 Good afternoon and welcome to the house committee. We're turning our attention to S224 and actually leading to juvenile proceedings. And we have three witnesses this afternoon. And I'm so glad to see all of you. My apologies for having to reschedule you for, I think it must be at least the third time. We had busy week last week, but I'm really glad to see you. And we will start with Network. And Jessica Barquess, good afternoon and welcome. Good afternoon, all welcome. Thank you so much for having us. My name is Jessica Barquess. And I am the director of policy and organizing at the Vermont network against domestic and sexual violence. Nice to see you all this afternoon. So the network is deeply appreciative of the work of the legislature and also the juvenile justice stakeholders group on a number of issues related to juvenile justice. And we are really committed to the overall purpose and direction of the juvenile justice reforms and support S224 in this draft. Policy changes related to raise the age and youthful offender have really helped to move our legal responses to criminal behavior among our emerging adult population to be in greater alignment with our criminal justice reform efforts and the neurobiology of what's happening for our emerging adults. And so advances in neuroscience have really demonstrated that the brain is not fully developed until an individual is in their 20s. And that that adolescent and emerging adulthood brain is just really highly responsive to that risk-taking peer influence and reward systems. And we're also deepening our understanding of the impacts of trauma on the lives of youth and the ways that responses to trauma can really manifest as these harmful or even criminal behaviors. And so we believe that it's essential that youth who commit crimes have access to these resources and interventions outside of these traditional criminal legal responses and that the goal of these responses ought to be that rehabilitation and support. And, you know, while Vermont has moved forward with these really important juvenile justice reforms, implementation in them has really revealed that more work needed to be done to ensure that victims' rights are upheld as those policies evolve. And, you know, as a matter of process was we're raising the age, you know, next to 19, but eventually up to 22, you know, we've already seen and we anticipate further growth in the number of domestic and sexual violence-related cases that are gonna be appearing in family court. And in domestic and sexual violence cases, you know, oftentimes these victims are also emerging adults or adolescents and they're in those same critical stages of brain development. And so they really need to be afforded that same care and consideration as the person that has caused them that harm. So as we consider making changes to the process to better support offenders, it's also essential that we take a look at the experience of victims and ensure that the process works well for them too. So once raised the age has been fully implemented to age 22, this process will involve almost all campus sexual assaults as well as many dating and domestic violence cases, sometimes even between married individuals. Domestic and sexual violence are intimately personal crimes, as you all well know. And victim involvement in these court proceedings is often essential for the victim's healing and safety as well as for the offenders' learning and rehabilitation. And in our existing statute and structure within family court, victims have very little opportunity to engage with the process or even to really be informed about what's happening in their cases. And that is why the changes that are being made here in S-224 are so critical. It's a really strong bill that would remedy a lot of the inequities that victims experience within the juvenile court system while still maintaining that strong confidentiality and support for the juvenile. And so feel free to stop me at any time but I'm gonna walk through some of the sections and why they're particularly important for us. And the first is section three, which is victim compensation. And I know my colleague, Jennifer Pullman will speak more to this. But when records are sealed or expunged just part of that family court process, we unintentionally prohibit victims from accessing the Victims Compensation Fund, which is run by the Center for Crime Victim Services. And it allows victims to pay for various expenses related to their traumatic experiences, including therapy. And oftentimes, especially for our younger adults, it can be months or several years before a victim is ready for that therapy and reaches out for that financial support. And so the Center is unable to administer those funds without any official records documenting their status as a victim. So the language in section three allows the compensation program to administer these funds even well after the cases are expunged. And then the next section I'll talk about is actually section five through 12. And these sections increase a victim's notification of and access to proceedings for all of the various domestic and sexual violence cases that would fall under both raised the age and youthful offender. So currently, as it stands, victims have very little right to notification regarding these raised the age cases. Victims have a right to conditions that apply directly to them, such as the no contact orders. But they're not privy to those other conditions that might help them stay safe, such as general information about whether the individual is receiving intervention in their community or maybe out of state in a treatment facility. And we are aware of some cases of sexual violence in the state where the victim and the offender attended the same high school and those victims were not notified when the offender returned to the school. And those sorts of changes in status are just really important for victims and their safety planning. And so, we've heard of several instances in which victims have felt the need to use the civil relief from abuse process to gain that measure of safety because they don't have access to see all of these conditions through the family court raised the age process. And this is really a duplication of court efforts and can easily be streamlined by increasing that transparency of conditions for victims, which is what this bill does. And similarly, victims, their attorneys and their victim advocates need to be able to be notified of and have the ability to attend all of the relevant court proceedings regarding their case. Currently, victims are allowed to provide a victim impact statement at the disposition hearing and then they might be called in at any point to testify during the process as the court deems necessary. And when their attorneys are not privy to that process, it makes it extremely difficult for them to be able to counsel their clients regarding testimony or how they wanna present in court. And we're hearing that many victims just opt not to participate because of that lack of context about the case and just really a lack of ability to engage in that process. And you had, I think you heard testimony from DCF regarding this notification process and hoping that the language in this bill would change back to their current system of notification, which is an opt-in system. The victims have to fill out a form to be notified of these things. And this language is a much more inclusive opt-out system that mirrors what we have in the criminal division. And we certainly appreciate DCF's concerns regarding their capacity and just the amount of effort that an opt-out notification system could be. But this notification is really absolutely critical for victims and we really support the language as is in the bill and hope it remains that way. And in our juvenile justice stakeholders group, both the center and the network have reached out to DCF and let them know that we would gladly support any proposals that would increase their capacity to be able to support victims and to ease those administrative burdens related to notification. However, the notifications that we're asking for such as when an individual flees from a treatment program or moves to a community in which a victim resides, we feel like these are absolutely critical to a victim's safety planning. And it's similar to when this committee recognized that the importance of this notification when offenders are in the custody of the Department of Mental Health last year with the bill S3. And it's similar process. We just think it's really critical that these same rights be afforded to victims who find themselves within the juvenile justice system. And then the last piece I wanna touch on with you all is regarding confidentiality. We know confidentiality, a strong confidentiality is such a need in these juvenile cases and fully support that. And this confidentiality is often a benefit to our victims as well. And so we fully support both the state and DCF meeting to uphold strict confidentiality in these cases. However, that confidentiality should not be a burden that victims are asked to bear. We've heard from some victims advocates across the state that victims when they're involved in family court cases either through race, the age or youthful offenders that they're being told by prosecutors that they can't talk to anyone about their experience or name their offender. And that if they do so, they could be charged with contempt of court. And we know that talking with trusted family members and friends and therapists is a really essential part of the healing process for many victims and our youth victims should not fear criminal repercussions because they're engaging in that natural and normal part of healing from their traumatic experiences in adult court and adult criminal cases, even if an offender is tried and not found guilty, there's really nothing that prevents a victim from talking about their experiences. And so we need to afford that same right and consideration to our victims in the family court process. Excuse me, so just to that, I just wanna make sure that section that you're referring to. Yeah. Is that? So it's section seven C on page six and then you can find it again in section 12 E for the youthful offender status. And I will say that finding the right language for this was a difficult process for the juvenile justice stakeholders group. And it was the language you see here in this bill was the result of many hours of consideration and compromise by that group. And we do believe that this language does strike that needed balance between the confidentiality needed to be upheld in these proceedings and the rights of victims. Thank you. And that's all I have for you. Happy to take any questions and thank you so much for your consideration and your efforts to advance these policies that increase safety for victims. Thank you. Questions? Nope, not seeing any. So great. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, Jennifer, I'm sorry, Martin. Yeah, I do have a question on page six in that section seven. So when it talks about prohibiting a victim from discussing underlying facts of the alleged defense that resulted in death, apparently there's more, there's a victim than, could you define what victim means? Because obviously a victim can't discuss it if the victim is dead. But I'm assuming that it's a broader definition of victim that makes sense. Yes, victim is defined in hearing it is mentioned in the bill. Let me find that for you. Yeah, I may have overlooked that. Sorry. The definition. Eric might be able to find it faster than me. I know it's our standard victim's definition. No, and that's fine. The main thing is that an offense that resulted in the death other than the victim we're talking about right at that point, I assume. I see Jennifer has her. Hi, Jennifer, yes. I might be able to help a little bit. We define victims in our victims' compensation statute. When the direct victim is a victim of homicide and that usually refers to immediate family members such as grandparents, siblings, parents, step-parents, and the like. Great. Yeah, thank you. And with that, we'll welcome Jennifer back. You are. Good afternoon. Hold on. Good afternoon, committee. And thank you for your time today. For the record, my name's Jennifer Pullman. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. And we're deeply appreciative of you taking up this bill. It's been a bill that feels like a labor of love that's been worked on long and hard. And I do want to echo what Attorney Paul testified to last week that in the 20, almost 20 years I've been doing this in Vermont as far as policy work. This has been the most positive collaborative initiative that I've been involved in. It's really been a wonderful thing to be involved in, to be working with people who, again, come with their own headsets, their own constituencies, and to have us figure out a way to hammer out so many pieces that have significant impact for youth and for the system and for the community. So I do want to echo that. And the Center certainly does support the reforms that have been happening over the past few years with respect to our emerging adults. I myself had my first paying job as an attorney representing young people in Boston and in the surrounding area. And with a couple of hundred kids that I had on my caseload, first it was kind of interesting to me that I don't remember ever seeing a victim of crime or ever hearing anything from any victims of those delinquent acts. But also with those young people, I saw firsthand the impact of trauma, the impact of poverty, the impact of unaddressed mental health needs. And I still remember, I think just about every single kid that I worked with and they always have a place in my heart. So I'm really appreciative of the work that this bill is doing and that also that the legislature is doing. When you look at this bill, it certainly does have a lot of pieces that speak to victims' rights. And I think in part, and I think that the stakeholder recognized that that's in part due to the fact that while we were really focused on reforms in terms of helping our emerging adults, we really didn't have victims' rights or keeping pace with that. And I think that especially was highlighted as we looked at raising the age as well. So I think that was just an open understanding amongst the group that we really hadn't kept pace and that this was important to do as well while we're expanding the work that we're doing with emerging adults to again make sure that victims' voices do have a place that they are heard in a way that also balances that with the particular rights that we look at or considerations we have when we think about young people. I'd like to turn to the bill specifically and I won't spend a lot of time duplicating what Ms. Park has already testified to but there are some particular pieces that I do want to address. First with respect to compensation, this language is familiar to you all from age 534. As you know for us victims' compensation when they receive a claim doesn't need to engage in activities to verify the claim, verify those expenses before we can pay out. And if a record is sealed we don't have access to that after David. And you'll notice that of course the information that we would receive would have to be redacted of all information identifying the young person. And I think especially with respect to young people where the ceiling happens that much more clearly than in some of the issues and areas we contemplated age 534 where that might not be till years down the road when we're dealing with younger people that be happy to work more quickly. And as Ms. Park was alluded to especially for younger victims, trauma and those kinds of considerations don't often aren't often recognized until a year, a couple of years down the road. And we want to make sure that we have that opportunity open for victims to be able to file for compensations that we can support them in that process. I did want to turn to restitution and that shows up in section four, starting on page two. The representative Donnelly last week I believe it was raised a great point in that by including this provision at the bottom of page two and subsection eight in no way shape or form are we looking to supplant or change the way in which restorative programs do their work. Frankly, from the restitution unit's perspective they do the best job of making sure that young people are able to pay and to pay as they can. So what our purpose was in terms of adding this language was that oftentimes when we see a restorative justice program get involved, whether it be diversion, barrage or some other program that sometimes the court can just say just refer that whole determination over to the restorative program and not actually issue an order. And why that's problematic for us is that when in some cases we see young people staying case low, DCF gets longer than they should because that restitution hasn't been collected. And while they can be discharged, the DCF still has to be if there's outstanding restitution, DCF then has to go back to the court and actually get that restitution judgment order for the young person to be discharged. And our hope is that the judge taking into consideration the ability of the juvenile to pay, we don't want this to be punitive, can issue that order at the outset such that DCF could then simply say, what diversion restorative program could simply say, we're done with this young person on our case load. And then when they turn 18, that restitution judgment order stays in place. So it saves that extra step of going back to the court. It facilitates the discharge of a young person from a case load, and then just leaves it between the young person and the restitution unit to basically figure out how to pursue a collection of that restitution judgment order. So it kind of is a simplification and that young person does have the ability to modify that restitution judgment order at any point in time. So simply because it was put in place at one point, doesn't mean that that's in existence in perpetuity. There are processes for modification of those orders. So again, in no way do we want to take the restorative processes that are so effective out of the equation. We simply are looking at it as a way of simplifying what we do and simplifying what DCF has us to do. And that was our goal in terms of having that language put in place. Selena has a question. Yeah, this might be a little in the weeds, but I'm just trying to fully understand. So the juvenile cases could still be referred to a restorative justice program, but this is just saying that the restitution order wouldn't be kind of handled at the discretion of that program, but rather that the... Well, the program would still figure out with the young person a way in which that they would work on payment in those cases. But if it comes to the point where the diversion program, let's say, has said, we've done all we can with this young person. There's only restitution that remains. That judgment quarter would still be in existence so that would not be a bar to them saying, young person, you've done your work and we're gonna close this case. So it would still let them be the driver in terms of working with that young person to facilitate the collection. And again, we don't wanna step in to that process. They do an amazing job. They have a great relationship with them and we don't wanna step into that process. We just wanna make that closure piece a lot more efficient. Right, and as I'm reading the language more closely that's being struck, because I think it was misreading it and thinking that it was... We're removing some discretion and decision-making from an R&J, like a restorative justice program and putting it on the courts. But even this language that's being struck, it was still saying the court would make that decision about sort of ultimately about how... Anyway, I think I've answered my own question. I'm sorry, but thank you for clarifying. And then finally, the other restitution provision is on page three. That's and pay to three. And again, that's language that's very familiar to all of you. We've just done this with page 534. And it's just to clarify that, again, ceilings should not impact the ability of the restitution unit to address these orders as civil orders for respect to K-1 and also speaks to decisions that have been made by court. So it's just a clarification piece. Eric did the walkthrough... 25th Patrick did the walkthrough already. I do just wanna emphasize that the striking of the language in section five and section six, which basically strikes out those that clause that other than victims of active delinquency is a technical change that's also really important because even though there's been a great deal of work done to look at victims' rights in delinquency cases, there's still a lot of confusion amongst practitioners about what in fact a victim can and cannot do what they can and cannot exercise. So I think pieces of that that are technical really do carry a lot of weight in practitioners. I wanted to say how important that we see those provisions are. We do wanna turn to section eight, that's on page six. This is the sort of importation of victims' rights from title 13 with respect to information that victims are entitled to obtain from law enforcement agencies. I just wanted to just note a technical cleanup. There are four areas in this section starting on page seven that use the term offender. And if you want to guess you would want to change that language from offender to youth or young person or something along those lines to get into conformance with the rest of the title 33. So we'll just recommend that we look at changing that particular language that's in that section. Finally, I want to speak to the notification pieces around release from custody starting on page 10, that's section 10, page 10, subsection four. First, I wanna touch upon something that Mrs. Park was already alluded to which is that opt-in versus opt-out for notification. And for us, it remains really important that this be an opt-out piece. There was a recommendation a few years ago when these changes were happening that there'd be consideration given to creating an organizational capacity within DCF and mirror what DCOC has. The Department of Corrections has four of the Kim services specialists and one director of the services specialist at campus, the state. And they are just invaluable point person for victims and for advocates who need help, need information, need support. And unfortunately DCF does not have that internal capacity right now. And what they do have unfortunately is that you have case workers who are wearing two hats. They are the case worker for that young person but then also charged with answering questions and providing support and information to victims as appropriate. And we have been very vocal about wanting to make sure that DCF has everything that they need to be able to manage the ever-growing responsibility that they're having with respect to these cases. But for right now, the juvenile system is a complete mystery to a victim who's trying to reach out to that system to get information. So given that at this point in time we would prefer that it's an opt-out. We understand that currently or the last information that I had was that DCF has about 40 young people that are in this situation. So our hope would be that as we continue to work on ways to support DCF in terms of being able to, again, realize the responsibilities that they are being tasked with, that in the meantime we would have this as an opt-out provision for victims of listed crimes and useful offender acts. We are not interested in, at this point in time, tasking DCF. We understand it's quite a burden with all of the opt-out, with all the notification responsibilities for non-listed crimes. And we understand that many young people who commit non-listed crimes are not actually in that residential system. We would ask that that language remain. And that is, I think the one point in this entire bill where there's not complete consensus. And then we didn't notice when we were meeting, actually as a stakeholder group recently, that there seems to be an incongruity in that victims of delinquencies that are listed crimes, again, as you can see in subsection four, they're about denotification is only when a young person is discharged from a secure, a staff secure residential facility. But then if you turn to the right that victims in non-listed crimes have, which is on page 12, and you'll see that in subsection five, they're notified upon release from a residential facility. So that's a much broader notification responsibility. And we would suggest that, and that also the victims of non-listed crimes have the exact same rights as victims when the young person is a useful defender. So you have a much stricter notification responsibility when the victim is the victim of a delinquent act that was listed crime versus a non-listed. And so we would suggest that perhaps we might wanna flip that and the rights that victims in non-listed crimes have actually be afforded to those enlisted crimes as you see on page 10, rather than the current state, which again has an incongruity that doesn't really make a lot of sense to us. It didn't make any sense to our stakeholder group, but I think we realized that was one piece that I missed all of the language that we considered that we just kind of all missed. So I would ask that the committee potentially consider making that adjustment. So those were my remarks for today. I certainly do appreciate and support the language that Ms. Park was spoke to with respect to the confidentiality issues and also allowing a victim of record to be able to tell their story with respect to support of people that might be able to help them through their process. And that was language that was really difficult to arrive at, but after a lot of deliberation, the stakeholder group did prove that language. So I would ask for the committee because they're supporting that as well. Great, thank you. Well, I can get back to you. I think I followed where you wanna flip the language, but I have none, so if not, and I'll work with Eric, I'll get back to you. If it would be helpful, Madam Chair, I could certainly follow up with an email to yourself and the committee and or Eric, I mean, attorney Fitzpatrick. I mean, yeah, that'd be great to look in, Eric, and then you can certainly copy me. That'd be great, thank you. Any questions? Wow, good. Yeah, I guess I need a little help with this, Jennifer. I'm not a neuroscientist or a case worker or whatever, I don't deal with it when the children is often nice. I possibly should have, I guess. So when you say that the purpose of this is to raise the age to 19 and 22 also, is that what we're saying here? Representative Norris, I believe that that's already been decided by the legislature. Okay. That's not the purpose of this. What we're hoping for in our provisions is to bring victims' rights forward with respect to especially those cases when we're evolving older youth. I was just looking at it where it says, advances in neuroscience have demonstrated that the brain is not fully developed until an individual reaches their 20s. I'm assuming that's the correct statement from the network. Yes, Ms. Barquist already had spoken to that and certainly we understand that as well. What we're trying to make sure is that in reflection upon the changes that this body has made, pardon me, in recent years that we're acknowledging that the harm to a victim is the same regardless of the age of the young person who commits the crime. So providing some avenue for victims to be able to be heard and participate in the process in a meaningful way is important to us. I guess we just passed a bill the other day that I found, obviously, that's not germane to this. Any words, thank you. Anybody else? Thank you, thank you so much, good to see you. Thank you. Now turn to the state's attorneys. Good afternoon, Evan, see you, welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation to come and testify about S-224 for the record. My name is Evan Ninen and I'm a Deputy State's Attorney assigned to the Executive Director's Office of the Department of State's Attorneys. The department supports S-224, which primarily accomplishes three things. It pauses raise the age for one year. It improves how Vermont's juvenile proceedings take into consideration the needs of victims. And it also provides some additional guidance regarding when youthful offender status will or will not compromise public safety. The department submitted a proposal to the Senate Judiciary Committee seeking some changes to Vermont's juvenile proceeding statutes. That proposal did not include a request to pause, raise the age. However, the state's attorneys have consistently stated that they would like the law to work successfully. And there seems to be a recognition that in order for that to occur, we need to have the systems in place to serve the juveniles that will be subject to the law. And if we need a one year pause in order to make sure that happens, the department is on board. The department also agrees that the victims related provisions in this bill are appropriate and they are an improvement upon the existing law. And that is for all of the reasons that Jessica Barquist and Jennifer Pullman testified to earlier this afternoon. And also for all of the reasons in the network submission dated March 25th. Because we're in agreement with them and their justification for these improvements, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time this afternoon repeating them. The department also agrees that an additional guidance on public safety is appropriate. And it will help both the parties and the court further identify when youthful offender status should and should not be granted. The department's proposal included a few other things that are not in S-224. And I just wanna make it clear for this committee in case any of the members saw that proposal that at this time the department is not asking for them to be included in S-224. I spent some time with Ledge Council and other stakeholders trying to come up with legislative language that would implement some of those proposals. And it became clear rather quickly that our juvenile proceeding statutes have become somewhat complex. And it's difficult to make substantive changes without having to tinker with several different statutes. I think that's illustrated by the fact that we're, I think there's 10 different statutory sections that are being amended to implement these victim-related improvements. So the department does not have anything that it would like to add to this bill at this point in time. And it's going to continue working with the other stakeholders to see if there's ways that we can improve our juvenile proceedings moving forward to the benefit of both the children that are subject to them and also the victims. I would like to take a moment in the hopes that it's helpful to the committee to address some of the issues that have been, issues and questions that have been raised either during the committee's last hearing or by other stakeholders. There was a question I think at the last hearing about what happens if law enforcement impermissibly discloses confidential information. And I think the question was designed to inquire whether or not that topic needed to be addressed in this bill. And so I thought that I would point out that at a minimum 33 BSA 51-17 and 51-18 appear to make that a misdemeanor offense punishable by a $2,000 fine. So current law already does address that topic. Regarding psychosexual evaluations, I think there was a suggestion to include the phrase as clinically indicated in this bill. That language and what it is supposed to accomplish has been discussed in the juvenile jurisdiction stakeholders work group and the department is comfortable with it. It seems like the judiciary and the parties understand how it should be implemented and hopefully it will be done correctly. There was also a proposal to clarify the standards for revoking youthful offender status pre-adjudication in other words. I'm sorry, Evan, I just, I wanna make sure I understood your last point. Were you saying that the state's attorneys feel that the current, the language in the bill as passed by the Senate is adequate and that the addition of as clinically indicated is not needed and you're comfortable without or were you saying state's attorneys would be comfortable the language that additional provision was added? We are comfortable with the addition of that language into the bill. I've had an opportunity to listen to the testimony about that language in this committee previously and I agree that it provides some flexibility to the court to get information about whether or not requiring an individual to engage in a psychosexual evaluation would be beneficial to the court or whether or not it might be detrimental to the justice involved youth who would have to participate in it. So I think the language that's been suggested is acceptable. I think it's good language and the department's comfortable with it. Thanks for your clarification. I appreciate it. Thank you. That's section 16. Okay, great. I think there was my recollection is there was also a proposal to include a standard for revoking youthful offender status pre-adjudication. In other words, an opportunity to revoke it before there is a probation violation. And there's been some conversations in the juvenile jurisdiction stakeholders work group about that very topic. And it was discussed that 33 VSA 51-13 and 52-83 E, subsection E, may already provide a mechanism for doing that, doing that very thing. If clarification is needed to make that clear, 51-13 might be a good place to add that clarification if the committee thought that that was needed. 51-13 refers to a change in circumstances that would justify something like this. And certainly the newly proposed public safety considerations could be included in there to identify what types of things might lead to a change in circumstances. So the department just wanted to point that out that if the committee thought some clarification was needed, that might be a good location to insert that clarification. The department agrees with both the network and the center that it would be preferable to have an opt-out system for victim notification rather than an opt-in system. But the department is cognizant of the fact that DCF may need more resources to make that happen. And the department would be supportive of them obtaining those resources. In the meantime, the department has been working with DCF specifically the department's new victims coordinator to try and ensure that we're both on the same page about how the existing opt-in system should work so that if it remains an opt-in system, we can increase the chances that victims will be getting the notifications that they want to receive. I do wanna note that it's not clear that this bill actually does move from an opt-in system to an opt-out system. And the reason why I say that is because there is some language on page 10, section four. And it's interesting language. It strikes out the phrase upon request and states that victims should be notified by the agency having custody of the delinquent child before the victim is discharged from a secure or staff secured residential facility. But at the end of that same section, it says notification shall be deemed reasonable if the agency attempts to contact the victim at the address or telephone number provided to the agency in the request for notification. And that phrase request for notification I think raises a question as to whether or not the victims still need to submit that to the department before they are entitled to the notification contemplated in this section. So I just wanted to point that it may not be entirely clear. The department though does agree with Jennifer Pullman that it would be nice if the notification for discharges from secure placements was the same in delinquency proceedings as it is in youthful offender proceedings. So that they both referred to being released from a secure or staff secured facility. I believe the network also mentioned some disparities in the word discharged versus released and it's written submission. And we would agree with the network's comments as well. There's only a few more proposals that I think have been offered. One of which was to include reckless endangerment and aggravated domestic assault as offenses that the criminal division could retain jurisdiction over. The department's prior proposal acknowledged that the list of big 12 offenses might be under inclusive and suggested that it be revisited but the department didn't make any specific suggestions about what offenses should be included. So it didn't, for example, specifically ask that either of these two offenses be added but it does understand the safety concerns that DCF has raised and it wants to make sure that all Vermont employees that work with this population remain safe. So what we would note is that domestic assault, aggravated domestic assault and reckless endangerment are already listed crimes which may indicate that they may be more serious than some other offenses that justice involved youth may be accused of committing. The last two proposals that I'd like to touch on briefly are two that were submitted in writing by the Children and Family Council for Prevention Programs. The first one was to suggest that the ability of victims to be present in this proposal should be modified. So that the court has the ability to direct them to leave the courtroom just as the criminal division has the ability to direct a victim to leave the courtroom pursuant to 13 BSA 5309. However, this bill already does that and I just wanted to point that out. 5309 references Vermont rule of evidence 615 as a mechanism for asking a victim to leave court and page nine of this bill, which is section 5234A3 and page 13 of the bill, which is 5288A2 provide that same reference to Vermont rule of evidence 615. So I think this bill may already do what the council was asking in that recommendation. The council also wanted the victim's ability to attend court hearings and to express, well, to express their views concerning the offense and the youth to be limited to disposition, disposition hearings. And that suggestion pertains to some language on page nine, section three. This bill would amend that section to say that victims can be present during all court proceedings subject to the provisions of rule 615, as I just discussed, and to express reasonably the victim's views concerning the offense and the youth. And it appears that the council wanted to limit that ability for a victim to express his or her views to the disposition portion of the hearing. And the department does respectfully disagree with that suggestion because the victim's views concerning an offense and a youth may be relevant at other times during a delinquency proceeding. For example, they may be relevant to whether or not a case should be transferred either to or from the criminal division. It may also be relevant to what conditions of release should be imposed, which can be very important for safety planning, something that both the center and the network noted. And their views may also be relevant to whether or not the interests of justice warrant not referring a case to diversion. And I'd also note that the language that's proposed to be included in this section already appears in 528882, which pertains to youthful offender cases and accomplishes the same thing in a youthful offender case. So the family division does have some experience implementing this exact language and the department respectfully asks that it remain as presently worded in the bill. Thank you. I had another clarifying question, just trying to make sure I understand the department's position. So because I heard you say at the onset of your testimony that you kind of support the bill at this point passed by the Senate, I also, so you were responding to the suggestion from some witnesses that we consider adding reckless endangerment aggravated assault and aggravated domestic assaults. And I heard you say that the department had said that the universe of primes might be too small. You hadn't identified any particular crimes that should be added, but then you noted that those are listed crimes and may be more serious. So I'm just, I felt like I was trying to understand are you just sort of saying, are you saying the department agrees with that that those crimes should be added or more just saying, we're just kind of commenting on that, but you support the bill in its current form. I'm just trying to parse out what the position is there. Yeah, so the department's not affirmatively asking for the committee to add either of those offenses into this bill. The point of the comment was to just express that when, if the committee is going to take up that consideration and decide, when we're looking at the existing list of big 12 offenses, should something like a domestic assault and aggravated domestic assault or reckless endangerment be included? Does it rise to the level of one of those other big 12 offenses? The department just thought maybe it would be helpful to the committee's deliberations to point out that those offenses are listed crimes and that for listed crimes, victims do enjoy a few more rights. So while it's just information that we were providing to the committee, in case the committee thought it was helpful in its deliberations, but we're not, the department is not itself asking to add any new crimes to this bill. Thank you. Appreciate that clarification. So, hi Evan. So, backing up the page 10, the lettering there where you started on four, that lettering doesn't make any sense. If we continue from the paragraph up above, and then when we lose that upon request two, and then it goes to be notified, doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe I'm missing something here. Yeah, so that section on page 10, four, is actually subsection A4. So you actually have to go all the way up to page eight and start with 5234A. And so how it would read, if you skipped all of the in-between stuff, would say the victim in a delinquency proceeding, involving a listed crime, shall have the following rights. And then you skip down to page 10, and then it would say to be notified by the agency having custody of the delinquent child. Okay, all right. Thanks for that clarification. Thank you. Any other questions? Anything else, Kevin? No, thank you very much for your time. Great, great. Well, thank you for being able to get all of you in. It's very helpful. Okay, so great. So we are done with Look Us For Now, for us 224 for now, for the rest of the morning. I did want to go to the toilet on the side. I'm not sure where it's going to go to on the left one, right? Oh, okay, I thought you said yes. I did say yes. Okay. I need it. Oh, I could put it in the book store. Yeah, thanks. Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure it got it. Great. Thank you. Which one do you want to turn on is? I'm not sure. All right, let's take it.