But, Bryn, if you could give a brief introduction, then we'll hear from the Attorney General. Good morning, committee. For the record, Bryn here from Legislative Council. If I understand you, Senator, you'd like to have just a brief introduction to the good time program and- Right. How we went from re-integration for a good time, and the reports that I believe are available, but unfortunately, we still don't have the- I know it's hard to hear me, so I'm going to stop my video. Can you hear me now better? Unfortunately, we need broadband help down here in Southern Vermont. Yeah, just a brief introduction, how we went from re-integration for a good time, and that we had reports from various organizations. Sure. So, I believe that Peggy circulated a report, an Act 56 report on good time yesterday, which was submitted December of last year, and it had several stakeholders that were a part of that work that recommended the adoption of the good time program once again. As this committee well knows, because you've reviewed the proposed rule, that good time rule proposes that offenders who meet certain eligibility criteria would earn a reduction of seven days off their minimum and maximum sentence for every month that they served, that the offender adheres to certain criteria. Part of the Justice Reinvestment Bill, the past last year also imposed a presumptive parole, created a new presumptive parole statute, and many of you are probably quite familiar with presumptive parole and the criteria associated with it, but I thought I would just give a brief review of what the presumptive parole statutes impose. So, presumptive parole would apply to people who are serving in incarcerated sentences for unlisted offenses if they meet certain criteria around good behavior, and that presumptive parole statute takes effect January 1st of 2021, and there were several screening processes put into place around presumptive parole. So, there is an administrative review process that was set up to require the Department of Corrections to screen offenders for their eligibility for presumptive parole. There are several criteria around behavior that are required for inmates to be eligible for presumptive parole in the first place, and it also requires the Department to screen for certain risk criteria. So, it provides that the Department, after conducting these two separate screenings, refer inmates who are eligible to the Parole Board for an administrative review if those inmates are not flagged for meeting certain risk criteria, and then those offenders that the Department screens as eligible but flagged as meeting certain risk criteria are referred to the Parole Board for a hearing, for a full hearing as opposed to presumptive parole. Then the bill also created several tasks for the Parole Board to undertake as a part of this presumptive parole process. So, the Parole Board is tasked with conducting an administrative review for all inmates that the Department has identified as eligible for presumptive parole who are not flagged as meeting certain criteria for risk. And for those eligible inmates who are not flagged as meeting those risk criteria, the Parole Board can still deny presumptive parole and set a hearing if the Parole Board determines that there are victims that need to be notified and given the opportunity to be heard. And also the Parole Board is tasked with conducting a full Parole Board hearing for eligible inmates who the Department flags as meeting certain risk criteria. So, there are several steps that have to be taken under the presumptive parole statute before an inmate can be released under that statute. So, Senator Sears and I talked about how that might be a helpful reminder for the committee as you go into this discussion about the, about good time and those reductions from the minimum and maximum sentences. Our first witness this morning is the Honorable Thomas J. Dunovan, Attorney General, State of the Mott and David Shear, Assistant Attorney General. So, kick it off any way you'd like, Mr. Attorney General. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Good morning, Senator Sears and good morning to the members of the committee. Senator Sears, it's not just Bennington County where we need broadband help and cell service. I get to stand on one leg on a stool on my front porch to get cell service some days. So, I think it's throughout the state of Vermont, but the service looks good and strong this morning, at least from my neighborhood. So, we'll proceed. As Senator Sears said, Dave Shear, who many of you know, who does a lot of the policy work out of my office, has joined me today. But I wanna first start to talk about the Justice Reinvestment Bill that passed last session and thank the committee for their good work. I think it was a really important bill and I think it was a good bill because what underlined that was to ensure more fairness and due process when it comes to re-incarcerating folks who are on supervision after getting out of prison. As you all know, according to the Council of State Governments, Vermont likely had the highest rate of re-incarceration for technical violations in the nation. And so, the policy with this bill is something that I supported and I support the bill and I wanna thank the committee for their good work. And so, what the bill did, and I give the committee great credit in the legislature credit for this because you took on big complicated issues, technical issues within the justice system, which are hard and what some of the changes that this bill achieved were the following. As Bryn just said, it introduced presumptive parole to move people off furlough status more quickly and put them into a status that brings more due process. That's a good thing. It reduced the number of people on furlough through presumptive parole. Again, that's a good thing with the process, as Bryn described. And it reduced the number of furlough statuses to simplify the system. And I think simplifying the system to make it more understandable and transparent is a good thing. And it introduced the right to appeal to superior court if somebody's re-incarcerated for more than 90 days on a technical violation. I think that's probably one of the most important aspects of this bill, something that I certainly support, something that imbues due process rights to people who are being re-incarcerated. And I think that's gonna obviously enhance our public safety while reducing incarceration in this state, a policy goal that I think we all share. I think one issue that I would ask the committee to take a look at to readdress in my office is happy to do some of the work on this and to propose some changes is on the own good time part of this bill. I think that, and I'll take responsibility for this, that I didn't perhaps think as deeply about this part of the bill as I should have because it comes back to victims. And I think when we talk about good time and I support good time, I just don't support good time for all crimes. And I think what I'd ask the committee to consider when the legislature convenes in January is exempting out certain crimes from earned good time. And that would be murder and sex assaults are the first two ones that come to my mind. And the reason for that is because, and I say this not as an attorney general, I say this as a former state's attorney who prosecuted these crimes, who worked with victims and frankly made representations to victims. One case in particular, I know that Ned and Joanne Winterbottom have sent this committee a letter. Their daughter, Laura Winterbottom, was raped and murdered in Burlington. I was the state's attorney at the time. Gerald Montgomery was convicted of that. That case did not go to trial. That case was resolved as part of a plea agreement. And I can recall that case. There's not a lot of cases I can recall over 10 years as state's attorney. I certainly recall Laura Winterbottom's case. I recall those negotiations and we made promises and the court imposed that sentence. And I think out of fairness and I think out of process to the victims, I'd ask this committee to reconsider the good time portion of this bill because the justice reinvestment bill is a good bill. I support it. There's a lot of important things. But I think upon further reflection and talking to folks and recalling some of these cases that I prosecuted, I think if we could consider exempting out certain crimes from a good time, such as murder and sex assaults, that would be a good thing. I think it would be something in the interest of justice. I think it would be in the interest of fairness. I think it would be in the interest of consistency and transparency. We, my office is, and Dave Scherer, as I said, is on with us this morning. We're willing to do with Ledge Council some of the research to get you some proposals before January. We can get it to you by the end of this month. There's a couple of different ways to consider this. You can exempt out by crime. As I just said, murder, sex assaults, you can do it by sentence. Anything received over a certain threshold or New York has a system where it's by petition. That's something that we could look and I know Colorado has a similar system. But I think we have to consider the rights of victims that I know this committee has. I wanna be very clear about that. I appreciate the work of this committee and I know that you've heard from the victim rights community on this bill while it was passed. And I just believe that this bill and the law is a good one. I support it. And there was a lot in it. And it was the mechanics and the nuts and bolts of the justice system and it was complicated. And I think upon reflection for me, thinking about those cases, I'd ask this committee and the committees of jurisdiction when the legislature convenes to take a look at the good time and exempt out certain crimes such as sex assault and murder. Thank you. Dave, I don't know if you wanna jump in on that at all. I think I had, but happy to answer it. David, if you have, okay. Any questions? And again, I'm luckily in Arlington, they have better service. David, any comments? Any questions for David or the Attorney General? If not, I wanted to mention Representative Shaw. Thank you, Senator. I do have a question and comment for both TJ and David regarding the good time and as good time peace and the suggestions that TJ was bringing forward. I, in our committee, House of Institutions of Corrections, we struggled with good time, the implementation of good time and when it should be implemented and who should be eligible. We struggled so hard, in fact, when we brought the original good time bill forward, we actually asked a group consisting of many of you to come up with a recommendation on who should be eligible and when their eligibility should start. You gave us a report, David, you were on that committee. I hope you remember. You gave the committee a report in December, just about a year ago now, recommending that good time be instituted for all offenders, basically, who were in custody before the effective date of the program. I must say, this is this piece here. And actually we got, we have letters from victims advocacy groups supporting the current position that the bill is written. And as I say, our committee struggled with this. We were very, very antsy about allowing good time for offenders that had been previously sentenced. Now, TJ, you come forward with a new proposal and I appreciate that proposal because this piece of the bill has garnered me more emails and telephone calls than I've had in my 11 years on this committee. And most of them, I would say my large majority of them came from people that had loved ones that were murdered, raped, other sexual offenses and kidnapped. There, it has caused me a great pause to try to understand how we, if this needs fixing, how we would fix it and how we would go forward with it. So your proposal is very interesting to me and I personally am very, very anxious to look at what proposals you may bring forward to the legislature for possible action. I'm concerned, and this is probably a mechanical thing that we would have to decide is how we would do this when we have implementation dates of good time. I think the effective date of the rule, I don't remember it made you bring, can you help me one? The effective date of the good time piece comes, becomes effective to January one, but I'm not sure, Brent, can you help me with that? The rule proposes a January one and the statute requires January one, start date. So there's a mechanical piece that we would have, thank you, Brent. Mechanical piece that we would have to discuss should this committee recommend to a legislature to take another look at this. But thank you for this. Some of the explanations and some of these crimes have been startling, and especially when I talk to folks, it goes way beyond what we see in print. I wanna do this right, and I was a big champion for victims' rights when the bill was passed. Thought we had it covered, but I missed. Not understanding, apparently, about the amount of work that goes in for plea bargains and other issues that happen between you and your offices and the courts and knowing what damage we could have possibly have created for some of these folks that did sign off for lesser sentences. So they wouldn't have to testify or relive their attack in person. So I wanna thank you for bringing this forward. And Dave, I'm sure that you had the same trepidation when you were on that committee about how do we bring this forward. So this has been something that we've been dealing with for a long time, and I just wanna say thank you. I appreciate that, Representative Schoen. I appreciate you articulating your concerns. These are not easy issues, as you well know. And I think this, the legislature, the state of Vermont has done a tremendous job in terms of addressing issues within our criminal justice system to make it more fair and more equitable and more centered on victims through restorative process and other initiatives. And when I think about policies at times when we talk about the criminal justice system, when we talk about studies, I think one of the tension points is sometimes these become academic exercises and we forget about the people, we forget about the victims. And that, when I think about that, and I'm responsible for that and I take responsibility for that, I think about the experience as you just articulated as being in the courtroom negotiating a plea agreement and working with victims, working with the victims' families, and it's difficult, it's emotional, it's hard, certainly for victims, certainly for their families, but also too for people within the criminal justice system. And I think that this is a good process of reminding us of that difficulty, of that process, frankly, of those representations that we've made. And again, I think everybody acted with the best of intentions here, going towards policy goals that I certainly support, but also need to balance that with the rights of victims. And again, just asking that this committee and the committees of jurisdiction take a look at the under time. And again, we would be happy to make a proposal to the appropriate committee this month. Thank you, but I just want to make clear that we, when we passed the good time, when we passed all these, that the words buy-in from the victims' community, represented by the Center for Crime Victims, represented by the network against domestic assault and sexual violence, represented by the Attorney General's Office and so forth. I think part of what happened here was the way the victims were notified by the Department of Corrections in a blast email set off without the understanding of the protections that were put in place through the presumptive parole process rather than reintegration furlough. I, as a representative of Bennington County, heard from multiple victims of a murder down here in Bennington years ago when the perpetrator was released on furlough. And it was the second or third release and it was got a lot of notoriety because he tore off his ankle bracelet and there was a wide search for the, so that was part of the reintegration furlough process that we eliminated. I think, I don't wanna lose sight and I'm happy to look at any changes to the laws. We do that all the time. I don't wanna lose sight of the fact that the way it was explained to the victims was not the same way that I think it was explained to us this morning by Bryn in the presumptive parole process. We shouldn't lose sight of that. There's still a protection left for victims. They are able to petition, they are able to have a voice in whatever decision is made by the parole board where they did not have a place to make a decision or even comment when somebody was on reintegration furlough. The case here in Bennington County where actually a young man who was a former resident of mine was burned. I just don't wanna lose sight of that. Yeah, and I agree, Senator Sears and- Those victims were much more upset by reintegration furlough. Representative Emmons, you had a comment or question? Well, I had a question for Bryn, which is a lead up of what Butch was talking about in terms of that we're under emergency rules right now for the good time. And the formal rules would be going into effect. The goal was January 1st. If we do a change in the good time statutes, we wouldn't be able to do any of that and complete all the changes through the process, be it going through the Senate, the House and to the governor for signature until the earliest, the end of January. Is there a way to delay the implementation of the rules going into effect January 1st? And I'm asking that because I'm assuming that the final rules would have to go through Elkar to be approved. The emergency rules also went through Elkar and- Right, and the permanent rules would still have to go through Elkar. So we could communicate with Elkar in terms of some of our concerns or if we wanna work on legislation that the Attorney General proposes, we could let Elkar know that and try to work through the permanent rules or not. Yes, that is not an experience I have had yet, but I know that some of my colleagues have written letters to Elkar asking for a delay. It would be out of compliance with the statute, but that's your prerogative, so. Great, thank you. So are there any other questions for the Attorney General, Donovan and also David?  Who was due next to go, Senator Searsman? Okay, Chris, Chris Fino from the Victims Arena. Chris, why don't you just introduce yourself for the record, please? Sure, I'm Chris Fino, I'm the executive director. Oh, I need to say that I have this weird loop going on. So I'm going to testify and then we'll be available for questions, but I don't know how you're hearing me. So Chris Fino- We're hearing you fine right now. We're hearing you fine. Great, I'm so glad. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important legislation. One of the center's statutory responsibilities is advocating for the rights and needs of Vermonters who have been hurt or harmed by crime. It is in this context that I offer this testimony. Great, last January, I testified in support of including currently incarcerated individuals being able to earn good time. In retrospect, I did not fully see the unintended consequences this had for victims and their families, especially in cases of extremely violent crimes. Talking with victims and families has shown me that changes to this legislation need to be made. Last January, I also testified in support of tasking the state's attorney's office, victim advocates based in the state's attorney's office, the Crime Victim Service Center, Department of Corrections and the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence to work together to develop a process for contacting and informing victims of the change in the program and the effect this might have had on time 30. Unfortunately, COVID-19 happened and this important step did not take place. The center suggests delaying the implementation of the act to give time for amending it as necessary. There must be a comprehensive plan to update and notify victims personally, not through vans, which may require additional personnel. This method of notification has proven to be very upsetting to victims and their families. Receiving this information via a text, email or robocall was traumatizing to victims and families and they had few answers to their questions. This committee may benefit from hearing their experience and the reasoning behind wanting exceptions. As not all victims sign up for notification, signing all victims up for notification at sentencing with this opportunity to opt out of notification could be a way to strengthen notification. We also need to be mindful of the frequency and type of notifications victims might want. I suggest a study committee be convened to review and recommend that conviction of certain crimes be excluded from the good time rule, possibly excluding the big 12, maybe others, and the method of vacation. The committee should include the state's attorney's office, the victim advocates based in that state's attorney's offices, the Vermont Center for Crime Diffense Services, the Department of Corrections and the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence. Thank you for your consideration of this testimony. Other questions for Chris? Thank you, Chris. Thank you. I believe Sarah Robinson is next though. Good morning. Morning. Sarah Robinson, Deputy Director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. And thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today on the implementation of the Earned Good Time program. And I just want to clarify, the Vermont network did not serve on the committee that developed the legislative recommendations for the eligibility of Earned Good Time, though we've been engaged in many related and broader conversations about both victims' rights and criminal justice reform efforts. And we believe that these are complementary, but also, as you've heard from other witnesses, require a careful balancing. And in concept, we have been supportive of Earned Good Time because we know that incentives play an important role in encouraging growth and change among people who are incarcerated. And it's with this understanding that we would also like to highlight a few concerns related to the underlying law and the implementation of the new Good Time program. And our first concern echoes what you've heard from the Attorney General and from the Center for Crime Victim Services, which is a bit of this one-size-fits-all approach to the applicability of Earned Good Time to individuals serving sentences for every possible crime. And we very much understand that the state's previous Good Time program was overly complex and it relied on the discretion of the Department of Corrections staff, which, because it was a very human process, did lead to disparities and inaccuracies. And so we very much appreciate the intention to move to a system that removed discretion about time accrual and promoted a simplified approach. However, we are concerned and we share the concern with the Center and the Attorney General's office that individual serving sentences for murder, manslaughter and the worst forms of domestic and sexual violence earn Good Time by the same measure and in the same way as an individual serving a sentence for crimes that may have less severe impacts on their victims. And so we would also welcome a further policy discussion about whether just a few of those most serious crimes ought to be exempted from Earned Good Time. And our second key concern is related to the implementation of the program. And that is victims' rights and notification. And this past spring, we did testify in the House in Representative Emmons' Committee about the importance of a victim-centered notification process for Earned Good Time. And currently, the Department of Corrections has proposed to use their automated victims' notification system to send monthly automated notifications to victims about whether their perpetrators have earned good time that month. And we've heard major concerns from victims about both the frequency and the mode of these notifications. And it's especially applicable to victims whose perpetrators are serving long sentences. So you can imagine receiving a monthly notification about the good behavior of the person that caused you harm could be difficult to begin with, but receiving those reminders monthly over a course of 15 to 20 years could really be a significant barrier to healing for many victims. And in addition, this is another implementation concern. We're concerned that there's no standard process in place right now for prosecutors to communicate the impact of Earned Good Time to victims when they're seeking their input on potential plea agreements. And one of the primary concerns that we've heard from victims as this process has begun to roll out is that when a plea agreement is finalized, it can provide a sense of closure and a fixed period of safety for victims to heal. And we believe that really, regardless of what crimes are eligible for good time in the future, victims ought to be notified of the potential sentence reduction if good time is earned prior to their opportunity to provide input through a victim impact statement. And that's a really important part of the process for many victims whose cases do move through the criminal justice system. Just wanted to reemphasize that we support the efforts of the legislature, this committee, and many other committees to reform the justice system, to reduce the state's reliance on incarceration, and to resource treatment and supporting communities. However, all of those efforts can really only be truly successful with a careful balancing of victim needs and concerns. And so we very much appreciate the opportunity to provide this feedback today. Thank you. Questions for Cheryl? Thank you. Next is James Pepper from the Office of State Attorneys and Sheriffs, I might add. Good morning. This is James Pepper from the Department of State Attorneys and Sheriffs. Thank you for having me here today. I would just say that our office has participated in several Earned Good Time Study Committees over the years at this point. At certain times, there was no victim representation on that committee, so I felt the need to take a more direct role in representing victims' interests. However, as those victims groups started to be represented on those committees, I was really deferring those threshold questions about whether to reintroduce good time, whether to apply it to the current sentence population, and whether to exempt certain crimes to those groups. And the state's attorneys were more focused on the kind of programmatic complexities of Earned Good Time that might be. Did Pepper freeze or is it me? I think he froze, because I. He froze. More broadband problems. Everybody's using broadband. That's the issue. Well, why don't we move to the next witness? Matt Valerio, I believe is on, and then come back to Pepper if he gets unfrozen. Are you there, Matt? Oh, there you are. You're muted. If you could match muted, there he is. Well, I think you can hear me, but this is one of those mornings where I'm not seeing well, so. Yeah. I think I'm gonna have more of those the older I get. In any event, this is Matt Valerio. Defender General, I was surprised to see this on the agenda, given that we had just spent a couple of years going through and fleshing out the issues with this over what I thought was a very arduous and detailed, you know, look at this issue. I mean, I was here when there was good time off of both ends of sentences and slowly whittled away so that relatively early on in the Douglas administration, good time went away completely and hence the rise of furlough, which served a purpose but had its own issues clearly. And we didn't even let, we haven't even allowed this statutory change to take effect before trying to roll it back and get at the issues or at least some, it seems like there are segments that are attempting to roll it back. Very disheartening for people who are trying to provide some incentive. And it's even for the more serious crimes and probably even more so for the more serious crimes. Let me say, I can go into some detail about how good time works in murder and sex cases and fundamentally since both of those crimes have maximum sentences of life in prison, you're not talking about good time off the max, what you're talking about is good time off a minimum sentence if there is a split sentence. Because then that good time, it does reduce the, it would reduce the minimum if the person is compliant and doing everything you want them to do in their caseload and the person would be subject to release on probation with their split sentence. If however it is a sentence to serve, that person while they may be earning good time is subject to parole board review. And the parole board is gonna make a decision about whether that person is going to get out or not. So it's not like the person has just let out on their own after they have done a good job in prison and without any review by anybody. That all of these things in my memory were discussed over the last period of years in getting this together. I mean, in fact, the proposal that we came up with or that was passed was one of a collection of issues that the Department of Corrections came forward with in an attempt to mitigate their costs and their results. If in fact this revision or look again at this issue is the result of poor communication or communication in a manner that upset victims, I get that and that needs to be resolved. I don't think you need to roll back what you spent years putting together that arose out of the Department of Corrections and impacts an extraordinary small number of cases and only a subset of those cases. Sentences and if there's an issue of worried that people are gonna get out on a split sentence where they've earned their good time and they have an entitlement to be released, then sentences can be structured by the state's attorney in their plea agreement to prevent that. This is what lawyers do all the time. Interestingly enough, most of what goes on in sex cases doesn't have to do with the structure or length of sentences, but it has to do with the quality of the evidence and the ability of the prosecution to be able to prove the case at trial. When sex cases go to trial, the vast majority of them end up in acquittals. They don't end up in convictions. So plea agreements end up getting individuals under supervision and get them into treatment and put the state in a position to be able to supervise them over a period of time. It's not, the risk is that again, when if their lack of incentive is there or with any of these cases that more again, more of them are gonna go to trial and more of them are gonna result in acquittals just like what happened the last time, the sex assault statutes were modified. So I don't support any change in this as I think it was well vetted already. And it's the kind of thing that can easily be resolved by the, if a state's attorney doesn't like the way how good time might apply in a particular case, they can effectively get rid of that good time by the way they structure the sentence. And there are also of course, and I wanted to make this clear that all sex cases are not the same. I mean, we still have in Vermont life maximum sentences on consensual sex between some teenagers where one of the participants is a minor.   And I frankly, I think we're a long way from that and whatever issues that we've heard from the victims groups seem to be related to how this was communicated to them because all of them had the opportunity to come to the legislature. And I was there when this was supported and I know that you all were too. I doubt seriously that good time would have gone through if they didn't have the support of the victims and the like. And it's really regrettable that it comes to the point where a communication method is the thing that ends up unraveling years of work. The other thing that I would note is that I believe as a matter of law, the inmates who are currently in jail, whether they have sex cases or murder cases serving sentences by virtue of the legislature passing the statute have a vested right in that good time until it's repealed. And for some period of time, until the legislature works this out, if you're going to do that, you're gonna have to create a calculation system to apply the good time for however long it is in place. And frankly, I don't want my office to have to be litigating that stuff if we don't have to. I'm sure that DOC legal doesn't wanna be part of that either. I understand that there are always individual cases where what a legislature might do in retrospect doesn't seem fair to the particular individual. And I'm mindful of the winter bottom case and there's some number of other cases, of course, that would also be of concern. I understand that. But that is something that I think the people working on the bills knew was going to be part of the deal when resolving it. It wasn't something that was hidden or unexpected. And frankly, I was expecting more of a kick from the victims groups during the time that this was being vetted by the legislature. However, I think that most all of them from my memory saw the benefit long-term of doing it this way. And it's just regrettable in my view that if this is an issue of communication then we should resolve that and let the statute take effect. Any questions for Matt? Sorry, I couldn't hear. Representative Edmonds is... I'm just chuckling at the dog. The dog had a question. He did, he did. Yeah, he's been rather loud today. As Pepper resolved his other questions from Matt, I guess I'm just one and it's both you and Pepper. The current system seems to me to breed some unfairness in terms of the reintegration furlough. Having dealt with a case down here in Bennington County that both Matt and James were familiar with, that for victims was much more, they weren't even consulted. And all of a sudden they get notified that the offender is out on furlough at some place. That system was changed and I thought that was the benefit. Do you have any comment on that Matt? Well, I mean, clearly this, the good time system should be going forward, a more transparent system. I know that furlough, from a victim standpoint, it was hit or miss. And I think the case that you're referring to is one that is probably more of an exception than the rule, but it always seems like we're being driven by the exceptions, where the notification didn't happen in the way that one would hope it would. But to me, it's more about victims understanding what is going to happen and that their expectations be lived up to, based upon what the law says. It's always when we kind of get a stray of that, it's when we end up having the problems. I don't know if James has any. Any other questions from Matt? I'm trying to mute myself to avoid the dog talking to all of you, but Pepper, if you're... I apologize for that. I am in Orange County and we have similar problems here. I mean, as I was saying, when you remove the threshold questions, which I feel like we're supported by the victims groups, that the nuts and bolts came down for the essays was, how do we make sure that this is an evidence-based program that has clear criteria and is easily administered so that victims at the time of sentencing will know exactly what the expectation is and that state's attorneys will know that there'll be sufficient time with whatever sentence they're negotiating or what they're arguing for, will give DOC sufficient time to complete programming on the individual. We think that what passed in Act 148 actually achieved that criteria. We heard sufficient testimony from CSG and we looked to other states about the benefits to earn good time on the corrections population. Criteria couldn't be any simpler or easy to administer. I mean, we actually did a earlier proposal that would include kind of a merit-based system, recognizing that that did lead to issues in the prior iteration of earn good time, but regardless, the system that was devised under Act 148 couldn't be simpler to administer, in my view, and it will ensure in sentencing at the time of sentencing. I know DOC has been preparing kind of a information cheat sheet for, I guess, prosecutors at the time of sentencing to say, if this person were to earn all of his or her good time, this is the date that they would be released or this is the maximum amount of time that would be removed from the minimum max. So we think that the program that passed, again, removing those threshold questions is a good one. However, if we're hearing the CCVS and the network, if their position is that certain crime should be excluded or that it shouldn't apply to the sentence population, I mean, we're happy to support that as well. I would just make one note about the communication to the victims. And I know DOC and our victims' advocates had an early meeting in September to kind of talk about the messaging and how that would roll out. And I think that DOC, while the message maybe could have been finessed differently, but they were under strict guidelines and they met their statutory requirements. And the rulemaking process had a very kind of aggressive timeline to it. And there was comment periods that needed to be held. And so they had to make the communications that they did. I mean, maybe the message could have been slightly different, but I think that they lived up to what the statute requires. Questions for Pepper? Thank you, Pepper. I'm glad the technical problems did as well. Mary Hooper has a question, I believe, for Pepper. Representative Hooper. Yeah, thank you. I was having a hard time finding my hand. So thank you for seeing it. Pepper, could you please comment on if we allowed certain exemptions from the statute, what the kind of the consequence of state's attorneys charging decisions and kind of the calculation that you, that they would go through in terms of charging individuals? I'm sorry, I'm not expressing that very well. Do you have enough of a sense of the question I'm after? Yeah, I'm sorry. I broke up a little bit on my end too. Is it about how a prosecutor is going to kind of contemplate earned good time when making a plea agreement? Yes. Or even deciding which crime to charge.  And that this could start driving those decisions. Well, you know, perhaps Matt has some more historical perspective on this, but I don't think that this will lead to either charge inflation or sentence inflation. If that's the concern. It was a concern that we flagged in our earned good time report that it, you know, this is a possibility, but I don't think that it's one that the prosecutors are actively thinking about either at the charging decision, potentially as it relates to programming or supervision at the plea agreement decision, but I don't or at sentencing. But I don't think that it will impact a charging decision. If we created exemptions. Oh, this is strictly about exemptions. Yes. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. Sorry. If there were exemptions created, would that affect either charging or plea decisions? I, you know, it, because I think 90% of plea agreements or 90% of cases are resolved by plea agreement or 99%. You know, I, States attorney could compensate if they need, if they felt they needed to. So I don't think that it would really change the dynamic, all that much if there were exemptions. Can I ask a, can I do a follow up? Don't mind representative Pepper. The problem is not with the to be sentenced population as I understand it. Problem is with some individuals who are already sentenced and will be under the new construct, receiving good time. That I believe is, is paramount. And that's what the attorney general is committed to coming back with a recommendation. If we were to treat the current. Currently sentenced population differently from the population that is to be sentenced in the future, would that create constitutional issues? This is the kind of. Well, I mean, if, if you said that people who are sentenced for 20 years to life. And more who are currently sentenced would not receive good that create a constitutional that they wouldn't receive it that somebody in the future might. You know, sentences sentences for certain crimes change over time. I don't think that. I mean, I think Matt's concern is that there would be a vestment of the earned good time in the currently sentenced population. Because of the way that the statute was written. I don't see a constitutional problem with. Having certain. The sentence population being treated differently than the future to be sent to this population though. Thank you. Other questions are married. Okay. I think. Our next witness schedule witnesses Jim Baker, commissioner department of corrections. Good morning everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. For the record, commissioner Jim Baker, the commissioner of corrections. I like to put in front of commissioner in the interim commissioner of corrections. I'm sitting here listening to. Comments. And I want to, first of all, thank James Pepper for his comment. About the deadline we were up against. at 148 work. And on the notification piece, this notification piece as a reminder was around the emergency rules, the emergency rule on good time. And as James said, we met with with victims advocates, my staff did putting together a message. And I don't want to, I want to go back to what Attorney General Donovan said, the general talked about we in correction support the concept of criminal justice, reinvestment. But I'm listening to a little bit of an older tone here about all of this was caused by the way corrections notified me. That's hard for me as the commissioner to say or not respond to that. We're under very tight deadlines. And we could have just put out a press release and met our obligation, but we did use vans, because that's our notification system. I'm going to guess and I don't have the number in front of me, I'd be happy to get back to the committee with the number. But we have somewhere in the area of 7,000 victims. And I don't know what people propose that we would have done different to notify 7,000 victims. And I want to make just I'm going to say these comments based on someone that has 45 years of history of working with victims. I suspect I probably have as much as more time as anybody that's on this hearing, working with victims of crimes in one form or another. And victims of crimes are not exceptions. They're people that have been victimized. And as a reminder, many times at the State House, when we were going through this, I brought up the issue of victims. I talked about it just about every committee I was in. I don't I don't have as the commissioner, I don't have to weigh in one way or the other about what you should change or what you shouldn't change. But this this is not about how people are notified. In fact, when we did the public hearings on the rule, the majority of the victims said they had no idea this legislation was passed. That's the feedback that we got. Now, how to fix it? I don't know. But I just want to make sure everybody understands that corrections is doing everything we can to implement this bill. And to pass this off as if it was some type of communication problem. This is about victims of crimes and what they live through every day. I've had several conversations with the winter bottom family. Senator Sears, you know this because, you know, they reached out for you when I told them I would reach out on behalf of the Department of Recreation. Those conversations were very difficult. It relives for me all the years that I've dealt with victims of crimes. I've been on the front end of knocking on people's door and notifying that their children are coming home as a result of a victim of a crime. And so what I don't want to get lost in this conversation is that there's exceptions to cases and so on and so forth. These aren't exception to cases. These are victims of crimes. And so I don't really have as the commissioner, we're working way too hard right now to implement Act 148. And we'll do whatever the legislature directs us to do. But I do want people to understand that we're doing everything we can to implement the legislation. Now the first notification on the public hearing for the emergency rule that Representative Edmonds referred to, we could have done a little bit better and we changed it. And I actually went back and checked with victims myself personally, hey, was the second process better than the first process? And it was. And we could have done a little bit better. But I don't know how we're going to notify 7,000 victims without using some type of electronic notification system. And I guess maybe we could have figured out. But our victim advocates within corrections were working very closely. I got to tell you, my victim advocates were victimized as well because they take on the trauma that the victims take on. So I don't really have one way or the other to weigh in on what the solution here is. But to remind everybody again, what I talked about several times during the legislative session, we're not talking about exceptions and rules here. We're talking about victims. And so I'm more than happy to take questions, Senator. Thank you. Questions for Commissioner Baker? I have a question, Senator Representative Edmonds. So right now, we're in the process, DOC's in the process of promulgating the rules, you're putting together the permanent rules in terms of how the good time program will be carried out. Correct. And during that timeframe of putting together the rules, there is public comment that goes into that. Correct. What are you receiving from the victims community of public comment in terms of how the good time program should be structured? Is there an understanding from them that this is a process of putting together the good time program? It has to meet statute. But the rules are to carry out the program. Is there understanding on the victims arena that that's the level that the conversations occurring? Well, to answer that, Representative, I'll do the best I can, but I also know that Monica Weber and Dale Crocker are on. We're not, what we got for feedback were victims were very upset that and overall the victims had no idea of a legislation attack. So again, you know, we try to work through that. The first public hearing we had, I'll say it again, we worked on the second one and tried to be a little bit more sensitive to the victim's needs. But we didn't get what we pretty much got was number one, they didn't know the legislation passed. Number two, they were confused about what we were doing by having the public comment period because it was an emergency. It wasn't, you know, we're trying to move through the emergency rule to get to a permanent rule. And so they didn't really understand the emergency rule and what that was all about. That was number two. And number three, they, they, they were exactly in the same arena that the winter bottoms were in when you the letter that has been sent forward to the committee about, you know, again, having an understanding of how cases got resolved for their victims. And now, in their mind, it had been turned upside down. Our job in that rule hearing was not to get into a debate about how the process would work moving forward. It was the public comment about the emergency rule. And we took that public comment. And that's what we're representing. I hope that answered your question. Yes, thank you. Any other questions for commissioner You have a question, Senator Hooker. Commissioner, you're talking about 7,000 victims. It's a number I've taken off the top of my head. Okay, but 7,000 is the whole universe of victims. Is there as a subset of the AG had suggested exemptions for certain crimes? Do you have an idea of what that subset would be? Well, you know, I feel like as the commissioner corrections, you know, what my job is to run the system that takes people into our custody and do the programming and so on. You know, so as the commissioner, I'm not sure I should weigh in what those should be. But as someone that as I told you, worked with victims off and on for 45 years. I mean, just read the winter bottoms letter to give you a sense of where to start this conversation. You know, 15 years later, they're reliving the vicious murder of their daughter. And I'll say it again, these are not exceptions.  We know these are the big issues in the state, right? These are the things that victimize people the most.  And they're gonna have a reaction because they were victimized. But it's not the same situation as those those violent crimes. I don't know where you draw the line. And I I wasn't coming here today prepared to even talk about that. But I said what I had to say, because I think I needed to make sure folks understand what corrections as well, and implementing this legislation is I know you know it, but I need to know mine, folks. My conversations with Chris Fennell and then read and conversation reading letter from the winter bottoms and we've received some letters from other maybe as individuals or all the committee from other victims is and I I understand what you said about the notification. But as I started my conversation, trying to understand how the current system works and why this system whether we exempt certain populations or not, why this system is more transparent and much easier to understand for both the general public who owns the victims and the offender to be clear. Because the current system of reintegration, furlough and all the numbers that we're going to hear from David Tim Warner in a little while. You know, went to the failure of that system and now we need to make improvements on that. So I don't want to lose that that we threw out an unpredictable system. I hope you can understand that there may have been a number of we have a problem right now rather than a fixed system. And right now, rather than a fixed blame for the problem, we need to make solutions and right now, I don't have a firm recommendation from the attorney general who said he will provide us with something. But it's clear that this system is going to go forward because it will be in Boston with the legislature in January and pass something in time to stop what is supposed to take effect on you in the first. And I guess I'm I'm asking your reaction to that. Now, that complicates the life of Monica Dale and about a thousand corrections. I think I'll start and then certainly if Dall or or Monica want to weigh in on that comment, Senator. So I just did get a text just to put it in perspective, Senator Hooker, we have 15,000 victims in van because one crime can have multiple victims, right, 15,000. So looks on her. I think any changes at this point is going to complicate the work that's been going on since the fall. Pretty much full time to implement a team that's working on. You've you've been briefed on some of this last week, the work that's been going on. I think it's going to complicate it.  My my commissioner corrections side of me says that. Moving back to a, you know, we're trying to get out of these complicated systems that have been created over the years, right. And I think the trick and I think that General Donovan talked about this when we kicked us off. This is very complicated stuff that we do. And I would not want us to get back to the point where we're creating creating several levels again, like we had with furl, right. But I think we've got to make sure we're hearing what the victims are saying to us. So I don't know if they are or Monica are there. This remoteness and not being in the same room is difficult. I believe they're somewhere. Aaron, I think you're right. Like I think as a department, we just implement that the laws and rules that were required to pass through, just understand that. The way that the good time has is coming out. It was part of the savings that we're going to capture to do other things to help produce recidivism and things of that nature that create more victims. These are very difficult, you know, decision points to have. But every every the system that was passed is very straightforward and it captured a way to easily identify and track good times. We've always had these questions about corrections, math, because we'd had three or four different types of good time rules in the past. Just understand that every time there's a change or an exemption or a restriction, it's going to have an impact on the savings that were identified to be captured through justice reinvestment. And that's fine. Those are decision points that that the committee is going to have to weigh and make those decisions.  The more complex it is, the more open to legal issues that may come because we're we're working on multiple types of rules. Just the complexity can start increasing. And it does open the department. And I think Matt Valero kind of said it earlier, will tie us up with litigation if we don't do something right. And that's and that's the reality. That's what we ran into decades ago with the old good time where we had very complicated systems. But but one thing to just be mindful of if you do sit systems up that will have two different types of system. You'll need to to let us know how you want us to rectify that. For example, if someone if you want to say just for an example, anyone before January 1 of 2021 doesn't get good time. You make that rule. What happens when someone that's released on the old rules picks up a new charge? You should let us know how you want to us to apply good time moving forward. So those are the complexities that we start looking into and and without guidance or direction from the legislator, the department will try to interpret it. And then that also opens us up for more legal action because we may not interpret it the way. Matt Valerio will, for example. So that's just that it's very complicated, very emotional. You know, I said in one of the hearings, very difficult decisions that have to be made. Um, maybe we make I this is off the top of my head. Sometimes that's not a good thing to do publicly. But I'm curious as to some consideration that's DJ and the Attorney General's Office come up with a proposal, it may be that we're better off tightening a role for individuals who have been sentenced for certain crimes and making sure that victims' voices are heard in that whole process and that rather than undoing what might be more complex. So I mean, I think that's an alternative we need to look at. Because there you don't have to react right now, but I think that's another choice is to make sure victims are heard in the parole process. They're there. I mean, they're a thunderous. I think there is avenues in the parole system to allow for a victim comment. Also understand just because someone earns good time, the department doesn't have to release an offender that we feel is a risk or a threat to a victim or the public that. So, you know, Matt can play name hundreds of times. You've done that. So just because someone earns a good time, the only time we have to release someone is when they hit their maximum sentence. That's it. Anything before that, the departments they control and we do weigh in victim safety and community sentiment and public safety and these released decisions, just because someone is eligible for release doesn't mean we have to release them. You know, I've been I've been brought before some of your committees on a few times, having to explain why we have people pass their minimum. And that's one of the reasons that we have the authority and the responsibility, I believe, not to release offenders that we think pose a risk to the public. Senator Lyons, I think you had a question. Thank you. I do have a question. And I mean, there's so much here. This is I hear how, as the commissioner has said, the interim commissioner has said. For me, the commissioner, thank you for that, Senator, thank you. How very complicated it is. And I'm hearing so many different comments. But it seems to me that one of the fundamental issues here is communication. And we've heard as communication with the victims, advocates and the victims themselves. And we're also then and as Dale is talking, it becomes clear that if a victim didn't hear the information that you just provided, I would think that the information you provided would be extremely reassuring to victims. And I don't know whether that message has gotten out. And then at the same time, we're hearing, of course, the question about differential treatment pre adjudication or during adjudication through the state's attorney's offices. And I'm I guess my question is, will there be any attempt at having some consistency and some guidelines that would make consistent recommendations either at the prosecutorial level or later on guidance for folks who are making decisions about good time and and how that how that will all sugar off. I know the rules are one thing, but then after rules come process guide guidelines, guidance and so on. And so just that whole general area. Curious about. I'm going to ask Monica, I think that one of the data points that we're going to be supposed to be looking at, and I see David DeMores on around good time was looking at the inflation of sentencing to see that if sentencing increased based on good time, that did occur with reintegration, Frollo, and the way that that planned out as individuals kind of got six more months added onto their sentence and the vast majority of offenders didn't get it. So there is almost an inflation in the sense across the board. So I do believe that's one of the data points is the increase in sentencing. You know, I think if you look at it as, you know, a pure unemotional looking at good time, sentencing should not be impacted because it kind of defeats the purpose of the good time, if that makes sense. So if we're looking to reduce sentences by twenty five percent, that's roughly what it is seven days a month. But all of a sudden the sentences increased by twenty five percent. It kind of negates what good time was meant to provide as far as saving for the department and reallocate those resources. I don't know if that answered your question. And I don't know if Monica has a comment or Monica, do you want to comment? I see your hand is raised. Yeah, well, thank you, everyone. Monica Wieber, I'm the Administrative Services Director for the Department of Corrections. And I had raised my hand earlier just to sort of the day I think covered most of the comments that I wanted to make just related to you had asked a question, Senator, about, you know, complicating the system and how much how much work it might be for us. I thought it might be helpful for people to know, right? The emergency rule will go into effect on January 1st. And and as the commissioner said, we have the public comment here and for the emergency rule and then the one that was just a couple of weeks ago for the permanent rule, which had a lot of comments. And we are sorting through those comments. It's four hours of pretty intense comment that we will prepare and submit to Elkar following the rulemaking process. So, you know, that work will will continue as will the work that we're doing to implement and make sure that we can file the statute on January 1st, as the commissioner mentioned. And there is a lot of data that's being required also with Act 148 related to just ongoing monitoring and the success of the implementation. Overall, I have not seen a specific data point on this particular topic, though. And so we may need to go back and look at that. I know it came up a lot during the phase one of justice reinvestment related to or in good time and looking at sentencing. I know from my view of the of the data that that would not be something that the Department of Corrections could really undertake. And we'd really want to make sure that we had some support from the judiciary, maybe the Justice Center and really looking at sentencing and how sentencing has changed from pre and post good time implementation. I'm happy to answer any other questions. Are there any other questions or comments on this subject? I think we have anyone who was a witness as well. I just want to say thank you for that. The last set of comments because it is important to have data informed decisions. And I think that going about it, the way you're talking will help. Not easy. No, it would be helpful to me. And I imagine the other members of the committee, Brandon, if you were to send out a paragraph of where we're at paragraph or two of where we're at and in terms of current law, when it takes effect and so forth. So we better explain to people who ask us questions about this. Sure thing. I'll do that. Thank you. Also, representative Evans. I just want to reiterate what Senator Sears has been saying about the transparency of the system. And currently, we have a system of reintegration, furlough, different types of furloughs. And those decisions are really made more internally with DOC. And it only becomes available when a person reaches their minimum. And when a person reaches their minimum, it does not mean that they're going to be released. It means it's a review on the Department of Corrections side, and they do reach out at times to victims if they deem that the person could be released. I think we also have to remember that with earned good time and an inmate's not going to automatically receive those seven days per 30 days served, they have to earn it in that by law, they have to behave while they're incarcerated. And we've laid that out that a person, an inmate would not be adjudicated of major DRs. So there's some onus there to the inmate to have some responsibility, earn those earn good days. So it's not a given that an inmate is going to receive all the good time that they would be entitled to. It's going to be up to them to behave to earn it. And once they reach their minimum, does not mean that they will be released. There's a review process there. And I think we have to keep that in mind. And I know a lot of folks are watching us right now. And I just want folks to be to know that when a person does reach their minimum, it's not an automatic release. And with good time, it's more transparent than the current system in terms of knowing what's occurring when a person is incarcerated. So I don't want us to forget that. Thank you. Why don't we take a three minute break till 10 30 and then we'll pick up David DeMora and the next slide. Thank you very much. And we now have David DeMora from the Council of State Governments Justice Center. David made a presentation earlier the last week, earlier this week, which is to the last week to the working group of the Justice Reinvestment to Working Group. And I thought the numbers were startling and the slide presentation was something we should discuss here. And the numbers of people who are returned for violations from furlough probation and parole who have either mental health, substance abuse or both issues is the subject. So I'll let David kick it off. You may have to put the slides on the screen, which will mean that I can't see everybody. So please feel free to yell if you have a question. David, go ahead. Yes, I I I'll need for someone to give me permission to be able to share my screen. So whoever's control, whoever's the host. I believe you already have that. I made you the co-host when you entered. Hmm. Oh, let me make you the host. Maybe that's what it's not coming up that way. Yeah, now I can do it just a second. That should be working now. Everybody seeing that? Yes. Great. So good morning and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the committee. My name is David DeMora and as Senator Sears indicated, I work with the Council of State Governments Justice Center, where I am a senior policy advisor. I have been with the Justice Center for just about a decade now. Prior to that, I spent about 35, 36 years working in the field, if you will. My background is clinical in nature. However, my adult career has been at the intersection of criminal justice and mental health, working with a variety of folks who have committed crime, as well as folks who have been victimized with crime, particularly focusing on various areas of violent crime, including sexual violence, domestic violence and general violence, if you will. I'm going to talk this morning about the intersection of behavioral health issues and criminal justice and how that relates specifically to Vermont and some of the issues in Vermont. As I mentioned, I work with the Justice Center. We are a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that combines the power of a membership association that serves as state officials in all three branches of government with policy and research expertise to develop strategies that increase public safety and strengthen communities. We bring people together. We drive the criminal justice field forward with research. We build momentum for policy change. We provide expert assistance. Our goals are to break the cycle of incarceration, to advance health opportunity and equity, and to use data to improve safety and justice. What we utilize is what we call a data-driven approach to improve public safety, to reduce corrections and related criminal justice spending, and to reinvest savings in strategies that can decrease crime and reduce recidivism over time. The initiative is supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance, or BJA, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. I'm going to talk about one section of what we spoke about last week, which is specifically the Behavioral Health Report. A few introductory comments I'd like to make. The previous discussion was extremely important, and obviously determinations will be made in terms of how to best approach that. I would like to respectfully suggest that whatever the outcome of that is, that just focusing on that will not get you where you need to go, because we need to look at what happens to people, what happens to people on the inside, and most particularly, what happens to people once they are on the outside, what are we doing, and how are we being effective? That's one issue. The second theme that you'll hear as I talk is I'm going to talk about system issues. There's a whole lot of good people that are doing the best they can, and in many cases, doing very good work in Vermont. But I'm still going to talk about system issues. There is no system in Vermont that can't be improved. There is no system that can really say that they can't do anymore or any better. There is no system that can say it's just someone else's problem. The complexity of the people that are in the criminal justice system make them the problem, meaning the responsibility of multiple systems in terms of being able to positively impact them to improve their behavior and to increase public safety as well as victim safety. And so I will constantly be talking about the fact that there needs to be integrated responses and that every system can add to this in terms of improving the responses. I also want to be clear that in some ways, Vermont is a victim of its own success. Vermont has done wonderful things in terms of looking at criminal justice issues. You have done a tremendous job over the last decade, decade and a half, and everyone should receive major kudos for that. The downside of that is that what is left are the most complex individuals, the people that are in the criminal justice system, the people that are cycling through the system are easily the most complex individuals that as any system or a set of systems can deal with. And so it makes it more difficult and makes the thinking, if you will, a bit more difficult in terms of how do we become effective in responding to those folks? When we look at folks that are entering prison on a supervision violation from 2017 to 2019, what we found was that those folks were assessed as higher risk than the overall supervision population. Now, to be clear, risk is not the type of crime. Risk is the potential for somebody to be committing any new offense or to be failing on supervision. And the risk level was determined by the use of the community supervision tool. The community supervision tool is part of a risk and needs assessment suite that is called the Ohio risk assessment suite. And one of those tools is looking at folks in terms of community supervision, what are their risk levels? Which means what is the intensity that is needed to effectively supervise those folks? And what are the needs? Which means what are the kinds of things that we need to respond to? And when we look at this, what we see is that the folks that were returning were indeed assessed as having higher risk and needs than the overall supervision population. That makes sense, that one would want to look for that. That doesn't mean that we can be satisfied at the level of the violations, but it does make perfect sense that what you see are people who have greater risks and needs, having a higher difficulty, and in this case, a higher failure rate, than those folks who have lower risk and needs. Over 50% of folks entering prison on a supervision violation who are assessed using the prison intake tool report having a previous mental health diagnosis. The prison intake tool is another piece of the Ohio risk assessment suite. And so there are several tools in that suite that can be used and that can be used at different points during somebody's involvement in the criminal justice system. But what you see here is a significant number of people over half reported having a previous mental health diagnosis. That is incredibly significant and important when we talk about the issue of complexity and the issue of responses to those folks in the community. Almost 60% of folks that are entering prison for supervision violation show indications of a moderate or high substance use need. And this was determined, again, through either the PIT, the prison intake tool, or the community supervision tool, both of which have a set of questions that reach a rating. And if you reach a certain rating, then that would put you in a moderate or high bucket, if you will, in terms of what your substance use need is. And when we look at this, we see about 60%. Now, some of the 50% in the last slide and some of the 60% in this slide can be the same people or they can be unique individuals. In other words, some people have what's called a co-occurring disorder, which means that they have both a mental health and substance use need. What you see here in particular is a very high rate of individuals on furlough with a furlough violation in terms of having a high substance use need. And again, an important point, which we'll come back to in terms of why this is not working. Of the 903 people that were revoked or returned from probation or parole and were placed directly on furlough from 2017 to 2019, 51% were subsequently returned to incarceration or detention, so over half. And there were a variety of ways. Folks might have been on probation or parole. There would be a supervision violation. They might go direct to furlough. Then from furlough, they would end up being detained that 51% or as 49 would continue. And so over half ended up failing. Now almost half ended up continuing on community supervision. One of the things that we know is that when we look at people with more complex needs, they are more likely to be the ones who will fail if those needs are not met appropriately, whether that's inside a facility or whether that's in the community. And in this case, obviously, since we're talking about people that had a supervision violation, we're talking about whether or not needs can be met appropriately in the community without evidence-based supports on community supervision. Folks with mental health and substance use needs continue to cycle through the criminal justice system, regardless of the changes in legal status or increased surveillance. So whenever they get out, the likelihood of them coming back without effective intervention is quite significant. So what you have is this sort of cyclical process where people keep coming back. And there are valid reasons why, given the current state of what is available in the community, there are valid reasons why, whether it is a parole or probation officer or it's the parole board, why they determine that the best option for them is to go to furlough. The problem is it's using a hammer to fix a broken bone. It is not getting you what you need because what those folks need in terms of being successful isn't just closer supervision. That may be part of what they need, but they also need a variety of other services and specifically services that are related to mental health and substance use treatment. Act 148 directs the Agency of Human Services to work with us, CSG Justice Center staff, to report current behavioral health assessment, case planning and information sharing practices. Section 22 in particular directs the Agency of Human Services to provide the following information to the Justice Reinvestment Working Group by December 1, which is the current assessment and screening processes which includes how assessment results inform case planning for people who are incarcerated, planning to reenter the community or on probation. Existing behavioral health collaborative care coordination and case management protocols that serve the corrections population and challenges that exist in information sharing between service providers and the DOC, the Department of Correction. In fact, AHS with the support of our staff took a collaborative cost, excuse me, collaborative cross-system approach to gathering the information that's required in section 22. Now, in reality, while there has to be a report by December 1, which was yesterday, there will be ongoing information gathering that is going to be necessary. The amount of information, the amount of work is significant and so part of the initial report really relates to what else we need to be looking at in the coming weeks and months. And to be clear, when we talk about AHS or the Agency of Human Services, we're in particular talking about the Department of Corrections, the Department of Mental Health, alcohol and drug programs are ADAP and the Department for Children and Families or DCF. And there are obviously other important stakeholders which include the parole board and the courts who also need behavioral health information to make critical decisions as an individual moves through the criminal justice system. People with behavioral health needs that are in the criminal justice system really require an access or often require an access to an array of providers and services. And they don't all need all of the different services, but we do know again, based on the data that a very significant number of people who are currently involved in the justice system need access to substance use disorder treatment, need access to mental health treatment, have transportation issues. Many, many have housing issues and many need recovery support services just to use those. And of course, folks who have higher what's called criminogenic need or what sometimes is called criminal thinking also need a correctional programming which is a cognitive programming specifically designed to help folks modify their thinking to a more pro-social way, to ways that are appropriate to live in the community as opposed to ways that turn folks more toward criminal activity. As people in the criminal justice system with behavioral health needs are identified, states need to do more to ensure access to the range of treatment and services necessary to adequately address those needs. And to be clear, this is an issue that is true across the country. At this point in my life, I've worked in 49 of the 50 states and these issues are true in many of the states. And in fact, overwhelmingly, I would argue probably almost all of the states. The difference for Vermont is that in some ways it's a bit of an advantage for you because you've done such a good job weeding out, if you will, other individuals. The downside of that is you have the most complex folks left. The upside of that is that it actually allows you to focus clearly on that subset of individuals. You are not focusing with the large variety of individuals that other state correctional systems may be dealing with because they have not done the work that Vermont has done over the last decade and a half. In Vermont, what this means is that a person on furlough, probation or parole may interact with several different providers across departments under AHS. And so that individual in the middle that you can see they may be on supervision. They may have behavioral health needs. They could just be on supervision, but in many cases they also have behavioral health needs. They may have mental health or substance use treatment that they need to access. They may have a family service needs because of children and other family issues that they also need to be involved with. And so you have multiple departments, if you will, that somebody may be involved with when they are on community supervision. And when you think about community supervision, really good community supervision is essentially case management that looks at how to assure a collaborative response and how to assure that there are parameters set. Obviously there's the issue of community safety, but a good community supervision isn't just watching somebody. Good community supervision is assuring that those individuals get what they need in order to be successful. But a community supervisor can only do that to the degree that those things exist or to the degree that they are granted access to what does exist. And when I say access, I mean information and I mean referral ability. People need to be screened for mental health and substance use needs at all stages of the criminal justice system, starting at the very beginning in terms of emergency responses and law enforcement, certainly the courts, jails and prisons, as well as probation and parole. And for those folks who do screen positive in terms of a mental health or substance use need, at that point then they will need to be assessed by a trained clinician who can reach a diagnosis. Data must be collected, recorded and shared and the end share is a particularly important piece of that. The first issue is of course, it does need to be collected and systems need to be in place to do that.  To be clear, there are people who screen positive who when there is a full assessment, there's a determination that they may not have some of those needs. Screens are purposely overly sensitive because you don't want to miss anybody. So you will lose, if you will, to be a percentage of individuals who may screen positive but who upon further assessment, there is a determination that their needs are not as great as the initial screening may have suggested. Vermont again, to its credit, has most assessment screening processes in place for identifying substance use and mental health needs. As folks move through the criminal justice system, for those folks that are detained, there's a substance use screener, a mental health screener. For sentence, there's the screeners as well as follow-up clinical assessment as appropriate. For a law and parole, you see the same probation, you see substance use screener, follow-up clinical assessment. One thing that we don't see in terms of probation is a mental health screener up front for those people going directly to probation. And one of our recommendations is indeed that that needs to be added to the work and that that is information that indeed the court should have as they are making their decisions. And if I can get back to my screen is not paying attention to me, there we go. There are some challenges that exist to ensuring assessment and screening results inform case planning as well as possible. Now, according to DOC policy, case plans for folks on community supervision are informed or will be informed by behavioral health information that's identified by screeners and or assessments. However, case plans are not always informed by the behavioral health needs of the client due to resource constraints, due to court order stipulations that may not match what the actual needs are of that individual in part because the court may have not had that information and when it was making those decisions or because of limited service availability particularly for those under supervision who may be in an area where that particular type of programming doesn't exist or if the programming exists that the programming doesn't necessarily have the best information to understand how to best respond to people in the criminal justice system. And we'll come back to that. Supervision staff have access to behavioral health information within the reentry case plans to understand the behavioral health needs of folks moving from incarceration to supervision. Case plans for people who don't receive MA team medication-assisted treatment or who are not identified as having SMI or serious mental illness may not always reflect other types of behavioral health needs. Good news, doing a really good job for folks who need medication-assisted treatment, doing a really good job both inside and in the community for people who have serious mental illness issues SMI category, if you will. But for those folks who may not reach that level of severity it's not as solid, it's not as good in terms of there being responses to those individuals. And one of the problems with that is that while it may not reach that high level in terms of those particular substance use or mental health needs, those lesser but still significant needs, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, et cetera, et cetera, get in the way of the effective programming for those individuals. So while it may not be a direct cause of their failure it actually impacts the other kinds of processes that can make them successful and increases the potential for their failure. Assessment and screening results are not consistently shared between the Department of Correction, meaning healthcare contractor, DOC facility, ranchery case managers and supervision officers and the community-based providers and in reverse I might add from providers to DOC to inform case management and care coordination. In other words, there are information sharing challenges that happen between the various agencies, both the agencies within the Agency of Human Services, the HHS in between those agencies and community providers. I mentioned that good supervision is essentially being a lead case planner and this is a visual that talks about that or shows that. In this case, the lead case planner for individuals who are in the criminal justice system are indeed the people that are the community supervisors, the community supervision agency and they have a lot on their shoulders. When you look at all of these potential areas that there may be needs for in terms of their clients this is a lot, right? You have of course just the participant to themselves, you have their support system, you might have children's service agencies, you may have medical issues, substance use treatment, mental illness treatment provider, of course the court's correctional facility because there's that relationship, vocational and educational possibly providers, specialized housing provider possibly and peer support. So a lot for a community supervisor to manage and for every one of those blocks in the circle where there's a hole, it makes that job of management and success more difficult for those individuals who have high needs. Now Ramon does have treatment case planning policies in place but people are inconsistently connected to community-based services. There's a number of reasons for that. There are challenges to sharing the relevant behavioral health information and coordinating the care between DOC and community-based providers which can negatively impact overall case planning and subsequent treatment and programming referrals and to be clear that the agencies or the departments within AHS are working on this and are looking at how to have appropriate information sharing, how to make sure that information sharing protocols meet all legal requirements obviously and that the information that is shared is the appropriate information. Not everything needs to be shared but there is relevant information that can really help people succeed and the absence of that sharing increases their failure. Some of the DOC supervision officers do have very strong relationships with local services and they leverage those connections to help clients connect with the available services. It's not consistent however across the state and it results in geographic variations and in care coordination. And by the way that consistency to be clear then inconsistency is for different reasons in different places. This is not all on DOC by any means. In some places it may have to do with how a local office operates. In other cases it has to do with how the local community services operate in their view. In other cases it's because it just does not exist and so therefore there isn't anything to be able to leverage. Due to funding limitations and challenges in care coordination, folks with mental health needs who don't rise to the level of serious mental illness tend to be under connected to the continuum of care that's offered by the designated agencies for mental health in the community. For people with co-occurring disorders on medication assisted treatment there's often a lack of coordination for mental health treatment across the providers and supervision. And again, part of my theme here is that these are complex needs, complex individuals. That's who you have left. You need to have a complex integrated set of responses. It can't be on the shoulders of any one particular agency if you will. Person's behavioral health information should move with them through the criminal justice system so that it can inform ongoing case planning and decision making. Starting at the court disposition, key information sharing partners there, of course, would be the Department of Corrections as well as the courts. Institutional programming, now you're looking at the Department of Correction and their healthcare contractor, of course. Moving to reentry, we're talking about the case managers, the supervision officers, the community based service providers and you can see the arrows talking about or sort of showing the need for that information flowing back and forth. Again, the appropriate information flowing back and forth. Community supervision, the supervision officers and information between them and the community based service providers, for violations and revocation decisions between the supervision officers, the parole board of the courts, community based service providers. Again, all of those folks need to be involved. And then for parole, of course, the relationship and the information sharing between supervision officers and parole board. I have, over the course of my multiple visits last year, had the opportunity to observe many of these different intercepts in the system and saw really some very excellent kinds of things occurring, but it is inconsistent. And I saw situations where the parole board didn't necessarily have information that they should have had in terms of being able to make decisions. I saw situations where community supervision officer was doing an incredible job, but was unable to get information from the community service based provider. I saw situations where the community based service providers were doing an incredible job, but were feeling frustrated because there wasn't the communication that they wanted to be happening between themselves and the supervising officers. So I saw different kinds of things. And so there are those challenges. And again, I don't want to over, I want to make sure that I'm continuing to say that there are many good things that are going on, but everybody can always do better. And so my job when I was looking at these things was to look at the challenges, to look at where those holes were. And that's what I'm doing, but I don't want to suggest that there are not many good things occurring because there really are. Information sharing ensures that a person receives the type and level of intervention necessary for increasing supervision success and reducing the likelihood of reincarceration. That information when it's shared can support collaborative case management and care coordination. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about assessment screening results, past treatment and programming, current treatment and programming, future recommended treatment and programming. And all of those would be after the end of the programming there's always a comma which would be as necessary or as needed. Medications if applicable, familial and social supports, strengths and challenges. And strengths is very important. We do tend to get stuck often on what the challenges or risk factors are of an individual. Sometimes we don't pay attention to what are the strengths that they have that can be built on. And responsibility factors. And responsibility factors are very simply what are the factors that could get in the way of this person doing better or what are the factors that will help this person do better. And they include things like, responsibility factors include things like if there are mental health needs that get in the way of them doing better, if there are substance use needs, if there are, for example, difficulties in terms of reading or education, if there are difficulties in terms of being able to apply for a job or knowing how to follow the rules to be able to keep a job. And then there are age differences and gender differences and cultural differences. So responsibility factors can be a fairly broad range of factors that if we don't pay attention to them and we assume they don't matter, we respond to everybody in the same way. And then when they fail, we say it's their fault as opposed to looking at whether or not our response was the appropriate matched response to what the needs were. But behavioral health information sharing between DOC, community-based providers and the parole board is inconsistent across the state. Current information sharing between supervision officers and community providers is generally based on relationship rather than an overall established process or policy. So it varies widely across the state. And to be clear, that policy that we need to think about is a policy that is not, this is not specifically the Department of Corrections policy, this has to be a policy that is across the various components. Right now, AHS does not have an umbrella information sharing policy that governs how its department share information, but they are working and they are looking at that. Sharing that information to be able to support people with behavioral health needs in the criminal justice system that need to be served by more than one department is extremely important and AHS understands that. And indeed, as I mentioned earlier, has a working group looking at how can this be accomplished? What are the best ways to do this? There are also inconsistencies, I mentioned in the type of information shared between supervision officers and community providers and in reverse to support case planning and case coordination. Again, as I said, in all of these cases, we are talking about system issues and system solutions, while many folks in all of the different agencies and departments have taken it on themselves to try to figure out how to do this, it puts everything on their shoulders and to be successful, there needs to be a more coherent and collaborative policy response that crosses over across the state, cross departments and across the state. For people who are sent in straight to probation, there's less behavioral health assessment and screening information available to inform supervision conditions than for people transitioning to furlough or parole, excuse me. As a result, judges often don't have the necessary information to ensure that the conditions of supervision address the criminogenic and behavioral health needs, particularly for those folks that are sentenced directly to felony supervision. Minimum information that a judge should have to inform supervision conditions include substance use screening results, mental health screening results, criminogenic risk and need screening or assessment results and criminal history. And again, depending on which hearing I was sitting in in which part of the state, in some cases, most of that information existed. In no cases did it all exist. And in some cases, very little existed. And to be fair, there were also different opinions on the part of judicial as to what they wanted. But again, I would argue that that's another statewide systemic discussion to be happening in terms of really what is the information we should be assured that a judge always has. And ultimately, he or she will decide what to do with that, of course. But how do we make a determination that this is what should always be on the judge's desk when he or she ultimately is going to be making the decisions? Some jurisdictions across the country have expanded the use of assessments to inform the setting of supervision conditions. Colorado is doing probation investigations for all misdemeanor. And most felony cases, they're referred for probation investigation that includes risk and needs assessment results and recommendations for supervision conditions. Arizona has put together a really nice system of using a preset, what they call a pre-sentencing report. It's for all felony cases are required to receive a short pre-sentencing report that includes risk and needs assessment results and relevant social history. And it's at this point that I need to make the important point that the suggestion is not that everybody gets a full PSI or pre-sentence investigation, the department couldn't possibly manage that in terms of what that would take for time and resources. But what we are suggesting is that there can be some improvement in the current assessment process to assure that the information on the prior slide does get to the judges. And so something that is fairly short and not extremely time takes an extreme amount of time, forgive me, because there is not that time available in many cases. And in addition to that, even if the court were willing to give that time, the amount of resources that would take for the department make it completely unrealistic. Vermont faces several challenges to improving information sharing and care coordination. There are real and perceived limitations related to federal privacy laws and regulations, as I mentioned earlier, and it includes HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, as well as 42 CFR Part 2. Having said that, generally what I have found across the country and have found in some discussions in Vermont is that there are more perceived limitations than real. And so again, kudos to AHS for looking at this issue and trying to make some of the best determinations they can about how to improve information sharing and to do so within the appropriate laws. There is inconsistent knowledge among the DOC staff and the parole board staff and other criminal or parole members rather, and other criminal justice stakeholders regarding evidence-based practices and serving people with substance use and mental health needs. And it's all over the place. There are people with tremendous amounts of knowledge and information and there are folks that have less. This is not a problem about a person. This is an issue of system training and assuring a baseline amount of knowledge among all the relevant stakeholders. Inconsistent knowledge among community-based providers also exists in terms of serving people in the criminal justice system. And we see this problem a lot in community-based providers across the country. Too often they want folks to be further along than they are in order to provide treatment or they terminate them perhaps more quickly than the research would suggest they should, given where that person is given the particular issues they are facing in terms of criminal justice. Again, this is not a knock on providers. This is an issue of needing a baseline amount of appropriate information and training across all of the system actors that are involved because of the complexity of the people you have in the system. There's a lack of resources as well to address geographic disparities in behavioral health services. And there's a lack of resources right now to increase information sharing in order to inform supervision conditions pre-sentencing. So during phase one, we considered a number of policy options that could be revisited. And I'm mentioning these just so you know kind of where we were starting about this. One is to use validated behavioral health screening tools for all folks who are sentenced to incarceration for any period of time and to add mental health screening questions to the supervision level assessment tool for people that are going straight to probation. To standardize behavioral health and reentry information policy and procedures between DOC contracted healthcare staff, case managers, reentry officers, Hudson spokes, designated mental health agencies and other community providers and to develop care coordination case management protocols for the executive agencies that serve people with behavioral health needs who are under DOC custody. And for increasing information sharing policy option, for felony probation cases, explore how risk assessment and behavioral health information can be efficiently provided to judges before sentencing to better inform supervision conditions. And so what that all came down to is in terms of our suggesting that there are several critical areas for investment that are remaining in order to support the justice reinvestment outcomes. We basically at this point are recommending this that there'd be the establishment of a protected, dedicated fund to support evidence-based programs and services that reduce recidivism and improve behavioral health among criminal justice populations. And to be clear when we say behavioral health, we mean both mental health and substance use. And so given that we're suggesting, first of all, that there be the state maintenance investments in domestic violence intervention programming. Earlier people were talking about the issue of domestic violence. Much of the violence in Vermont is domestic violence. And simply holding those folks will not lower your domestic violence. There needs to be effective responses to the individuals that are committing such behavior. And so we are recommending that some money be put toward the continued support for the Vermont Council on Domestic Violence statewide intervention programming. And in fact, that the programming over time needs to be expanded. And again, folks are working on this, but that would be expanded because domestic violence offenders are not one type of offender. They are several types of different, several different types of offenders. And so there needs to be a set of different responses depending on which particular type of offender we're talking about. We also recommend that some of that money be put in because there needs to be a reliance on fee for service funding. That's not to say that somebody who's committed in offense shouldn't have some fiscal responsibility or should have none at all, but that in reality, programming cannot get to where it needs to go if you're going to rely on fee for service. It just will not happen. You cannot raise that amount of money through that process. Secondly, we're recommending several hundred thousand dollars to target gaps in behavioral health services, both expanding mental health services for the non-SMI population who still have significant needs and for people with call occurring disorders with both mental health and substance use needs, as well as explore providing additional counseling services for people who are receiving medication assisted treatment. And then the third bucket, if you will, the third suggestion is to put some money toward increasing data-driven decision-making. Again, I heard some of this this morning. There has to be an improvement in the ability to collect, analyze, get out, meaning extract and share data. And then finally, our recommendation in terms of this initial set of recommendations, if you will, is really strengthening transitional housing options and efficacy. And this is complicated because we know that there's not a lot of extra housing in Vermont, but there's a couple of things that go on right now. Even much of the housing that exists doesn't actually match the needs of the folks that you have. So part of what needs to happen is some training to increase provider's adherence to best practices. There needs to be an improvement in what it is that is required of folks that are providing housing. And again, this is not an issue of bad folks. This is an issue of we need to match what we have available to what the needs are of the people that we are serving in order to increase their potential for success and to improve community safety. And so part of that is suggesting creating a funding pool to decrease the risk for those landlords who are participating and to explore assessment tools that do exist currently to better identify housing needs for the corrections population. So that is what I presented last week to the oversight group. And these are our initial recommendations in terms of investment or reinvestment. And I will now unshare my screen and give it back to Senator Sears. Thank you very much, David. That's an exhaustive report and I'm sure there's a lot of questions. But in order to get to hear from everyone we've got on the list for today, I'm gonna try to move forward here. But if there are urgent questions or something that you need clarification on, feel free right now. Senator Alliance, you're muted. No, I'm not. Thank you. Listen, this is terrific. I think you've really identified so many needs within the system, not simply within the system for behavioral health needs in our corrections, in the area of corrections or for those who are going out on parole. But you have also connected in with our healthcare system overall and some of the work that we're trying to do with mental health patients, whether or not they are being adjudicated or in corrections or being released. So everything from the all payer model fee for service to an integrated care coordination system. And the one highlight I think that is absolutely critical that I'm not sure has came out. And that is as we're trying to share information in our state, particularly with our designated agencies between and among and then with our state agencies, the IT systems are not consistent. They're different and the ability to collect data and to share data is just not there. So one of the things that we talk about in our Health and Welfare Committee is how do we make a seamless care coordination system and it's regardless of who it's for. But in this case, I think absolutely critical and that does include some of the community services for our DAs in particular. But so there's a lot more there but I really wanted to say that thank you and you have certainly identified some weak points and I think it's gonna be our job as we listen to folks to structure some of the solutions. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Others, I again, thank you David for the Senator Hooker. Just curious to know, Mr. Di Amaro, do you have like best practices from other states as far as sharing? Yes, in fact, and we've shared some of that information no pun intended, but we've shared some of that information with the folks that we're working with. But there are a number of states, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, where I live that have developed appropriate mechanisms. Obviously you also have to adjust for state statutes but it is a doable process. So it doesn't look exactly the same in every state and there have to be protections in place. I wanna be really clear about that but there are ways to share appropriate information and specifically for those people who are on supervision. When people are on criminal justice supervision, the authority of the supervising officer to work with that person and have them sign the appropriate information sharing releases, et cetera is significant, it's different than the person who's just generally in the community who's not under criminal justice supervision. Thank you. Thank you, David. I just one comment, David, and I think it was back on page 17, talk a little bit about folks who don't rise to the SMI level, who are in corrections, who are not as well connected to designated agencies as others. Does that have to do with recognition of a problem or the resistance to treatment that we frequently see with corrections populations or is it the designated agencies? Actually it's neither and I'm so glad you asked because I don't want to infer the wrong thing. It has to do with hard decisions being made given what the resources are that are available. And so what happens is that you rightly so will end up targeting what are the most serious or the highest need individual. And that's a right decision to make when you have no choice. The problem is, is that being in that position then causes those folks that you have no choice but to not respond to it in the same way fail at a higher level, not because of the particular issue they have by itself, but because of the impact that issue has on all the other behavior change components that you're trying to put in place. Thank you. Let's hope. Representative Edmonds and then we'll. So I have a question. It's on page 20 which really dealt with the interagency collaboration and information sharing where you emphasize that you really need a community supervisor to really help coordinate all of that within the case. You had the circle there with the least lead case planner which is a community position agency. Do we have that? Did you see evidence that we have a community supervisor? Or a community supervisor? And who would that be? What entity would that be? Thank you. You've just shown me that we need to add a word to that slide to make it clearer because when we say community supervisor what we mean is the probation or parole officer. The probation or parole officer is the community supervisor. They own or should own the case because it's their client, their probation or parolee and they are the people who because that person is under their supervision in the community have a responsibility to be coordinating those different components. But again, that's a lot on one shoulder and you can only coordinate what exists and you can only coordinate those people that will respond to you. They don't have the ability to tell other people they must. But when somebody is on community supervision that lead person has to be the community supervisor because they have that dual role of public safety and client success. And it is a dual role that they always have to have. So they're the ones that would be coordinating all the community services that would be needed for the person under supervision in the community. Are you finding? Go ahead, I'm sorry. Are you finding the situations where some of the community providers do not wanna participate because it's a corrections person? Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's inconsistent across the state and I saw some really incredible things. I saw one situation where that officer's connection with the housing folks and the mental health folks and the substance use folks and what was happening around this complex case with this particular client was amazing. And I saw several of those. And then I saw others where officers were struggling because either they couldn't get the response from the persons that they wanted to in the community or it simply did not exist. And so it wasn't that they weren't getting and they weren't getting it because nobody was trying to be difficult. They weren't getting it because there was nothing there to get. And I'm wondering for those situations where the community support entities did not participate they existed but didn't wanna participate is because the person was under corrections and it was the connection we had to deal with an offender. I think it's complicated and I don't wanna put, I don't, it's not fair to put it on any agency. My experience broadly with community mental health broadly across the country is that many of those agencies don't realize that a large majority of their clients have actually been justice involved. They may not be at that very moment but that they actually are already treating the population. And so they end up with this false dichotomy between the person who was justice involved and now on their own versus the person who's justice involved and connected. That's one. And then the second issue is that and again I'm speaking generally I'm not picking on a particular agency. The second issue that I see is that the attitudes of people who are under criminal justice supervision sometimes are not as involved and motivated as we would like them to be. And so what happens in those instances is that they sort of get terminated or not involved with because they're not motivated. My argument as a clinician my argument is that part of our job is to figure out how to get those individuals motivated that you meet them where they're at and you figure out how to pull them in. And again, you have folks that do that very well in the state but it's inconsistent. And one of our recommendations that's not a fiscal piece but is something we can help with is some cross system training between community providers, Department of Correction folks, other AHS departments, et cetera to really create this baseline construct and understanding of this is the population we're dealing with. This is how we all fit in this together. And did you find any situations where a person could not access services from a community provider because of lack of insurance? Health insurance or being able to pay? I don't have an answer for that. I did not but we have somebody else who is doing a broader scope of the community agencies and I'm more than happy to check with Sarah and get that information if that exists and forward that to you and let you know the answer to that. I don't have that information. Thank you. Muted. You're muted. I am muted. Which is probably better than not being muted. Next is Kelly Docherty and Anthony Fondes who are with the Department of Health Alcohol Alcohol and Substance Abuse Programs. And I wanna thank both of you for all your work during the COVID situation. Kelly particularly have been drawn in different positions in different directions for the last, almost seems like a year. Close enough. Thank you. Certainly have. I'm muted. Kelly, you or Anthony wanna comment on the report? Sure. You know, I think that overall and we certainly appreciate the kudos on the work that we're doing with people with MAT but recognize that's only a subset of the folks that we're working with. Who have substance use issues. And I think that overall our access to outpatient treatment for folks for substance use treatment is pretty good. You know, I think that we enjoy more success in getting people into substance use treatment than perhaps on the mental health only side. But we certainly, you know, continue to have work to do and we're actually taking a serious look at our treatment system right now and are planning sort of like a system reform over the next couple of years. One of the goals of which is to improve access and coordination of care. One of the things that I'd like to highlight just in terms of the information sharing is that, you know, as you all know it really is dependent on the person consenting to have their information shared. And I think that that can sometimes get in the way people may be fearful of sharing information because of any potential repercussions that could happen based on what's happening for them and in their substance use treatment or perhaps relapse. So just something to keep in mind that, you know it's a voluntary information sharing and I have to consent to that. And I'll pivot to Tony and see if he has more that he'd like to share from his perspective as one of our clinical leads. So thank you everybody, thank you for having us. I actually just wanted to say thank you to David and the folks from the council of state government for their inclusiveness in the development of this and really looking at helping us identify what were the systems gaps. I think we and Senator Sears, you'll remember this, Ms. Hammond, you'll remember this. We had, I think in years gone by where we had spent a lot of time doing cross training between the Department of Corrections and our outpatient treatment providers particularly back in the late 2009, 10, 11, 12 range. And I think that that was very successful at the time but as we know we have a workforce that turns over quickly. And so I think that the figuring out both how do we do cross training so that we recognize kind of what we know and what we don't know about folks that work in the criminal justice system so that we can come up with a better operational format. And then how do we also maintain that as clinicians move, people change, roles change so that we actually end up with a criminal justice capable workforce that's sustained. And I'm gonna start off with one question for both of you. Many of the corrections clients that you're working with are not as motivated as others may be. And how does that impact the ability of the community provider to provide the services? I know back in the day I used to force kids to go to treatment just assuming that at least they were sitting there, they might get something. I wonder if you could comment on that because that is a problem with many of the population. Yeah, I think that I'll start and then Tony can chime in. But one thing we know about substance use treatment is that a person has to be sort of ready and willing to fully engage in treatment in order for it to be successful. So as much as we would like to mandate treatment and force people to go to treatment, it's their success in treatment is really dependent on where they are in the cycle of their disease and how ready they are to receive that treatment and be open to it. So that's certainly a challenge. Yeah, I would say much the same way as David described it. I think it's figuring out what are the appropriate strategies for some people, the strategy really is to develop a treatment team between the treatment provider and the Department of Corrections personnel who can actually then help, I guess I'd call it positively coerced or professionally coerced folks into a positive engagement, knowing that treatment for many, particularly in the criminal justice system or substance use in general is very difficult. Most of these folks have a history of trauma, they don't necessarily wanna disclose it. In some ways it's easier to not disclose those things, but in order to kind of move forward over time, having that kind of positive pressure to keep them engaged and also to be able to modulate the treatment to where it becomes appropriate and really kind of expect and accept what people can do based on the period of time they're in and the phase of both their substance illness but also the phase of just their general life availability as it is. No struggle, it's a struggle in some places less so because of the working relationships between the Department of Corrections and our providers and in other places, more of a struggle because there is an anima and animas where they don't necessarily see themselves all necessarily on the same team. Other questions for Kelly or Tony? Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having us and thank you to David and the team for all of your work, it's really enlightening. Commissioner Baker, you're next, but you also have a team of senior probation officers, probation and parole officers. Will this then however you wanna handle this discussion? Yeah, I think just, I'm just gonna make a couple of comments, Senator, and I'm gonna let the two senior probation and parole officers talk about their experience. First of all, I wanna echo what everybody else said. David and the folks from CSG have been incredible in giving us guidance at Corrections and we appreciate that. And David sets this conversation up very well in the sense of that's the statistical data about the returns and the number of folks that have underlying substance abuse problems and or mental health issues that may not, especially the folks that don't rise to that level of a major mental health issue. And in particular, when we take someone into the system that doesn't go to jail, but enters the system directly in the probation. And I think that that's a place where we can catch on a screening situation folks that we may be able to get help to to prevent them from bouncing around inside the system for a period of time. So the last thing I'll say is to the committee is that we've been talking about this for a while and it's not a reflection on anybody or anything but it goes directly to what David was saying. Every system needs, if we're gonna be successful at having a more robust community-based correctional system, every system that supports those people we supervise including ourselves need to take a look at the areas we can improve on to have that wraparound type of service that we need to prevent people from going back into jail or in the case where they haven't been to jail but they're being supervised on probation that they don't end up getting trapped in the system, running around and not have the kind of outcomes that we all wanna have. So with that said, I'd like to not even, we're gonna skip over to Hal because as the commissioner I have the ability to do that. I wanna introduce two of what I consider to be outstanding for my department of corrections employees, senior probation officers and it's first of all, senior probation officer, Alina White, who's in the Springfield office and then Kathy Espinforiske who is in the Hartford office and I'd like to introduce them and let them talk to you a little bit about their reaction and their experience on the ground because I can tell you the stories but these are folks that lay in bed at night worrying about the clients that we supervise that we're not getting the services they need and so with that, I'm gonna pass it on to Leona and Kathy and I appreciate the work they do every day. Thank you, thank you commissioner. Leona and Kathy, nice to have you with us today. Thank you. Please, I'm sure you have some things that you wanna let us know and feel free. Okay, Kathy, do you want to start? Sure. Okay. I think it's great to follow up on the report that Mr. DeMotto made because I mean, so much of that really rang true with my experiences and I guess just to start that these are really complicated cases and as the commissioner mentioned, when somebody comes into our system from perhaps probation, we have very little information to work with and we can only supervise the conditions that we have so mental health needs usually aren't recognized in the court and they can be such a driving force of what that person needs to be successful. So the idea of being able to have assessment on that front end is very appealing. I think that that would cut through and help us get people started out on the right foot instead of having them flounder and that eventually we kind of catch on to what's happening with them and try and get them the services that they need. But on probation, if they don't come in with conditions that allow us to require those kind of services we're still floundering a bit with that. And just the importance of all of our agencies working together, I don't know how much to say upfront because I have a couple of cases that do keep me up at night and it's very hard to work with people when you see how much pain they're in and that you can't get the help that they need getting them hooked up with that. And I think of, I supervise a lot of women and a lot of those folks have a lot of underlying trauma and it really interferes with them being able to get to move forward. And in that they end up sometimes reoffending, sometimes being returned to jail. And it just is, it's hard to keep them on track and not make them a victim to our system and get stuck in jail or picking up new charges. I have a woman who I've supervised since she was 19, she's 25 now and low level crimes. She started on probation, she went to furlough, she's gone back and forth jail numerous times. She's designated SFI when she's in the facility and in the community, she does receive CRT services, community rehabilitation treatment, which offers a lot. And one of the things that occurs to me is I wish that there was a way to kind of coordinate those two designations so that if somebody, whether somebody's in the facility or in the community, they can have continuity of care and the intensive services that they need. Understanding that it's an expensive undertaking, especially in the community, the woman that I supervise that CRT eligible has two case managers, her psychiatrist, all of the supervisors in our community mental health office are involved in her case. And even at that level, with that many of us, it's hard to keep her on track. Managing her medicine is something she doesn't do well and that's hard to get oversight of that issue, which I think applies to a lot of people that are in the community. And so that's also something that I just kind of wanted to make a plug for. So when she goes back to jail, the community involvement stops and then she often decompensates in jail. So it's a tough decision to put her back. The decision, one of the things we haven't talked a lot about is just the community safety aspect of things and that for people who have mental health issues, a lot of times we get calls in our office from concerned neighbors, family members, wanting us to do something about the situation if somebody's decompensating or in a manic phase. And that's where it's hard sometimes to have to dry in the mental health folks because people see us as the ones that are immediately available to respond. And I guess that one other thing and get Leona to weigh in on these issues, but the criteria and process of getting someone into a mental health hospital is really difficult. I can tell you, I mean, I can't even count how many times I've sat with this particular individual in an emergency room trying to get her processed and evaluated for residential hospitalization and the process takes a long time. She doesn't do well sitting in an emergency room. She's flagged at every hospital in our area and as soon as she walks in, they usually call law enforcement, which then triggers her and causes more of her getting more out of control and I've seen times where she's gone and sat there in the emergency room waiting for evaluation to have her evaluated and then be told to go home and they'll call her to say whether they have a better or not. And in that process, it's traumatizing to her. I think it's traumatizing to our staff and there have been times where she's gotten more charges trying to go through that process because she doesn't respond well when the police come. So that's another complicating issue. Fiona, do you want to chime in? I would, and before you do, I just want to hope that Morning Fox and Karen Barber from the Department of Mental Health are with us today and hopefully they can comment on that type of experience and how we can move forward and improve those situations when they're up for discussion. Thank you for raising that, thank you for being here and thank you for raising that issue. We all have it, happy to have you. It's nice to be here, thank you. Representative Evans was excited that somebody from Springfield was actually here. Yes. She is very, very good. Thank you. So one of the main things, when I saw the title of what this hearing, this portion of the committee hearing would be about mental health and substance abuse and how that affects people being re-incarcerated. It is one of our biggest driving forces of why a lot of our people who are on furlough, on probation, on parole end up back in jail. I want to emphasize just in my office in the Springfield probation office, the jail is the last resort. It's the last resort of saying we have nothing left in the community for this person who is suffering through a mental health crisis that's resulted in new charges, is suffering through a substance abuse crisis that has resulted in new charges or is using so badly they're going to die. And so we're at this point of a lockstep of, I was so excited about that report by Mr. Damora about all the things that the plan, I like that kind of blueprint plan. That's great because what we're missing right now in Vermont is long-term treatment. We have people who have horrible substance use disorders. They've been using for 20 years. They go to treatment, Valley Vista, or they go to Serenity House and they stay there for two weeks and then they get released and we're sort of like, I don't know if I can make the correlation between like a two week vacation. That first week is just trying to get decompressed from working. And then that last week is like, okay, I'm going to enjoy the vacation now. This is sort of the same thing with treatment. Two weeks is just not enough for people who have been abusing drugs for over 20 years or for 10 years or however long. If they are suffering through that addiction, a two week treatment is just not long, it's not enough. But I think we've talked about that before, but the long-term treatment is one of my key things for a lot of people on my caseload. And then talking about effective crisis intervention where we have a service in our community but they're spread thin. And sometimes we just, we know when we go for crisis intervention that person's going to be sent back home and we worry about what will happen next. So I think one of the things we're talking about is having clients seen as soon as possible when they're suffering from a relapse or going through a mental health crisis. So I just really want to just emphasize about we're here for our clients. That is our job. We wouldn't be doing this job if we didn'