Welcome, welcome folks to our continued work on S 338. The committee is all here and I welcome those folks who are listening in on YouTube. As usual, if you have testimony that you would like to present to us. You can always email me at my legislative email or feel petty our committee assistant and we will do our best to schedule you in this week we are meeting today for two hours. And tomorrow, I just took our agenda down. What's our time frame for tomorrow. I didn't hear nine nine from 11 and then on Thursday it's in the afternoon, I believe 131 to three. I just took down our agenda so. So anything else before we turn it over to mark. So mark, we are looking at section 19 of S 338. And we just like your testimony on that section. This is a study that will be a report that will be done by the three branches of well not the three but it will be done by the courts. And the financing commission and the rate racial equity the executive director as well as DOC and that's report back to the legislature on racial disparities within our criminal justice system. So mark, I'll turn it over to you and if you could identify yourself and testify in terms of section 19. Thank you. Thank you, Madam chair. Good morning to all of you and also good morning to all who may be joining via live. YouTube now I will start a stopwatch. I am Mark Hughes I am the executive director of justice for all. And I'm also the coordinator of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. Thank you for having me to come in and offer testimony before you today. Just want to just know definitely acknowledge the chair. Thank you so much. I also just want to give a shout out to the majority leader, Representative Corwin Corwinsky. And I know that, you know, all of you are working really hard personally under these unusual circumstances. I definitely appreciate the opportunity and I'm assured and so is mine so I'll get right at it. I want it to, though, however, before we have a conversation about section 19 I just wanted to just from a very high level, wanted to let you know that what I, we would I am focusing on what we have been really taking a close look at our three major elements. One, our data. The second one is the analysis. And then the last one are disparities. So that's kind of what what we frame what I've framed my testimony around. And it's kind of what is really important to the the Alliance as well so that's kind of what we'll be talking about. As we go through the section 19. I'm going to do just a little bit of a flip of a script and just go back and take you back to section one and note that it is concerning to us that in the findings and purpose section. Section one that there are no findings related to racial disparities in this particular legislation, nor are there any purpose statements regarding the reduction of racial disparities in the criminal justice system now we find that quite troubling in light of the fact that we all know that we have struggled with racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system here in Vermont for quite some time. We have struggled with racial disparities from the days of the Uncommon Alliance here in Chittenden County, which resulted in Susie was a Wadi's work of Act 134 in 2012 to our current day, where we have our esteemed a time here, I'll see you and not we have our racial disparities in the criminal juvenile justice system advisory panel is there for purposes because we have an issue. So, although I did consult with folks doing this work and was on at least a one hour conference call. And in these, I guess facts were known. It's just disappointing that we're here over in section 19 having this conversation in this bill. Not only is there are there no findings but there is no purpose to reduce racial disparities in the justice system I understand we're looking at the corrections here specifically. So, that's a challenge that we're having. Mark, can I just interrupt here one second. Of course. So when you said that you had been in discussion with the folks who put together as 338. At that point in time, was there a report back on the racial disparities in the bill. Do you know, I'm not quite understanding your question madam chair. I think that you did talk and consult with with the folks who I'm assuming as s 338 was working through the process and Senate judiciary that you did testify or consult to the fact that there were no findings.  I was a consultant from the council state governments. Yes, it was. Did you testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee as to wanting this put in any of the findings. I don't know that I don't know that I testified before state as before Senate judiciary. No, because I'm just wondering if a result of your concern about findings findings are not as wrong as actual as section 19 would be. I'm not disparaging what you're saying I'm just wondering if the thinking was at the time when it came to light that there was not a finding for racial disparities in the criminal justice system that to make it stronger would be a report back to the legislature on it instead of just stating it in the findings. Chair here's what I'll do is I'll go back and take a look through my notes because this is one of many things that were chasing at the same time. Okay, I'll find out who and when I communicated this to, but I do get the sense that somehow or another either directly or indirectly or maybe even from some of the other advocates that it came to my attention that was not intended to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system and that these conversations were in fact had I would. I would probably defer to probably I would probably defer mostly on that to the over at the ACLU because I do think that they the Falco maybe sat in on the vast majority of those conversations. Obviously, you know the the buck stops that at Senator Sears, and I'm glad to bounce that off to him as well. But to my understanding it a tear point Madam Chair, indeed the the findings you know it's it's not statutory, but certainly the purpose leads us in a direction that this bill should be taken us and at a minimum I would have hoped that within it within the purpose section that we would have clearly outlined reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system as one of the purposes of this legislation. And one I would I would say that there's one small thing that I noted in a section 7031 and in a part 7031 I think it's line 19 it said may establish a minimum, and I thought that maybe that should say shall establish a minimum that's over in 7031 at the very beginning of the bill I just restarted my stopwatch. So, so I think the I'm that pretty much covers that I want to get now to the heart of our testimony. I want to qualify. What I am seeing with our observations with the work that we've been doing in the criminal justice system addressing racial disparities for the last five years I would note a stop and note just for a second, that it was through the human operations folks and with our former representative Kaya Morris, the Attorney General, Kevin coach Christie, and others that we were able to pass act 54 and in 19 in 2017 which created the racial disparities in the criminal juvenile justice system advisory panel. I just want to note that in addition to that just as a side note that the Attorney General's in the Human Rights Commission's task force which identified racial disparities in all other systems of state government was was a product of that work. I also want to note that as a result of the work that we've done in 2018, the work that we did through the Senate government operations with our good friend, Senator Jeanette white and others across the legislature we were able to create nine in the special 2018 which led to the creation of the racial equity director, as well as that five person panel. So I just wanted to use that as a bookmark to emphasize the fact that we've been paying attention to the justice the criminal justice system and we've certainly been paying attention to data and data analysis which has led us which has led us to an understanding dispassionately that it is the work of the crime research group that has actually in someone exacerbated the situation. We find that the work of or absence thereof of the crime research group has also caused a little bit of an obstacle in even collecting data for this exercise. In fact, I think that it was stated to me that we are in the worst shape as a state in in across the entire country. And I would just, again, this is dispassionate and it has no. I, by no means intend to attack any person, you know, directly, but we must state the facts. Okay, this is the data that you rely upon to make your decisions I'll cite two examples of what we viewed as being very poor output. This was the sentencing report of 2014 and 15 that was a result of Act 134 Suzy Wizewati and also Act 164 chapter six, which you saw just this last year. I'll just also note and the reason why this is really important is because at the top of this conversation. I told you that data are important to us that analysis are is important to us, and that disparities are important to us. I'll just also note and just leave this on that is leave that on this and that is that the strategic analysis since the strategic analysis center, which the crime research group is deemed here in the state of Vermont is the only strategic analysis center that is located in a nonprofit agency across the entire United States is the only one. So and so we, I want to I don't want to walk away from this test testimony without telling you that it is our opinion that our strategic analysis center should likely be perhaps housed in a university, or maybe delivered in in another manner such as a state administering agency, but the manner in which it is functioning right now. We are of the opinion of the age old adage that garbage in garbage out, and this is not a system whereby we want to deal with garbage. Moving on to 19 I'll be brief in this part looks like I'm clicking up on about nine minutes. And I just want to do a time check on your madam chair and verify that this testimony was to last 20 minutes. Yes, because we've got other folks, of course, in the queue, of course, so just moving to the section 19. So we're going to start with the section a starting to find that right now let me see if I can get back down here. It's a pretty big jump to go all the way back up this section one. So, at the top of section 19 is in section a starting online six and it's talking about the 2020 legislative interim and chief judge and their names of cast of characters which are members of the aforementioned are deaf or racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. Unfortunately, it's only five of the eight appointed or elected officials and five of the community members would not be privy to that conversation these members are appointed a time who's on the call is one of them. So these are the types of discussions where we need to be at the table. The reason why the committee on committees the, the, the, the speaker, the, the, the, the Supreme Court, the governor and HRC appointed these five folks was for this very reason. This as many other legislative processes I'm seeing going through the hopper as we make sausage in the factory over there are bypassing the our gap. This one here is important. I recommend that the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel be that entity that's that's referred to in in item a understanding this mark and instead of having the judge and attorney general defender general DOC and a state's attorney and share us that it would be our debt instead. Yeah, it's kind of tough saying instead because they sit on the panel. So why they wouldn't bring it to your attention I don't know but we're not here to testify to that but it just it seems as though it's it's somewhat of a no brainer that this kind of these types of action should go through the panel that we create it to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system since this section is relating to racial disparities in the criminal juvenile justice system. So, so that is section a I want to go down to intent. It's a it goes down and talks about and I want to call on I want to call on premise here because and I just want to go back and reemphasize that really what we're talking about here is transparency and also a collaborative process in making these types of decisions that's why I'm I'm really hard on this whole thing about let's get the our debt to the table. Now I want to go to premise here and the rest of this because it talks about ignoring relationships between demographic factors and sentencing outcomes. Again, we're in a understanding that this this was that the purpose related to racial disparities was never called out in section one, we do happen to be in section 19, which calls out racial disparities in a criminal juvenile justice system. The language being used here is really abstract and obscure because it's talking about relationships between demographic factors. Okay, we'd like that to be very specific since we're talking about something very specific here, the relationships are racial relationships factor racial factors concerning us sentencing outcomes. Let's see here. So yeah definitely calling out the there is there is there's also language here that is speaking in terms of a line one on page 32 35 determining whether or where current data systems or collections are insufficient. We just, you know, we just take offense to the word weather, quite frankly, just to be completely blunt and transparent because we know that there are disparities in the criminal justice system. We just need to find out where they are.  So this, this, this, this section here was written with a rather light hand, or collections, and it goes on to say collections are insufficient for additional analysis and staff and resources need to support a more robust reporting so that's, it's really good language there so I want to go on to want to bring out the fact that this is kind of not the first time we've done this we want to go back to that 1415 report that came out of the crime research group. And it was ineffective and it was, it really didn't really provide us any leverage in solving this as a challenge.  And, you know, this has this whole process this whole idea about addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system, a lot of folks who people of color who've done work in this area have grown tired of waiting for results in this. So I think that, you know, this is a great opportunity for us to, you know, if we can actually find purpose in this document to do this work, and at the same at the same time, articulated in a way where we're calling it what it is, it would be quite helpful.  Here in section B what we have is we have an analysis of the patterns across the state from what seems to be here. The Sentencing Commission, and then working with the disparity, the racial equity and, and also the racial disparities panel. So this is our opinion that this is this is actually backwards. It should be the executive director of racial equity and the racial disparities and criminal juvenile justice system advisory panel. They should be the ones that are taking a look at these sentencing patterns and to identify, you know, what's going on in terms of length of incarceration and so forth. In fact, they should be taking a look at other factors, say for example, in, you know, in our state's attorney's offices, and maybe it's beyond the scope of this particular document. You know, I would refer you to what is now active, I believe in House judiciary H 284, where there are numerous data points that are identified to begin to track, not just disparities within the correction system, but also disparities within the entire criminal justice system. As I said, we've been doing this work for a little while, and it is has been increasingly become increasingly obvious is you can only get so far before one part of the system starts pointing at the other. So strongly believing that it should be the disparities panel and the equity director that's taking this work to the commission, and then and then the commission should be the ones that are taking a look at what they that they come up with. In my last two minutes here I would say I don't think that the crime research group in this point you've already heard that I'm somewhat biased and I admit that you got to give me credit for that one. But I do think that the analysis in this kind of work should be referred to an outside third party. Not only do I think I don't believe that the, that the crime research group is tools, nor are they the most effective organization to conduct this type of analysis. I think that there should be a broader approach to the, this, this whole, this, this whole idea of looking at this data within within this system. I'll conclude with simply saying that, again, data are very important in this process analysis is really important and disparities are really it's unfortunate that, you know, during this time that what we have now is as we have a situation where we're trying to really impact the criminal justice system. And it seems as though that at the very onset, the purpose of this was never directed at reducing racial disparities. I don't believe that the approach that has been put forward in 19 as it stated would produce the desired outcomes. I asked the committee to strongly consider some of the recommendations that we provide it. I thank you for your time I really appreciate the invitation. I'm open to any questions that you might have. And I also thank you so much for your hard work, and what it is that you're doing right now, especially in this. This crazy time that we're in. Thank you, Mark. Are there any questions from the committee. People are quiet this morning we're not quite with it yet. That's our first meeting of the week. Thank you. Okay, thank, thank you, Mark. So we're now going to transition to the executive director of our DAP and Eden, I don't, I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce your last name. So if you can unmute yourself. There you go. You're unmuted. I'm unmuted. Oh, that's lovely. Thank you. So if you could just identify yourself for the record. And we are section 19. Dr. a ton that's read in Longo. I know it's awful. I, yeah, I, sorry. No, that's fine. I may call you eaten. A ton. A ton. Okay. Yes, it's so it's spelled ATON with the accent on the first syllable. It's Hebrew. A ton. Okay. Great. Thank you. So I was told that you wanted sort of an. Overview of the report that the our DAP. Submitted at an early December, I believe on the fourth. And then that you wanted me to address. I'm going to call it section 19 of S 3, 3, 8. All right. And I have 45 minutes in which to do that. I will try to be even shorter than that. Great. Thank you. The panel, which I'm just going to call it the panel pretty much because if I go through the whole name will be bored. But we worked from the beginning with the idea of building consensus. And that meant that the process was going to be very slow and considered. There were people in the public who were frustrated with what they perceived as a slow process. I kept saying that old bromide from civics class democracy takes time. And I did. Everybody weighed in and was encouraged to do so, such that their reflection and their expertise could really inform the panel's discussions. That led to some very, very wide ranging conversations that covered, perhaps not all of the mandate of the panel. And I think that's what I'm going to call it. I'm going to call it an act 54, but certainly most of it. And then we actually went beyond that. And it was important to us to put as much of our thinking into this report as we possibly could. If you haven't looked at it yet, you will see there's a whole section. And I think that's one of the best to the, the breadth and the wide ranging approach that the panel took to, to its mandate. We wrote the sections as appropriate and then we edited them and we edited them again. That was certainly the case with our response to section six a of act 54, which was the first bit of writing that we produced. And certainly again the case with the rest of the report. For those of you who don't know, access section six a excuse me, had to do with the creation of a public complaint process in vis-a-vis racial disparities, as they were seen in the criminal or perceived to be seen in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Again, the process took time. It wasn't quick. And certainly, as I'm sure all of you understand, everybody on the panels got jobs, and we only meet for two hours a month. I think it went quite well. I think we did a really, really good job of getting things together I obviously am biased, but I do think it went well. It may not have been as fast as people would have liked, but I think it was really expeditious given the lives of the panel. And I also think that it was productive. I'm a college professor by training and so I'm unfortunately given to repetition. I said often to the panel that we were sort of working towards a collective grudging acceptance of our work. And also actually also a mutual disapproval, so that if we got to a moment where we were sick of looking at each other. And we looked at our work and went, you know, I could fight with this but I'm not going to it's fine and everybody was bitter, but was willing to vote yes, I kept saying that's how we know our work is done. Nobody should walk away from this feeling triumphant, nor should someone walk away from it feeling like they are completely have been kept out of the conversation, and that their concerns are not there. And we were able to do that, I think. The panel very much achieved a level of collaboration and diplomacy that I felt personally was quite good and I've been hearing it from other people that they felt very, very positive about it. We, when we voted on it in early December. It wasn't unanimous, there wasn't one member of the panel who said, you know, I can't support this. The report was supposed to have an executive summary, both Karen vasteen and Monica weaver asked for it, I forgot. I'm sorry, I forgot. So let me give you the highlights as I see them. Act 54 asks for the following quite clearly. And if you have the report with you or you have access to it, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. We followed the act pretty clearly and closely. We answered and put at the beginning of the report recommendations that focus on section six, a B and C. In response to six a, which was about again you'll recall I just mentioned that the creation of a public complaint process. We spoke with many people including the ex executive director of the Human Rights Commission Karen Richards. The panel felt broadly that there was no need to reinvent the wheel, but rather to make a more robust version of agencies and organizations that already exist. And when we were discussing the public complaint process, the Human Rights Commission was an obvious choice that we felt. We initially came up with very precise ideas of how to beef up the HRC. I mean we had numbers of we need someone dedicated to the I mean we got really a little obsessive compulsive. We decided in the end that our job was to make recommendations as the act states and not to come up with solutions. That certainly is your job you are the elected officials and we are not. So we came up with recommendations that look broadly at the issue of creating a more robust HRC that could clearly field complaints related to perceived implicit bias across all systems of state government. We wanted to leave it open so that concerns of the organization could be addressed in a way that didn't bear the burden of dealing with our specificities. We felt that was an important thing to do. And I think that was in some ways, what we thought of doing for most of the report. In six be the panel submitted recommendations that it believes will mitigate racial bias in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, which will then we hope reduce the racial profiling to which act 54 itself refers. There's a lot in this section, including the expansion and support of the use of community policing approaches to law enforcement. And also making certain that Vermont statutes track with existing federal requirements with respect to do process for those with limited English proficiencies. There's also a great deal about training for all law enforcement officers but also not just training enforcement of this around issues of race, racial disparities, cultural competency, race relations and data collection and I'll say more about that a bit later. This notion of enforcement also relates to the idea of accountability, which is very much a continuing concern of the panel. Again, the recommendations are broad. I'm paraphrasing David share the assistant general at this moment. He liked to say that the recommendations are from 30,000 feet. Which is to say that they attempt to look at the big picture, and then again to allow the elected officials to refine the recommendations into specific policy proposals. The recommendations were meant to focus attention, and that is largely what we did and can find ourselves to doing. Mind you I should say at this point there has been a bit of pushback that pushback that's too strong. People saying basically they wish we had done more in terms of specific recommendations and we're going on with that that's where we're going next in fact. We did not adequately discussed associated penalties with respect to racial profiling. Our intent is to do so and to present proposals on this matter at some point in the future at several of our meetings and at our last one on three December. One member expressed concern with creating new penalties. So there's much for us to discuss on both the macro and micro levels, if you will. Six C was huge for most of the panel. Six C has to do with data collection. There was broad feeling that one cannot measure adequately racial disparities without adequate data. One does this data need to be collected. They need to be consistently collected. They need to be made clear, and they need to be made accessible in ways that are not currently represented across state government. One moment came when the panel recognized that data regarding race exists at the beginning of an interaction with both the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and also towards the end of that interaction so for instance, with DoC. But that between these points in time data are hard cut to come by. So we started looking at that. We tried to address it and suggest the data correlated to be rate at two race be collected at what we called high impact, high discretion decision points. That would be charging bail plea bargaining moments like that. We also urged a commitment to creating a centralized statewide staff that is charged with assisting with data collection. We also felt broadly that, and this is a quote from the act, mechanisms that ensured both accountability and compliance, unquote, would be in place at the same time as data are collected in a more consistent and transparent fashion. After this came the section that I referred to above, and that was not specifically required by Act 54, but which the act indeed allows, and that would be further discussion and recommendations. There are many matters in this section, training and outreach, legislative inclusion of members of communities of color. Every trial monitoring and risk assessment home detention, mental health and substance use disorders, and others. We were also concerned with noting whether legislation under consideration has a disproportionate impact upon people of color. We recommended that the legislature get input from these various communities as part of the legislative process. We were also concerned with matters of discretion. That's of course a cornerstone of both the criminal and juvenile justice systems, but also it's a notion that allows for bias to make its way into decision making. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going dark here. Lord, I never look at myself when I'm talking so it's just, I don't know anyway. Several members of the panel felt that a system of oversight was needed for prosecutors, law enforcement officers and judges. This was a huge topic, obviously, one that we could not adequately discuss. But this is an area that requires some focus and attention. So we will of course go back to this. We went even further. We wanted everything that we had been talking about in here because perhaps with a bit of self congratulation we felt that that was useful that the talks were very broad as chair. There were some extraordinary people in that room of intelligence and good conscience and I really wanted as much of their thinking documented in this report as possible. To that end, we had a section that we called non consensus reports. And I just read the beginning of that it's not very long. Certain ideas were discussed by the panel and supported by some members, but not all panel members could support them due to legal and practical concerns. In the interest of a full airing of our discussions, the panel felt that it was fair to include some of these areas with the acknowledgement that they do not have the support of the panel as a whole. I was actually delighted with this section. I thought, okay, we're going to go way out here. We're going to go out as far as we can go. It is worth noting it is worth noting for the legislature. I believe personally in the sense that here are some places we can go that would have impact on the air on racial disparity. And yes, there are legal problems to that. And as many of you will know, the law itself gets in the way of the perception of justice being done for people of color. I'm not saying it doesn't actually support it, but there are moments when it does actually not seem to work as well a good example of that that hits home I think for all of us is what happened with poor representative Morris. I think the general said there really wasn't given his read on the law, something more that could be done, and there's been a lot, as you know, a bad feeling around that. Thus, I was really pleased that people put the non consensus report in, because it really was sort of stabbing at that a bit. And I thought that that was a good thing for you all to read. I don't really know. I hope that that sort of gives you a roadmap to the report that was submitted in December. And what else can I say, we were hoping I guess one thing the conclusion and the, and the preamble. There's a lot of tension around that the we but we wanted to work fairly, we didn't want to push anyone away. We wanted to be inclusive to the public to the legislature. It's important to acknowledge that there is this thing called white supremacy and we talked about how that term gets everyone's backup. We wrote, I think a preamble and a conclusion that really spoke in a way warmly about why that is an important thing to bring forward in such a report. It's an important thing to put forth to the legislature. We did it in such a way that we're not pointing fingers except at a system. And in so far as we're all part of it I guess we're implicated and that would not be simply Caucasians. It's all of us. And we felt that was important. I have not gotten a tremendous amount of feedback on this but I have certainly I when I presented in front of the joint judicial oversight committee, people were delighted that this was in here. So I just want to say I guess in a sense, if you read it, don't get your back up about it but please, it was submitted in very good conscience with the idea of, we need to name the problem. If we're going to address it as uncomfortable as that may make us all. And that's it I have to say about that. Okay, great. Thank you. The report can be found if you go to the December 10th meeting of the Justice Oversight Committee. The report is there under Dr. It's on. Hey, you works. I'll get it. Questions for folks before butch and then we'll transition to section 19 butch. You gotta unmute rookie rookie mistake. You too. Good morning doctor. Good to see you again and I do remember your testimony before the December Joint Justice Oversight Commission and one of the in the last piece you just talked about in the white supremacy piece. And you explained it there at that time and I, I think I said at the time and you know I live in Vermont my whole life. I've lived in a state that has very very small minority population. So, I didn't think I was biased, I guess, until I learned what it was. And I think your report has brought that forward for all of us to understand that we do harbor somewhere within our genes, or whatever, because we don't have that exposure that that you you fortunately have. So it's good to learn about it and I appreciate your testimony on this. But my question was, you mentioned a little while back when you're talking about the report. You had mentioned a statewide group or statewide panel to collect racial disparity and review that and then report to someone. Can you expound on upon that a little bit. I believe I was talking if I'm understanding what you're saying about a statewide apparatus for collecting data, correct. Yes, and then reviewing it and make some conclusions. We're hoping to eliminate. For instance, I mean the problem that from where I sit, for instance, would be I'm also the co chair of the Farron impartial police and committee for the state police. One of the issues that I'm always coming up against is the fact that different departments, for instance, in different municipalities, collect the data in different ways, they present it in different ways to their members their sworn members to collect they presented. So, there's no agreement in some ways. So what we were hoping was that there would be somebody, not somebody but somebody created that would in fact work at standardizing all of this. So what we're hoping to do is that it really is done broadly and consistently that they are charged with doing that they in terms of reporting in some ways, I guess that it wouldn't be a bad thing to report to to the our We left that open though. But that was sort of where we're going is that there needs to be a group. This is what they do that they send out guidelines even I mean I'm thinking off the top of my head we didn't get this far but that they send out guidelines to different agencies and departments and you know in the state and say, this is how this is going to get done. That's where we were going with that does that help. Yes it does and if you had any thoughts about what that panel would look like, or who may or may not be on that panel. I personally yes, I would like to say that I need to take that back to the panel and get broader consensus on that. Is that right. You looked unhappy. I don't know that we have that kind of luxury of time right now. Okay. I think that's a hope you can understand what we're coming from on this. I do. Personally, I think that a lot of the people who are on the hang out. I can, I can give you a day or two. Think about it. Okay, great. I will do that. Okay, I don't want to put you on the spot and have you say something that we all regret later. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Other questions before we transition to section section 19. Okay doctor why don't you. Okay, 19. Let me call that up. Okay. I have a little bit of a Luddite here. So. Madam chair. Oh, it works. Carl has a question. Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry. Carl unmute. Unmuted. Okay. Thanks, madam chair. And thank you doctor. Thank you. I have the data collection recommendations in the, in the panel's report. And just wanted to ask you, do you know of any of those recommendations that has been implemented since, since the. I do not. Thanks. I would just, I was wondering if there was, you know, consensus in the folks on the committee and some of those people on the, you know, some of those, some of those happen at least in some small ways. And just wondering if any of that, if you knew of any of that happening since the, since the. As I say, not personally, but that. That doesn't mean that it's not happening. I would. I will check. I can check back. And one more question to on the, on the protocols. You know, you talked about developing protocols for data collection so that it was standardized around the state. Were you, did the panel expect that that would be done through a rule, rulemaking process or. I believe so. Yeah. All right. Yes. I appreciate that because. I mean, this is. This is again me on one level, but I, you know, I don't know if you've seen this before, but I think it's been, I don't know if you've seen this before, but I certainly have been privy to all of the conversations. We've been doing it just from the standpoint of compliance, just a sense of this is what needs to happen. It's not producing what we need. So. Yeah. It's got to get more formalized. Yeah. So I think we're in a situation where there. There's a lot of, there's a lot of things. That are not done. There's a lot and there's a lot of that work. Session being held in January. We'll be there to make history or maybe Senate judiciary. Yes. That this session, maybe in January and February. Right. Her and to me crossover. And now that's all. Who knows where. Yes. Not to say it's not important, but maybe that's part of where it's hung up. So we have another question. You're done with that? Sarah? I was just waiting for Carl. Thank you for breaking in and out. Can you hear me now? Yes. No, you were fine. Carl was breaking in and out. I've had an unsteady connection a little bit today too. So thank you. Thank you, Aitana. It's nice to see you. Hello. And I just wanted to, it's more of a comment, but I just to let you know, last session we were trying to dig in, this committee was trying to dig into the data as well, and we were finding, you know, we were working closely with DOC and the tools for around collection of data became really clear to us with regard specifically around racial data. And so I just wanted to, it's more of a comment saying like, I know, I was made acutely aware of that and I hope that we can, you know, if, you know, we're also finding out where there's a gap between what's connected, what is collected within our judicial system and how that carries over within corrections. It's not the side system. And as we're doing, this committee also supports IT infrastructure. And so we hear about it from that angle as well. So it's really helpful to hear you talk about this. And I hope that, you know, as we're doing this work that, you know, we have a big COVID-19 interruption, but I hope that it, this, you know, that we will still continue to be able to get something achieved and that this is not put on the back burner. So I would, I mean, just to say also, Mark has written the little note here about H-284, which has to do with data collection protocols. So certainly there is movement on this that's going on this session. It's just, I mean, what did we say?  Everybody's a little off their game. But yeah, there are moves towards this going. Thank you. I'm all set, Madam Chair. Anything else before we move on to section 19? We got 15 more minutes. I can do this quickly. Okay. Thank you. We're, this is easy in some ways. 19A addresses the study of data collection that would help understand disparate outcomes. Our DAP is not specifically named in section 19A as one of the cooperating entities. There's broad feeling on the part of the panel that it should be. And I believe Mark was just addressing that before I was speaking. So we would certainly support being specifically included as one of the consulting entities in 19A. Supporting increased and better data collection for the purpose of better understanding racial disparities was certainly a major part of the report that we submitted. We spent a lot of time working on it and discussing it. And we believe that we have ideas and concepts that would be helpful to moving that work forward. So it would make sense, I feel, the panel feels for us to be included in 19A. So did you testify to that effect to the Senate Judiciary Committee? I did not. It was not an issue at that moment. And why was it not an issue? Because I had not in December seen S-338. Oh, okay. Because S-338 didn't come about until the end of January. Correct. And did the panel have a meeting after that? One. We met beginning of March and we didn't meet in February because the weather was, snow always gets in the way. At the beginning of March, this bill was already out of the Senate. Yes. And it was a prominent agenda item on our March meeting. And we want to work on it. So part of what I'm saying comes from that meeting, in fact. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Sure. All right. Give me one minute here to get my act together. Oh, well, that wasn't it. I just have a little bit more on a few more issues relating to this act. Or bill, sorry. Okay. This happened overnight. So forgive my disorganization. The panel appreciates the legislature's commitment to ending disparities. The proposal in section 19 requests information that the panel has already been tasked with providing to the legislature. The panel set tasks considered and made recommendations in this report.  For the past however many years we've been doing this, certainly since 2017, I guess, the panel whose membership includes the stakeholders who are listed in section 19 spent a considerable amount of time on the issue of data collection or racial disparities. The panel recognized data collections, a vital issue, as I pointed out. We previously considered where current systems have failed. And we have started to think about where we need to go with this now. That would be getting back to the issue of this proposed, I don't know what to call it, agency body, something that in fact standardizes the collection of data. The panel recognized that the high discretionary decision making points throughout the criminal justice system presented the greatest opportunity for racial biases to cause disparate results for defendants. We concluded then, and we recommended in the report that the legislature collect data that focused on these highly discretionary decision making points. Section 19 of S338 includes many of these points. That the panel has identified plea agreements, sentence types, and length, and offense severity. However, the panel identified additional critical decision points, and we asked that the bill be amended to include those other areas. Specifically, section 19 subsection A should require data collection of charging decisions, bail, pre-trial release, and the use of alternative justice options such as diversion. Furthermore, the panel determined that the legislature should expand and improve data collection with respect to law enforcement, something that section 19 does not in fact touch upon. We spoke of how traffic stop data should be improved by providing resources for ensuring first that the data is fully collected, then that the data is made fully available to the public more rapidly than it is at present, and then that it is both collected and categorized consistently across the state. Data collection should also be expanded to include information about use of force incidents. That's something that is not included and we felt certainly that's of critical importance. Several of the community stakeholders have raised that not just the appointees who are part of existing state agencies. Before the pandemic hit, the panel was preparing to continue its work to identify other critical discretionary decision making points and to build up its report. We're going to obviously continue with that. In summary, section 19 subsection A duplicates much of the work already done by the RDAB. The committee should, at the very least, we feel amend section 19 to add the additional discretionary decision making points identified by the panel in its report. That is like adding traffic stops and arrests, use of force incidents, charging decisions, bail, free trial release, and the use of alternative justice options. So we feel that that should go into section A and then also require the identified stakeholders in subsection A to work with the panel, tracking the same language used in subsection B of section 19. And that's all I have to say. You may have questions about this and if you do, I'm going to warn you in advance. We've had one two-hour meeting on this. We are meeting a week from tonight. We meet on the second Tuesday of every month from 6 to 8 p.m. in various locations around the state, usually along the I-89 corridor. But not this time. This time we'll be doing this very strange alienating thing. So, but that will be next week. I can't hear you, Representative. I'm sorry I got on mute. There was noise in the background here at home. So the recommendations that you just suggested, is that from the panel as a whole, the vote of the panel to do that? Vote. We didn't take a vote. I mean, honestly, we didn't take a vote. There was broad agreement about it. We were starting the discussion. We didn't expect to jump this quickly, honestly. Okay. So in summary, what you're really proposing is that it's a flip in terms of having the RDAP panel be the lead and then reach out to those stakeholders instead of the stakeholders leading it and reaching out to you folks. Correct. That's the basis. And then also expanding a little bit in terms of the data that is listed there. Correct. And then also to add looking at pretrial services, alternative charges, like it could be diversion, and also looking at use of force and look at the discrepancy issues within the report at the beginning of December. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Questions? Kurt, you working on something? Yeah. Yes. Can you even tell by Zoom? It's yours, Kurt. I think you're frozen. Is there anybody else being able to hear me? I can hear you, sir. Okay. Can hear you now? You've several times mentioned that you meet twice the two hours a month and I'm concerned that this, that the section 19. I'm sorry, you're frozen. You're frozen. It's going to be a difference. Also frozen? You're cutting in and out. Oh, well. What do you think you're getting at is it's a heavy lift if you're only going to meet two hours a month. Is that what you're attempting? Yes. Thank you. You're right. I'm bringing that up on the agenda for next week. Okay. Have you had any discussions of this with Senator Sears at all? The bill S-338 came out of the Senate towards the end of February because we got it prior to the beginning of March. It's been in our committee for about one or two weeks prior to the beginning of March. So this is all on your end has formed after the bill passed the Senate. Correct. So have you had any of your, any conversations about the proposed, the thinking you've just submitted to us? Have you shared that with Senator Sears at all? I have not yet had the opportunity. No. I have asked for it and I think, you know, it's in the pipeline again. Okay. People are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. Okay. Because I know that this bill is a priority for us to work on. We need to pass it. The question is when do we do that? Yes. Because everything is up in the air at this point. And we don't, I mean, we might not be able to get it out of committee even until the beginning of May. Not that we don't support doing something is the logistics of getting it out of committee, going to another committee, going to the floor of the house. It's all those logistics. Right. Right. I understand. I will, I will start again to initiate contact with Senator Sears on this. I would recommend that. I understand. Just to see where the lay of the land is over there. Absolutely. Because you folks didn't have a chance to testify when the bill was being developed. And this could be the first attempt to kind of address the issue of racial disparity and doing a deeper dive into it. Yes. Any other questions from the committee? Looks good. Wow, that was quick. Anything else? I tried. No, this is good. So you're meeting next week. Yes. I would really recommend you try to connect with Senator Sears. I will do so. And at this point for the bill, we're just taking testimony. We haven't had any committee discussion, particular sections or recommendations. When we start doing that, or even start to get another draft out, what I would like to do, this is all taking it step by step. For folks who have testified, it would be good that we reach out to all of you and let you participate in one form or another. And we'll have to work that through with our committee assistant. And I, of course, I am bound, of course, to get it to the entire panel. And we'll be meeting next week. We are six to eight PM in the cyberspace. So I'm not, I don't believe we would have another draft prior to that. And you're free, you know, share with them our conversation today. I shall. And I think the best thing is we can go from there at this point. We're taking it day by day.  I'm nostalgic for two hours ago in some ways. I'm nostalgic for January. Yeah, exactly. We have another question, Butch. Thanks, Alice. So, doctor, a question I asked you earlier, and you're going to get back in a couple of days. I would hold up on that a little bit, because what's just been talked about here now.  So I think we internally need to have a little conversation before we get to that point. And then please get back to me. I need to like get my email to you or something, so that you can, you know, just email me directly and I can go from there. Sir, how would I best do that? Well, I can get it from Phil. Great. Wonderful. Yeah, he has. Thank you. And I will do that. All right. Thank you, thank you. I just, I just didn't want you to have to go through a lot of extra work. I appreciate it, sir. So anything else in the committee? What I'm thinking is we can take a very quick break because we have scheduled an 1115 or that anything else from the committee? Just I do. I'll try again. Okay, Kurt. If I if I do cut out, let me know and I'll try cutting the videos. Maybe that'll help. But in that section 19, especially at the beginning where they're talking about the group, there, there are other options aside from being either the lead group or a member of the group. It says work with the crime research group. Maybe it should work with our gap or in consultation with or something like that. There's, you know, it's a question of how much people want to get done and how the resources that they have to commit to it. And we had just so you know, I mean the crime research group, we they came to our last meeting. We had they did they were actually a very meaty part of the last meeting. And that's just to start, you know, they'll be back. I'm in touch with them a lot. Okay, good. Okay. Anything else before we take our break? Madam Chair, I just wanted to bring to your attention that I did put, I hope it's okay, but I did put a link up in the chat session where H or I think it's H 284 is the reason why it's important is because all of those data points that a time was talking about are also in that so it might be good policy to just go back and take a look at that's over with max with senator grad. I would also say that the other aspect that I failed to overlook just in the last 30 seconds here is that again, and you probably heard it on the radio this morning, but the number the numbers are not all in yet, but but African Americans are dying at extraordinarily higher rates than other folks from COVID-19. And the reason why this is relevant because we're talking about racial disparities in the criminal justice system, we're talking about folks who are actually incarcerated, and we already know that there is a disparate rate of folks who are currently incarcerated within our facilities. So I think the reason why this is on your your list of priorities is very obvious, but I think increasingly it's becoming more important because the data are coming in. We've asked the the the Health Commissioner to begin to collect those numbers because for some odd reason folks are not collecting those numbers either. And we're we see that across the nation that those numbers are coming in across Milwaukee, Michigan, Illinois, North Carolina, and the numbers are astounding that African Americans have a much higher propensity to contract this COVID-19 virus. So I think this this is yet another reason for a sense of urgency here. Thank you, Mark, for that. Appreciate that. Anything else for folks? Okay, let's are folks wanting like a very quick two minute break? Okay, let's I've got yeses and I've got noes. You want to keep going? That would be fine. Okay, let's then let's transition to presumptive parole with the chair of the parole board. And Dr, if you want to listen in, you're welcome or you can leave the meeting because we're on presumptive parole. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, welcome, Dean. How are you? I'm fine. How are you all doing? Well, we're hanging in there. I can tell. Yeah. So we had Mary Jane on last week, and we sort of a quick walkthrough of presumptive parole. And I'm just going to open it right up to you and share with us your thoughts, recommendations. Well, I know you spent some time talking with Mary Jane, which is good. And she's had the opportunity to sit on most of the discussion at the Senate part of this and was very helpful in crafting some changes that we thought were important. And I think it looks like a pretty good way forward at this point. The concerns that that we still had, which are relatively minor, I know she addressed briefly on Friday. And I can tell you, those are the same issues that that I have concerns with on behalf of the board. And that is the first part is having to do with the transition to the listed offenders in two years. I think we're going to be in good shape on that. We just have not had an opportunity to clearly look at the data as to how that's going to affect our work in that time. And I know that you mentioned, Madam Chair, when discussing it last week, because I reviewed the video, that you thought there would be plenty of opportunity to consider those issues as they come forward. I've taken a hard look at the listed crimes and then the big 12 and the ones that are not going to be included in two years when we go to just the big 12. And I'm not as concerned now as I initially was because we do have carefully in the bill the ability to rebut a presumptive parole if there are victim issues. And there are very few if any listed crimes that don't include victims. So I think we've got that covered in that process. So as we look at those listed crimes saying two years that come forward who have victim issues, we can rebut those in scheduling for hearings. As we do now. So I think we're going to be okay with that. There was some discussion also about the burden of proof for us that would change from the preponderance of evidence to clear and convincing, which is a bit of a higher threshold. And I'm not understanding clearly why the Department of Corrections is recommending that this is a really important piece in our parole violation hearings because when we have evidence presented before the board in a violation hearing, it's the preponderance of evidence that is considered when we make our decisions about whether someone violated a particular condition or not. And once we find that decision and make that decision, we move on to disposition where we consider what course of action we're going to take or we're going to be revoking parole, continuing on parole with conditions or some other types of sanction, which is generally the direction that we try to move on. And I'm thinking this may provide some additional challenges for us in the violation hearing. The other thing I wanted to mention briefly, Madam Chair, and I know we talked about this last year, I think in a bill that you had, your committee had, which was reducing the record review timelines. And we were hoping that that change might go forward. It's a bit confusing where it says if someone is convicted of an offense of less than 15 years, they can be seen by the board every year. And then if they are seen, not again for two years, and then if they're over 15, if two years, we'd like it all to be just one year period or less. This seems a bit confusing, and I'm not sure if it's too late to make that change in this bill, but it's still in there. Where is that, Dean? Can you? Yeah, I can. If you go to Section 502, page 15, I believe on the current version, it would be C, parentheses C, parentheses one, and then parentheses C, and then again under C2. Okay, so you would like, instead of 15, what would be your recommendation? I think the simplest thing would just be record reviews would be conducted on an annual basis, period. And I know that the designation years ago, when this was made, it was that folks over 15 years in their sentencing were not necessarily going to be going out on parole and didn't need to be seen, but every two years. And I know in your bill, it was looking at something substantially less than that. So it is confusing when an offender decides if they want to be seen if they're not being recommended. We have to figure out, well, were they seen last year and if they were, do we have to wait another year, or can we see them? And we prefer to err on the side of seeing them more often. So was this done? We did a whole cleanup of the practice of the parole board. I think it was prior to your time. In fact, Representative Bob Wood was chair of the committee, institutions committee, when we worked on this, but there was some real training issues, and there was the manual for the parole board. And we did a whole update on the practices of the parole board to come in line with, and I don't know if this was part of that. No, this, well, the part that I recall was in 2006 when I started, which was when we had the consultant, we actually developed the current policy and procedures manual, which has been modified as we move along. But that has been in statute through my tenure on the board. And I know we've talked about it in your committee several times, but it's never been acted on. And I thought, well, this might be a good opportunity to at least consider, I'm not sure there's a necessity for waiting two years. One of the things the board has done this year in particular, as we started, as we look at record reviews, if we're finding a lack of information as to why someone is not being presented before the board as we're sending them back and asking to see the person. So we had this reviewed by our legal counsel to make sure that was a good practice and it was approved there. So that's, as we do our record reviews, which is just a paper review of the updated information. In that review, if we're not clear that there's a reason the person shouldn't be seen, we're submitting a request to see them. And that's been generating additional hearings this year for folks that we wouldn't normally see. So if someone is sentenced for more than 15 years, we wouldn't get that review about every two years. Okay. Yeah, I just throwing it out there. I know there's a late discussion, but you can spend a lot of time on that. Right. And I'm just thinking in the way that we're operating now in terms of Zoom meetings and not being in the State House and getting people to testify, it might be a heavier lift now than it would be. That's just my thinking. You start changing anything and you get all the groups wanting to testify. Yeah, understood. I just throw it out in case there's an easy way to deal with it. This would be a practice that I think would improve on. Okay. Aside from that, the issues that we had concerned of were really addressed, which was very, we very much appreciated Senator Sears and had Mary Jane essentially sit in on their committee every time they were discussing this bill. And we took care of the administrative work she was doing in the field at that time, which was very helpful. So your only issue at this point is the DOC would need to make its recommendation for presumptive parole that's based on clear and convincing evidence instead of preponderance of the evidence. Right. I'm not sure why the higher threshold was requested by them. I know that when they submit someone for presumptive parole, they are determining that essentially the things that we would determine in an interview, which is they're not a detriment to be in the community, which is fine. I'm not sure where clear and convincing evidence comes into play. For us, it really comes into play at violation hearings where the offenders are being represented by attorneys from typically the prison's rights office. And the Department of Corrections sometimes has their attorney, but most of the time it's their parole officers that are presenting the evidence that this would make it a little more challenging for them. Questions of the committee? I have one. Okay, Kurt. Just a quick question. I want to make sure that when you're looking through this, that you don't see any very much of an impact on the amount of work you're going to have to do. Do you see yourself as being able, your parole boards as being able to handle this? All right. I think that's the sort of thing we're going to be able to tell after we do this for a year. We're anticipating, obviously, we're not going to have the vast majority of parole eligibility hearings that we currently do, but we suspect because we're going to have more people on parole, there will be more parole violations hearings. How many? I don't know. And those take a little more time, but we're thinking that they may offset each other to some degree. Okay. Other questions? Okay. Well, that was easy. Yes. Whoops, butch. Sorry. You're frozen in time on the screen. There you go. I'm back up to Kurt a little bit. I am a little concerned about the workload for the board. And I wonder if we should speak to that in this bill. And I know Alice, we're not supposed to double the bill all that much, but I do have some concerns and maybe even a check back or something to notify the legislature that, whoa, wait a minute. We need to do something here or we need to understand that what the workload has happened to the parole board and need to take an action. And I'm not sure how to do that if we need to do that. Well, you know, I was thinking about that a little bit when Mary Jane was speaking in terms of when you transition from nonlisted to listed, I think would be a good time to have a report back just to see what has happened. And then after a year or so of being expanding to listed crimes might also be a good time. We've been talking about how we're going to make the transition in our staff meetings too, and how the workload may change. And I think we've got initially anyway, and we have a pretty good sense of how many cases we're going to be seeing. And certainly, there's some unknown factors in there. But our plan is to add the presumptive parole list to our scheduled hearings on a particular date. So if we have scheduled presumptive paroles to consider, we'll fold those into the day that we're going to be at that particular site. So those are cases that we wouldn't be seeing. But in fact, we would just be reviewing the administrative part of that, which would be relatively quick, straightforward, set the conditions and move on from there. The other part of that is the violations. And we just don't know how many they're going to be. How many violations do you have now? I mean, what of your work? It's varied, but it's somewhere between 150 and 200 per year in the last few years. Is that a unique individual? Those are separate violations. Okay. But that represents probably around 800 people on parole. If we add presumptive folks on to parole, our guess is we're going to be well over 1,000, 1,200 people on parole. So given the nature of the numbers that come back on violations, that number should go up fairly significantly. But at the same time, we're not doing the pro eligibility hearings that we are now. So there's going to be some offset in time. Obviously, violation hearings take more time. You've got attorneys involved in evidentiary processes and so forth. But I guess until we actually get into it, I'm not going to know. But I think we're equipped to take care of it. We certainly will keep you abreast of that. So we have another question, Jane. Marcia? Hi, Dane. It's Marcia. Hi, Marcia. It sounds to me like you have really looked at this and decided that you guys can handle it, which I'm very proud of because most people would be walking 10 more new employees. Well, we have. We've spent, fortunately, we've had the opportunity to have Mary Jane participate. So as we've been moving along in this, we've had staff meetings so that everybody on the board has been kept abreast of where things are going. And we've had an opportunity to talk how this is going to change how we conduct business. We certainly didn't anticipate what's happening now. I'm looking forward to when we get through that as anybody has. That's that's the big challenge at this time is conducting the hearings that we're not doing. How are you doing the hearings now? I know they're done video, but we had our issues at different facilities or. Yes. We had our first one today this morning at St. Albans. So we've postponed the violations of everyone who is in the community waiting their violation, those folks that weren't arrested. So we're only doing the violation hearings for those folks that are incarcerated. We're only doing the pro eligibility hearings for those folks who are incarcerated. We had some glitches with our communications this morning that we're trying to work through. Part of it is the staff at St. Albans and how they interact with the offenders and the security for their health back and forth. That sort of thing is going to require that it takes a little more time. I think we'll work through it. Today was the first opportunity. It took a little longer than normal. There's some frustrations on the part of the prison's rights office attorneys because they can't communicate directly with their people who have gotten used to home while we're in the hearing. So where they would normally have the opportunity to talk to them confidentially and see them. That's part of the challenge right now, which we're trying to work through as well. So we have a question. Kurt? I was wondering what the parole board, with presumptive parole already there, when it is there, you will still be interviewing or reviewing each candidate for parole, whether they're presumptive or not. But there's a difference. The only ones that we will be reviewing are those who have victim issues. What we will be doing is, administratively, when they are submitted to us by DOC, is completing the parole agreement and setting the conditions. We made this before the Senate committee that we felt it was very important for the board to set conditions for parole, which they agreed and allowed. So it's going to be significantly quicker. It'll be an administrative type hearing, unless there are victim issues, and then we would be seeing them. Then you would see them. Yeah. Okay. So though each person on presumptive parole will not necessarily be interviewed by the parole board, that their reasons for being on presumptive parole, those seven things, you'll be looking at those two. You'll be looking at them, at least at an administrative review. Yes. So each individual will at some time be reviewed in one way or another by the parole board. Right. When they're submitted to us, we will review the information that's included, which I presume that would be. Unless there are victim issues, then we would be preparing the parole agreement with the conditions and return that. Okay. I got it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Butch. Thanks. So Dean, this two-step process was a big seller for me in this bill. Yes. That's true. Where DOC recommends, and you take a look at it now. I'm hearing it's an administrative hearing, which I'm fine with. There's no sense of calling somebody in front of you that doesn't need to be there. It's simple. But who notifies the victims to DOC or do you notify the victims in the event of a parole hearing? If there is a victim issue, Department of Corrections would notify the victims of the hearing. Those that are in contact with the victim's advocates from the Department of Corrections would know that. But the ones that are not, we always ask the parole officers when we're doing a hearing, have you made contact with the victim? We want to make sure they're aware of the situation. If they have any input, we take it either in writing over the phone or in person entirely up to them, or some choose not to at all. And then we proceed from there. Okay. I request them to make that contact. Okay. I think we had somewhere in some of the previous conversations we've had on this bill where there was a, we had a, not a long conversation, but a conversation about who's notifying whom. And that was for earned good time. Yeah. It wasn't for presumptive parole. It's for those that are currently sentenced. Right. That was another good time piece for this bill. Well, what's the plan? What's the process for notifying victims? Right. Those folks. So should we talk about that within this bill, Allison, of who's who to guarantee that the victims are notified? I think that was the thought if we put in the good time, earned a good time would qualify, would be applicable to those folks who are currently sentenced, because that was the agreement that was sort of the understanding in the work group that was unanimous and supporting applying good time to those folks who are currently sentenced going forward, as long as there was a plan in place to notify the victims. So Butch, what I can say to you too, is that for any of those presumptive parole cases that we review and there are victim issues, then we would be rebutting those to have an in-person hearing and we will be conducting it as we are now. Okay. So if we don't have the victims and we will be looking for that information. Yeah, I get that. I'm just trying to figure out in my head how this is all going to work. I just want to make sure that the victims are clearly notified. And then you say that have victim issues. And would that be a part of the record of the person supplying parole, or would that be as a result of the notification from DOC to the victim? Yeah, if turning into two ways, it could happen either way, Butch. Okay. And many times when we do parole hearing and there are clearly victim issues and we don't have any victim information, we may elect to postpone the hearing until we ensure that the victims have been notified. Okay. Most of the parole officers reach out to victims, make sure they're aware that there's a case coming forward. And if they want to participate, they can. What's likely to happen and give them the opportunity. If we're not sure that's been done, then we would ask that done before we conduct the hearing. Okay. Okay. For now. Okay. It's important to us too. Yeah. Yeah. So, Dean, when it's opened up, presumptive parole is opened up to nonlisted offenses first, nonlisted crimes. How many of those involve a victim? Well, if I hazard a guess, it would probably about a quarter of them. Okay. Yeah. And your listed crimes, I would say most of them. Nearly all of them. Yeah. So that's why the Senate aired on the way of a slow rollout. We're doing the nonlisted crimes first. Right. And that's part of the reason we're not as concerned about the issue of two years down the road, because the vast majority of those cases have though the very few listed offenders that are going to be presumptively paroled are the ones without victims are pretty small in number. Because some of them may not be incarcerated. Yes. So it is a baby step in terms of opening up the door for presumptive parole by doing it with nonlisted crimes first. I think so. You know, the numbers we look at is the vast majority of those people are being paroled anyway. And so we're fine with, you know, as long as we have the opportunity to rebut the ones that have victim issues, those are clearly the most important ones. We can do that. And then the next step is to kind of manage the violation. We're going to have reprimand hearings. We're going to have parole modification hearings. We're going to have those types of additional hearings that we do now and probably a few more of those. So I'm thinking of the timeframe in January of 21 is when the nonlisted crimes take effect for the presumptive parole. And then two years later is when the nonlisted crimes. So we wouldn't have much information next year during the legislative session. And maybe during calendar year 21, it might be good for the parole board. I'm thinking what Butch is saying. Hang on, Kirk. I know what Butch is saying about a report back that maybe towards the end of 21, there could be a report to justice oversight in terms of how it played out. And then in 22, it can be monitored from the legislature in terms of how it plays out to give us at least some insight into opening it up to listed crimes in 23. Because that would be at the beginning of that session. That makes sense. Kurt. Something you just said sparked a question. When you said when you said that, you know, the impact would be small because most of these are already on parole anyway. So so I'm wondering about there's two sides to this one. I meant to say we're already paroling them. Right. We will not have to have the hearing. But yeah, that's okay. There's two sides to this one. It would there's the impact on you. But the other is, are we or do you have a feel for are we really impacting the number of incarcerated? Do you see presumptive parole as reducing the number of people who are actually incarcerated? And to what degree? How many more are we going to be putting into the community? I guess it's my question. Right. I'm guessing that number is going to be relatively small with the nonlisted offenders with nonlisted. Yeah. Yeah. It's when you get into your listed offenses that you're going to get into over a thousand people on parole versus your 800 now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because if the committee remembers all the data collection that we did last year with DOC about folks who are incarcerated and what their criminal charges are and convictions, 90% of them are in there for 85 to 90% are in there for felony convictions, which is basically your listed crimes and your big 12 because there is usually a victim. Okay. Anything else before we start finishing up here? But should you have something or you just kind of know? It's hard to read people. I'm sorry. I can see you waving frantically back there. How you doing? If not, thank you, Dean. Oh, you're welcome. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you again. Right. And then as we said, we'll be doing a new draft at some point, either at the end of this week or next week, and somehow we'll figure out how to get that out to all the people who have testified and folks weigh in. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dean. All right. Thank you, everybody. Stay safe. Yes. Stay safe. Thank you.


Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abi Amir says there is heavy foreign interference in the continuing talks between government and Tigray administration but remains hopeful a peace pact will be reached. Abi, who believes that Ethiopians can solve their matters despite international pressure for ceasefire, also confirmed the federal army's capture of the Tigray towns of Shiri, Asim and Adwa last month from the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front, TPLF. The negotiations, which began on 25 October in South Africa, continued on Monday, although they were initially expected to end on Sunday. Few details have been released on the content and possible progress of the talks, which are aimed at a cessation of hostilities requested by the EU and the UN. Since the talks began, fighting has continued in Tigray, where federal Ethiopian troops have been advancing since mid-October, supported by their return army and forces and militias from the neighboring Amara and Arthur regions.