have 22 some conduct that is very severe. It goes down into this status and petition, whether it's either starts there as a youthful offender petition, or there can be a motion to transfer a case, even very severe cases, into youthful offender status. And at the time of making that determination, there may be an idea of we want to give this young person a chance at this program. And then the process plays out, and you get to the point in some cohort, and we'd like to hope that this is a small cohort for that cohort who does not necessarily engage at all. And you're facing the specific problems that Kim was pointing out of we're reaching that jurisdictional limit of age 22. And we haven't necessarily addressed the underlying, the underlying kind of hasn't necessarily been addressed. We need to tackle that. So I just say that to kind of hone in on what I view as the relatively specific focus of this, as opposed to the broader public policy conversation about juvenile justice generally and whether to expand rates of the age. And obviously it's related because there is this bigger question of the role of youthful offender status up to age 22 in light of our delinquency jurisdiction, etcetera. But here we're really focused on this narrow cohort I view within bio status. So just with that, I don't think this bill is really kind of going down the road of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in terms of youthful offender status or delinquency. It doesn't really touch delinquency, and it doesn't throw out YO either. It is addressing this specific issue of the procedural options available. There has been a feedback, and we've heard it, the Department of Public Safety from the law enforcement side and the state's attorneys as well are kind of alluding to it, where in some of these cases, again, not all, but in some, there does seem to be a mismatch between the severity of the conduct and the lack of procedural options to address it when you don't have the engagement, the voluntary engagement of the individual. Let me be clear for all of those voluntarily engage and in some circumstances accept responsibility for the underlying conduct, the system can work. And sometimes it can work quite well. But the issue becomes when they don't voluntarily engage and the clock runs, what are we doing? So to that end, I think all of the provisions here provide some meaningful way to address that within the existing structure. Page two, line 16, an avenue to recognize acknowledgment of harm. It's a possibility if the youth wants to do that. There was some discussion of that before town meeting break of ensuring that while that might be beneficial to some youth who want to acknowledge harm, now the judge can now say that is a legitimate fact that I could take into account in determining whether Wyost got us appropriate. That might be good for that youth, but also the guardrails here recognizing it can't be used outside of that context. I think there's some merit to that. Again, from a rehabilitation perspective, providing that pathway where in appropriate circumstances a youth could accept responsibility may be beneficial from the supervision perspective down the road when they acknowledge that they did engage in that conduct in the first place. The next one, page five, line four, jurisdiction remains effect until the youth shows the youth shows back up for modification or revocation proceeding. You've heard Attorney McManus address that already. I just kind of probably emphasize that the point there is not to just extend supervision jurisdiction indefinitely, but rather to extend jurisdiction for enough time to get them back to address whether jurisdiction is going to be either terminated in YO or it's going to

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: be transferred back to permanent.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: I don't think the intent is to then say, well, let's really extend supervision itself to '23, 24, 20 '5. I don't think practitioners are prepared to absorb that burden of just extending this, especially the Department for Children and Families for the probation officers there. Page six, line three, the criteria to consider for revocation. Interesting topic. Right now in statute, it doesn't say. There is no criteria. The court may do this. And mentioned last time, and Judge Zonny may have thoughts on this as well, but I am aware that some judges kind of by default, because they're looking for some criteria to apply, will just go apply the original criteria from YO consideration in the first place. And there's some logic to that. To representative Rachelson's question, I think the point is taken that the more relevant criteria at that point is really not so much the sufficiency of the services, but whether the behavior of the young person by the time you're at the point down the line of revocation, their behavior through that process, whether there's been a change in the analysis to say that they're no longer amenable. They've demonstrated that they're not amenable to the treatment anymore and or that there's a public safety risk associated with continuing to allow them to remain on youthful offender status. In my mind, those are the kind of more relevant criteria that the court would want to be focusing in on at that later point in time. The whole point is you're there for revocation for some reason, and you're analyzing what's the behavior been that's led to that. So it's more focused on the youth's kind of conduct up until that point rather than the system's ability to kind of absorb it. And then just next page six, line 19, or going on to page seven, this issue of the summons. I share the concern of the sufficiency of the summits alone, again, in the acute cases. This is the issue is there may not be that many cases in which this bill is really worried about, but the ones that are can have acute underlying conduct. And so the issue of the reach of the court's power, whether you're really in these acute cases looking at arrest warrant power, the issue of whether that's extraditable from another state, it starts to matter when you have very acute underlying behavior that prompted it. Of course, we could all likely agree, like some behavior we're not even looking at in rescue words. We're just at a certain point to disclose that case. In some that are very serious, you would want that match procedural option to the severity of the conduct. And then I haven't really mentioned it here because there's been no change, I don't think, since the last draft with page eight, line 10 in terms of the victim input. Again, I do think there's virtue there because, again, I think by the time you get to the disposition hearing, at least from the perspective of some victims, the train has essentially left the station already. And so I think there's varying interpretations of existing law of whether victims can really be giving input at the wild consideration stage or not. But to clarify that and to ensure that victim input is available here, I do think is important. I just do know from personal experience that some victims have expressed significant frustration with the juvenile justice process. And that alone in this bill, I think, is worthy of legislative attention. So that is all. Thank you all. Any questions? I'm happy

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: to discuss. Representative Arsenault.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: So thank you. I'm wondering if you can share in better detail what the public safety risk is in these cases.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: The revocation stage. Yeah. So going back to that right now, there's no criteria. It's statute for the court to specifically consider. And some courts just by default consider the original criteria, which doesn't do the interest of public safety. It becomes a question of what the original conduct was and what the behavior was during their course of YO treatment. And again, in the relatively narrow circumstances where you have very acute behavior and then a bulking of the system through the process. And then you might be having the older youth who's reached up to age getting close to 22, 20 birthday. There could be the real concern that the underlying risk from the original behavior hasn't actually even been addressed yet at all. But then there's the additional public safety consideration of what the behavior was since that time of beginning the YO process. Has there been ongoing behavior that has resulted in a motion to revoke Yo status. So it's both of those things. Sometimes the original behavior might have been relatively minor. And then throughout the Yo process, the behavior persists. They're getting brought back in to the criminal justice system, either in the criminal division or in the family division in some capacity. And it's become clear to those of DCF, DOC trying to supervise this individual that they're not able to get traction with the individual. In fact, they might be going the other direction.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: How many of those cases are there, would you say?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: It's tough because I don't have the numerical data to explain that. But I would note that even if there's five, if it's very acute behavior and it's slipping through the cracks of the state, it's worthy of addressing those cracks if the behavior is that acute. And I have seen acute behavior in the juvenile justice system where everyone's like, basically, woah, we gotta let this lie. We gotta address it. I have

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: two more questions for you. One is, how's it working with the youth that we have waved over to adult court? How's it working for public safety? That we have That are treated as adults, that are no longer in the youthful offender category or never were. Is it working well?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Well, I defer to the practitioners on that.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: I didn't know if your department was hearing a lot about those.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Yeah. I mean, I before I don't know if you were here before town mean break. I kind of gave the history of why DPS is even here and what happened during the pandemic that brought this on law enforcement's radar, which was not some of the behavior itself, but the degree to which there was a recognition by some youth that they held this special status and they knew it at the time of arrest for some very serious behavior. And that's kind of what got it on law enforcement's radar, which would be you basically have a young person say, I know how old I am and there's nothing you're arresting me. Yes, there's a gun. Yes, there are drugs, but I know you can't do anything to me. And that got it up to the attention basically of the commissioner where there was enough of that feedback at that time that she was wondering, or he at the time, like, what's going on here? You're getting that feedback? As I mentioned before the break, VSP doesn't seem to the scope of their work, we're not seeing this behavior as much as the municipalities are dealing with some of the young person behavior. So I don't know. I don't know.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: And my last question is, in my experience and looking at some of the academic research,

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: there are a lot

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: of reasons why people don't engage or take responsibility, especially early on in the process. And some of those reasons are related to trauma. Can run the gamut. So how do we delineate kids that are being willfully, and I don't know how many there are, that are willfully just spitting in the eye of the court and saying, You can't do anything to me, versus kids that really need the time to trust anybody to open up, to feel safe doing that, and us transferring them before that opportunity happens is just enough for them to make their armor go up, and that's probably why they said everything rates were so much worse when we send them over to repeat that situation. Well,

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: like specific to the issue of revocation and that decision point, I think the answer is how do you delineate that? What we're relying on factors or no factors is the judgment of the judge to understand, which they do, the structure of the system, what's available in the system, the timeframes for the system, and whether it is appropriate in general to continue to treat them there in light of their behavior. So that's how it gets answered, I think, in the best judgment of the judge.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: And the fact that we don't have the services that most of the kids end up needing, which obviously I know the judge needs to take into consideration, but it feels like too bad, tough luck, not from the judge, but just as a state.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Yeah, I I'd say that in terms of the availability of services, obviously that's a policy issue that you should all have a vested interest in and rightly so. I think the focus and it's worthy of continuing to focus on that as a policy issue. I think the focus of this bill is less on the availability of the services and more on the procedural options available even when you have court ordered to engage in those services, you're not getting any traction at all. And so in the circumstances in which there are services available, but they're not engaging with it at all, then what do you do? And what do you do when the circumstances, the behavior is very serious? And that's, I think, the relatively specific focus here. This bill does not address this other bucket, which is what's going on, how's the supervision working?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: What is psychological evaluation? We're part of that decision point where somebody meets with the youth and tries to determine if it's the wrong service, if the youth is being belligerent.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: I'm wondering if that's a potential service we would hear from I

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: think should answer that.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Yeah, was just gonna say I'll defer to DCF on that because, you know, I've been in that circumstance where we're doing psychosexual evaluations, you know, at the wider consideration stage to determine suitability, etcetera, in coordination with DCF.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Other services you were mentioning too, they may have the better answer.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde, Chair]: Representative Arsenault?

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Thank you. Just one question about something you mentioned, Tucker, on page six, sixteen through 18, the subsection C subdivisions and

[Eric Fitzpatrick, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Subdivisions.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Subdivision C. Based on what you said, I I it sounded like you were saying it. Well, would you support would DPS support removing that from this section? Because you mentioned we're so we're down we're at the revocation point, and now it really the focus should be on what's happened so far with the youth and that individual's amenability to services and treatment. So at this point, why are we now looking back at, are there sufficient services in DCF and DOC?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Yeah. I think I'm only comfortable saying as strongly as I've said before, which is that to me, the relevant criteria is focusing on the individual's behavior throughout that process. And obviously, intermittent, whether there's been criminal behavior in the interim, etcetera. I do know, like sufficiency of the services in the system. One of the considerations, the court's concern is when is the jurisdiction gonna expire here in juvenile court system? And can we cram in? Can we get in? Do we have enough time in light of how old they are at this point to get that treatment? So that can still be a relevant consideration, I think. And I wouldn't want to

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Are we alleviating that with the other change extending the jurisdiction?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Well, it's slightly different because this is the revocation decision. So it may be, I can contemplate circumstances again, maybe judge would have more of a thought on this, but I could see relevancy there for a judge to think, well, we have two more years jurisdiction here of meaningful engagement with services because again, extending the jurisdiction, the goal is not to say, all right, we're going to give you a supervision of 23, 24, 25. I think the narrow purpose of extending jurisdiction was just to say we can bring you back for that revocation hearing down the road if you run the coop. Because we're not doing that. We're not saying, oh, we'll just supervise you until however long it takes. That's not the shift here that I think is proposed. So again, I don't want to say black and white. Oh, you could just strike that line because the time frame available time frame in an existing jurisdiction, you know, is is helpful to consider for sure.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Okay. Thanks.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Any other questions? Representative Thank you. Acting. Representative. Kenneth,

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: you may think it's non generic. Good. Good morning, Tucker. I just wanna back up on a couple of things to make sure I'm clear here with some stuff. When we were taking testimony before, weren't we talking about youthful offenders who are actually creating more crimes at an earlier age, and we were trying to deal with that also because they're being taught earlier because they know they can get away with more repercussions or however the word is that saying and being caught by bad actors. Did did we not go through that on this bill here?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: I don't think it was on this specific bill. I think that was part of the broader public policy consideration of juvenile jurisdiction generally. And it is a consideration in that broader topic. I remember I was talking about Charles LaLonde's study looking at the Massachusetts Raise the Age, and he was talking about iatrogenic harms, which was like self inflicted harms where the system was kind of creating bad incentives for young people. And so there was some discussion in that context, but I don't wanna open that can of worms necessarily, because again, I view this particular piece of legislation as more narrowly focused on just the procedural options available within the existing system.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: Okay, thanks for that clarification. I just want to help these kids and hopefully they can get on the right track with the right supervision. I also think we heard from DCF, I could be wrong again, that they're loaded up and doing the best they can, and I wanna get proper supervision, and I realize a lot of the the facilities the proper stuff that we need, we don't have enough guidance.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Probably, well,

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: I won't even say it, but we should have invested better with some money. But my I want this bill to be tightened up enough to where we're definitely following to help people, but I also, in what I read in some changes and stuff, it appears to me like we've actually given more room for error, and I don't want to happen. Am I wrong in that way of thinking?

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: Room for error for the young people.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: Yes, to where they're going to not fix their life, they could have more room to go down the wrong path, which is what this bill is trying to do is is trying to tighten that up. And I I wanna make sure we're doing that. How do

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: you feel about that? So to care if I would characterize the bill, I I do think it is making, again, in my view, but modest, meaningful procedural changes to tighten up, as you're saying, the ability to address the circumstances in which you do have behavior that's not complying with the program. But I'd also just like to say, if I may, that to your point, it's a shared goal to help these young people. And the purpose of these procedural provisions is not to shift away from a rehabilitative focus to a punitive one, as we discussed the other week, but rather to ensure that we are in fact rehabilitating and not we're basically saying it's not rehabilitative to allow folks to essentially slip through the cracks. We're actually doing a disservice to the young people if we let them age out.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: Right. And just to finish my thought process is where I've heard is like, the youth that want to be helped, I think are gonna reach out, they're gonna work to get better and do all the proper things to make a positive impact. What I'm worried about is, I believe again, what I've heard is there's still the ones and maybe we can't stop it, but it's the ones that are just gonna keep using the program, use a different entities that they have or whatever the proper word is for that, that they're just gonna age out and we're losing those kids. And I don't want to lose them, and I know how we're gonna prevent that.

[Tucker Jones, Department of Public Safety]: This bill addresses that specific issue. It does, yes.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant, Clerk]: Okay, thank you very much.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: I feel better. Any other questions? Thank you, doctor. Thank you all. And we're gonna do a little switch here. Lindy has a time constraint. So we're gonna slide her in before Matt Valerio, and we're also probably gonna go a little bit past our our break time. But when when Lindy is done, we will take a break. And I don't consider that I'm not trying to put any pressure on you for time or anything like that. You take whatever time that you need and we'll certainly take the time to ask any questions that we need to ask.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: Great, thank you for having me. For the record, I'm Lindy Boudreaux. I'm the Adolescent Services Director for DCF Family Services. I reviewed the new draft of H-six 42 and I'll start with the first section, the language in 05/1984 that has the acknowledgement of harm by the youth when the court's making a determination about public safety and whether or not to grant the youth useful offender status. The department supports the additional language. When we were initially changing the statute in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen to shift the process of granting useful offender status. The original process afforded this opportunity from the outset. So the youth had to make a conditional plea of guilty to be able to even move into youthful offender status. We changed that. Like I said, that went into effect in 2018 and we created the Youthful Offender Consideration Process. At that time, there was a lot of discussion in the committee, both committees, around whether or not accountability should be a factor for consideration. Ultimately, was not included, but I can tell you from being a part of that, discussions, when specifically folks were looking at amenability, that was something that folks really struggled with. And having been a part of this process from the inception in court that played out very differently. Some judges still relied on having a discussion about accountability and others did not. So I do think that now that we've had eight years of this process and we can look back and see where having a level of accountability from the outset will create additional buy in from the youth that we've been lacking. We support it for that reason. The language in 5285 regarding the extending the jurisdiction beyond age 22 when revocation is pending, the department has concerns about that. The reason being that process can take months or even a year or more to get to or get through. And so the concern that we have is during that time, we are holding the supervision jointly with the DOC of a youth who may be in the community who just has not engaged in I understand the concerns raised by representative Rachelson around not having treatment available. It's not typically about that. It's about the fact that the youth has not engaged. To Tucker's point, it's about the youth's behavior, not about the lack of resources, because that has been already considered both at the consideration phase and at disposition. So twice we've had the opportunity to talk about what services would be available. So at this stage, we would have a youth usually in the community who has demonstrated a pattern of behavior that has raised to the level of concern for, again, either public safety or lack of engagement where both departments have agreed that we are going to submit a petition requesting revocation. And so it's concerning that we would continue to have to hold those youth without any ability to enforce engagement or address concerns of public safety. We do have the ability to potentially detain a youth who's over the age of 18 for concerns of public safety in a DOC facility. And then there's a court hearing to further explore that after that has happened, but the court may choose not to continue to support that placement. So I know we have language in other parts of the statute related to the when youth are being securely held pre merits that tell that asks the court to have a certain hearing within timeframe to prioritize that hearing. So it would be our suggestion that possibly the committee might consider adding language here that rather extending beyond the age of 22, that there'd be a timeframe for the court to hold the revocation hearing instead as a way to address the concerns of losing jurisdiction. The second part of the changes in this section, we also support, there was some conversation. This is around the considerations for revocation. This also, I think, is an attempt to bring some accountability and clarity to the process. You've heard several folks talk already about providing that clarification and the courts using, you're going back to the original three standards for whether or not they should revoke. And I do agree that at this stage, C specifically, that language was added from the last version related to the availability of services. I don't think that's as crucial at this point because, as I just stated, at this stage, at the revocation stage, it's not typically about the fact that services are not available. It's about the fact that the youth has not engaged or there are concerns of public safety. So having, I think having the ability for clarity and for everybody to be on the same page about what they're considering, I think would be helpful. The other piece in this section regarding the ability to either hold the revocation hearing without the youth present or having the ability to issue a summons. The family court does not issue arrest warrants even for youthful offenders over the age of 18. So they don't issue arrest warrants. We don't have the ability if a youthful offender, and we've had this experience where youthful offenders have absconded, they've been out of state. We've had some cases where they left with their victims and were out of state and we were not able to pick them up because we're not able to enter a family court order into NCIC because it's confidential. So we're not able to use our authority to put a pickup order into the typical system for adults. So we, this has been an issue for us for a long time and we have strong limitations on our ability work with youth who have run away or were not able to get to the hearing. So this section particularly, I think, you know, if there were, I think Kim testified to the fact that if there was some, you know, kind of the due process component of the youth not, of the court being able to make this determination without the youth being there, if that were to be kind of shored up, I think that would be much better for us to be able to move through this process, especially when we have youth who are on run and we can't find. And lastly, department also supports the changes in relation to 5288. I know that recently there were some, there has been some variation in how the language in the current statute disposition hearing specifically has been interpreted in the court. So that has resulted in some victims not being able to participate in the useful offender consideration hearing. So I think that this would provide a level of clarification that's needed. And so we would support the victims being able to participate and weigh in on the appropriateness of useful offender status. So we appreciate the committee's time on this. We certainly have a lot of ideas on how to make the WIO process more efficient. I'll take any questions.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Any questions for Monday?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: So that's great to hear that resources are not an issue. This is like the first I'm hearing of that. I'd love to get a list of resources that DCF uses and what the capacity is.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: Just to clarify, it's community based resources. Where we do have issue, and I just want to clarify, is around, we do have issues when it comes to placement and residential care resources for youth 18. Like that's just not something as Kim testified to our services, our system is built on the outer limit of age 18. So it is square peg round hole to that, to a certain degree.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: And typically

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: DOC is the lead agency for youth over age 18. But there are certainly, we don't have an abundance of resources, but it's community based resources that would be available to any youth who's age 18.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Can you talk a little more about the specifics without obviously revealing any confidential information about the situations where you're seeing kids not engaging and creating a public safety issue, and what you think DOC is going to offer them.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: As far as if the case were to be revoked and go to the criminal division, can't speak to what DOC might do. I'm not sure if they've been contacted and committee is planning to hear from them, but I don't know what they would be able to offer. I will say we don't have a lot of revocations. I'm not sure. I haven't been able to get clear data from the court on the actual revocation. I know that we, I did a poll of our staff for the last year cases that were closed. We did have five revocations that went through. I don't know how many cases were potentially pending for revocation. The number that's more concerning to me because that's the part that it requires the violation of probation hearing to have been heard, and then the revocation typically comes out of that. So that's the part where I think this bill is trying to shore up and make some more efficiencies in the process so we can move through it. That said, I know that we've had some circumstances where youth have engaged in new charges. So they've been in those circumstances, the public safety portion has been addressed because they've been detained. So we have some youth who've been or are sitting in jails and out of state or sitting in a facility in Vermont because they've created a new or engaged in a new crime that has risen to the level of they're being held. So that's a little bit different in the fact that public safety isn't a concern at the time because they're they're being held in a facility.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: By facility, do you mean jail?

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: Yes, yes.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Okay.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: And those don't automatically equal a revocation because we can't, a violation of probation isn't, it's not an automatic that a new charge has happened. You've to wait until there's a conviction or an adjudication, unless you have special language on the probation certificate that states otherwise. So we have to wait for that case to be resolved before it can get to the point of an actual violation of probation. Other circumstances that have been problematic, that case that I was talking about where we had a young person leave the state with their victim. It was a youth who was charged with a sex offense and they were out of state. We knew what state they were probably in. We were not able to get them back. We've had this happen a few times over the years where youth, they might have been on a GPS bracelet, broke the bracelet and ran. So we, again, through conversations with family or other folks who are involved, trying to figure out where the youth was and working closely with our law enforcement and state police around getting the youth back. But again, the limitations of our system and our reach when that youth is out of state is very limited.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson, Member]: Thanks. So I'm wondering if you were able to send us the list of community resources that DCF uses. And also, as you're planning to raise the age, what resources the department is working on contracting with to serve the older you?

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: So we're working, we have a report on the next report for the raise the age and the progress towards that is due, I believe June or July. So is it okay if I include that last portion in that report? Sure. So you the service. I can have a list of services that are available for the emerging adult population that I can send you.

[Kim McManus, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs]: Thank you.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: Any other questions?

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Thank you so much. Hi, Wendy, the same question I asked Tucker. I just want to make sure because I think I heard you say it even more explicitly, but I want to make sure that DCF would support removing page six, line 16 through 18 to really focus the consideration on the youth's behavior so far as the process.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: Right. So I'm trying to I only have one screen, so I'm trying to flip over. Is that

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Oh, that is the whether or not there are sufficient services in the juvenile court system and DCF and DOC to meet these treatment and rehabilitation needs.

[Lindy Boudreaux, Adolescent Services Director, DCF Family Services]: Yes, would support removing that.

[Rep. Karen Dolan, Member]: Okay, thank you. Any

[Rep. Thomas Burditt, Vice Chair (Acting Chair)]: other questions? Okay. I'm gonna take a ten minute break and when we come back, Matt Valerio is on the agenda next, but he's not here. We will go to Hannah after that. But if if we can be pay attention to the time and really make it ten minutes, apple time would be about 10:48. I think everybody's closer to apple time. I know some of the clocks here are off. Okay. About so why don't we make it 10:50? We'll come back for 10:50 and get started again.