Let us let us get going. Good evening. This is the good Lord what month is it August meeting of the advisory panel on racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system. Hi, nice to see everybody. Let us do our usual introductions. I'll go through the Hollywood squares as they appear on my screen and if you would briefly introduce yourself. That would be great. Aaron, let us start with you. Hi, everybody, Aaron Jacobson from the community justice unit of the attorney general's office. I use she her pronouns. Right. Judge Davenport. Hi, hi everyone Amy Davenport. I'm a retired judge and currently have been a member of the council for equitable youth justice for since since I retired in 2015. Thank you. Dan Bennett. Hi, Dan Bennett with the Vermont State Police for the last 12 years. He will also be as long as far as good Lord, I can't speak. He will also be replacing Captain Barb Kessler at this point as she's retiring in November. And he will be DPS is representative to to the panel. Rebecca. Hi everyone, Rebecca Turner. Hi everyone. Good evening. My name is Jessica Brown. I use she her pronouns. I am an assistant professor and the director of the center for justice reform at Vermont law and graduate school. Great. Thank you. Jen Furpo. Sorry, I'm doing this from my cell phone, which is the first. It may end in disaster. I'm pretty sure Jen Furpo Vermont Police Academy. Thanks. Laura, we will have a longer introduction for you shortly. Everybody. My name is Laura Carter. I use she her pronouns and I am one of the new data analysts in the division of racial justice statistics in the office of racial equity. So thanks for helping me join you. And thank God you're here. Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth Morris juvenile justice coordinator at DCF, although not the voting designate that is my supervisor Tyler Allen. And back from maternity leave it's all good. Good to see all of your faces. Congratulations. Thank you. Donna. Hi, good evening Susana Davis racial equity director for the state. Thank you. Chris, Laura. Yeah, Chris for Laura's I'm a research associate with crime research group full disclosure I'm also an appointee to the Vermont criminal justice council but I'm not here. Where in that hat today. Representative our snow. I'm Angela are snow stay rep from Williston and I serve on House judiciary. Thank you for coming. Ward good enough. I work good enough. I'm the Windsor County state's attorney. I'm also on the executive committee for the state's attorneys and association. Thank you. Farzana. Hi, my name is first on a lever. I'm the Orleans County states attorney and I'm also part of the executive committee. Nice to meet everyone. Welcome. Thank you. Alona. Hi, I'm Alana take the compliance monitor with DCF. And I sit on the adolescent services unit team with Elizabeth and Tyler. Um, Derek. Derek. Derek, can you not hear me. This is really weird. Derek, I think you frozen. Which is a strange thing to say in August. We'll come back. Judge Morrissey. I don't know if Derek was having this I was having issues hearing you to I logged out and logged back and I'm still having issues so I'm not sure if there's a issue with the, I don't know what's going on, but I was able to, I was able to get connected. But anyway, my name is Mary Morrissey. I am a superior court judge. And I am the judiciary's representative on this committee. Tyler. Good evening, everyone. My name is Tyler Allen. I'm the at present. I am the commissioner designated appointee from DCF on this group. And I am the adolescent services director with the family services division. Thank you. Jennifer Pullman. Hi, I'm late. Some of us go on to the teams link, which I can't figure out either why it always goes to teams and when you set up a zoom but I'm Jen Pullman. I'm the ED for the center for crime victim services. I am not a voting member, but a town lets me hang out. So thank you. And you contribute enormously. Thank you. Derek. Derek, can you hear me? I can. Yeah, I had to switch to a different laptop with hopefully better internet and my work one. So apologies on the tech side, Derek. Mio Devnick. I'm with Vermont Department of Corrections. And nice to see folks. Grant. Hello, Grant Taylor here taking minutes for the group. Great. Thank you. Matthew Bernstein. Hello, Matthew Bernstein, child youth and family advocate for the state of Vermont and I'm here as a community member, not an official mental member of this panel. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Reverend Hughes. Good evening, everyone. It's Reverend Mark Hughes. I'm the executive director for my racial justice alliance. I'm also a commander of the veterans of foreign wars here post 782 in Burlington. And I serve as a minister at a church here in Burlington as well. Some of the work that we've done actually started this group back in 2017. Justice for all the only original member here. It looks like his is Rebecca Turner. So I just want to give a special shout out to you. And yeah, I originally came I was going to come and offer some some other stuff tonight, but I thought it'd be good to step back and let you get your work done and we can come back to what I was going to present in September. If that's, if that works for you a time. Let's get to that in a moment. Sure. Um, let me finish with this. Mackenzie. Hi everyone. I'm a law clerk for Rebecca Turner and the office of defender general. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And Catherine Walsh. I am a community member. I live in Wanooski. And I'm trying to be supportive of. Good change. Great. Thank you for coming. Okay. Thank you. Announcements there's rather a list this evening. Absent tonight. Chief Stevens, which he and Sheila. This is going to affect our agenda to some degree, because which he let the, how to put it. I'm going to shift for the community safety subcommittee to Sheila, apparently not knowing that Sheila wasn't going to be here this evening. So that's kind of just not happening. That's off the agenda. So, um, This may end up being a fairly short meeting. Mark, that's what sort of feeds into what you just emailed me. Um, September's looking to be a lot more full. So tonight would be great, but if you're not ready, I'll make it work. Well, I mean, it's, let's go forward.  And right before seven, I can get somewhere else. Um, but, um, yeah, I'm glad to do it. Happy to do it. As far as, um, and I'm trying to figure out how to get my camera on here. I totally bear with you. Yes. Tim, you have a question. Oh, um, yeah, I'm Tim for folks that don't know me from the department of states, attorneys and sheriffs. And, um, I just wanted to say, uh, yeah, Warden for Zana are on the executive committee. If you have questions about how the department of states, attorneys and sheriffs operates. This is a good representation. This is the executive committee that I'm often saying, oh, I'm going to go chat with the executive committee. Um, so I'm happy that they're, they're on, um, and just wanted to make sure cause we are often talking about criminal, juvenile justice system that, um, they had a chance to listen in here tonight. And, um, you know, for Zana is new to the executive committee. Ward's been on for a little while, but I just wanted to welcome folks in that, in that setting and, um, and thank you. Okay. Um, I am given that mark has to go relatively early, given that it's 612. I'm going to hold off everything until we hear from him. And he can then go and we can do house cleaning and housekeeping. After he's gone to his next commitment. Are there any objections to that? Okay. Um, yeah. Um, I just wanted to also leave time for the DRJS to quickly present on some stuff we've got for you. Got it. Um, can we let Mark go first and then we'll get to that. Yeah. Okay, great. Mark, the floor is yours. Thank you, a time and, um, and also, um, happy summer to everybody that's on. It's going pretty quickly. Um, I want to just alert you to, um, that I think the informational nature of what it is that I'm sharing is, uh, whoever's administering could provide me the ability to share a few slides. That'd be great. But it's strictly informational. Um, I've had some conversations, had some conversations with representatives from almost every group that is represented here. It's kind of hard to remember who's on this thing anymore now because I think that we've been, we've added probably about three or four seats since we've stood this thing up. Um, but yeah, we just wanted to take a few minutes and just give you something informational. Some of the work that, that we've been doing has led us to what we refer to as is community engagement and support work, which is a fancy way of saying. Um, something that's really a little bit more direct service oriented. And that's been as of late, probably over the last couple of years is kind of hard to see the pandemic lay bare. What it has without understanding that people need help. Systemic change is great. But people need help. I'm not going to blow this presentation up completely like in presentation mode. Only because I've got a problem on my end and I will change the slides and it will not advance. So I'm going to keep it the way it is right now. And if folks are having problems seeing it, I'm just going to blow it up a little bit. And maybe let me know when we can figure something out, but I'm going to just take your silence as the fact that you can see the slide deck that I'm sharing looks good to me. And what I'll do is I'm just going to tear through some slides really quickly because I really need to get down to the bottom of this deck and get to the conversation that we're going to have. And through the mission, our mission hasn't changed in a while in the work that we're doing. And while I'm trying to get to where I'm going, I wanted to just remind you of the different ways that we're doing the work. That's data driven. So there's a lot of data that's out there on the site. And we're actually in the middle of a revision and update to the site on the data cards and the data maps and so forth that are out there. But community engagement and support is really at the heart of this conversation. All of this other stuff is important. I'll just throw a shameless commercial in for August 26. I'll drop a link in for first African landing day, which will be at the intervail. That's our flagship, our fifth anniversary cultural empowerment event. So we've been doing a number of things with community engagement and support, but what we're working towards is just trying to figure out ways that we can help folks and we're doing it in the smallest of ways and some areas in larger ways and others. There is a convergence, though, of what we're experiencing that I'm most concerned about that most are most concerned about as you read the definition of systemic racism by Joe Fagan and Kimberly Ducey in their book, racist America. That area is really the area that intersects with the juvenile justice system and, you know, I would say in some ways DCF and of course across the criminal justice system in our school district. So for those who are on Elizabeth, those and others and congratulations and welcome back with the baby Elizabeth. You know, it's pretty clear we've got some problems and we're also in the middle of the biggest mental health crisis probably in our history so I just wanted to stress the definition of systemic racism is highlighted there because that's what the premise that we're operating from. You can you can just go grab that book if you want. And also reminding and this came from the poor people's campaign and national call for more revival some numbers here, the souls of poor folks. What it is that we're dealing with in terms of poverty because policy violence is is really when you start talking about policy that that impacts poor people. We kind of know what we're talking about so we're going to keep moving. I think most of us know the numbers I didn't come here to convince you of anything there's a lot of other numbers to share. And I just brought some slides. These are some of the numbers from our website. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on hardly any of these numbers just in the interest of time just to get through what it is that we're trying to get after. And I can stop here just for a few few seconds and just in case there's something I moved through too quickly or maybe there might be some clarity that anybody on the call may need before I move on. Silence people. Silence is golden. It's a great time to get a sandwich or something to. So I just want to just briefly just talk about a little bit of the work on platforms policies and platforms or platforms and initiatives is what we've called them before you know with the backdrop of the our DAP and the executive director racial equity which we now call the office of racial equity some of the work we did in 1718. But from the constitutional amendment and we've tried several iterations of reparations and there's been statewide policy work in the criminal justice system and some work here in Burlington, even on use of force and the REI be office was created here a bunch of other stuff but just just given some background and how we're spanning across a lot of different areas in the policy work and just give some some context to because we actually started this work in the criminal justice system. Back in 17. And this is just reflective of some of the work that we've done in the Burlington area and nobody cares about Burlington so we'll just keep moving. There's the, you know, definitely the racism is a public health emergency and must have forgotten to mention that I'm also the co-chair of the Health Equity Advisory Commission that was born as a result of this policy here I think it was H 210 back in 2021. So, um, Susanna sits on all things equity so we keep running into each other with that so that's that's awesome. It's good to see that the data folks making progress there. But the public health emergency where there it was actually two resolutions in one. One declaration the resolution one was at the the legislature for there was I think we call it R 113. And then one was at the city council here in Burlington and then there was a declaration that was similar language here I think there may have some other language. But at any rate just wanted to remind folks of that because there's some commitments that are out there. This is the R 113 that I spoke about just just going over and this is all just establishing some ground work as far as. Where are we talking about where are we talking about disparities in our youth why are we talking about mental health why are we talking about a need to create some some prevention or intervention capabilities. You know, especially when we start talking about folks who have had previous contact in other lives with the, and maybe they've been justice impacted you know how do we, you know, figure out ways to gain access to resources wrap around these folks. How do we, you know, I think all all of the the ground work that led us here is just relevant. I won't talk much about the wellness working group here in the Alliance at all. Or its activities just suffice it to say that it informed much of the work that that we that that we've just covered up until now. And I think it is worth saying that the, you know, the public health emergency work and even things like, you know, ideas like training health professionals, you know, for cultural competency and leveraging affinity spaces and other things were things that also came out of our working our wellness working group and also informed H 210 which became the health equity advisory commission which is now seeking to move forward on an office of health equity at the statewide level. All of this stuff is boring but relative relevant rather. There's there's even continued work on a strategic plan and and I tell you, I give you an overview of what has happened in the ACC right now if I thought you pay attention to me long enough but I'm going to just keep moving and just talk a little bit about what's going on in a cultural empowerment center which we call the Richard Kim Center because really what we did is we found out as we began to talk about the need to to engage in community which was really I mean we started off with zoom calls in 2000 because we just were reaching out across the state and we were really eating each other's lunch on those calls and it just occurred to a lot of folks that you know there's a lot of trauma that we're working through and there's a lot of challenges that folks and you know is if we don't have the emotional intelligence and if we don't have the the healing care that we need in order to move in order to just get level footing and to gain some stability on a personal individual level and amongst ourselves then we're never going to be able to solve some of the bigger challenges that are ahead of us and in the bottom line I think that if I think you were to write down the just one little thing that would be the moral of the story is is that the Calvary is not coming I think that we you know there we do we often nudge the system and in and we seek to try to pull together ideas and and and transformative suggestions you know within the state government but we know we never get what we asked for it in it and it's never it never happens soon enough. So we we continue to try there but at the same time we need to build our own systems and community and figure out ways to where we can support ourselves so that's that's really the message and Richard Kim center. So a lot of a lot of cultural empowerment work is not now what we're beginning to see is is that the work that we have been doing is beginning to get funneled through or directed towards not just originating from us but as we develop relationships and discover other community partners and then we find ways in which we can we can port this work through the Richard Kim center because basically in the Richard Kim center what we're doing is we're creating programs and services where they have historically been ineffective or non-existent and that's I think that has been our our our story. So you see many services. Many of these are envisioned. Some of these are in play. Some of these are aspirational but we're really converges as we continue to build out programs. I have seven interns from the Burlington School District working with us now to create some some of the programming that we will see going into the next calendar year. What we really want to do is we want to just figure out how do we get our people. How do we get our people. So a lot of programming and again I said some of it aspirational some of it in development some of it is actually in play. But these are the ideas that came through in as we started to envision a cultural empowerment center where there's actually a footprint in the city of Burlington and for those who don't live in Burlington are not in Chittenden County. That's well and fine because you know when we start talking about the root social justice center or when we start talking about other iterations of maybe similar strategies that are demographic specific geographic specific. Obviously there's always a way to do this kind of work in a different context. So here you know understanding what systemic racism now is as we were you know contemplating the implementation of the Richard Kim Center. We wanted to. I'd say harness if you will the the the magnitude of the challenge that we're actually dealing with and of course there's wealth disparities and cultural disempowerment and across all social determinants. But then of course we also we can never never forget that with the erasure and appropriation of our culture that is really also goes directly towards the impact. That is being created in our communities and we're seeing you know escalations across the community we're seeing instability in some in some ways and the short story is is we have to divest from failed systems and reinvest into the communities. Pretty much like the current reports said about 50 or 60 years ago. And I think one of the things that you know we had to bring it home with is in because it this is all of this stuff it looks like a very simple slide but trust me a lot of analysis has gone into understanding the challenge and really articulating the challenge because this is it is a it's difficult. It's difficult to talk about and it's difficult to articulate but I think at the end of the day we do come to the fact that all of our monitors are their social health. The social health of all of our monitors are jeopardized. What we know and we've got United Nations reports indicating that racism is a threat to democracy and I think we're seeing that play out in other ways without getting political. So the solution is essentially you know you've heard it before centering the needs of the black community in rectifying as the historical racial inequities and and again there's those words again inefficient and effective nonexistence. We need some cultural brokers in our neighborhoods. We need some some folks who can translate programs who can nudge systems and translate programs and services and to be able to deliver them in ways that where they are most effect more effective and more efficient or where they actually do exist. Well probably 7 times out of 10 8 times out of 10 where services are not reaching disempowered or disaffected communities does not because they don't exist. It's because they weren't designed effectively to the extent that they would translate or actually reach a lot of these communities and this again this is data. So I once made a whole lot of time more time here but just to say that this is where this is where the concept for the Richard Kim Center came from. And with that being said it became increasingly clear that you know what we had to start to think about is is you know some of the other stuff that's happening around us. And I'll share that one of the things we're working on right now is a mentoring program for you know to you know I've been talking to Tom Flanagan and I've been talking to sparks about some of the things that we could do in and with and around the school system here in this district. This is not it doesn't pertain to what you're reading right now but we know after school and mentoring and affinity spaces for the youth in this area are very important. We're also building a media a media justice program in conjunction with some of the folks over at CCTV here and urban and urban farming program that would be in conjunction with the intervail and the folks over at the UVM extension as we begin to continue to pull those things together. We've got partners in you know Champlain College on the media side as well and we flesh and everything out but we're figuring out ways in which we can reach our youth where we can build our own programs in our communities. And this is pretty exciting work. I mean I'm an old guy I'm like 60 years old I've got you know my my youngest my oldest grand kid is 25. So I'm not the guy that's going to necessarily connect with them despite the fact that I've been kind of mentoring these 714 year olds for the last three or four weeks which is helped me to sleep well at night. So here's the with the credible messengers. This is a concept but it's also a movement you know successful movement in many of the major cities across America I'm pretty sure it's probably heard talk of credible messengers in New York City. Prior to coming down many of you have others have heard of other iterations of types of programs where there are folks who have been previously justice impacted where they've turned and pivoted and sought to move back into and support youth struggling in communities. So this is support and assistance at risk justice impact the youth and young adults so again we're traversing the the so called criminal justice and juvenile justice systems. So this would even potentially even extend in the school standardized programming including in this what this means is these are these are the types of training that are credible messengers would first inform first received but also be transmitting. And that's you know how do we help our youth reach self act actualization dealing with things like mental hygiene and centeredness communication and help family community awareness emotional literacy and the like. So there's there's a lot of stuff purpose and productivity but at the end of the day put together a plan to create a plan and live by a plan. And this is just one dimension, if you will, what we view predator credible messengers to be we've got a great trainer in Mr. Feeble who's currently rolling credible messenger out across the entire state of New Jersey. He'll he'll be in town. He's we're in queue for some training of a handful of messengers here we're creating logo. As I said I spoke into various representatives from I would say almost everyone that's that's that's here seated on the on the Rdap just to kind of give folks a heads up and and just again informational. And what I've learned is if there's nothing that I haven't learned is just do it do it and then figure out how to pay for it. So even over at the Howard Center we've had conversations over there of course in the mental health and corrections had a great conversation with Nick demo. And yeah, so all of these all of these areas even Rachel and United Way Northwest, even Monica many many others just having conversations let's talk about it and let's socialize it. Let's let's make it happen. Let's make it a reality. As far as the credible messengers are the credible messengers framework is concerned with this really is is. Okay. What's next, what are you doing, what are you going to do, and what are you going to do after that. So recruiting and training is a big one. We've got a handful of folks here in in Chinden County who've expressed interest in who have stepped up probably about about five or six, seven at the most on a good day have showed up and express interest. And as you can see it's kind of hard to get your head around at first. And in like, there's a thousand questions and I hope you don't ask all thousand of them. You can come up around this as far as you know how we get this done. Community resources assessment program implementation that's the basic rollout that I would say right now we're kind of where we're at work we're training in the resource assessment is is just a continuous process and I would say the program implementation. And that's something that just depends on how you look at it and what you want to call it because there are a lot of folks if you know, as you know, who they just live their lives like this they're already out there. We're already out there engaging youth we're already we see youth every day somebody walks in the door every day the phone rings every day. In fact, we've got a an apparatus that we deployed about three years ago called rapid response, which is a place on our website where folks can go out and reach out. And we've got a director about community engagement and support that manages that process. And the network strengthening the wraparound piece is again I think that's that's more about digging a little bit deeper into some of the existing community resources, some of the colleges and universities develop develop continue to develop the relationships and in driving those partnerships with the existing systems. Again, it's a little bit of a tap dance because what we got to do is we got to show up in a way in which it's important to have the important conversations Hey look we all want the same thing. And in the reason why it's important to have the conversation about systemic racism and those outcomes and the fact that things are not working in black and brown communities on a level that they need to and we're talking about a generational issue, or challenge rather, the reason why those conversations are so incredibly important is is look folks. We can't continue to pretend like everything's okay because it's not. And, but at the same time, we can't, you know, we don't get there from here by by making by putting somebody else on the defense and making them justify what it is that they're doing and there's a natural propensity to want to do that understandably. So it's a little bit of a tap dance because at the end of the day, we've got to partner with the folks that are currently doing the services, a designated agency is a designated agency period. So there's a there's a little bit of a dance that we do, and that will continue to do. It's not, it's not easy work, because you can imagine some of the challenges that may come with that. But I think at the end of the day, we're making progress. And, and I think, um, yeah, I think we're moving forward so I think in in closing and this will be the last slide I share with you is is that as far as what's going on there. And it's important for us to catalog what we have just as far as resource inventory and in cultivate those relationships and that continues here. It's it's it's lucky that we're that I'm in Burlington, because there's an incredible amount of cultivation happening, particularly in the UVM and in Champlain, we haven't really penetrated St. Michael's as much. And, and then also with the in the reason why that's really important is for a couple reasons. Number one, data, data, data, data, we're going to always be coming back to data because everything that we do is going to be outcomes based. It's, it's got to be data driven. It's got to be results oriented. And, and some of these, some of these methodologies that we're using, particularly when we get to about that 5% of stuff that we're doing that it would be deemed to be clinical. We want to make sure that it's rock solid. So we're, you know, I'm even engaging with a number of clinicians in the local area and in a number of forums where clinicians reside or where they're interacting and so forth. We're going to train a trainer that's going to be coming up really soon that may even start even here in the month of August. The social consciousness education and the credible messenger approach is really the first two areas. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to be doing some behavior health training, train the trainer. Of course, everybody's going to need some administrative training. And there's this, there's this approach called new entry, which is to take off of reentry. That's credible messenger oriented at the end of the day to numbers and I don't want to quote them, but I heard something ridiculous like the numbers were up close to about, and I mean reentry numbers were up somewhere close to about 80%. And I'll get the actual numbers. So please don't quote me on these numbers. But I heard that once the credible messengers were implemented in certain areas that they had plummeted down the areas that were in the teams. So I'll validate that back it up. I'm doing some additional research talent acquisition and base building is where we go from there. That pretty much concludes what I came to tell you. I just wanted to, like I said, I wanted to inform you of some of the work that we're doing, because I realized that we'll be doing it together. Most everybody on this call in some way or another, it will be important for, for us and our folks to have visibility of relationship with trust relationships built in the whole the whole nine yards with with with the entire system. I even, I even had a great conversation with judge Tony, who was who was pretty impressed he had a few questions as well. But let me pause there. No, I'm going to stop there. And I'm going to say that I appreciate the time and again. I'm available for conversation one on one too. So if we want a short circuit, if you got something that you feel like you just want to unpack, then what we can do is is we can just set up some time and you and I can, you know, we can meet up. I mean, I'm so tired to zoom. Aaron for sitting down with me a month earlier before the flood. And we can have, you know, we can talk it through, but I'm just curious to hear if there's any, at least have I provoked any thought. Is there any, are there any similar programs that you've seen, or do you do you just have any direct questions of me, understand that I may not have an answer. I have a direct question. No, no, no, just it's not evil. No, I'm just, where are you getting your funding. So funding is funding is coming from help. It's coming from here local in in in Burlington it's coming from. It's coming from state health and talking about VDH. And it's coming from outside private private donors of regular contributors by hooker by crook, but we do a lot of stuff free. And what I mean by that is that we've got, we also have a lot of volunteers. We have folks that are just deeply committed to the work. And it has been our tradition it's been our history that more times than not we will lean in on the work, even before we figure out how to pay for it. So I think the stupid answer is that we're hoping that as we continue this work. And we, and we start to create, you know, for example, I know for sure that the mental health department is going to want to fund some part of this work. I know for sure that probably someone out of Aaron Jacobson's neck of the woods may at some point or another put some money towards this, this work. I know for sure that maybe somebody out of Nick demos area may start at some point or another will come to those conversations but this is not an ask for money at this point. This is just a, this is just a situational awareness type of thing so when we do come back and we say hey we're really doing this. Can we like squeeze a couple of nipples together it won't be a difficult conversation. And we'll also have some we'll have some evidence to show that we're what we're doing is effective. Thank you. Rebecca. Mark, I just want to say thank you for bringing this to us tonight. I really appreciate I'm a long time admirer of the work you guys have been doing known you for a long time but I learned a lot seeing these, these, these very these all this work you guys are doing quick forth and these slides it's very, very impressive. I hope you are willing to share these slides with us. We have sort of an ongoing. I'm going to update this collective document of source material from around the state of reports and things like that from addressing these issues. So it's sort of right. But I also appreciated my takeaway from yours, your slides was similar to what we strive to do, whether it's the data project or current projects or or just even how the makeup of this panel is and I'm sorry to miss so many of our community members tonight. It's great to have so many people here and I see a lot of people familiar faces from government, but what I took away from your, your slides and all important with this addressing these huge issues, systemic racism, etc. It's always always always centering the community impacted. Right, whether it's, it's not doing anything without them being upon listening to them having having having their voices, always at the forefront so I appreciate that thank you. Anyone else questions common. I'm sorry, Mark, go ahead. Thanks to Rebecca Rebecca and I go way back so she's like an old buddy of mine. So of course, you know, I'm just so happy to see that you're still here. I thought they have given you out of your mind by now. I've tried not to anyone else. Jennifer Pullman. Thank you. I'm just a community member so just asking in terms of curiosity. Thank you, Reverend Hughes for your presentation and I've seen you via YouTube anytime so really learn a lot every time I hear from you. I'm just curious as to whether you work. I'm guessing you do with the Association of Africans living in Vermont. And also what that looks like for victims of crime, because I know that we work really closely with them as a sub grantee and trying to work with victims who don't show up and how do we make that space. And a lot of the times that, you know, lots of shares that is creating a guarding opportunity for victims to come forward and they just work together and they talk about their stuff with each other. And I just want to, again, that's my hat. I have worked with young people on the defense side, but my hat is to think about how do we engage victims and survivors who are in a place where they're not heard. And just want to know a little bit more about your work in that area. Jennifer, it's good to see you. Can you please just restate the question just because I think I heard something about ALB but also heard something about victims and I just want to make sure that I answer your question. I think that I guess my question was a little bit more like all over the place. I'll be more clear. We work with ALB and other organizations that try and figure out how we can do a better job in terms of reaching victims survivors who also are not always victims and survivors. They've also been, you know, nothing's, everything's gray now, but how we reach out to folks that don't feel that they can engage with the criminal justice system. And so I'm wondering about your work with those individuals. Again, ALB does a great job about figuring out different ways to engage folks. Again, it's the gardening project that they do. And I'm just wondering where that work is, if it is on your spectrum. Okay, thank you for that. And I really, I like this question a lot because I think that it's the delineation between the Indigenous African American community and the refugee resettlement and migrant community is an important conversation for us to have and for it to be ongoing. And I think we need to stop being so terrified of it. My wife has lived in Vermont since 1973, and she has five siblings and her father intentionally came here and settled in here. He was the late Richard Kemp. And I think that, you know, what my wife has taught me and what the relationships that I've been able to cultivate stuff in here have taught me is that there's a pretty significant division. So that's one of the, you know, that's one of the underlying goals of the work of the Richard Kemp Center. Yes, I know Jacob very, very well. I know Tato very, very well. I know Sandy Baird very, very well. I know Amelia at USCRI very, very well. But there are a lot of disparate or diverging things that are happening at the same time. There is a different flavor of people who don't feel safe with the police in the Indigenous African American community, but we're still here. And the solution to it is not necessarily what ALV has because it's different. It's a different culture. It's a different cultural aspect of what we're dealing with. And, you know, I have a personal goal and as a community member in a resident here of Burlington and North Burlington, a commitment to continue to do the work to unify us because we have way more in common than most people realize, particularly when it comes to the impact of systemic racism. And this isn't that is to say the legacy of slavery, because, you know, because of this, I think that we should probably take a conversation offline and figure out, you know, how do we, you know, how do we with our unique needs are which are completely consistent with the needs that you're in another community with people who look like us? How do we partner with somebody like you or others like you? And this goes directly to the point I was making earlier where it's difficult to, sometimes it's a challenging conversation sometimes to have with a person that's providing programs and services in communities, but they're not reaching us. And remember, I said that a little while ago that it's very difficult to have that conversation because it's easy for somebody like Jennifer to say, well, wait a minute, I'm doing everything I can or wait a minute and naturally have a major response to say I'm going to be defensive as opposed to saying, oh, no, I didn't say that. I want to do more. And I think I'm trying to learn and I'm sorry, I'm sorry that that's what you took from what I asked that was asking us how we can be a better part of the conversation. I think your response to what I just said is reflective of the point I was making is that there's no need for you to be defensive. And in fact, I didn't even say that. What I was doing is I was using you as an example and using exactly the point that you made as an example reflecting on something that I just said probably about 20 minutes ago and how we deal with our community partners that are currently delivering services, but we're not necessarily reaching them. It's a tap dance. And yeah, what that means is that we have these conversations and sometimes somebody will say, oh, well, have you, did you, what about ALV or what about this community? And then we have to have a difficult conversation and says, yeah, we're experiencing the same things we have the same challenges, we're just not receiving the same services. And we have to have that conversation in a way to where whoever's delivering those services or whoever it is that we're having those conversations with receive it in a way where it's not critical. And they receive it in a way where they say, well, it's informational and I'm learning just as Jennifer you just said you're learning. And so yeah, I look forward to having more conversations with you. Again, it's not personal, but there is still work to be done in this area to reach the communities that I'm targeting. Thank you. Anyone else. I sure do appreciate you giving me an opportunity to come and speak to y'all and and I appreciate the conversation, the follow ups, I'm going to stay one more time and I'm going to drop it in the chat before I leave. But I will, I want to cordially invite you and just really urge you to come out the first African landing day. This year it's a it's where the the 1619 project in the 400 African American history commissions work intersect. And this is again the fifth year that we've we've done this work. And it's really just a commemoration and it's about cultural empowerment. It's about our contribution. It's about our our resilience above all. And it's it's guaranteed to really lighten your heart and it's it's about all of us. So please do everything you can to pass it on to others and show up again a time. Blessings to you and thank you so much my friend for giving me the opportunity. Absolutely. Thank you, Mark. Be well. All right. Hello. Let us proceed. This is obviously a piecemeal agenda this evening. I'm kicking and going. I'd like to do do the approval of the minutes from the main meeting. Yes, may And that should take us a few moments depending on, you know, whether people have corrections, addenda, whatever that needs to be made. This is the moment to weigh in anything from anymore. I realized it was a while ago. No, okay. Using our modified Roberts rules. Anybody want to make a motion. Sure. I would move that we pass the minutes as written. Great. Thank you. Anyone want to second that. I'll second Jen for folks. Great. Thank you. Then let us vote. All in favor of passing the minutes as written and submitted, please indicate in some form given that this assume. Hi. Hi. Great. Thank you. I'm looking through two screens here. Got it. Everybody who is opposed. Everybody who is abstaining. Okay. Grant, you have the sound. Grant, you have the staff. Okay. Thank you. The minutes are accepted as as they have been presented to us. Thank you.  I've already told you who's absent. I didn't manage the she came on a bit later. Tiffany, would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. Hi, everyone. I apologize. I had a whole situation. It seems like every time every program that I need, I have to contact it for some on my home computer right now, but it's wonderful to see all of your faces. I don't know how much of an introduction you want. I don't take up too much time, but just welcoming you all from the new division that you all helped create so I'm looking forward to being a part of this, this meeting. Laura is also here with us. She may have introduced herself.  So I'm going to say a few words. Well, first of all, I just want to say we brought Laura on very thankful to have her. She's coming in from VOC. She's also had a lot of experience with the state archives and so it's going to be tremendous. I think the work that we can do together. I'm bringing I'm coming from a public health background, but I've always kind of had a kind of a hand and an interest in the area of criminal justice and I think it. I was actually having this conversation earlier. It's been beautiful to see the way that public health is embracing this topic, whereas I think years ago when I first became interested, there was definitely like a kind of a hands off. At least kind of how I experienced it. So for me, it's interesting and it's really kind of a coming together for me personally to be a part of this effort, but I have a lot to learn. And I'm hoping that I can do a lot of good work with Susana with already with all of you. And I don't want to take the stage because I think Laura, I don't know if we're going to have time today, depending upon your schedule for art to present. But Laura may want to say a few words to just to talk about herself. She's kind of my co partner. I did a little bit of an introduction earlier, but just to bounce off a little bit of what Tiffany said for my background. So I did come over from the Department of Corrections. I was the records and information management specialist there. And prior to that, I did records management for the entire agency of human services. So I've a pretty solid landscape on a chess and the different departments there and especially corrections. I'm also excited to learn more things criminal justice and racial justice have always been really big passion areas of mine. And I'm also very excited to be here. So thank you again for having me. Thank you both. Great. Okay, onward with the announcements then. There's a lot that's gone on and I need to inform you of I did not write endless emails because it was just stretched out over too long a period of time. Given all that has happened within the state, and I'm namely sort of speaking of the flood. I have asked for an extension on the submission of our report. Given that many of you I know are not even allowed in your offices without some lengthy strange bureaucratic process to get at your computers and such. I just thought that made sense. I don't think that this will be a problem. I think that some of what will likely include in the report is already on the legislative radar and the big issue there would be certainly the second look legislation. And I just wanted to point that out that I don't think that asking for this is going to put us out of the cycle of testimony and such when the session gets going. So that was my first big thing to let you know. It just seemed that that was the most reasonable thing to do, given that people were in extremists, as it were. Again, then the report I would certainly, as I have said before, would like to start drafting even just it not anything word perfect. I don't know about periods and commas, because we're all going to look at it and have comments on whatever we come up with, but it is definitely time to start doing that. The holidays and I realize this sounds very strange to be mentioning on August 8 are not really that far away. Okay, and certainly not for a group that meets for two hours as a complete body once a month. We don't know how we get during the holidays. I am not saying this critically. I say this with love, but we know how we get during the holidays it ends up turning into another August. Right. Where everybody's out and got family commitments and stuff like that and that's fine. But that's why I'm pointing out I think we need to start drafting things now because it's going to come up. How much time we get, it's going to happen quickly. And I really think that that's why I want to emphasize the idea of starting to make paragraphs. Oh, right. And then finally, I had offered in an earlier email to work on translating my resume my verbal resume of the, I guess, what would be the word successes and successes in waiting, perhaps, from our report into a verbal report to give to the panel. Again, to edit to, you know, do whatever edit means. I have not done that yet I have started on it. And I will get that to you I will continue to do that I didn't hear anybody say don't do that. Which is what I had written in the email. So I just started on it because we really didn't have time to go back and forth. So if that's not what anybody wants, and there's a reason not to want it. That's fine. Let me know now and I'll stop. But I do think it's important that we go back and create a link to our previous work. Tim. Oh, I'm sorry. Finish your thought I was just going to compliment that strategy I think it's a great idea. Okay, this was an idea that we had stemming from God back a long time ago that one of our chief things was to protect the work product that was indeed the 2019 report. So I view that resume as part of that. I don't really want to get as formal as to take a vote on it I don't think that there's a need to, but if you've got, if you there's resistance if there is feedback someone wants to give. Please look back at the email I sent and send that out and we can go from there and there may be a moment for a vote. I just don't think it's right now. Let's see the last bit that I want to inform you of. And this involves not only or but more specifically the division of racial justice statistics. There's a long story here and I won't get into the whole thing because it'll take hours. This involves what was h270 last session, and is now act 65 I believe on on cannabis. There was a request that there be a report that was extensively technical having to do with racial inequity and cannabis use, and it really got pretty technical into cannabis. There was a miscommunication between Reverend Hughes and I. And what got back to Senator by hop ski was that we were that was certainly something in our purview and I had said that. Indeed I did say that mark. I said what I remember saying was absolutely. You know, in our wheelhouse as we are that, but I didn't hear him say anything about a report due on January 15. As you can imagine, I had a cow, like a real cow. And I mean there's someone the milk here now. It was not good. But then it occurred to me. Wait, there's the division. Let's see what they can get going on this now I don't think that I don't know I don't want to speak for Tiffany and, and, and Laura or Susanna, but it looks like a heavy lift to me, but they were really happy. They were like, oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, Tiffany was just like, okay, we're on this and pepper then who you know we all perhaps remember from his tenure on this panel, forwarded all the stuff that the cannabis control board had on this topic to the division. And they are at work on this. So it was a weird way of a strange way of getting our cake and eating it to. And with milk. And so I, I felt that I didn't tie you all into this because, oh my God, who wants this an email about this right. Am I right, you all would have shot me if I had written this up as a narrative. It would have been terrifying. So I did. I just did it. Sorry if I've stepped on toes. If I wasn't transparent. I just needed to get the thought I mean I was so freaked out at the notion of, we can't write two reports at once. We don't even know what we're talking about. I mean it's like, you know, coming to the art app and going and so what do you all feel about racial equity and car mechanics. No, we are not car mechanics. So it was a little bit strange, but anyway, it's taken care of Tiffany and Laura and or are on it. I, I don't know, I feel happy I need to get in touch with Senator by have Steve and let her know that this is going on. She has a sense. They really didn't want us to kill the bill and I understand. And I said, that's fine. But we need to have a chat after this. And so this is where we are on any questions about the report the cow anything Tyler. But those are for offline. I appreciate I just wanted to say that I appreciate your initiative a ton and kind of moving that forward and making that connection. And speaking of initiative, it's just it's exciting to hear that the reaction over in the division and with Tiffany and Susanna shop and Laura saying like, Oh, this is fantastic. Let's roll our sleeves up. This is this is what we're here for is exciting to me. And I think this is a good example of the mechanics of something that we're put together from a vision in this room that I was once in coming to fruition in a way that is productive and useful. And so others might feel differently. But from my perspective, I'm grateful for the initiative you showed in that. Thank you. Rebecca. Yeah, I'm not so I didn't get a chance to look at the fine print on this bill and now act but did you say that the art out is still responsible for filing this report even though we have the data division. So, oh, no. Got it. We're off the. We're off the. Thanks for the clarification. Yes, this is going to be gravy for Senator by Hobson in the legislature. And a chance for the legislature to get to know the work of the division. I just wanted to do something we were putting on our fall agenda of reviewing. Oh my god. No, not great. No, I wouldn't do I was trying my entire goal was not to do this to the panel. Yeah, no, this is, we can't you should have seen me. It was really frightening. I was a little too strident perhaps anybody else. And I have to say, Tiffany, I've got to just like praise you and worship you here. You were remarkable because I was coming to appear. I mean I was literally freaking out. I had a phone with my therapist. You were like, Yeah, this will be great. This will be really kind of cool. We can do I mean you were just all bubbly about it and I was like, Okay, she's saying, All right, fine. It gives us something to kind of dig into to start with Laura has done, I will say a lot of the heavy lifting, and we still have some conversations to be had before we have a presentation to you into this group if you if you so choose. Absolutely. But we're really excited. I mean, I think, Laura, I don't know if you want to say a few words about or preview about the presentation that we have. So, as you mentioned aton the materials from pepper that we got as an office spent a lot of my first I've only been with the office for about a month now so I spent a lot of my first early weeks reviewing and reading that and then basically identifying the different research gaps so that we can figure out where we need to kind of fill in and in our division as far as gathering data. And then I also typically and I walk through different questions that we have for CCD as well and maybe some of these are questions that might be questions that this group has also, but that's kind of where we've started so that we have a little bit more work obviously to do but sure. Sure. I think right now leaving it off of the R daps plate directly is a good idea. But having said that, we're going to go back to you and Tiffany Laura because and Susanna, you were going to introduce the next section which is about I what the division's doing yes. Yeah, that's correct super quick intro because I'm going to let Laura and Tiffany take over. So we have really tried to hit the ground running with DRJS but math is hard, and so is data so just when we think we kind of understand everything. We discover another art app report or a report from an adjacent entity and we realize that it's a cavernous world. So we are really working our way through the information and through the body of work product that you all and your respective departments have put out. So a couple of the projects that we've a couple of the early projects that the DRJS has been working on include lending a hand with some of the research around cannabis equity and ways in which the historical treatment of people in the United States may or may not have created racial disparities. We know they did. With respect to drug law enforcement. Another thing that we're doing is building kind of a just compendium slash repository of sources and information that we think will be helpful in this work going forward so I am going to turn it over to Laura and Tiffany so that they can give you on a little bit of what they've been working on. Thank you. Okay, a time to share my screen. Actually that's Erin because she's the one who knows how to push buttons better than I do. Oh, I have the option. I think you can Tiffany yeah. Oh, see I don't even know that. Let me know if what you see. Okay, okay. You know it's hard to follow. I think the presentation before us gave me a lot to think about and just understanding what's already happening in Vermont so I think we will use this as a learning space as well to inform our work. So I appreciate that discussion. So, yeah, so we are launching this division, I think with your help. We're Laura and I put together this presentation and we just want to run through. Kind of what we're focused on a lot of it you have already heard already because a lot of it you have putting your various reports in terms of kind of what you want us to be doing. And we have a few things that we're throwing into kind of give you a sense of where we're going at the, at the moment. So that's our agenda. And it, I'm thinking it may take about 15 minutes but please, you know, feel free stop us if you have questions. I think we're, yeah, we're going to be fine. Okay, okay. So we'll just introduce ourselves again, a little more fully talk about our primary goals are areas of focus.  And hopefully we can present that to you in a few weeks. So yeah, so right now it's me and Laura. Very happy with what's happening in terms of the ideas we're generating and just what we've been talking about I feel like we have a really good start to this effort. I'm really, really proud. I know we have a lot of work to do. I know that we haven't seen it all yet, but but I am excited and I feel hopeful. Hopefully that sustains I think we, we're going to see a lot during this process. We're expecting two more analysts, we have one already funded under what you all have brought to the table. We also have this third analyst and many of you may be familiar via the DCF MOU that will be coming on board as well. So we're really building a team here that I think can really do great work. This is a whole bunch of stuff about me. Yeah, I mean, I think my foundation is just really wanting to understand the determinants of health very broadly. I bring a background in biology, health, biomedical sciences. But I've learned so much about how all of these things are connected. Even when we think about epigenetics we think about stressors we think about the criminal justice justice system. And I think we're going to find ways to kind of bring these spaces talking about health talking about criminal justice. Hopefully I can inform a little bit of that discussion. And I'll talk a little bit more we actually have a UVM abstract, where we will be talking about criminal justice and public health and how do we think about that as a health issue. So hopefully, yeah, I won't go too much detail but that's where my passion work is. Yeah, I've done a lot of work research admin project management stats. Yeah, am I kind of where my, my first I think I feel like it was an experiential learning experience was a teaching prison program. At UC Berkeley, I come to find out is still in existence, which is really wonderful to hear that after 20 years they're still doing the work. I think they closed down for COVID but have are relaunching the program. But I learned so much and I and I share this in my interview. One of the things that's that stuck with me and it still sticks with me through all these years and that's why I've kind of been turning in circles a little bit when it comes to choosing what I want to work on and what I want to be a part of trajectories. So one of the things it was partly a program where we went to San Quentin we did GED prep and other activities. But we also had a learning component so it's kind I think it was in the Department of Education. And, you know, the statistics that they would talk about like the fact that we could look at eight year olds in Oakland, and we could predict the percentage that would be in San Quentin by the time, you know, 10 years from now or when they turned 18. So that was that always stuck with me, you know, if we can predict it, we can prevent it, hopefully. So that's also informing kind of how I approach this work. So yeah, so I did my undergraduate out in California also earned a master of public health chronic disease epidemiology but you'd be, you'd be surprised to know how much this work informs that as well. There's a lot of interplay that we don't talk about. And then also I have a degree in biomedical sciences. So that's what I'm bringing to the table. And then I also want Laura to talk a little bit about herself because she's also we're working together. I think her experience compliments mine and she's bringing a lot with her experience at DLC and state archives so I'm going to let her up in here. Thank you. I'll try to keep it short and sweet. So I'm not too repetitive for the other introductory pieces I've already shared, but like I mentioned before, I'm very passionate about racial and social justice. And as well as data and information governance coming from a records management background, I have that information governance kind of built into my toolkit. So I'm really excited to continue to apply that here was as Tiffany and I work on developing data governance plans for different strategies we have for collecting information for our project. As Tiffany's mentioned, I was first started in Vermont State government in 2018. I worked for the state archives as a records and information management assisting the entire agency of human services on on developing records schedules implementing records management programs and really teaching people that it's okay to get rid of things and delete your email when appropriate. I'll just as a caveat that is more importantly. And then from there I moved into the Department of Corrections doing similar work as the records and information management specialist. I was also heavily involved in the grievance system and helping the department move into an electronic grievance system after our office did an audit on the Department of Corrections grievance system. So, um, yeah, so I'm very excited to now be with the Office of Racial Equity in this role. I have a background in math and library science and literature, and yeah, just happy to be here. Great. Thank you, Laura. This is the full team. So, I feel like even though we have a division. We're always Jay, Shalini, Susanna are going to be integral and we're working with us. So that's really the full team if you really think about the division and of course we have these two analysts coming on. Susanna has hinted about a an administrative assistant so we're hoping I'm. Yeah, I think then we'll be rolling because we have just a lot of things that we're trying to keep a hold of and just the extra support is always going to be wonderful. So yeah. And about the division so we already kind of said this. So yeah, I love this quote. I've been reading this book I'm not certain that I'm, it's the whole long story, but this is a quote that I think is informative. Yeah, if data are not available. How do we have informed policy. Yeah, and if we were not seeing it's kind of the self fulfilling cycle that it's assumed that certain topics are not important. So, yeah, so I think that's kind of guiding us as we do this work. So primary goals, you actually probably wrote this, this part of it collecting and analyzing data related to systemic bias and disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Leveraging relevant data sets and informing policy decisions so that we can ameliorate some of the disparities that. And as we find them, we would hope to inform the policy as as appropriate. So here are some of the deliverables that we inherited from as we came on board, and that we are recognizing, I think, as we are thinking about it, kind of the key deliverable that is keeping us motivated and excited, excited is this public facing website. We really want to get to that point and so I think that everything that we're doing we're trying to figure out okay how do we make a resource that is publicly available. Maybe we even host community meetings around it. We are able to track what's happening over time in these, these different systems in terms of disparities. So I think that focus is really informing what we're doing around data collection and research and data governance. So yeah, creating these MOUs as an initial step inventory of assets, gap analysis, strategic plans, various reports to you to the legislative legislature. And in the process I think where Laura will play a huge role in terms of doing the tracing functional analysis kind of as we're looking at the various data sets kind of seeing what has informed those data sets. How do we go back to how they were created. So, I won't go into too much detail because we have a few slides to get through data governance policy recommendations on improving data collection around these racial and ethnic. We have to do better, I think. So yeah, so this is kind of how we're thinking about it planning during the data collection visualizations and designs. Ideally, we would have a soft launch with the folks who are providing data sets to us. Once we have a dashboard created in partnership with ADS, we want to make sure that all of our partners feel included that whatever we put as a public facing website makes sense. And I know that's going to be an entire process and I think, you know, there may be things that could potentially be controversial but I think we want to work through that in a positive way. And then hopefully launch the dashboard and that may be a year away year plus away depending upon how things go eight times shaking.  I'm going to run through these I know Laura is going to jump in because she's been heavily involved in a lot of these pieces. This is something that we, I, you know, I've been looking at different examples of what other states are doing. And this I feel is remarkable. I want to say it's a nonprofit who developed the dashboard. What's most impressive, I think what caught my eye because I was looking at videos around like criminal justice equity. And I ran across this video where I just felt like it was very inclusive because the video started with someone who you would think, you know, as you're starting the video you think he's an attorney. And then he started talking about the fact that he had served 10 years incarcerated 10 years and how he kind of was. You know how you have I say prison scholars basically was the one reading all the books and helping people with their cases and so he started to see disparities when he people will come to him and say hey you know how do I handle this case how much time do you think I have. So as he started looking at these cases one by one started to say hey wait a minute. This person did the same thing as this person but they got different sentences. So, I think while he was in prison reached out to an attorney who works in the space. They had a conversation. And now basically they linked up with someone at Microsoft and came up with this dashboard. So I feel like it's a really good representation of the things we might want to do as we think about having a public facing website. This is interactive. This particular snapshot shows conviction proportionality so you can see the counties where you have more.  You know the yeah data that we care about that I think this whole group is very familiar with in terms of like you know you if you're represented at 3.9% of the population. Why are you convicted at 13.3% those kinds of things. This dashboard has made very visible. This is another snapshot. This actually goes this shows sentencing disparities by judge. You kind of see that one that's like that peak right there. So I think I have a lot of work to do to kind of see how they have managed. First of all, I think the first step that so many states of the lack is actually having the data on race ethnicity and convictions and sentencing. But now they have a full dashboard so now the question is what are they doing with this dashboard and this data what actions are coming around that so I think that's where I have to do a little more homework. And also just giving you guys a heads up because I think some of the stuff we we have to talk through as we're presenting some of the data and kind of what makes what makes sense but I think this is a very interesting dashboard to follow. Here are some of our legislative committees and working groups that we're a part of right now. We have joined one that is looking at intellectual disabilities in relation to housing in the community versus they're trying to develop a potential facility trying to figure out how to handle folks who are who may have intellectual disabilities. So that that's an interesting working group to be a part of S14 you probably are all very familiar with. And I'm just kind of there taking notes and being a backup for her. Laura, I think you, you may want to say a few words about this. S138. Yeah, so I was pulled in on this. I've been working with Jay Green also who's a member of the Office of Racial Equity on the act relating to school safety and kind of reviewing the different behavioral threat assessments and things like that. So I'll be Susanna's backup for that group. Yeah. So we have that one Laura is also working on a network health equity assessment. And then we have a few other ones that we're following Jay is a part of the H635 and probably some of you here are a part of some of these other working groups to so you're probably familiar with that. Well, we're also following the pay parity discussion. That's happening. Susanna I don't know if you want to say anything about that I think that's at the very beginning maybe. I'm currently an internal conversation that we're having with you. No, it's fine.  But it's a bit of an inquest that we're doing with HR to look into a year over your pay rates among state staff from different demographic groups. This is something that was on our radar. A long time ago and other things kept getting in the way but actually it's, it's, gosh, I was going to say but actually that might help because we have more years but actually we don't because there's what we've discovered here is that so much data you would think is being collected aggregated and stored correctly is not a huge amount of personnel information exists in paper files. And if there's one thing that the weather events of the last few weeks have taught us is that your paper is not safe anywhere. So, um, so we're learning a lot about what does and what does not exist in terms of us being able to do an inquiry into it. But the reason that this is something that we are loosely concerned, the DRJS in is because you all will recall that one of the things we really wanted to do through the division was to look at the upstream factors contributing to the data we're being asked to and pay parity wage inequity employment discrimination. These are all things that contribute to socioeconomic disparity that then fuel things like quote unquote crime rates. So, to the extent that socioeconomic disparity may or may not be contributing to any of the data we're seeing here like, you know, I don't know. I mean, wage inequity, leading to insecure housing, leading to people doing things that sometimes people do when they have insecure housing, leading to jail. Right. So, and I know that that line that I just drew is a lot more wavy and complicated than the way that I did it, but you know what I mean. So anyway, pay parity is something the office is doing more broadly, but that's the link that we see potentially with the DRJS is work. Thank you, Susanna. Yeah. Yeah, I did not want to see Susanna has all that background knowledge so I didn't I didn't want to say I wanted to let her say that. Thank you. So this year we have this, you know what this, and I know we have a lot of text, you know, I think in the future, we'll probably try to, if we have to do these kind of presentations, boil it down a little bit. But we wanted to talk with you a little bit about the guiding strategies and principles. Many of these you're familiar with. But I think the main thing where we're focusing right now is developing the plans and policies strategic plan. Looking at different dashboards to get ideas about what we might want to do. Data sharing agreements policies for data governance. Yeah, so we can go ahead and start to establish those mo use and kind of figure out what kind of data we need. We also have resource development. Laura is heavily involved. We're doing a national landscape analysis we're trying to figure out where does Vermont fit in all of this. So Laura is putting together a comprehensive database around population demographics by state. And Laura, you know, I hate to keep calling on you, but I like for you to jump in with more details is I don't know I don't want to take away from it. So right now I am gathering. Unfortunately, the census data is not as recent as I would love, but based on one of the resources from pepper. The ACLU report a tale of two countries, all the data that they used in that report was from 2018. So this is at least from 2020. So right now what I'm doing is pulling the census data together for all of the states as far as population and demographics, etc. And then also going to each of the Department of Corrections or Division of Corrections, depending on the state and looking at their reports and their demographics for their populations using their data from 2022. As well so that we at least have the same kind of year comparison, but there's also projections that we can use from the census and also from most of the correctional departments that I've looked at so far. So that's what I've been working on there and we're hoping to kind of identify if. The information is still the way that the ACLU report outlined where they ordered that each state by the most disparity so I'm hoping that we can kind of have a comparable look and updated look at that once this is kind of done. I just finished Arizona today so. I just also wanted to say Laura, because some, you know, some people might say, well, why aren't you going because I know Vera, a lot of places I've done some of this national kind of this look, but the nuance that Laura is finding kind of doing it this way is very very interesting. And we had a brief conversation I don't know if you want to mention the part about how different states are capturing different people. Maybe the the problematic. So some states so the in the census there's, there's. I think seven I actually have the spreadsheet pulled up right now. Yeah, seven different racial groups that you can choose from and then one of the options on the census is that you can choose between two multiple races starting from two to six. As well, but in some of the correctional again correctional organizations that I have been pulling data from they don't have those same categories so like for example. Alabama in the census has all of that information so for like the actual state population but as far as their incarcerated population they only have white black and other. And similarly, in Arizona like I said I was I was working on that one today so in their racial groups that they have for their population they include Mexican Americans and also Mexican Mexican Nationalists. So it's going to be really interesting to see how each of the DOC's kind of categorize their populations in that in that way as compared to what the federal government captures as far as racial demographic so it's been really interesting to see the differences between each of the states so far. And I'm looking forward to seeing kind of what the similarities are or the differences are as we continue so. Yeah, we're going to keep you posted on that. Oh, it's on I think has a question for you. Yeah. I, I don't want to cut you off, but I just want to ask before I want the information before the meetings over. How is it going getting the interagency cooperation and MOUs. I asked this, because when we were imagining this entity that you have embodied and given life. We, we thought that that might be a challenge, I'll say. And I guess I'm thinking ahead to the report that we have do at this point sometime beginning of the year. If there is something that is not working for you all. I you should feel free to bring it to this panel. We will we will. Yeah, I think, I think we've had some very positive, a very positive. You all have laid some really good groundwork for us. I think we will definitely be in your ear if things we need a little support in certain areas, but so far so good. I think summer, it just being a summer months. I think have maybe certain things haven't happened that I would have happened already. Yeah, we will keep you posted on next steps. Yeah. Yeah, we definitely will. Thank you. We won't be shy. I think that right now it has felt smooth because we're still in the part of setting up those MOUs. When we start negotiating really did a gritty terms then I think it's probably going to be more challenging. One of the things that we've discovered through the very, very, very helpful assistance of some of our colleagues in the agency of digital services. I think that the state does not really have a standardized way of doing data sharing MOUs, and they have pointed to examples from other states Tiffany you don't happen to remember what state that was that they were highlighting for us. The Indiana Indiana. Yeah. Indiana evidently legislated their data sharing agreements which I mean, you know, it definitely shows a commitment to that act and that process, but I also wonder if putting it in statute could could also be too limiting. We'll probably want to know more about that, but the point is that so so through our exploration of this what we're discovering is that there's, there is a bigger conversation around state government about data sharing agreements and I think that the DRJS's work may end up helping to surface that and in sectors other than the one we're in. Okay, great. Thanks. Are you guys okay with other questions right now, Tiffany. Yes, absolutely. Okay, Judge Davenport. So, I have a question about the court data, specifically the court data on juvenile delinquency. And what we know about that court data is that we're missing 20% of the, we're missing racial and ethnicity information in 20% of the cases. There's a lot of art that that's there, there are multiple reasons for that. But I'm just wondering how, you know, when you're talking about and what you've presented is really, really exciting. It's something that I have wanted to see for a really long time. Now, one of the options in terms of racial data when there's a filing is that the data is unknown. And it, another question is based, what's the racial data based on, is it based on the officer observation, or is this because this question was actually asked of the youth. So, and, and what I understand is we kind of have a mix. It depends on whether the youth was taken to the police department and if they were just cited, then it's officer observation, but if they were brought to the police station, then it's there actually asked the question. And they may quite understandably respond. I don't want to give you that data. So then, but in any event, there are at least 20% of the court cases, at least based on the information I have from the courts. There are at least 20% of the delinquency cases where the racial data is unknown. And that's a lot. If you're looking at disproportionate minority contact, that's a big deal, because the numbers, you know, your percentage could really change depending on what that 20% it is. So I'm just sort of wondering whether that's something you've talked about. I don't. It used to not be a problem in the adult data, but I my understanding and this is more hearsay than than actual knowledge because I'm not in the judiciary at now but but that my understanding is that data is kind of getting worse. It used to be that 99% of the cases, you had data, but I'm not so sure that that's percentage is as good. As it used to be. And when I say 99%, there was an answer to the question as opposed to unknown. Unknown just is not very helpful. Anyway, I just wondered whether you've, you've, you've kind of looked at that issue and and how you want to do, you think we should deal with that issue. Yeah, that's a good question for it. I'm Susanna actually I think you have a lot of background. This is an ongoing issue across the board. And I'm hoping that we can inform the conversation. You're bringing this to my attention simply because you know we haven't gotten into the data sets to know that yet. So that's the good flag for us. As we're thinking about it, but we've had a few conversations about this issue. I know Susanna knows specifically about what's happening in Vermont. So I think if you want to weigh in on that, I would appreciate it. Yeah, that's one touch to have important. It was nice running into you a little while ago and I know we talked a little bit about this exact topic. We're not in those weeds just yet as a division, but these are the anecdotes that we're hearing that are really important for us to keep collecting so that we can put pins in those and then come back to them. Because when I hear that the data are missing for 20% of people that what's even the point because our data set are not going to be it's not going to be reflective of the population. And at that point we start talking about the quality of the data and then it makes us question why we're even having a collection procedure in the first place. I know that the last, I don't know what seems like three or maybe four legislative sessions, it seems as if there's always a bill that updates what law enforcement agencies and others are required to give. If not, then somehow agency of administration slash the office of racial equity will come and haunt you in your dreams or something like that. So, we're seeing movement about using the, the figurative stick to, you know, increase consistent compliance. But I think another really big piece about and I know you're talking about the courts and now I'm sort of bearing off into the law enforcement agencies, but I do think that if the court data comes from the law and enforcement agency, right, you know, that's where it comes from. Right.  And there's, you know, there's a role that that council plays as well, in terms of do we give a waiver to this law enforcement agency for not having submitted these data this year then they won't be able to use the training facilities. They have a really small three person department and if they can't use the services and they're going, and it's like, how do we do right by struggling entities while also not being so lax as to nullify the value. Of what we're trying to do. I may have phrased that bizarrely, but I hope it may sense. That will be an ongoing discussion and I think Susanna really laid it out very well. I think we have a lot of things planned. So I think as we go through the slides to, I think it will make sense and those are the kinds of things that we want to continue to think about. And kind of ways that we can have those interactions with various agencies and hey, how can we do this better? How can we have a more integrated system with data collection. And accurate system. I mean, that's, that's, you know, if it's if the data is not accurate because you can't collect it. You know, then, then the, the conclusions we draw from the data are, are not right. So we have to have the data, the data has to be accurate. Tiffany. No, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead a time. I know where the time is. Yeah, and that's what I'm just being mindful of Rebecca's got a question. I don't know if anybody else does and I don't know how many more slides you have. So I'm just trying to be efficient, which you want us to hold questions and to the end just kind of run through really quick because that are right with you. It's fine. Okay, go ahead, Tiffany. Yeah, so, you know, so this is what we're doing. We're looking at other opportunities. We've already talked about developing data management. I think a lot of what we're doing around gap analysis also with the sharing that conversation will be had, you know, kind of what we're missing what we need to do differently. And yes, we're looking for new ways to support the work that we're doing various grants and so forth. We're holding strategic meetings with various state and other agencies. We're doing a tour of the archive so we make sure that we're incorporating records doing the land, the legislative tracing and so forth we're incorporating that and having our resources at hand. Yeah, so a lot of data develop partnerships and development, or he has a conference upcoming and I think we will touch on that I'm sure is on at some point. We will touch upon that in the next few weeks. And this is something to that we're interested in doing is hosting a data equity boot camp for the division and interested state of Vermont employees and that's where that conversation can be had as well like how do we ensure that we're doing this in an equitable manner and that we're actually creating data sets that can inform policy and that we can have trust in. So yeah conferences we're doing various conferences, professional development opportunities. We have and developing just kind of a personal library of resources making sure we're touching all our points. I wanted to point out that we do have a data equity presentation that we're doing with Jay, who works in our office. I think that's going to be really powerful. We've done a lot of work on that so far. So that's upcoming we also have the presentation at UVM that I talked that I talked about. Yeah, policing as a social determinant of health and addressing the public health crisis of systemic racism. Yeah, in various conferences just for us to get more knowledge about the landscape and resources that may be available to us. Yeah, so upcoming is the hiring of the two analysts administrative assistant that we're hoping can support the work. Hopefully a timeline this is our draft timeline of milestones. So you can kind of see what we're looking at but you know we may be being a bit optimistic about the dashboard launch, but I think we still want to be. We want to have some goals in mind that help us to get to the next step. Yes. Okay, you have to go ask. I don't have the various I'm sorry. Okay, and then this is basically our finals, one of our final slides. Laura, if you want to just give a preview of what we're going to do for our presentation on the CCB board. Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned to y'all earlier, I basically what I did in my first few weeks, working for the office is reviewing the resources send by pepper and identifying different questions for. For the CCB for our office and I guess just more things to think about let me see if I can pull this up really quickly so I can speak more. Yeah, so some of my questions were after doing this review. And I don't think I can share my screen but it's really like not anything exciting. It's just literally three columns of questions that the different groups of people that we have a lot of questions for. And then the next steps and stuff like that. So, some of our current data questions after reviewing the CCB materials is about federal detainee data in our Vermont state data. If that's part of, you know, headcounts and different things across different. Landscapes for from all justice agencies. Also a lot of questions around municipal data and what the CCB use and and how they were able to kind of work with the different municipalities across the state. Something that you brought up earlier judge Davenport was about the missing data set so that was one of my questions to like what are we going to do if if there are missing data sets in the demographic information that we're trying to collect. Also identifying, like I mentioned earlier in this landscape that I've been building from across from everywhere. About the multiple races, if we're going to be doing to the two to six from the census and how the different do these are kind of capturing that information with their population. Questions for the CCB are primarily around their social equity licensure program. And then for our office. A lot of questions about. See just and and that kind of data. If we need to be just certified as well as. If there's concerns for different kind of communities or different counties as far as collecting data and those kind of disparities there. Again, just a lot of identifying different areas of opportunity and analysis and analysis. Analyzing words gaps if there are any. Or where there are any and then something that I've been working on for you for you guys I believe Jay already sent this out at least to you a ton. The historical some more on drugs resources have been doing a lot of research on research on that and trying to build a little bit of a reference library for for this group and also for our office so that we can you know keep in mind that. These things are historical have long roots in all of our systems. But yeah, so there's more work to do on this and Tiffany and I will be working and talking more about the specifics of, of connecting with the CCB and everything after with our questions, but that's kind of what we have or I have so far for for the CCB assessment. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Laura. Yeah, so, you know, you have our information. So, you know, definitely we want to thank you I think for putting the division together, giving us time today. And yeah, I think it's a great time to ask questions if there's something we can answer we'll definitely get back to you about it. Rebecca you had one. And guys, we've got five minutes so one of those presentation is really fun to see this come to fruition question is this. Can you share the status of the convening of the. I'm going to get the name wrong, the advisory council that is made up of a bunch of members who is supposed to work with you and advise you and consult with you along with how you are sharing your work with the part out. The status is that we have recently gotten confirmation or new appointments from the appointing entities, and they are responding to a scheduling poll, so that we can put them together in a room and watch them go. Sorry, is that Suzanne is like you. Yes, that's me. Did you say, did you, did you put a timeframe to that I just, if you know. I did. And that timeframe was a while ago. So, when I nudge them again. It'll it'll be a nudge I can't take it personally because I'm the most chronic email non responder in the state, but yes we're, we're working on an ASAP timeline here. I love you guys, I really do Elizabeth go ahead. Yeah, I'll be I'll be really quick. I do just want to say you know if there's if there's any way that you know Tyler I can help with the DC FMI please please reach out and let us know. My follow up question was just, you know, there's this you Amy highlighted of there's unknown data but there's also I think we're going to run into issues of when you request an agency they're going to say we we don't collect that we don't have any intention of starting to collect that. So I wonder what our role with our depth is in supporting you as you uncover those. And I'll say I'll say this coming from an agency that is just about to start beginning to gather data on reports to come in through our centralized state services right like we have never gathered the race of either mandated reporters who call in, or the race of the youth and the families that they're reporting on before we just have never done that before. Luckily that is changing going forward, but you know, I think we're going to come up across quite a few instances like that across different state agencies. Okay. Anyone else make it very brief. Yes, very quickly because I have so many questions and so much to learn. Can you share with us the dates and will any opportunities for training or conferences that we could go to because I certainly would like to participate and learn from you all, and you're all incredible and so much gratitude. Thank you. And finally, we will be happy to do that we have a few things that we're involved with. Happy to put that together and send it out. Yes, I'll send you our mailing list if that'll help Tiffany. Yes, and we'll work it through Susanna because I know that she has a lot more. Sure. That she's involved with that. Maybe. With this group. Okay. Thank you. I'm not trying to be rude, because I can't quite express my joy in having seen this thing as nothing and grow into an idea and grow into a report and grow into a greater idea and here are people doing work. And it's just, it's so exciting. And it's one of those rare moments where I think, wow, state government can work. And so, thank you. Thank you very much. Clearly, the agenda went a little weird. But that's okay, because the community safety subcommittee wasn't really going to prepare anything for tonight. What I was going to ask of you folks from DCF was, what do you want to write in the report. If you want to have that discussion at another moment, just put that in your head and let that soak.  The second look subcommittee. We're meeting on Thursday, I believe at three. So, there'll be more to report later. I think we can let that go for right now and there's been concrete discussion about forming the upcoming report this entire time. So I'm not worried about that. Anything else anyone wants to put out for new business. Okay. Moving on. Next meaning I can't remember, September. I don't remember what day.  Um, anyone want to make a motion. I love you, but does anyone want to make a motion. Like, you know, this is Jessica motion to adjourn. Thank you anyone seconding that. I'll second that ran there is no need for discussion all in favor signify in some form or fashion. I, I, all opposed. I'll abstaining. Thank you very much for your time, your participation and certainly your passion and intelligence. And I will see you all in September. Take care. Bye bye.


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