 Good morning everyone this is a joint hearing between Senate judiciary house judiciary and house institutions and We're taking up the report from council of state governments on just justice reinvestment to And we have Sarah Friedman with us from council of state governments. She's agreed to lead off and Do all the technical Moves necessary to get us through and then she'll introduce her colleague David as we go forward I'll just say before we start that It seems best to hold questions Otherwise, we'll we'll not wind up getting all the way through the report. So unless there's something Genuinely pressing. Let's just write questions down and have them at the end If you do need to get my attention Putting up the little blue hand Or or even raising your hand, but the little blue hand will get to me regardless of which screen you're on So with that said Please take it away, Sarah Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for being here. I really David and I Are really excited to present this report to you I am Sarah Friedman. I'm a deputy program director at the council of state governments justice center With me Co-presenting is David de mora who's a senior policy advisor at the council of state governments justice center When his time turn is up, I'll introduce him and and you'll you'll hear from him more closely Specifically around work that CSG has been helping Vermont do around substance use and mental health needs in Vermont And we're here today to present the justice reinvestment to working group report that was submitted to the legislature on January 15 and I know there's a lot of folks Here right now Some folks have been more some of you all have heard me present before You you've kind of heard the material more often and I assume so it will be newer for other people So I'm going to try to balance kind of doing the a lot of folks have been here before but it might be new I'm going to try to balance kind of how in depth I go into the report. It's pretty lengthy It's in four sections Actually five sections I should say I don't know if you all might have it in front of you But I will also actually right now be putting it up It's a PowerPoint presentation that I'll walk that I'll begin to walk through with you all So if you bear with me, I'm going to Share my screen Let's see and Alright, alright, can everyone see this yes Okay, I see some nodding heads. So just so you all know I can only see a couple of you as I'm presenting this I know that we've been asked to hold questions Till the end but if you all need to get my attention it may take a little a little bit because of the way presenter mode works on zoom so To begin this the report that was submitted to you all is in five sections I'm going to go through many of them David will really focus on the third section the analysis of mental health and substance use disorders for folks in Vermont But first I'll just walk through you through kind of background on who the justice rate investment working group is and what work they did Then we're going to talk about the conversation that was had on probation-earned credit policies David will talk to you all about behavioral health policies and then we'll walk through Some reinvestment of budgetary recommendations that were made And just thinking through moving forward for the working group is the last section So as I hope many people here remember this is all coming out of a justice reinvestment process So in June 2019 state leaders from all three branches of government Wrote to the federal government the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice assistance and requested that the Council of State Justice Center Come into Vermont analyze your criminal justice system to look at what challenges and needs were going on within the criminal justice system And help the state propose policy options to address those challenges. This was a process you all may Remember my colleague Ellen wheel and we stuff a fellow Vermont or who led this process on Throughout the end of 2019 and early 2020 that really culminated in asked 148 so Pretty incredible despite everything going on with the pandemic You have the legislature figuring out how to switch to zoom all of the other pressing challenges Really a credit to your legislative leadership and leadership in the state That there was still coming out of this process in the middle of the kind of state chaos was a really significant criminal justice reform bill in act 148 this was enacted in july 2020 And here we have just a really really high level brief overview of everything in act 148 Kind of the three three of the hallmark policies were establishing presumptive parole Streamlining your furlough system Which is a system for supervising people in the community by the department of correction And incentivizing good behavior for people who are incarcerated around furlough by increasing earned good time As part of As part of these policies Act 148 continues the justice reinvestment to working groups. So the working group oversaw During what we call phase one of justice Reinvestment it oversaw all of this policy analysis and policy development and in act 148 Say a legislative leader said hey, we want this to continue We found a lot of value in this working group process And we would like the working group to oversee implementation of these policies passed in act 148 And also to study some additional policy areas that we weren't quite able to kind of Get over the hill during the last legislative session And so that's why we are here today So what this looks like just um for you all to understand the work that the working group put in is that Once the bill was enacted in july Leaders from all three branches of government again got together Wrote a letter to the department of justice Bureau of justice assistance and said hey could see as she please stay on and keep facilitating this process for us That letter was approved in august And then that's when things kind of really got going in earnest And the working group was able to meet four times between september and that january 15th Reporting deadline that's in act 148 for the first first report that's due which you are all are reviewing now Now the working group that was continued in act 148 is 19 members It's the same members that that were there during the initial part of the process Before act 148 was enacted with the addition of a representative of the pearl board, which is mary jane ainsworth Added to the working group Just want to note here. There are four legislators on this working group I think all of or almost all maybe not some senator sears wasn't able to attend are actually in this meeting now So we have folks who experienced this firsthand who are hearing me talk again Representative eminence Representative grad senator nipka and then of course Senator sears who couldn't be here at this moment, but you'll also see in these 19 members Again as as justice for investment always is representatives from all three branches of government And a variety of different actors within the criminal justice system so folks who really understand the system being able to Kind of give input and direction into where the work is going So in addition to just generally overseeing justice reinvestment implementation the working group Was passed within act 148 for studying specific policy areas And the working group has to report Has the january 15 2021 report which you are reviewing now And then also a report to january 15 2022 And a long list of duties in between some of those duties were marked that they had to be done by 2021 But there was also some flexibilities Where the working group could look at their timeline and figure out what they wanted to prioritize for this first report And what they really wanted to tackle in fall of 2020 and this kind of pretty quick timeline that they had to execute before the report was due so At the first meeting they met they looked at these duties and they really prioritized four statutory tasks for the this report The first and this one had to be done by January 15 2021 was Studying earned time for people on probation and and exploring other related policy options The next three are the three that david demora is going to get into when he presents his section of the report But they're all related to substance use and mental health challenges in the state and in particular related to kind of Information sharing across agencies coordinated care and collaboration An assessment tools and making sure that everyone is kind of rowing the boat together when addressing the needs Of people in the criminal justice system who have mental health and substance use means So we'll get into a lot more detail on these in section three of this presentation So what this looks like is that the working group was able to meet four times Before the report was due in which they they tackled these tasks that I just outlined and also looked into what they thought budgetary recommendations could be related to strengthening justice re-investment policies and thought through what policy options they might want to present for action during the legislative section or for administrative action So things that did not necessarily need to become legislation I'm not going to go through Exactly what they did in each in each meeting in detail But you'll see here kind of the general flow of the meeting Um One thing I do want to note is that this report is a culmination of these four meetings And so the report that you're looking at now Really kind of cherry picks the highlights of the four presentations that were presented during these meetings to give an Kind of that um overview of everything the working group tackled Well, also trying to not get in too much detail or be, you know, too onerous to read So if there are aspects when I'm presenting and you're thinking, oh, I'd really like more detail on that You there might actually be more detail and there are four separate presentations that this kind of consolidates into Um, so just to note there and I can also flag or if you have questions You know, I might be able to point you to the right details Presentation that would give you more information on what you're what you're wondering about But we tried to be at least a bit brief for the this kind of culminating report Um Also important to know if you're wondering where to access those presentations. There's actually a justice reinvestment to website That's up on the judiciary's page Where all the materials from the meetings are posted as along with the youtube videos Because everything was live streamed. So there's a lot more materials on the justice to reinvestment to a working group If you all are interested So now i'm going to dive into the probation earned credit midpoint review conversation That the working group undertook During this process Now there's a few things going on here one a lot of uh several folks. I should say Who are listening now have already heard me present this and then also and and uh And then also as folks have already heard me present this dude this part of The work that the working group did is a little bit different than csg justice centers normal process. So i'm gonna Try to do this pretty high level and pretty quickly so that folks who have already heard this aren't Aren't kind of twiddling their thumbs, but you know, please If folks have clarifying questions and they don't want to wait till the end Let me know if i'm kind of going through it more quickly Especially with the data i'm going to try to do that really high level But no if you have data questions We have additional analyses available and and have the ability to go more in depth if needed so at 148 task the working group With a value evaluating the policy for people on probation Earning one day of credit towards their Towards their suspended sentence for each day served in the community without a violation And the ask 148 actually goes into pretty specific details about exactly what the working group should consider With this probation policy So they ask if it says Working group we want you to look at how to implement this policy without impacting probation term or suspended sentence length Whether credit should apply to both maximum and minimum suspended sentences Whether credit cruel uh equal to the imposed or statutory maximum terms should result in discharge, etc I won't bother to read the other one because because you I'll get the point, but there's some very specific details. They have to do Now the csg justice center was really happy to help To help the working group think this through facilitate it look at what data was available But as I said, it's a little outside of our normal process because it didn't the This is a conversation that I understand has been going on in vermont for for many years now Whether or not people on probation should earn a credit Should earn credit for good behavior And so it wasn't uh, it wasn't kind of a policy that came out of our phase one data analysis Like the other policies that informed act 148 But actually we were stepping into kind of an ongoing conversation within vermont about this And we had and and we are working to navigate that to help vermonters figure out where they want to go Meaning that we're kind of a little a bit less directive than maybe you've seen us be in the past around this policy because of Because it's an ongoing conversation because you'll see we didn't have all the data We wanted to to answer all the questions we wanted And just kind of generally for quite honestly the political sensitivity of it We kind of could tell you as much as we knew but we kind of but we couldn't tell vermonters Exactly the best way way forward quite honestly, so This you'll see uh when we presented policy options to the working group which we'll review in just a minute Usually when we present policy options We are we're saying hey, we really want you to adopt all of these But it was different for us instead. We said hey, you know what here Here's two different routes you can go and we can tell you kind of the pros and cons of each route But we can't we can't say like you should definitely take this path or you should definitely take this path This is like a very kind of vermont specific decision that needs to be made So when thinking through this conversation We and thinking through kind of this like this ongoing conversation in vermont CSG staff wanted to work with the working group to think through what their goals are of an earned credit policy for folks on probation And and have that conversation with the working group to best figure out how To kind of craft a policy moving forward and and through this conversation The working group really identifies four different goals that a That a probation earned credit policy might address So decreasing the length of incarceration for people who are successful on probation And then revoked to prison for a period decreasing the probation term for people who are successful on probation Um Providing people on probation with an increased incentive for positive behavior change And then also increasing probation resources for those To focus for those most likely to reoffend and and the idea by about that one specifically As if you have a whole bunch of people who are successful on probation And they earn their discharge. They are able to short get earned shorter sentences on probation So you get all of those people who are really successful who are doing well in the community off the probation roles Then your probation officers who are providing Supervision to people on probation They are left with the people who are struggling Who are at higher risks to commit future crimes, etc. And they can really focus Their resources their time and attention on those folks who um who are not being successful on probation So this is one of these places in this report where there's a lot more detailed charts for folks who are really quantitatively minded in CSG second presentations for working group But for this report we kind of picked the greatest hit and because a lot of folks on this committee have Heard me talk about all these numbers. I'm going to go through them pretty quickly But what we wanted to do what the csg team wanted to do When helping Vermont think through, you know, what a probation-earned credit policy could look like and what the needs were there Was well, what is your what do your probation sentences currently look like, you know, what data can we go Can we show you to tell you what's happening for people who are currently on probation? And so the next few slides will represent that analysis looking into the current probation population and and what sentence lengths look like Um, it's really important to note. Um, and I have a feeling almost everyone who I'm talking to knows this already But just in case probation sentences have three components um in vermont specifically so Uh judges sentence someone to a length on probation. So a length um being supervised in the community by Uh supervision officers, but then they also sentence people to a minimum and maximum underlying sentence. So So that minimum and maximum underlying sentence Tell says uh, how long essentially someone can be incarcerated When they mess up on their probation and if they're revoked to prison um And so those are the three those are the three kind of components of a probation sentence And that's what we break down and they fall inside is what those those three different components of a probation sentence look like For misdemeanors and for felonies So for misdemeanor probation sentences generally Uh judges put people on probation for 24 months or less Which makes sense because there's guidance on the books that unless you know, there's uh, a real reason to exceed 24 months misdemeanor probation sentences should not be longer than print than 24 months For those underlying minute math sentences for misdemeanor probation They tend to be significantly shorter than the actual amount of time someone is placed on probation So for example from this chart if you're For a person for a typical person who's placed on probation for one year They're underlying minimum and maximum sentence that underlying amount that they can be incarcerated is three to six months Now for felonies nearly all felony probation sentences are less than five years You'll see here in this chart. There's these spikes Those spikes are kind of for the most part at the year mark at 24 months at 36 months 48 months, etc There is a statutory guidance that probation sentences should generally not exceed four years But we do see that you know A chunk of people in vermont do get probation sentences for four or five years For the underlying minimum maximum sentences that underlying suspended incarceration sentence for people on felony probation It looks actually pretty different. Um than misdemeanor probation. So Um those incarcerated Sentions are generally the same length as the probation term if someone gets probation sentences over two years But for folks with probation sentences about two years or less Their actual underlying of incarceration sentence of incarceration is actually longer than tends to be longer than Then the amount they're sentenced to prison So and if you look across all different felony probation lengths so across all felony sentences The medium under median underlying sentence Is one to three years of incarceration? So really important if you all are thinking, you know, are people successful on probation? Should they earn time off their probation sentence for being successful? It's really important to understand Well, when do people mess up when they're on probation? You know, uh, when if someone is revoked on probation. When does that happen in their probation term? And so for misdemeanor probation For misdemeanor probation sentences, it occurs tends to occur well within someone's first half of their probation term So from this chart, for example, if you have a probation term of one year The typical person who if if someone has a probation term of one year and messes up on their probation They typically do that in the fifth month of their probation term And as probation sentence misdemeanor probation sentences get longer you see that it encouraged It occurs kind of even earlier within the probation term. So if you're someone who got four years of misdemeanor probation You would mess up and then you would typically and you're someone who messes up on probation That would typically happen in the ninth month of of your uh probation term So across all different misdemeanor probation sentences The average person who is revoked uh has their supervision revoked is revoked in their seventh month of supervision so um For felony probation, that's actually doesn't look so dissimilar Again, it's typically within the first half of a felony probation sentence across all different felony sentence lengths The average person who is revoked would be revoked in their 11th month of supervision. So Most people who get revoked do so within the first year of their probation sentence and this chart shows you well Based on how the length of sentence exactly where people people are typically revoked so um We the CSG team didn't really have the data available to us to to answer all the questions We would have wanted to answer to fully understand a probation-earned credit policy There we we know that there are already two mechanisms on the books in vermont that allow people to shorten to earn time off their off their probation sentences one is called the midpoint review The other is just that there is a policy that once people complete this the Complete the conditions of their supervision DOC competition the court to shorten their probation sentence But we had no idea how often those two mechanisms were used And you know, whether how often they were used or how often they were approved by the judiciary Um, we don't know how often and for how long probation terms are extended as a result of a violation Um, we weren't able to see the imposition of minimum and maximum suspended sentences How that correlates with the amount of time someone spends in prison on a revocation Etc. So we didn't really feel like we had the full picture in order to provide kind of this directive guidance On exactly the best way to craft a probation policy. However um Do you want to note that 38 states across the country have some sort of earned compliance credit or earned discharge policy for people on community supervision? So this is a really common policy nationally and a lot of states have seen success with it Even if we don't know exactly Even if you know, we don't know exactly how it could look in vermont so Even though we didn't have this data uh actually really interestingly The the working group really dug into the probation earned credit policy discussing it in their October and november meetings and then in december like two weeks after the last time they discussed it Pew released a really comprehensive study on these policies specifically And that study did find that nationally many people on supervision serve longer terms than are necessary for public safety And that many states have enacted these policies and not had negative impacts on public safety And so it's a really interesting report. I think I've said we've sent it To the senate judiciary committee But we can make sure that everyone has access to it if you all are interested it walks through All these different policies nationally and give case studies on states that have found success with them and at the end it really concludes Well, the study recommends to state policy makers That they should adopt similar policies to what the working group had been discussing and in particular It it highlights three different aspects of policies that it thinks that kind of pew Things research really supports So um enacting policies that have goal-based supervision to prioritize outcomes as opposed to time-based supervision Earned compliance credits to promote positive behavior and short encourage compliance and increase successful supervision And automated automatic review of supervision to ensure that states use clear and definable guidelines to determine eligibility For earned discharge to ensure fairness. So all three things that the working group really did dive into and discuss So uh at the end of this discussion and in the january meeting for the working group CSG really put together two policy options For the working group to consider that were based on where we heard the conversation going during the The october and november meetings So really following where we felt like the Was kind of forming consensus And the two different types of policies that the working group had discussed in those meetings So we were kind of articulating back to the working group where we thought they were going um the first of these options was to do to kind of Adopt the probation-earned credit policy the day-for-day credit that act 148 asks The working group to study and and it seemed like when discussing this credit Where the working group was landing was to apply The credit to the underlying minimum sentence Um, and then there were also some conversations of applying it to the underlying minimum sentence until there were only 15 or 30 days remaining Of incarceration so that that someone could be revoked as needed Rather than their minimum sentence going down to zero and kind of that removing the tool of revocation Um, ultimately this option was not adopted by the working group But there was comment and and that should and that should be to say that we did present this CSG did present this as hey, we think you should do option one or option two and representation from the aclu stated that Uh stated that you know, they didn't think that option one and two were mostly mutually exclusive that the working group could have adopted both Which I guess at least let's look out of the bag that the working group did adopt option two um And this was based on conversations by the working group had or up around the midpoint review process Which is a mechanism vermont already has on the books to shorten people's probation sentences if they aren't being successful on probation so That's at the midpoint review at the midpoint of someone's probation sentence DOC right now can position the report Uh can petition the court To discharge the remainder of someone's probation sentence And this is really kind of where consensus felt like it was going um in the working group discussion so um the uh The kind of recommendation from csg was to modify the midpoint review process To make this more presumptive and encourage its use Using a model of earned discharge policies from other states such as montana And this is to say that although it's not in the working group report The working group did review specific policies from other states one of which was montana During their their october uh working group discussion So um, you see here some specifics on how to make kind of this existing statute more presumptive and encourage its use On modifying language from may file motion to shell file motion for DOC to do these at the midpoint review Requiring judges to grant a request for discharge unless they determine It's not in the best interest of the person on probation Or would present a risk of danger to the victim of the offense And then also if someone is not ready to be discharged at their midpoint making sure to set up additional opportunities um for them to be able to Kind of prove that they are successful And again be recommended for discharge later in their sentence And again, this is what was adopted by the working group With comments Just to to be clear the represents The vermont network against domestic and sexual violence did state the importance of honoring the rights of victims ensuring proper notification and communication Props uh processes are incorporated into this policy if it's when it's adopted um into staching so um This is kind of so that that's where the policy discussion of the working group went and what they're ultimately recommending to you all as a legislature um for addressing that these probation issues um regardless of what of legislative or administrative policy changes It's really important to remember that this These improvements to probation are part of a really large a much larger picture within vermont That justice reinvestment has been helping you all tackle in improving your community supervision On system generally so that probation parole and furlough To reduce technical violations that result in prison revocation And this really needs to be part of a holistic package Of improving the effectiveness of how people are supervised in the community by community supervision officers through graduated sanctions use of incentive And other research informed practices to promote positive behavior change Also, it needs to be part of ensuring people receive the services they need Uh while in the community to address their criminogenic mental health and substance use needs and of course increasing community-based resources for people on supervision With these mental health and substance use disorders are really is really important If we want to help people be successful in the community and not come back into the prison Okay with that I get to uh take a pause and catch my breath and pass the baton to david um who is going to talk uh with you all about the mental health and substance use work that uh We did with the working group this past fall Good morning everybody. Uh, thanks for the opportunity to talk with you all again uh as With the things that sarah was covering Some of you will have heard of this previously and so you'll be you'll be hearing it again But we're going to go through what we see and what we recommend and what the working group recommends In terms of substance use and mental health needs among folks So sarah if you're going you'll be handling the slides. I believe if you would move to the next slide So the working group prioritized three areas of study looking at issues related to mental health and substance use and they were outlined in act 148 That includes determining whether the screening assessment uh case planning and care coordination gaps existed if any For folks with complex mental health and substance use issues that are in the criminal justice system And to recommend improvements where needed Secondly to identify ways to increase the department of correction and community provider risk assessment information sharing Uh, there is risk assessment that's going on. That's very good But the sharing of that information to help inform plea agreement sentencing and revocation decisions And third to identify new or existing tools to identify risk factors that can be targeted with treatment and services Next slide, please Additionally act 148 directed a hs the agency of human services to work with us To report current mental health and substance use assessments case planning and information sharing practices across a hs And so part of what we looked at together with a hs was What kind of information? Uh, do we need to make decisions and so we took a collaborative cross system approach to gathering the information It was then used to inform the working groups tasks related to studying and making recommendations around mental health and substance use and so we looked at this included Of course the department of correction department of mental health department of health An aid app, of course under the department of health as part of the department of health and the department for children and families It also included other stakeholders the parole board for example, which very important the courts Who need mental health and substance use information to make critical decisions as the person does move through the various intercepts of the criminal justice system really the This kind of information is important literally from the moment that person hits the criminal justice system And then all the way through Next slide, please Now the uh, one of the upsides is that as we looked at assessment and screening processes Vermont really does a very good job overall in terms of screening And assessing for mental health needs and substance use needs In terms of uh, folks who are detained. There's a substance use screener and a mental health screener For those folks who are sentenced There is the substance use screener the mental health screener as well as follow-up clinical assessment The same is true for those folks that are on furlough or parole And for those folks on probation are meaning going directly to probation. There's a substance use screener There's follow-up clinical assessment as appropriate There has not been the use of a mental health screener and one of the things that we have pointed out is that that needs to be put in place Having said that Vermont is among the You know top states frankly in terms of having these kinds of screeners in place at various intercepts And so while they're uh, we have some suggestions for improvement here. I really do want to sort of Talk about the fact that What we're talking about is improving on something that has been developed rather nicely already And and that is a nice thing to be able to say and to be able to see Next slide, please Vermont does have treatment case planning policies that are in place But the reality is that folks are still inconsistently connected to community-based services and specifically community-based mental health and substance use services Which are the ones that i'm focusing on here. There's correct community correctional programming services That's a different discussion just to be clear What we're really talking about here are the mental health and substance use treatment services The importance of them is that because of the complexity of vermont's criminal justice population because vermont has done a really very good job of Weeding out if you will lower risk folks What you are left with in terms of your population are the folks that are the most complex And the complexity isn't simply that they are quote more criminal They may or may not be The complexity is that they have much higher rates of mental health and substance use needs And so when you look at The success and failure of those individuals The success and failure is directly impacted by their mental health and substance use needs Regardless of what criminal piece they may have The effectiveness of treating that Is Impacted by whether or not the mental health and substance use needs are treated If they are then dealing with other high-risk issues becomes very doable If they're not then it doesn't work So to put it very simply you can't focus on The cognitive correctional interventions in a way that is effective If there are things that are getting in the way for for the individual processing that stuff And the things that get in the way are the mental health and substance use needs Now when we talk about the case planning policies There are ongoing challenges to sharing relevant mental health and substance use information And coordinating the care between the department of correction and community-based providers Which can not surprisingly negatively impact the overall case planning And the subsequent treatment and programming referrals Now in reality some DOC supervisions have built very strong relationships with local offices They leverage these connections to help clients connect with the available services. I've seen this they do a wonderful job But the fact is it's not consistent across the state and so it results in geographic variations in care coordination For folks who are uh have co-occurring disorders and are receiving medication assisted treatment for the substance use Disorder there's often a lack of coordination between the mental health treatment And the and the substance use treatment across providers and supervision agents And the assessment and screening results are not consistently shared between DOC Meaning the health care contractor the facility case workers and the supervision officers And the community-based providers in order to effectively inform case management and care coordination And so while there's a lot of good information that is gathered and being developed and being used in siloed ways It is not being used As well as it can be across Within the systems across different parts of a system and across the systems that need to be responding to these individuals Next slide, please The mental health and substance use information sharing between the department of correction and community-based providers and the parole board Remains inconsistent current information sharing between supervision officers and community providers is generally based on Relationships as I mentioned before Rather than on established processes or policies and therefore it varies widely across the state AHS does not yet have an umbrella information sharing policy that governs how its department share information To support people with mental health and substance use needs in the criminal justice system who are served by more than one department I mean the beauty of what you have in vermont is that you have all of your key departments under one parent agency What you don't yet have are those departments working in sync I also need to say that they are clearly Focusing on this issue. They have started meeting. They have started Interagency meetings. They are working on an information sharing policy So I want to give a lot of credit to aahs for beginning that process as this information became available and obvious that these problems existed They they are not sitting back and waiting. They are beginning to dive in to look at what can be done For folks that are sentenced straight to probation. There's less mental health and substance use assessment and screening information available to inform the supervision conditions Then there is for people transitioning to furlough or parole or in other words too often What happens is the court makes stipulations without the necessary information to inform those stipulations What that results in Are really two different things. One is people getting ordered to programming that they don't need And secondarily and and arguably even more problematic people not getting ordered to programming that they do need in order to succeed So what happens is they have to fail once before that programming gets in they get involved in that programming We're suggesting that that needs to be looked at right up front and the determinations need to be made At that beginning stage that the courts need to have the relevant information to make those decisions next slide, please Vermont does face several challenges to improving information sharing There are real and perceived limitations related to federal privacy laws and regulations Including HIPAA and 42 CFR part two, which is the substance use act I say real and perceived because there are in fact Very specific rules that have to be followed What we find typically and what we found in vermont is that there were lots of perceived barriers That actually HIPAA and 42 CFR don't say But that people believed that it said and so they were saying we can't do this or this or this Again, ahs and their attorneys are examining this very closely and really Separating out what the real rules are if you will versus what the perceived are so that we can get those barriers out of the way There's inconsistent knowledge among doc staff parole board and other criminal justice stakeholders regarding evidence-based practices for serving people with substance use And mental health needs We're working with doc and the parole board to bring in A variety of forms of training that will be cross-discipline Training and both state and community providers training for both groups of individuals Because of and and the reason for that has to do with the inconsistent knowledge among the community-based providers In terms of serving folks in the criminal justice system Some of them have a lot of knowledge about that some of them don't and have Just a mistaken ideas basically about who the clientele are And mistaken ideas as to whether or not they are actually serving these clients What we know from around the country is that in reality A very large number of people that are served by mental health and substance use programs Even if they are not involved with the criminal justice system at the moment have been at some point And so it's less an issue of differences among who the clients are And more an issue of whether or not you get that client when they have criminal justice involvement Or when they are not involved in the criminal justice system There is of course a lack of resources to address some of the geographic disparities In mental health and substance use disorder Services and so in some cases the problem becomes knowledge They need to develop and in some cases it just doesn't exist. It's not in that area It's not an issue of knowledge. It's an issue of lack of resources And there's tends there has tended to be a lack of resources to increase information sharing To inform the supervision conditions pre sentencing going back to what I said earlier Having that information for the court in a timely manner as they make their decisions About what the condition should be for individuals who are going straight to probation Next slide, please So in january the working group adopted four recommendations Related to mental health and substance use disorder for inclusion in the reports of the legislator Option one we suggested could be done administratively Which is recommending that ahs convene representatives from each relevant department in the agency to develop and implement changes To policy and procedure that may address in order to address barriers to information sharing and care coordination In order to support folks in the criminal justice system with mental health and substance use needs Was recommended that the group could collaboratively modify agency policy and procedure to adjust provider contracts To supply structure to the information sharing practices In other words, this is how it should be and it's going to be the same no matter where we are in the state To standardize the ahs mental health and substance use needs information sharing between the department of correction And community providers including the sharing of relevant assessment results To adopt a collaborative coordinated case planning model There shouldn't be 10 case plans for an individual if somebody is in the criminal justice system There should be a master case plan that is then coordinated among all of the various services that people need to be receiving and so what you see too often is are the development of sort of seven different plans and those plans Sometimes have crossover but very often the different system actors are not aware of what are in the other plans So you have both duplication of services and in some cases you have a clash of services because there isn't a coordinated plan In terms of how to give whatever that individual may need The appropriate services in the appropriate ways And then lastly to identify opportunities for mental health substance use and criminal justice Cross-training and again back to the issue of if you're going to coordinate something Everybody needs to understand not only their role, but the other system actors role and what is going on This option was adopted by the working group. There was one objection the defender general registered objection because the prisoner's rights office was not being represented in the group And there was discussion back and forth. This is an internal ahs group But there was discussion back and forth and the defender general did object based on believing that they should be represented in these group meetings for the purposes of developing and implementing policy and practice changes Next slide, please The second option Was recommending that doc use a validated mental health screening tool for people sentenced directly to mr. Meener probation You'll remember from the earlier slide. That was the one box that was not checked If you will in terms of assessment. It was adopted by the working group without objection The third one legislative recommend that the legislature required doc to develop a brief report That will be provided to judges before sentencing to inform condition setting for all felony cases The report should include risk and need assessment results the mental health and substance use disorder screening results And the criminal history This option was also adopted by the working group with comment doc stated that The pre sentencing assessment process would be most effectively Excuse me implemented through demonstration sites prior to a statewide rule out They wanted to try this in two or three places work the bugs out if you will Before doing this at a statewide on a statewide level Next slide, please And then the fourth option We labeled it as strategic Because of the we're sort of the early stages of it But the recommendation was that doc explore hiring licensed clinicians to be placed in local supervision offices In order to administer the mental health and substance use screenings and assessments as well as to liaison with community based treatment providers It also may be uh that in some cases the local agencies Have enough staff that they would want to embed or place somebody into the office So there's different options to be clear. This is not about These individuals providing treatment to supervisees that is the work of the clinicians in the field It is to help supervision officers have a better handle on who their clients are It's to improve the relationship between supervision offices and community providers And it's to make sure that treatment needs of individuals don't fall through the cracks And this option was adopted by the working group without objection Next slide And back to sarah Sorry a little second to unmute there. Thank you so much, david And really for this next section, I think you'll probably be hearing from both david and i but uh in addition to so What we've just reviewed are really the policy options recommended to the legislature. However, um And these were the things that were actually adopted by the working group However, there are two additional conversations that the working group had although they did not adopt anything or vote on anything That we wanted to make sure were kind of documented in this report And uh, the first one of these are opportunities for reinvestment So we actually csg justice center staff actually heard from the working from a variety of working group members early on in the process when we were Kind of um when we were laying out the schedule for what would be covered in the in the four meetings um that folks wanted to return to the conversation on budgetary investments into Uh into justice reinvestment policies that had been started prior to the pandemic and then you know the pandemic happens and life gets all out of sorts and um and uh, and I think You know what mostly felt like a little unfinished. Um, and so with this in mind in the november Working group meeting and then again for discussion in the january working group meeting csg justice center staff presented uh to the working group options for Fiscal investments to bolster justice reinvestment policies um, particularly policies in act 148, but generally um, just the kind of all to to address the challenges found Challenges found through the justice reinvestment process So, you know just to just to be clear and you'll see this written here These were not adopted by working group members, but they were just discussed by working group members And these are ultimately, you know recommendations that come out of csg's thinking um So first off really helpful to acknowledge that in the fy 2021 budget that was passed this fall On kind of while the working group was still in the beginning of their meetings There was reinvest what we call reinvestment into act 148 policies Which was to invest any out-of-state bed savings From doc into domestic violence intervention programs um So we want to acknowledge that that happened that or that Investing out-of-state bed savings is in the the most recent budget that was passed. However in addition we made a number of recommendations For the upcoming budget cycle of ways we think could strengthen these policies and address needs um, and so that is 200 thousand dollars to maintain investments in domestic violence intervention programming So it's not really enough to do a one-time investment in domestic violence intervention programming This does mean this is an ongoing need and this is where i'll actually kick it to david to talk about this specifically because You'll hear it's uh david's passion point for vermont Some of you may have heard me uh testify in when we were doing phase one around this issue I would like to encourage the legislature to Really closely focus on domestic violence intervention programming with the best of intentions vermont has made some problematic decisions in responding to domestic violence and programs were defunded uh, and the The reason that happened was a concern for wanting evidence-based programming and that's valid The mistake was You don't take money away and then tell people to figure out how to do evidence-based programming You say to folks over the course of the next 18 to 36 months There needs to be a series of evidence-based programs developed We realize that in order to do this it requires certain kinds of uh studies certain kinds of programming and certain kinds of resources And so when you look at the issue of violent crime in vermont What you see is that a Great amount of it is related to domestic violence and intimate partner violence And yet it is right now, uh, probably the weakest response set that you have in place and so I want to encourage the legislature to really focus on Working with the the council and with the other relevant Individuals to make sure that one funding is available that two there is a clear plan about the development of several levels of program response And that it be done in a way where That it be done in a way where it's very clear That there is a funding pot and that funding pot is not to be interfered with Because if you want to lower Violence in vermont Your biggest bang for the buck will be to effectively focus On the issue or the problem of domestic violence and the inner relationship between domestic violence And people with mental health issues and substance use issues is overwhelming We have a tendency to carve out People by offense as opposed to look at the complexity of the issue And when you look at people who commit domestic violence, they are not a uniform group There are a series of different things that cause the behavior in some cases. They are criminal In some cases it has to do with beliefs. They may have about what being male is And in very many cases based on current research There is also an intersection of significant mental health trauma and substance use needs And so uh, I would argue that one funding appropriate mental health and substance use services and two really looking at the expansion of domestic violence assessment and programming will go a long way to really impacting the the problem Of violence in vermont And sarah i'm done now Thanks so much david And I I have a feeling you might also have similar things to say for the next item, which is 400 000 to target gaps in mental health and substance use for communities In uh use community services for people on supervision. So you've already heard david talk about the real needs there um In his previous section, uh, this money would go to ahs to be distributed to the department of health adab and the department of mental health for them to really assess what programs need to be bolstered and where the gaps are and um and fill those gaps for people in the criminal justice system sarah I'm just wondering uh Looking at the time Can you be finished by 11 15 to allow us half an hour for questions Definitely and hopefully we only have a couple more slides to go. So hopefully before that. Okay Good enough. Thank you Um, we also have a recommendation for 300 000 to strengthen transitional housing options and advocacy I'm feeling that it's no surprise uh to folks um on uh in this zoom That you know, uh housing In vermont is generally a problem. You all have housing stock issues and very very low vacancy rates and it's even more so for people transitioning From the criminal justice system into the community and there's a lot of churn going on there Where people are having problems finding housing in transitional housing programs, etc And then coming back into incarceration. Um, so this 300 000 dollars would uh provide training to increase The housing providers adherence to best practices for people in the criminal justice system and also with mental health and substance use disorders Create to help increase housing stock and and landlords who are interested and willing to rent their their apartments to Folks with criminal histories by creating a funding pool to decrease the risk for for those landlords and then also To set up additional assessment tools That folks can use within the criminal justice system to better identify what housing needs are out there So that in the future you all can have a better understanding of what your needs and challenges are and then target Kind of pinpoint solutions to target those those challenges Now those are the funding items that we were able to kind of put You know Put actual number amounts to there are additional things that cost money That we do think that vermont should consider although we weren't able to pinpoint specific numbers on them. So another thing that's important is to strengthen vermont needs to strengthen its data kind of collection and analysis capacity generally, but um, but also to increase funding to To support data driven decision making in for doc's data system specifically so that that that so that the data coming out of doc is better able to be analyzed and share and then also We did note the racial disparities in in the criminal justice and the criminal and juvenile justice advisory panel our daff um Did a report and did a whole bunch of work coming out of uh section 19 of act 148 They were directed to to study and make recommendations And just that to support that their recommendation to create a free person body charged with Definition collection and analysis of data pertaining to racial disparities across the juvenile and adult criminal justice system Very important That vermont have a better understanding of what is going on Related to racial disparities in the system and and really put additional data collection analysis analysis capacity but um, what's really uh What's really wonderful to know I should say since this report was submitted on january 15 The governor has released his budget and 900 thousand dollars is in the budget related to these funding recommendations for justice reinvestment policies, so the the The domestic violence intervention programming the mental health and substance use funding and the housing funding is currently in the governor's budget We really appreciate um, you know the governor staff is is uh represented on the working group And really appreciate the thought that they put into that To kind of push some of these funding recommendations along when we first started this and people asked us well You know, what money would you put towards this? Um in the beginning of the fall and in august and september? We're kind of like oh man. It's a pandemic You know like the budget situation state budgets across the country are extremely tough right now um We weren't really expecting anything understanding that there's just a lot of competing priorities and a lot of really tough decisions being made around budget um, so uh, it was really impressive to see folks taking this seriously despite tough budget situations That that these were policies that um that remonters wanted to support and we really appreciate that uh chair emmonds Yeah, sorry. I thought I saw your hand going Uh sarah is is that uh the extent of it? So there's just a really quick wrap-up section and I will do this Uh, yeah, I will do this in less than five minutes. I promise. Um Just to think through the working group also is thinking through their own sustainability and what you know What they're going to look like moving forward. So just to flag that for folks um, so the working group discussed uh ways um for the their own work to continue um, the justice reinvestment efforts in 2021 and beyond and And what I really want to flag for folks within this section is right now CSG justice center is providing kind of staffing and facilitation support for the working group But we're actually only funded to be in vermont through the end of 2021. So Um, we're not going to be around when this the second working group report needs to be submitted in january 15th 2022 In addition, our work is supposed to kind of gradually ramp down as the year progresses So we really wanted the working group to consider their own sustainability when we're not able to facilitate the process And for folks in vermont to think through if the working group is process is feeling successful and useful to folks in vermont You know, what should they be working on? And what should that look like moving forward? So the three kind of uh The three things that we've discussed with the working group is you know Is there in-state staff to to support ongoing justice reinvestment to working group meetings in 2021 and beyond? um once the sg is no longer able to support the process um You know, what should the regular meeting schedule be moving forward and they did set a meeting schedule for the um for the last Six months of 2021. They'll be meeting four times. Um, that was accomplished During the meeting and then also is the working group currently Kind of are the duties of the working group currently aligned with what the working group wants to be working on? So they need to oversee implementation They also have a few additional duties that they didn't tackle. They didn't have time to tackle before their report These are to study the efficacy of presumptive probation sentencing to evaluate the policy of parole eligibility for older incarcerated adults Um, and then of course they have this other report too So are these the things they want to be tackling moving forward? And how do they want to sustain the working group process when csg kind of has to take a step back? so just to kind of um Make sure that everyone's aware that that's going on and those are also conversations the working group had around their own sustainability And then I believe we just have the last this should be the last page of the report is just On the four working group meetings that were scheduled during the last meeting throughout 2021 uh, and uh, it's um, and there's also here a link to where all the materials are on the supreme court's website um, and maryk being the kind of staff the in the In vermont staff support for for the working group meetings. So now I am complete We've worked through we've worked through all of it Well, thank you so much sarah and david. Um, and thank you to csg for huge amounts of work that we are indebted to you going forward um questions we have we have a little over a half an hour um, and I guess i'll respond to um Blue hands, but first I wanted to ask the two chairs whether they have any questions uh chair emin's chair grad I do not I would just encourage uh members of all the committees just ask some questions Okay, um, so blue hands. I don't currently see any Uh, representative campbell has his blue hand up. Yeah And then representative coffey has her hand up. I don't know if you can see that phil. I Yes, hobert has her idea okay, uh Representative emin's would you like to um Because my uh, my eyesight is not as Maybe I can see it better. So we'll go with representative campbell. Then represent of coffee and then represent of colburn great All right. Thank you. Um, I am wondering whether the group discussed Um restorative justice as as part of the system as well I don't know who to address that too. Maybe uh, maybe sarah. Maybe David sure We did not discuss that specifically. Um as part of the system In that they were kind of tackling a very, uh, long but discrete list of Duties assigned to them and that wasn't one of them. I think this is kind of part of the conversation moving forward about what the working group should be Um in that they're kind of had three months to tackle a whole bunch of statutory duties And it went very very quickly But I I think there is kind of this um Moment to think through moving forward, you know What should the duties of the working group be and and what should the conversations they be having as it continues into 2021? as it is in statute and if If uh, vermont once is finding it the process valuable and wants it to continue it beyond um, january 15 2022 What I can tell you is that in uh, some of our discussions with the agencies and particularly both d.o.c And and department of mental health that that uh, that issue and the expansion of restorative justice work that's already occurring in vermont Has been discussed and there is certainly significant interest in Looking at that further and expanding that and so uh, while it was not something that the working group was able to focus on specifically I'm pleased to say that there are indeed significant folks Key folks in both those areas both those agencies excuse me That are discussing it and are are looking at how to Really further expand and improve what it is that vermont is already doing Thank you Representative coffee and then representative colbar Thank you. Um, and thank you sarin david. This is I I just so appreciate the deep dive That the council on state governments and the justice center take that your partnership with us has been Amazing and this report is so helpful. Um, so I have a specific question, you know, when we worked on um Act 148 Um, the concept of investment Is about reducing the number of people who are in our facilities and Moving them out of our facilities and into the community as a way of better supporting and having better outcomes but also to have a positive fiscal impact and to unrest those dollars saved in community supports So I'm about to ask kind of a loaded question. Um, there's there's some legislation in the work around Earned good time and I know when we earn good time is a really important part of The justice reinvestment work and I think there was a fiscal a financial calculation Made based on earned good time and we spent a lot of time looking at the number of days Served, you know a number of days that could be earned per month if we were to change Some of the the people the number of people are the kinds of Uh people based on their crimes In their accessibility to earn good time. What would the fiscal impact be? Do you have that? I think I don't know if David was the one who did those calculations Uh, no, I was not the one our research Did that? Oh, sorry. Sorry to put you on the spot there, but I'm just wondering Yeah, if you if you have a sense of that because it sounds like we're also looking at taking a similar approach to folks who are on a community supervision as a way of Improving our system. So I'd love to hear your thoughts It's a complicated question and answer. Um, I'll let sarah clean up after I give some thoughts, but um The answer is it depends on what you end up changing Is there is there any room to make any change without impacting? Savings there's some room dependent because we are always conservative in our estimates But it depends on what that ends up being right if it affects an extremely large number of individuals Or you go very broad in terms of the types of crimes that it affects then at a certain point. Yes, it's going to impact that um, but without knowing More specifically where that sort of ending It's hard for us to do any kind of comparison between oh if they drop these three things or these five things You know, we'd have to then go back and say well what when we did our original assessment or the original data, um, work What did we include? What did we exclude at that point? We try to be conservative when we give savings numbers So there's always a little bit of wiggle room But if if suddenly massive changes were made and a very large amount of the population suddenly became Ineligible Yes, it would certainly um impact your savings. There's no question about that But but I don't know where that cutoff is without other information and the ability to compare that with the original calculations Sure, I mean, I don't think that has been made. So I appreciate the the answer Is it the kind of thing that if we if we hone in on that that we could get your your Technical assistance and helping us do that Thank you. Yeah, we can I mean, uh, we've been following s 18 right as it as it works through your process And right now my understanding is that it's a pretty limited set of carve outs so I do off the cuff, um, which means a little reluctant to say this but Um, I don't have those numbers at my fingertips, but with my current understanding of s 18 I don't I although I think it will have an impact I don't think it will be a very large impact because right now it seems like a pretty limited carve out but we can look at that specifically and rerun our numbers based on Um, based on what that looks like now and and we'd be happy to provide that information I think I think that generally based on my understanding is that there would be an impact But as it's written right now that the carve out haven't is not Huge it hasn't been expanded to you know, all listed crimes or the big 12 or you know, um that you you all are probably in decent shape there, but Happy to do it. I we can look at the most current track of s 18 or if someone wants to send us You know what they another set of carve outs that they think might happen. We can model that Representative Colburn Thank you so much. Um, and thanks so much for your presentation this morning. It's been really informative I have a couple questions and a comment and since I don't see another hand up I'm gonna assume it's okay to just kind of dump them in one go unless I hear Otherwise from the chair but Both really of my questions relate to some of the data you shared And the first is about the probation revocation charts that we saw And I'm just wondering how much variation there is in the Underlying data there like how I think the question I'm trying to ask is how typical is that average You know, are we mostly seeing a lot of data that looks like that average? Or are we seeing all stuff that's all over the place that kind of creates that average So I would have to go back to the original data and really you all are making With that Angie gunter who is we have a research staff on our team. She's really wonderful Wishing wishing that uh that she was on here to answer your questions directly because she would be able to answer it You know off the top of her head My sense is that the average was you know, the typical I know that you know using average versus median and and there are reasons but I don't think that the average was being pulled up or down by outliers Which I think is what you're asking, but I would have to go back and verify that and and I can do that Um, yeah, I think I think that would be helpful, but thank you for your that response and then my other question is about the The substance use disorder and mental health screening that happens Um, and I apologize if I cut out again. I'm getting a little bit of internet instability messaging here But I'm curious about how so we know that the practices are in place and I'm curious about how readily The data associated with those screening practices How how available you found that data to be to be able to sort of really understand what percentage of a population in different supervision categories kind of correlated to Those those kinds of assessments Um, when you say readily available a readily available to whom? well I mean, I guess the first question would be you because I know accessing data at times was Um, has been an issue sometimes in your work just kind of moving through all the players and finding the data but I guess also to those of us as poly policy makers or even the public who want more transparency on understanding how those issues intersect with The work that happens in our corrections department so the The complication in answering that is that it depends on what intercept you're talking about And and by intercept I mean what section or segment of the criminal justice system we're discussing And so if we're talking about within the department of correction in terms of the assessment data That assessment data is available internally anything that has happened within the department And it's also available to all of the supervision office. Excuse me officers And so that data is there. It's a system they share where it gets Where the sharing problems become more problematic are when we look at information sharing between Different agencies say for example the department of correction and the department of mental health or the department of health Or when you're looking at information sharing between any of those departments And say a community agency or the community agency that that's where the Focus and the work on the policy shifts are really happening and need to happen Because all of these folks play a major role if we're talking about The screening that happens initially for those people who go directly to probation That information when it's done and right now it's substance use screening not mental health screening Although they're going to put that in place that information Is always available to the court My review of that was that whether or not How do I want to say this? There's there's availability and there's whether you use it and so What you have are variations in whether or not the bench Says I want this information before I make this decision And in some cases the bench does in other cases they don't Um, and so what you have are sort of variations based on whoever happens to be sitting on the bench as opposed to A a systemic policy that says These are the things that need to be Looked at these are the things that need to go to the bench and uh before the bench makes a decision And ultimately the bench makes the final decision of what they're going to use don't misunderstand me But but there should be a greater consistency of that information Getting to the appropriate judge, you know to do the judges basically, right? And making sure that they have that available as they're trying to make their determinations and uh and and arguably Some additional Uh discussion, you know Judicial education kinds of things that happen every year as to why and how that plays into making the best decisions For that individual so it's you have so again to boil that down Within systems, you've got a lot of good information sharing between agencies It gets a bit problematic once you get between the state system and the community system That's where it really falls down and where the big focus in terms of change Has to happen over the coming year. Is that helpful? It is and I just had one Maybe more of a comment than a question. Um That I was really happy and excited to see the recommendation about cross training for People who are supervising folks in mental health Um crisis issues and in substance use disorder and I'm just hopeful that that recommendation extends Not just to folks who are supervising people in community settings, but also in incarcerated settings just thinking about our medication assisted treatment program and corrections, I know that um Sort of a time's worker, you know buy in or just information about why that program exists has has been a question And so hopefully it's a whole that would be a holistic recommendation Uh, very very much so, uh, it it, you know vermont Reminds me of the chicago jail problem. Um vermont's department of correction for all intents and purposes is the largest mental health provider in the state Um, and they have the largest number of mental health clients Uh, and I'm I should say mental health and substance use clients just to be clear and and the The Failure rate that you see in vermont is not because of the high criminogenic risk of your people Although that exists. Don't misunderstand me for some of them. It is because of those And I use the word ancillary as in supporting issues of mental health and substance use and so There it does require a change in the cultural thinking of systems Because who it is that those systems are dealing with are not the people that they were dealing with 20 years ago I have one question david This is kind of a follow-up in terms of the sharing of the information So is it fair to say that The lack of sharing is more With folks not being used to sharing it not having the protocols in place Um, maybe not wanting to share it Versus IT issues Oh, you have IT issues, um So let me just start with that one. Um, you have IT issues, uh, you have major IT issues and uh, those IT issues are Certainly cause problems and those IT issues Would require a significant amount of investment to fix You have too many disparate systems. You have systems that are not well developed in some cases Meaning technically well developed. So that is real And that is a technological problem The other side of that is that you also have what's sometimes called an adaptive problem or a cultural problem, which is the belief What you see is uh, too often a belief that Uh, the system that you're working in is the one that's supposed to fix it all And so, uh, you have the agency pretty, you know, and i'm a clinician by training and so i've been guilty of this right I've got the right view in the world. And so that's the only view that that exists. Well, that's not true And so the information sharing Uh, there are different reasons for that. Some folks don't share information because They're afraid that they'll be judged for what they have or haven't done Some folks don't share information because they believe genuinely that legally A client patient or client privacy must take Must be over everything else and and there's no way around that which I don't in any I don't mean to doubt but when you're talking about a criminal justice client There are some limitations as a result of that Some people genuinely are worried about the way the laws have been passed because in fairness both HIPAA and CFR have not been the clearest In terms of how they were developed though, they're they keep fixing them and keep improving them And so it's it's those different. Oh, and then the last one is um Some folks fear That the people they're sharing the information with will use it to be harmful to the client you particularly get that from Mental health and substance use agencies particularly mental health agencies when they're dealing with criminal justice supervisors, etc So you have a series of different issues That are I would argue are all based on the fact that You don't have the appropriate cross system training and knowledge and understanding Of what each group's role is and how each group actually plays a significant role in the success of that client And and so again one of the big things that we one of the several big things that we've been pushing in terms of Our ability to provide support is bringing folks in to do that cross system training To get people playing what's singing from the same hymn book, you know, whatever phrase you want to use Uh that everybody's goal should be Twofold goal one is community safety goal two goal two Is the success of that client they are not mutually exclusive The community is safe when the client succeeds And so all those folks have to do that The best information sharing How do I want to put this? If I had an unlimited purse you'd have a you'd have a system That was consistent across all of your agencies with the appropriate firewall so that people could only access what they should access And you wouldn't have what is essentially right now A system where it's dependent on the goodwill of too many individuals to do the extra work to make sure it gets to the other folks Um, and I realize that's an expensive process and you're not going to be able to do that right away But I would argue that one of the long-term Technological fixes that vermont should look at is a and I would argue that it needs to be looked at by A group of uh interdisciplinary individuals not just your it group not just your your um user group But but by an interdisciplinary group of what is working What isn't and what do we need to have in place to get the end result we want Too often what I see are people Keep putting band-aids on an existing system when something new comes in But they still don't get the end result they want So what's the end result you want and what do we need to build to do that? What do we already have in place? What do we need to jump it and change it? And I don't know what the answer to that is for vermont. I just know that what you have now Does make it a bit more difficult For the information sharing to happen in a in a uniform manner David, um, thank you I just want to remind folks if they can mute if they're not uh speaking We're getting some interference Uh, go ahead chairman I don't see any more questions. Oh, I I do uh Uh, I had representative rachelson. Yep Sorry Thank you. Um, so My question is this when we when you were talking about, um Um Making sure that there's funding for Evidence-based programs. I very much appreciated that. I'm wondering If you when you were looking at domestic violence, for example, were you looking sort of within the framework of A correctional system Um Well, let me phrase it this way are you're making the assumption that things should stay Within the system that they're in pretty much rather than Um, possibly saying maybe for a mental health related Crime Why is that person there in the first place and how can we get certain crimes out of the system or Or Sort of stepping back when I've talked to people from other states and I've seen The college degrees that people have gotten or the treatment people have gotten over longer time periods It's so different than vermont and I guess I'm just wondering what what parameters or lenses you were looking through In making the recommendations Um, I want to make sure I understand the question. Are you asking Whether or not the response to domestic violence should be a criminal justice response? Um, I mean that one popped into my first but not I mean, I remember reading a couple of years ago a study related to incarceration Um, and what that did in terms of recidivism versus other types of programs Um, I wasn't prepared to say if I was Thinking that shouldn't be a crime, which is why I jumped to the mental health related diagnosis yet or addiction so, um The domestic violence abusers are not a homogenous group There are a percentage of them that um, so first of all We underestimate and under respond to domestic violence as a country And when we look at the correlation between domestic violence and mass shootings and domestic violence and other kinds of violence It's overwhelming So it is indeed a criminal justice issue per se Having said that the fact that something fits into a certain system doesn't mean that that system has the only set of responses That will make a difference. Um, and separating the issue of incarceration versus community the the issue This This isn't a very subtle way of saying some domestic violence abusers are just stupid and and the simple fact that they are exposed stops their behavior Some of them have some extremely societally inculcated issues about males versus females in terms of traditional patriarchal thinking and they're a lot more resistive and then there's a group the top 25 or 30 of the group who are Very very big criminal thinkers meaning on top of everything else. They you know Monday They robbed the convenience store Tuesday. They beat up a little old lady Wednesday. They domestic violence So what happened is that we created a one-size-fits-all response That effectively responds to that lowest group of people And we don't effectively respond to the middle and upper group And the middle and upper group are where you have those interactions of mental health substance use and criminogenic thinking And so it is a multi systemic risk and they need to be held accountable. That's not my point But it is a multi systemic response in terms of being able to move them forward and to change the behavior So David, can I ask you a follow-up? Um, I used to work with women who had addiction issues and were pregnant or parents and One of our collaborating partners was an obgyn And she wanted the kids to she wanted to make sure they were getting prenatal care. So she Really did not want to emphasize the illegality part because she didn't want to scare people away from getting treatment so i'm wondering about those kinds of intersections of Knowing The help will go far, but um, somebody might get caught up in the wrong System in the meantime and be too afraid to engage Um I don't have an easy answer for that And the reason I don't have an easy answer for that is that you can't parse out the variations in those individuals until They come to light and until you've been able to assess them And there are some people that a very light touch in terms of the criminal justice system is all you need for them to move forward And there are others where you very much need um a a fairly tight hand if you will to to um Manage them if you will or contain them for and I don't mean necessarily in a prison but contain them For a period of time until certain things sink in. I think the the issue becomes less whether or not For me the issue becomes less for what less whether or not You you have the criminal justice piece, which I don't think you can get rid of It becomes how you're approaching them and one of the one of the failures that we've had In approaching certain types of violent crime domestic violence sexual violence some other things Is that we've made assumptions that somehow they are fundamentally built differently than other people And uh, in fact what we now know Is that while there may be some quote special needs in terms of their issues That the overwhelming amounts of things that we know work with others will work with them as well Uh, I I would not I would not however To be honest, I would not say that we I don't want to say this but they do need to be in the system though in some way Whether held accountable, but we need to not confuse accountability with the assumption that people can't change Same thing with addiction you would say because that yeah Okay, thank you Representative donnelly Hi, thank you. Um, I'm I'm really Excited that you all are looking at ways to enhance collaboration between the world's mental health and Improbation and parole and I guess one of the questions that comes up for me one of the obstacles that often comes up in terms of more integrated um, operations with mental health is um funding Streams and that there's often sort of competing funding streams and that you know, can we bill for this essentially? um, and if what we're talking about is a lot of more sort of case management type services and being able to show Up at meetings and things like this. I'm just curious if in your work um, you've looked at whether There's funding within the da's that's currently available for the kind of collaborative efforts that you guys are talking about Or whether this would require creative funding streams in order to Um incentivize people to be able to show up at the table for these kind of efforts Um, the short answer is yes To both of those things There I think there are currently there is currently some ability to do that I know for example Some community agencies have already said that they want to do this and believe they can do it within their current structure Other agencies cannot one of the things that we Were recommending in terms of the money that would go for mental health and substance use services That's in the governor's budget is that it go to ahs so that it could target the delivery of those dollars To meet the different kinds of needs and so for for some places it might have to do with The dollars would be helpful in order to have some of these meetings in other cases The dollars might be helpful because they can't provide service b But now they can provide service b because they've got those dollars and that's not to suggest that the 400 Will answer all those problems But it will get that started so that you the wheels start turning in terms of that process And so and again like everything else in vermont or any other state Part of that ability of doing things with current funding depends on where you are in the state And and what the um solidity of your particular agency is Or size of your agency is in different funding streams And representative taylor Yes, um, I gather that in 2015 or so the vermont state auditor looked into Or did an investigation on transitional housing programs in vermont? I'm wondering whether you Looked into that report at all to see whether the recommendations by the auditor were followed or how they've been worked out Um, i'll uh, no, I don't believe so. Uh, that would have been outside the scope of what are Uh, what we were asked to do but sarah, I'm gonna ask you to just confirm that because that was not my area Yeah, as far as I know, I mean, I'm sure that we read that report as background material as developing but you know The kind of tracking down the follow-up here was not within the scope of the project Okay, thanks Okay, I don't see any other questions. Uh, so last call for Questions we have just another couple of minutes Seeing none Chair emmons and chair grad anything else you'd like to add Thank you. Thank you. I'm really glad that that our committees could all hear this together Because it's it's really excellent work and really really appreciate council state governments Um, I've heard this a number of times but each time I hear it I understand more because it's it really is such a rich report. So thank you so much And I second that I want to thank all the work that the council has done and I agree with Representative grad, I mean, I've heard it many times But each time you hear it you pick up a little bit more and a little bit more that you put the pieces together I really appreciate your work In this joint meeting. I think it's very helpful. So thank you I agree Um, I I just want to say on behalf of senator sears. He made it very clear to us this morning He's wanting to move forward particularly on the behavioral health side of this So hopefully we'll be going forward on multiple tracks in both chambers. So Thank you to everyone, especially david and uh and sarah And so we'll adjourn