 Welcome back. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee continuing our morning discussion on race data and traffic stops, and it is time now to check in with the Criminal Justice Council. And we have with us Christopher Brachel who is the Deputy Director of the Council and welcome Christopher and just to help orient folks who may be new to this area of policy if you could just give us an overview on what the Council's chief duties are and then any comments you have in particular around the issue of data collection. Oh, we are having trouble hearing you. You seem to be unmuted, however, maybe the there's a challenge on your end. Nope, can't hear you so what I'm going to recommend is that you leave the meeting and then rejoin on that same link and keep an eye out for a dialogue box that asks you to join by Wi Fi audio. Maybe that'll help. So stand by committee that that about exceeds my capacity to do it support so hopefully this works. That's the only, that's the only thing that I can think of. Now did he lose the link and doesn't know where to find it to come back in. He is joining again and fingers crossed the audio connects this time. Oh, okay. Help on the way. Excellent. We have audio coming from you all thank you so much. All right, welcome and thank you for your quick work and in getting that uncovered. I'm sorry to start to hold the committee up but thank you madam chair for having me here today. For those in the committee who don't know me my name is Christopher Burkale feel free to call me Chris that's what I go by. I am seven days the deputy director at the Vermont criminal justice council so bear that in mind as questions you pose to me may not be answered fully to the information that you would like. I've been prior to my position here I have been 36 years in law enforcement and I listen intently to the conversations that you've had earlier. The discussions and the questions and find them all very intriguing and have been dealing with them for a number of years myself. And I've also had the pleasure of serving as the law enforcement liaison on the racial equity task force so I know that this work is important to everybody and know that it's it's critical that law enforcement gets it right data is collected properly and training is done around all these issues so having said that director simons one is is ill but to is in the council meeting currently and asked that I express her interest and desire to speak to the committee specifically to training and training initiatives. And so I will just go on and just kind of give you a brief overview of some of the issues that I don't see issues that I see but some of the things that happen here at the at the council which is what what does happen here is that we house the data that's provided to law enforcement we do not extract it we house it here and we make it publicly available. That data is collected by law enforcement and reported by September of every year and then it's posted on this website. It used to be through a contract with CRG the crime research group, and is now hosted. It's now with a contract with NPF, which is the National Police Foundation. We do have our own fair and impartial policing curriculum here. Most the Captain Kessler and a timer are intimately familiar with that as well. They're also doing fantastic work and working in concert with us which helps us. So some of the things that we're looking for really at this point is to try to identify problems in the collection and challenges in the practice and support identification and training, so that we can improve policies and processes for data stop traffic and in addition to that, we're looking for a way to implement any new requirements that may come from the legislature, as well as assisting Vermont law enforcement agencies and collecting that data and making it making it publicly available. Having said that some of the goals that we're going to be working forward with the National Police Foundation is we're going to look at the different stages of traffic stops. And that includes the decision to stop and whether citations are issued searches and arrests. We're going to look at recommendations for strategies to improve the collection and analysis and reporting of traffic stops. And I want to just pause for one second to remind everybody that we house the data and have quantitative data we do not have qualitative data we do not assess that we don't have the resources to assess that or the expertise to analyze that data so those are some of the issues that we face here. And then we're also going to be working to push the data that we provide on our website to make it more friendly and have an open data portable. And I had talked about earlier earlier with Burlington PD doing something similar. We're going to be working towards that so I don't have a model or something to give you as a visual what that will look like. But I do know that sometimes data is confusing to look at and the data that we post on here, unless you really know what it is that you're looking for or what you're looking to compare. And so with data, it doesn't really help you to turn to really determine what's going on in law enforcement, what they're doing right, what they're doing not so good, and ways to improve. What we all want to see is the relationship between law enforcement and the public and not inserting police where they don't need to be, but still allowing them to do their job and and do it effectively. And I think lastly, really some of the other one of the other goals that we're looking for is to produce some recommendations for policies and procedures and practices for training and conducting fair and impartial policing stops. So the better that we can do our job of training law enforcement and how to do that work is going to assist when I hear these conversations about VSP doesn't really well, and they do, they do have the resources they do have the ability to get their entire staff in train. The rest of Vermont law enforcement does what they can on their own, they send people here when they can, and when we're able to provide the training scheduling sometimes is problematic for them. But that's one of the, one of the charges that I've been giving coming here is how we're going to make these deliverables that we provide to Vermont law enforcement better services to them because they are our customer. In brief, that's kind of where I'm at and what I can outline for you but I'm happy to answer any specific questions that you may have, and or I will deflect to direct assignments if it's something that is specific to individual training that you would like to discuss questions from committee members representative Lafave. Thank you Madam chair, and thank you Chris for being here today and welcome to your new position. I was hoping to have your wish list from what you just presented to us if we could get that somehow tight and sent to us or uploaded to our website. And I'm going to ask that everybody that's presented besides the ones that we have just to do a little side by side to see where everybody's asking and where we could try to find a. A variety, sorry, between what people are asking for and what we can try to group together. I appreciate you giving us that information and if you if we could just get that in writing if it's not already there. Thank you. I can do that representative Shannon. And thank you Chris for testifying this morning. So, obviously I was very embarrassed by the Wilmington police departments on COVID traffic stop data with the increases in overall traffic stops and those of people of color. I went on to the Vermont criminal justice's councils training site and tried to look into the to get more data on Wilmington police department and found it extremely difficult. And you know, I'm in a lucky position. I'm both a state representative for Wilmington as well as a select board member. But, you know, as a volunteer select board member, I did. I think it would be very challenging for anyone to go in there and find information on their on their police department. Is there any effort underway to make that data more easily accessible to local police departments. We can only provide you with what agencies provide us and with what they're required to send us. I hear a lot of conversations going on in this committee about what other information is gathered. What else could we get what else would be beneficial for the public to know and there's a lot of information on a traffic stop and that can be collected and is collected. And I have, I have heard anecdotally some of the conversations that I've heard going on in your committee this morning about the fact that law enforcement collects a lot of data, but they only report what they're required to report. I wish I had a better answer for that because reporting is reporting. If it's if we record it and it's publicly available we should be making it publicly available to anybody that wants to have it. I think it's just perhaps in the wording or the direction that's given to law enforcement as to how that data should be extracted and provided to the Academy. It's having done this myself it's when you're not familiar familiar with extracting data. It can be challenging and especially for smaller agencies that are relying on possibly one person or an admin person to do that. But one of the things that I found by extracting my own data when I was reporting traffic stop was that lo and behold I found missing data that was not on there that my officers were supposed to be recording. And it wasn't intentional data it was things that they either left out because they were not. They were reporting it sometimes on multiple traffic stops, which was not the way that they were supposed to be doing it, where they were sometimes reporting it and one but then not another or sometimes just leaving it blank because it was a box they forgot to check. All those are things that are the responsibilities of an agency head and or whoever is reviewing their work and their data, no different than it is to review an officer's body camera video and find out how they're interacting with the public that they serve. And it's, it's a responsibility of the agency. I know that that's pushed out the agencies and I know that that's pushed out in training how to make that work better I'm not real clear on the answer for that. I want to follow up on that. I mean, I did find it very discouraging as a select board member that, well, I see that the data is there and I'm not complaining about what data is being collected versus what's not being collected. I'm just, you know, for select board member who, you know, I think it's going to be very challenging to go into the data that's on the Vermont Criminal Justice Council's website and and try to extract the data for their individual town. I think as Dr. A-10 has long suggested is posting the information so that it is easily accessible on a town by town basis would would be really helpful. Because just frankly, a select board member is not going to take hours to go through the data. Maybe our police chief will, but you know, often that information is not shared with the select board. And I do believe that it's very important, you know, that public citizens, especially as represented by their select boards can easily access the data. I don't disagree with you one bit, and that's, as I said earlier, that's one of the projects we'll be working on with National Police Foundation is that how do we create that dashboard that makes this data not only more easily readable, but actually provides an analysis that people can look at and see what it is that we're actually reading and understanding it. Help me understand sort of the timeframe of that project in terms of, you know, taking a look around seeing what other states are doing and getting a more user friendly dashboard up and running. So again, seven days in and not wanting to box myself into a corner. I have not personally had any conversations yet with NPF where there is a scheduled meeting for later this month with them. They are required monthly by their contract as I'm reading to report to us and give us updates as to what date is being worked on and how we accomplish those goals. So I will be making sure that I hold them to that contract. So my hope is that in some of the initial conversations that that is a major focal point for them to make them understand that we're responsible for providing that data to the state and for it being accessible to the people that need to read it, not just the data, but make it widely available so that people can understand it and I honestly don't have a timeframe for that but I can certainly get one in our first meeting. I think that would be very helpful to understand. Any other questions from committee members. Thank you. I know we're largely talking about traffic stop data and I know that the criminal justice council has a larger per view and I'm wondering if there is any data looking into other aspects or where there is data expansion happening one thing I'm specifically thinking about is complaint data for our citizen complaints. That is housed here that is publicly available at any agency. I can. I can't speak specifically about that type of thing only because there are many types of complaints that come in that don't reach the level of a formal complaint. We do accept complaints here of unprofessional conduct. They are investigated here. So, any complaints like that, we could give statistics on numbers of how many of those are received here. I could get those from director simons for you that would be helpful, but typically complaints about law enforcement agencies or practices, or even collection of data would go directly to those agencies and they should be able to report that they're speaking for for the state of Vermont for having a central location for them to be able to get that data. That's something that I suppose your committee could look at about having us being the the house or that information as well but then getting that information out to the general public about this is an entity that that can be made or how does that happen because most people want to have that personal connection with their agency when they have an issue. They want to reach out to those people directly so that that might be difficult to make happen, but at least as far as complaints regarding professional conduct of law enforcement we could certainly provide those numbers. And, um, is there currently any demographic data collected with those kinds of things who's making the complaints what the instance was any anything like that or is it simply the number of complaints that were made. It would simply be a number because they're keep in mind that there is not a. There's not a database here that the Academy use such as Valkor or Spillman there there's not a CAD system that gets complaints are not made and generated here so that type of data isn't collected. And that's not to say that it couldn't be garnered from law enforcement agencies, they would likely have to determine best how to do that but the answer the short answer is no that information is not available here. Great, thank you. Questions from committee members representative Colston. Thank you, Madam chair, and thank you Christopher today for testifying. We heard earlier in testimony this morning that an important approach and training is to understand the history of policing. As you may well know, the institution of policing was created to control enslaved Africans to retrieve them and they were seeking their freedom and so forth. So, how is the Academy using history as a as a learning tool for for candidates. That is an excellent question one of the one of the criteria that I discussed when even applying for this position was something that I felt was lacking was the institutional knowledge of policing, why it was developed how it started, how we got to where that without law enforcement officers at the basic level being trained about how we got to become law enforcement officers how can they even appreciate the disparities that have happened over eons to other people and and understand why law enforcement was not at times in a negative light because of their own actions. So, that was one of the things that I wanted to discuss very, very intently with our director of curriculum and see where we, one of the things at not challenges I should say is that what I've heard contextually and what I have heard in abstract is and I've seen it happen is how these de escalation training happens here at the Academy how it's woven into scenarios. What types of training do you do for fair and partial policing what should be accepted as training for fair and partial policing. Well, I can see it and and I can watch it happening in scenarios. They can articulate it, it has to be articulated by direct correct direct curriculum that it has to be evaluated there has to be measurable within that. And those are the things that I need to check into again, being seven days in with our curriculum director and see where that's woven in and if it's not there, why it's not and how we get it in there, especially where we know that there are plenty of people in law enforcement that have been in law enforcement for years who who grew up in a different training time. They're not, they were not introduced to a lot of these topics and some are resistant to and some should probably no longer be in law enforcement so how do we reach all of those people. We start by teaching that at the basic level, and then we really need to push that out into the culture of agencies because while they can get great training here, and they can be taught ethics and how to treat people equitably. Once they leave here, they're going to the culture of their department, and that's where the rest of their career takes shape, or unravels, and that's where the negative impacts happen. They're not caused here, but this institution should be major component in making sure that that basic Academy curriculum that they get here continues on throughout their career, and it's reinforced to make sure that that follows out throughout their career. So I'm sorry, it's not a not a great answer for you because I don't have it that's one of the one of the very first things when our when our director is back from COVID related issues will be having those discussions as well. Thanks and all the best to you in your new position. Thank you. So Chris, thank you for articulating sort of the hope that in changing the training for new officers that we can affect a change over time. The story with, with putting our hope in that scenario is that, you know, law enforcement tends to be a, you know, a top down command and, you know, model, and we could do all of the best work with the best intentions of, of bringing in recruits, and training them in ways that we think make sense and we could send them out to law enforcement agencies where they're reporting to people who they can't influence, even with maybe their broader world view or deeper understanding of, you know, some of the cultural pressures that, that have caused bias to persist in policing so how do we, how do we affect that change in a way that doesn't make the profession of policing so frustrating for people who are new to it and who get it and who really strive to have, you know, you know, law enforcement be more responsive to the needs of their community. Another excellent question. And I think first, first we start with the easy low hanging fruit, which is make sure that our curriculum here is relevant, and that we get it to all basic recruits that start here young, impressionable men and women that are going to be responsible for the day to day work of interacting with the public. I think we also need to develop a mid level or supervisory training for supervisors that are going to be directly responsible for those recruits once they get out. And then, you know, achieve sheriff's managerial type of training as well about culture and about understanding where they are in the profession and where the profession is going and making sure that they're on the same track that the profession is going. And if not, making them understand that too, so that that that can be changed or maybe thinking of another career. You know, this is really, this is too important a topic for for not just law enforcement and just just for for humans to be able to interact with each other and and get along and it's, I learned an enormous amount and gained a lot of respect for people having spent the brief time a little little over a year on the racial equity task force and had my eyes and ears open to conversations that I thought I was aware of and found that I was not. And I can't thank those people enough for that and there are a lot of the same conversations that go on here at the Academy with the staff. It's a it's a matter of getting the best developed programs and having them be evidence based and for us to be able to measure the work that we're doing. We know that what we're doing is working towards that right goal and and being able to justify it and look you in the eye and say, we're doing it and we're doing it right. And with help from people like a time and a numerous amounts of people were working to get that right. And as I heard him say earlier, this is a process it doesn't happen with a directive that comes from the legislature that this is now mandated that you have to have. We have to develop that training we have to make it happen and we have we have to do it right I mean we can't we can't afford to do it wrong. Thank you representative Anthony. Thank you madam chair and thank you Chris. I, I, because of the multi model that Vermont accepts for policing that is to say we have share us we have small departments we have no departments we have BSP training appears to be one of the foundational or common. If you will experiences and and I guess one question is how do we get them in the door. That is to say, the folks who have been out in the field for many moons. Something the legislature could do as an incentive to make sure that particularly in a in a small department which probably a short handed in the best of circumstances. Somehow, they still are able to cycle people through on a predictable periodic basis, because we have a buck backstop for them. Either it's the VSB, or it's loaned personnel from somewhere else, because I think, unless the state is going to take a much more dictatorial role over departments. As it does over the VSB. I don't see where we go other than making sure that everybody in those autonomous departments is cycle through regularly, and is subject to retraining, and in some sense, evaluation. You know how do we get them in the door I guess is is the is the the short takeaway on that is it financial incentives is it certification that somehow evaporates, unless people don't cycle through. Where can we go with this other than just, as Madam chair said, focused on the people who are just entering the profession which will take a generation at least. Thanks. I appreciate the question. I think, I think we're doing some of that, and you are doing some of that through mandates of training that officers must receive so now there's fair and partial policing that is mandated that they have to take. We have a contracted trainer who is going throughout the state to make that in fact happen to reach agencies that either are short staffed can't. You know, during coven times. I mean I just, I just left an agency that is trying extremely hard just to function because of staffing levels and trying to do the job that their town government wants them to do. And yet still keep up with mandated training that then puts at risk their certification. I think I think that's one of the best ways is really in mandated training and making sure that that training is done. And as you have already done and we've already implemented people that fail to keep up with certain mandates no longer have access to the academy. They don't have access to training they don't have the access to the range here there are things that they don't have access in order to keep their certification. We want to be partners with law enforcement we don't really want to be the coming down on you you can't use us you can't come here for training, but that is a reality of keeping people accountable. The best way, and I know that I'm sure that you are very tired of hearing the word resources because resources means money. That's what it that's really what it means. But you have to you have to remind yourselves that this institution here, the academy and the Criminal Justice Council is a very small group of people responsible for training everybody in this state minus VSP, although we do do training for VSP as well. And so, there are struggles with that when you have three training coordinators who are responsible for basic training classes that come through level two training classes that come through an in service training, and you have one director of curriculum and development and one director of administration. They rely in reality on a lot of volunteer instructors that come in here and teach subjects that they are subject matter experts in but fair and partial policing racial data is not among those groups. These are two important topics that really need the focus so that staffing is what needs to be a little bit easier to manage here so that we have the resources to push out to those members that are in the community in the law enforcement community, that we are sure that they're all getting the same training and that we are sure they've all had it and that they're up to date on their certification, and that somebody's checking into their certifications and their training to make sure that they're appropriate and adequate and they're they're justified. There's a lot of things that I'm learning over a very short period of time that this institution is responsible for, but can't do because it doesn't have the resources to do it. So, regardless there are things that we're going to do because we have to and we're mandated to, and we need to do a better job of that, but I cannot emphasize strongly enough that resources are what is needed here and I, I know that there's already topics later today perhaps even in this about resources and allocations of funding, which I will let Director Simons address with you but the short answer is, I think the responsibility is on us as a training institution, not just the basic training to new recruits but to everybody in law enforcement throughout their career to make sure that these are fundamental topics that they're being trained on, and whether they come here or we have to go to them that they get it. I hope that answers slightly your question. Representative Bihowski. Thank you. We are talking a lot about training and I agree that that is really important and even before that I think we need to talk about recruitment and who is doing this work and who are we asking to do this work and so, you know, back to the data are we looking at who's being recruited, where are they being recruited from and considering changing recruitment processes to ensure that we're diversifying and broadening who is doing this work we heard earlier that one of the challenges to making police officer data that gives us demographic data anonymized is that there are so few police officers of color so what are we doing in the recruitment process to really think about who are we asking to do this work. From the criminal justice council perspective we are not doing anything to that to that end that is not only the wish but the the responsibility of the agencies hiring people and where the recruitment efforts go. What they want for reflections of the communities that they serve. I know that they struggle I mean I, I hear the conversations constantly but we need to bring in diverse populations to our state to just to be able to thrive and to be able to continue living in this state if we want more people we need we need a lot more people here. And how do we best do that law enforcement would be much better served if we had a more diverse population among us. The unfortunate part of the academy is not part of the recruiting process, the agencies that send them here are, and I think it I almost think it would be an imposition of us to impose how those efforts take place when, as you earlier municipalities, local sheriffs they all have their own desire of what they want to see for law enforcement for the communities that they serve so what their needs are and what their wants are really relative of what their membership should look like. And I know that that is a struggle for getting diverse populations into law enforcement representative Cooper. Thank you madam chair. Welcome Chris. We're talking about specifically sort of police departments, some of which are really small. In the state, though, we have leos that are part of the still sworn officers and I assume, carry the same expectations that are DMV the fish cops liquor, even down to the people that inspect beauty parlors, some of those in the military state's office are sworn officers to your knowledge and I realized that the statistical people are gone. They included in this representation of who's doing what around the state in terms of our reporting on fair and equitable and all the other aspects. And when you bring people in the subgroups, so to speak in for training. Is it any different when you get a fishing game person or a DMV person than you would with somebody from the sheriff's or the state police or anywhere else. The very direct answer to that is yes and no. So let me let me put it this way that pretty much cars mandated training those anybody that has a law enforcement certification that exercises law enforcement powers is responsible for the mandated training so that would be pushed out. That training would be the same to every law enforcement officer that is required to take it. Having said that, some sworn law enforcement officers don't do the duties of a regular police officer. So sworn officers through the Secretary of State's office don't perform the same functions or interact with the general public the same way a patrol officer does somebody that is a sworn law officer for a fishing game or official wildlife does not interact with the general public as much as somebody that's working in a sheriff's department doing a patrol. So that's why the answer is yes and no for mandated training and for certification purposes. Yes, if you are sworn law enforcement officer, you unless unless otherwise not required by a legislative mandate to take it, you have the fair and partial policing training domestic violence training another another area. You know, our, our Department of Motor Vehicle inspectors who have law enforcement authority going to deal with domestic violence as much as somebody who is working a local police department. No, they may not at all in their career, but those are still some mandated training so we have some trainings that while mandated may not be applicable to the people that are getting them. Or may not be useful and and they can't be tailored, so to speak, to meet those very specific needs of individual agencies, but they can be tailored to meet the majority of law enforcement that does interact with our traveling public and with the residents of this state on a regular basis and that's important that we get that out there as well. I hope that answers your question somewhat. Well, yes and no was a pretty broad start. Yes, thank you. All right, any other questions from committee members. All right, before we shift and talk a little bit about resources, I wanted to, to just put an idea out in front of the committee and in front of folks who might be following along on this committee testimony this morning. I think it's important that we take a look at what data we're collecting and whether that data is is entirely useful or if there are gaps that we think we would like to fill. And the rationale of not shifting too frequently what data points we're collecting information on because it makes it harder to to assess trends over time if you're collecting different data. But it seems to me that this is a moment in time where we're an assessment of whether we're correcting collecting the correct data. In a sense, as we work on also making sure that that data is out there and accessible as rep Ganon said to the local government officials who are who are supervising their own law enforcement agencies. It's been an ordinary time. If we were meeting at the State House, I would, you know, ask for one or two committee members preferably, preferably to to to take on this project and perhaps, you know, invite the correct folks to come together around a cafeteria table and have a conversation about this. This remote meeting and COVID safety concerns certainly make that harder to do. But nonetheless, I'd like to put that question to the committee and ask you to get back to me if you would like to be part of a duo of committee members who would reach out to appropriate folks who might have thoughts on the data points and and and have a virtual cafeteria conversation and and perhaps propose making some changes to this. So, I don't need an answer right this moment but if you want to be captain or co captain of that project. So Chris, thank you. I have, I have to shift gears now and and really want to talk a bit about resources.