 Okay, welcome folks. This is the House Corrections and Institutions Committee and today we're we're working this afternoon on corrections and one of the things we're working on and the only thing we're working on is the report that Downs-Rackman and Martin did on the sexual misconduct at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. Just a little background last year. Well, more than a year. It was December of 2019. There was an article in seven days that went through about 10 years worth of situations of misconduct, sexual misconduct within the facility itself between correctional officers and inmates as well as out in the field with correctional field service officers and offenders who are on different community statuses. It is a very, very complicated issue where it deals with correctional staff, but it also deals with union issues for the non-state employees as well as our Human Resources Department on the state level. So and also our court system if there's a criminal case it then goes into our court system and it's not handled internally if there is a criminal case that has been charged. So there's many, many layers to this and we had we spent a lot of time last year with with DOC in our committee going through some of the prison rate elimination act requirements, some of the situations that deal with human resources and trying to understand all the processes. And DOC, the administration contracted out with Downs-Rackland-Martin to do an investigation of sorts and come back with a report and also report back with any initiatives that might be put in place. So this is a result the report was was submitted on December 23rd of 2020. This is a result of extensive work that Downs-Rackland-Martin did. And this is our committee's first look at this and I am sure that folks who are streaming will want to connect with us for further testimony and we will be spending some time with some further testimony down the road. So with that being said we have Secretary Smith here from the Agency of Human Services along with the Interim Commissioner of Corrections and along with two folks from Downs-Rackland-Martin that will also be walking us through this report. But I'd like to start off by starting off with Secretary Smith and welcome. And if any, whenever the first person, whenever you speak for the first time, make sure you just introduce yourself for the record. Thank you Madam Chair. My name is Mike Smith. I'm the Secretary of the Agency of Human Services and as you may recall, more than a year ago I requested an outside review of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. I felt at the time we needed an objective review of what was going on in our facility and an outside expert recommendations on the steps we should take to address these issues around the treatment of our female inmates and staff. And as a result I selected Downs-Rackland and Martin and Tris and his and Jen and others to work on this report primarily because of their investigative backgrounds and their thoroughness to these types of investigations. And I'm happy to report that that they did do just that in their report. This report contains some disturbing details about the treatment of individuals in the state's custody and our response to their claims of mistreatment, mistreatment and harassment and abuse. And I just wanted to, the reason why I wanted Tris to look at this and his team is because it gives us a roadmap. We will continue looking at the details of the report but I have no question that this calls for further action and commitment from Commissioner Baker and his team, which you'll hear from Commissioner Baker. They are committed to action and to face up the facts that we may need to make some hard changes to policy, to process and more importantly to culture to ensure that we treat every individual in our care as a human being. And while the report really lays out multiple areas for work within DOC, I want to take a moment because I think this is important and I think Tris will reinforce this but I think this is important to take a moment to highlight the good work of many of our staff, especially the leadership at the facility who committed to not only opening sort of the books and their facility to be examined but also really a commitment to the core values of corrections and the humane and consider a treatment of the population of Vermonters in our custody. Most of our staff are hardworking and I think especially during COVID you've seen this. We have some of the safest correctional facilities in the country because of hardworking dedicated professionals who put in long hours in very challenging circumstances and their good work should not be lost in all of this. It hasn't been lost on me throughout this crisis and even as we seek to improve our culture, I think it's important and strengthen our policies. I think it's important that we recognize some of the good work, much of the good work that our employees do. It's also important to recognize in my view at least that even our staff have been victims of misconduct and whether it involves supervisors or coworkers or otherwise the type of behavior describing this report is simply unacceptable. The report calls for re-emphasizing our zero tolerance standards for sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct throughout the department. I agree we need to do that. The report makes core recommendations for DOC to address the issues of sexual misconduct at Chitton and regional calling on the department to re-emphasize and improve core policies, increase oversight and monitoring within the facilities including adoption of body cameras for our correctional officers and establish training on the best practices for gender, gender responsiveness and sexual harassment. These changes will require work within the department and this agency and the external partners including the legislature. I commit and Commissioner Baker you'll hear later will do the same to follow up on each of these recommendations as appropriate to correct the structural and cultural issues that have given rise to these issues. Corrections can do better for Vermonters and corrections will do better for Vermonters. I also recognize that changing culture is not easy. It's not overnight, it's not quick, but we must recognize that failure is not an option here. What this report describes is simply unacceptable and as I have said before we have strong professionals within corrections who are committed to this change at every level in the department and we need the support of our union partners in the VSEA. We need the support of legislators to ensure that we make lasting and meaningful change and address all the root causes of the issues raised in this report. This is a very challenging situation and in fact I'm hoping that we can implement every single recommendation in this report. I don't think that's an impossible chore to do as I have stated since I became secretary here and this happened about two or three weeks. The reports came out about two or three weeks after I had taken the job. We need to change the culture in corrections and that's why I brought in Jim Baker. That's what Jim Baker is doing and will continue to do in his tenure as interim commissioner. I just want to say this in sort of closing. I really appreciate the hard work that Trish and Jen and Tim, who I don't see here, but have done in putting this comprehensive report together. It's their report. We were hands-off on it. It's their recommendations. It's their report. It's their findings and I appreciate what they've done. We continue to make progress in addressing the treatment of women, both inmate and staff throughout corrections, and I think this is a good roadmap of where we need to go as we continue to do that, Madam Chair. I'll leave it to you where you want to go with this, but Trish has the meat of the report and then Commissioner Baker can follow up from there. I think that's the proper direction we should go. I hate to call you Trish. Trish is just perfect. I answered anything, though, Madam Chair. Let me just say that my partner Jennifer McDonald is here, who also was integral in writing this report, and Tim Doherty is not able to be here today, but he also was integral in that. I just want to thank the committee for having us be here today to talk about it. Jen is going to walk through the report thoroughly and give perspectives of the co-authors on this report, but I did want to just follow up very briefly on what Secretary Smith said and a couple points. One, overall, we were impressed with the professionalism overall of the staff and leadership at the Department of Corrections. Not that there aren't areas for improvement, there clearly are, but the other thing that kind of goes with that openness, or that need for some areas of improvement, was definitely an openness to improving how they're serving Vermonters. As this committee knows, this is an incredibly complicated, difficult, and essential function for Vermonters, and it is really a difficult terrain. Jen, as she goes through this report, will describe some of that, and there clearly are some changes and improvements that need to happen, but I at least left this report optimistic with the leadership in the agency and in the department, both on-site and overall, that they're open to looking hard and working hard and examining some hard truths here. I promise I wouldn't say anything. I've said way too much. Let me please turn it over to my partner Jennifer McDonald. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, you're welcome. Jennifer McDonald, just introduce yourself for the record, and we do have copies of the report, so you can start walking us through the report. Or Jen, would you like to share your screen? I can give you co-hostability if you want to be the person navigating. Right now, I don't think I need that, but I will let you know. I'm going to summarize the report, which I have in front of me, and what I will do is welcome questions afterwards, because as Secretary Smith said, it's a detailed report. We are here now in 2021 discussing it because of a delay to some extent caused by COVID, but what that did do for us is it allowed us to take an even deeper dive than the initial schedule called for. For that, we're very appreciative, and the result is, again, a detailed report that I think my summary is not going to fully cover, but which I hope if there's questions and follow-ups that will be able to address that between the interests. If I can just interrupt a little bit. If you're going to be referring to a particular section in the report, if you can direct us what page or where to go, that would be very helpful. Absolutely. And please feel free to interrupt if you have questions on what I'm referring to so that you can follow along. I will give a high-level summary that won't be tied to any specific page at first, but I will note just at the outset that our recommendations officially start on page 48. But obviously, there is discussion of that throughout. I am delinquent in introducing myself for the record, so I'll do that right now. I apologize. It's part of our fault, too, the way we transitioned it. My name is Jennifer McDonald. I am a partner at Downs-Racklin and Martin in addition to Tris Coffin, as he noted this report, and the investigation is the work product of Tris, myself, and our partner, Tim Doherty, who was unable to be here. I want to thank, to start out with, again, the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions for having us today. This was eminently important work that we appreciate the state's trust in us to conduct this investigation, and it has been a privilege to work on this throughout the past few months, and we are hopeful that some of these, if not all, changes and recommendations can be made because we believe in everything that we have put in here. Again, I want to thank Secretary Smith, Commissioner Baker, the leadership of CRCF and DOC because, again, although this was independent in all respects, it would not have been possible without cooperation and access from AHS and DOC. We reviewed an extensive amount of materials, and that review constantly required that we continue to review additional materials that came up, and throughout we received nothing short of full cooperation for all of our requests from everyone involved. There was continuously a sense from leadership and staff at many levels of how can we help make CRCF and DOC better, and that is the environment within which we conducted this investigation. We engaged to assist us, the Moss Group, which many of you are probably familiar with. In particular, we worked with Andy Moss, who has, they are nationally recognized experts on corrections, and the criminal justice system. Andy Moss and her team are also familiar with DOC and Vermont and have worked with the department in the past. Again, going back to what the scope of what we did, it's in our report, but I'll quickly summarize. We were asked to evaluate widely publicized reports of sexual assault, harassment, and misconducted CRCF. When this came to light publicly last December, it was to many people in the community a complete shock, and I do want to recognize, though, that this is something that everyone here took extremely seriously, and immediately after that was publicized, I don't recall exactly the timeframe, but we were contacted to start this investigation to look into the extent and nature of those investigations. We looked at both whether this was a systemic issue and we looked at the accounts made by individual witnesses and the incidents, but we did not limit our investigation to just those incidents that were reported by the media last December. We extended that to incidents that may or may not have been reported. We were given access to all of the complaints at CRCF, and we retained investigators to assist us in going out and meeting with witnesses. We took pains to ensure that anyone who wanted to speak with the investigation would have access to us, and we wanted to make sure that their feeling of safety in making those reports to us was a key component of that, and we have not disclosed the identity of any individuals who communicated with us in this report. In part, we were also guided by the policy of the Department of Human Resources to redact those specific names, but I do want to clear that there was full access to the investigation provided to anyone who wanted to communicate with us. We investigated the systems, the incidents, and assessed how they reflected on the institution and the weaknesses and shortcomings and how things could be improved, and all along we consulted with the Moss Group, relying on their experience throughout the country, and also with DOC. We have in the beginning of our report, and I will just turn your attention to the first two pages that does give that highlight summary of the scope and the recommendations that I've just laid out, the role of the Moss Group and the investigators who assisted us throughout this investigation. I'm going to jump to the findings because that is really the meat of the report. The findings, and forgive me while I flip through this, I think the findings you'll see will start on page 23. You have invested findings on page 11, investigate findings, is that part of this too or not? Oh, my apologies. So that is the section on investigative audit findings, but I what I'm going to discuss right now, thank you for the clarification. Page 23. Let's move to actually page 19 because that starts with the summary of some of the exemplary allegations that we encountered. I'm not going to go through these specifically. I want to point out that this is not all that we encountered in this investigation, although this is demonstrative of what we saw and they include the range of situations that included sexual misconduct that included categories of forcible misconduct and also misconduct that arose in the context of the power imbalance and deep cultural boundaries that exist at the facility in which the resident believed that an act was consensual when as a matter of law, it is not capable of being a consensual relationship. That's a deeply problematic cultural issue that exists within the facility as you'll see in some of these exemplary allegations. There was reports about residents believing that they had formed that relationship. And I would say that while all of these reports are disturbing, that was a theme that ran throughout of the inappropriate boundary issues that continue to exist at the facility. There were three main categories of misconduct, but we did focus primarily on what we have called in this report as staff on staff and staff on resident. That's not to say that resident on resident misconduct does not exist at CRF. That just was not our focus. So I can't really speak to the extent that that may or may not exist, but as you'll see, this report is divided into those two prior categories. So those two categories again are staff on resident and staff on staff. Staff on staff. Correct. And they are, we have, that is in different sections of the report. So starting on page 19 would be the staff on staff or staff on resident, excuse me, conduct. Great. Thank you. In terms of the degree, I think, and we make this note in the report, I forget what page it is, but any instance of this kind of misconduct would be extremely troubling. We did find it was borne out as reported in the media that this has occurred to a significant degree over the past few years. At this time, I do want to point out that much of what we saw and investigated many of these instances were reported in a situation where they were not reported and they were discovered by the investigation. We have referred these matters to the appropriate civil and criminal authorities. And if there's further questions on that, Tris can address that later on. But again, to the extent these instances were not already known to DOC, they are now and we have referred them as appropriate. This misconduct again, and I've talked about this, has arisen in a context of a power imbalance that exists just by the very nature of the system of corrections. And that gets to the recommendation for increased training gender responsibility in particular, that is woefully inadequate in the system as we've found it. In addition to inadequate gender responsibility training, we have found that the sexual harassment training given to staff is inadequate and that is not mandatory. That was I'll be candid a surprise from the investigation that when given the nature of corrections, which is a very hierarchical structure in staffing akin to paramilitary organization that sexual harassment training is not mandatory, it is offered. It is made available if people are interested. But again, it is not mandatory. And that is one of our recommendations that we request that or recommend, excuse me, that that be something that all staff are required to participate in an annual basis. One of the issues that we found is that DOC personnel lacks certain tools to substantiate or disprove allegations that allegations of sexual misconduct or in a widely reported instance, drug use are reported. But because the allegation is not substantiated, as opposed to just simply being proved to be unfounded, there's a belief of an action within the facility and then that gets to issues that are of confidentiality and there are important reasons for that. But when an incident is determined to be unsubstantiated because the tools do not exist to prove or disprove that, there is a sense of anxiety both within the staff and resident populations where they believe action is not being taken. I do want to highlight which Tris and Secretary Smith both discussed that over the past two years there have been significant improvements that have been made within the institution. Progress is being made in the right direction under this new leadership. There is significant commitment to this. We have discussed in the report the work and the learning community being done between CRCF, DOC, UVM and interests in the model that is currently being used at the Southern Main Correctional Institute. To summarize and again we can go through these in more detail if people have specific questions about the findings we did find significant issues related to the cultural morale, uneven discipline, procedural impediments, issues with settlements and I understand this is a very complex issue, issue with employment settlements that result in discipline that may not be reflective of the incident which creates a strong sense among staff that action is not being taken and they do not feel that it is worthwhile to report. We found that there is increasing improvements in technology but there is still a long way to go and the technology provides a vehicle for assisting people and having a confidence in the system and a confidence that if they report these incidents they can be proven and that action can then be taken to correct them. Again we have a number of recommendations in the report which start specifically at page 48 and I will walk you through some of what we find to be really important recommendations here. Re-emphasizing the zero tolerance policy as Secretary Smith talked for sexual misconduct of any kind and then standing by it. It is not enough to have the policies in place because our investigation found the policies are there and again that is what the PREA audit looks at but finding that the policies exist and that the PREA audits find compliance with the PREA requirements does not necessarily mean that there is a feeling of sexual safety within the facility so we must instill that confidence and at this point again our finding is that that confidence right now has been breached and that there is a sense of distrust that if something happens if it is reported the actions will not be taken. We encourage strengthening the rules and reporting guidelines, training for staff and supervisee conduct as I mentioned making gender responsive training at CRCF mandatory and part of the core competency trainings that happen annually at the facility. Again they are offered currently but they're not mandatory. One of our recommendations is to bring back the role of the director of women's services. Many of the people that we spoke with actually I will go out and I will say it was universally discussed favorably was this director of women's services position that existed I believe when the women's prison was still located in the Dale facility. This will help ensure that the proper training is being provided that is unique training to serving the female population. Improving the incident reporting and decision making process we emphasize in our report speed transparency communication with the people making the reports so that they believe that action is being taken. We do recommend seeking a legal change permitting random drug testing at DOC of the correctional officers or implement some form of non-random drug testing as permitted by the law. This is to give the tools to identify some of the issues that we found or excuse me some of the issues that were reported and were unable to be proven or disproven which led to a significant amount of anxiety feeling that the reports were being undocumented and were a security risk to the facility. So I'm wondering if this is a good spot just to sort of catch our breath before we get into what may be required or recommended legislative changes maybe just looking at what DOC can do or needs to do internally and it appears as if really has to look at mandating training which is one thing but how do you ensure if you're going to mandate training of all the staff that it really has a positive it really has an impact because you can go through a program of you know an hour long briefing of training and how do you know that that will change someone's perspective or help change the culture? Right now what we know is that the training other than what is provided at the Vermont Correctional Academy is only optional so we know that it's not being provided to the extent that it should be since it hasn't been provided to that extent we don't know you know to some extent there is this question of you know what impact would that have but culturally it creates a sense that these are significant and important issues and that there are unique issues that are different than those issues faced by the male population that there are unique issues with in corrections with respect to a female population and there are many resources that are already available throughout the country and this is where again the the women's director director of women's services position comes in that these are not trainings that we have to create from scratch they exist the resources that are out there you know I believe the MOSS group has actually provided some of these trainings in the past but it creates a culture where these types of gender responsibility are as important as other issues that are mandated for training. Okay so I'm going to open it up to the committee to see if anyone has questions at this point Sara. Hi thank you so much Jennifer I'm just wondering a lot of the what you've been describing and a lot in the report is is very focused on the facilities we know that corrections also overseas and supervises folks in the field could you describe a little bit about whether you looked at the RP what we call P&P offices and what field if you looked into field supervision as well. Thank you that's an excellent question we did and one of our recommendations relates to the contact that we found was being made between DOC staff and women who are under supervision who are not within corrections that contact was via text it was via Facebook there are now resources that allow staff to identify the to contact these people women who are on supervision more readily than ever before through the Facebook Messenger app so one of our recommendations because if you look at what conduct is criminalized extends only to people who are assigned specifically to that supervision and again that we saw that and that is very clearly from our perspective far too narrow because as we know as you know unfortunately people may be in and out of the facility but they are still on our supervision whether they're specifically assigned or not. So that could be a situation where a person a woman's been incarcerated and being supervised by staff within the correctional facility and then is either served either out on furlough or could be out on parole or some form of community supervision and is now being supervised by the field service office but and that's the direct link is that field service officer is the direct person supervising the offender but she came from a correctional facility and if there was a correctional officer that was now harassing her or providing some form of sexual misconduct there's no legal ramifications for that within the correctional system because that correctional officer is no longer responsible to supervise her. Is that correct? That's what the statute says right now. Criminal. I want to be I want to be specific that's it has to do with criminalization now is that inappropriate from a staffing perspective I think that's a that's a certainly a different issue. Can you clarify that that I know it's a staffing issue but still so the statute criminalizes that behavior right that creates a criminal issue versus there being a potential civil or employment issue again our recommendation I want to be clear extends to this it should be criminal not civil it should be modified but in terms of what currently exists it specifically says is supervised if the supervisee is assigned to the caseload of that person who is out on supervision then it's criminal behavior if and that's so that everyone can follow along I apologize I'm not that can be found at page we've repeated the statute at page 17 and 18 of the report. So if it is a correctional officer that had direct the head supervision of the inmate when she was an inmate and is now out on community supervision of that correctional officer is still harassing her there's not the direct supervision that could be a civil case is that correct or is that internal to DOC that would be an internal issue with DOC and and I don't know the nature of that I'm speaking specifically to the statute it certainly should be inappropriate or that's where you're saying is you move to coordinate we need to look at both I'm just trying to get what's in place now for clarification for everyone in the committee so when and if there's legislation introduced to correct it we know what we're talking about so that's why I asked the question for it to be really specific so my understanding now if it's that correctional officers is is harassing or abusing a former inmate that was under their supervision right now that is dealt with internally within the department of corrections and also within human resources department of our administration correct it's reported correct if it's reported if it's substantiated if it's substantial it it has to so you're right so that gets to the reporting structure which it is a complicated structure and we've laid it out in our report it starts with a DOC facility level investigation and there before it goes to DHR okay so Scott you have your question yes thank you madam chair what's been talked about is if a corrections officer a correctional officer has is harassing or abusing someone under supervision then that would be a violation but I guess I was under the impression that any contact any sexual relationship between a co and uh and someone under supervision would be inappropriate is am I not understanding that so I I I think I understand your question and I apologize if please feel free to follow up any sexual conduct is inappropriate but it cannot there's no scenario in which it's consensual under the law so it is always misconduct okay so it's always it's always defined as abuse regardless of whether it's whether the parties involved consider it consensual and and you raise such an excellent point though because of within the facility there were situations where we spoke with witnesses who believed that they were in a relationship but they believed that they had and there was a situation where and this person is no longer employed by the department where we heard that they subsequently after the the women was no longer in the facility became engaged that is a significant cultural problem within the facility that there is that there is that type of and I hesitate to call it a relationship but for lack of a better term relationship that occurs when it cannot be consensual in the first place I mean I would guess I could also imagine we're in a very small state where someone who is a co winds up who had a relationship or maybe even has a relationship with somebody who's an offender then is in a position of of supervising that offender somehow or yes anyway we can get very complicated very fast it is and they're required to report that the co is required to make that report we did find a situation where the resident or the when the woman came back within the system she was reluctant to make that report for fear of retaliation the co did not report it but that is currently a requirement okay thank you so I'll give you in a minute Michael I just want clarification on who was interpreting there was a relationship was it the correctional officer interpreting that or was while they were incarcerated was it the correctional officer that was interpreting that or was it the inmate that was interpreting that in this specific situation that I'm that I am referring to we did not interview the correctional officer it was the resident that had the feeling that she was involved in a relationship with a person that was supervising her correct and and there is these stories these accounts are not existing in a vacuum other residents hear about what happens and then they talk about that and that's another problem so we also heard these accounts from and the specific one I'm talking about I want to be clear came directly from a resident but there are other situations where other residents referred to quote relationships that were going on throughout the facility which again are not consensual relationships and it is it is a significant problem and very disturbing to hear that this was happening at any degree thank you so we have a couple more questions we have Michael and then Karen yes thank you madam chair I'm not sure if it's to you or to Jen if if we proceed which I think it's a wonderful idea um spent a ton of time in the military we had trainings on this kind of you know inappropriate this and inappropriate that relationships etc all the time and if this was done do we have agencies within the state that would conduct that training or that be recommended to be an outside agency that would conduct that how would that what would that look like just curious thank you so I'll I'll start and then defer to others who will have more information about this than I do I know from speaking with the moss group that they've provided some of this training but I expect that there are other resources that uh could the commissioner of the secretary may be able to speak more to okay thank you um we have a couple more so Karen and Kurt yes thank you um I appreciate all this information and I especially appreciate the director of women's services recommendation can you speak up Karen we're having a hard time hearing can you can you hear me that's better okay great um so thank you I was saying that I appreciate the um the prioritizing of the director of women's services recommendation I feel like that is a key piece to all this of having a point person not that that person's going to you know save everything but where things can funnel through and have that bird's eye view of everything that's happening information come I um will say that I worked at the women's correctional facility for about five years when the women's director of women's service was in place and that was key to be able to go have that point person go to ask questions funnel requests I see in the report that isn't clear why that position ended I know I've been curious why that position ended I feel like that would be important to know in reinstating the position of why did it end so that we can make sure that whatever that is that caused it doesn't come up again to remove the position so I would be curious um if there is more info in there that didn't make it into the report that's a great question I think it's it's a it's a question about the history of what happens when there are changing administrations and new supervisors coming in and out no one we spoke with new specifically why that was so that leads I'll get you in a minute Kirk that leads to where we as a committee really need to focus when you have a change at the top regardless where it is it can be a governor it can be a secretary it can be a commissioner in doc's world it could be a superintendent of the facility it could be a case supervisor of the facility a change can occur if it's not within their not within statute not within some legal contract contract or construct not within their rules and not within their directives and that's going to be part of our role this coming session and next session to really look at these proposed changes to make sure that they are in place in such a way that regardless who is coming in or leaving that they continue I think that's going to be imperative and I'm not just saying that for doc I'm saying that for across the board for that so Kirk uh this question of boundaries is um fascinating to me and I see it as really difficult because we're trying to hire people who care about who they're working with um we're trying to kind of lack of a better word demilitarize the doc and turn it into a situation where we have people who genuinely care about the people they're taking care of and trying to rehabilitate them and at the same time we're telling them that they have to stand back from that as well they have to create a boundary that's appropriate so that kind of and this works for men as well as women that kind of training is not something you can get by as the chair said by or as other people have said by an hour of training or something like this I'm curious as to how much training you see as appropriate I mean we hear about places where it takes two years to become a corrections officer and other places where a week before you go into our work in a women's facility you get a week of intensive training about how to work with women but so can you give me some idea of the extent to which you think this kind of training needs to be so I'm going to have to defer again to experts like the moss group who create these training programs um I can certainly make a finding that it's insufficient based on what we've learned to date and I think that's very clear from the amount or the lack thereof that we're seeing right now and that any amount would be an improvement what that training would look like I think is a that's a question for people who do this on a daily basis can I just jump in really very quickly and add just a quick comment you know throughout this many of the issues that we found could be improved for through through for lack of a better word better professionalism in the culture and so I think what you're talking about is a little bit of a long-term project to gradually change the course that the department has been on and improve the overall training and not just you know you know an annual one hour training doesn't obviously do that you're looking at going back into the corrections academy and really taking a critical eye to what we can do particularly with gender responsive corrections practices and also provide training for the the people that are there and that goes across the board on so many different things that we dealt with here but one really important thing that Representative Taylor brought up was this boundaries issue and yes you do want to have incredibly empathetic corrections staff who understand what modern corrections practices who understand sort of the modern approach to corrections reentry and community based corrections where ultimately we realize that people are going to be coming out of the facility and going out in the community and maybe doing that back and forth a few times you know realistically but kind of are really attuned to that and so that the boundary issues there are part and parcel of this professionalism and I do think it's very important for the department of corrections to look at how in the long term it develops a correction staff who is empathetic but still has that appropriate boundaries you know as an attorney I feel that I'm very empathetic with my clients but I have definite boundary issues and that goes to police officers public officials employers employees supervisors we all have these boundary issues healthcare professionals I think we need to kind of in that spirit look at those relationships and understand there are boundaries that need to be set but there also needs to be the empathy in that relationship that Representative Taylor mentioned thanks sorry for interrupting Ted how Kurt yes yes okay so we got a couple more folks I've got Michael and Linda Joy yes thank you Madam Chair and I think part of it in my opinion and again I'm sorry when I say relying on my military experience but that's my big wheelhouse to operate from we've done I've been through lots of well shall I call it not strife but conflict and things that have where you've had things go wrong and you've had to make shifts and you know I've called it a paradigm shift or a cultural shift is also a piece of what Kurt I think is getting at as you've got to that's one component but the other component of it is is sometimes you've got to look from the top down and I and I read up on Commissioner Baker and sounds like he has been a consummate problem solving guy his whole career and was brought in specifically by Governor Scott well not just for this but this was a big focus point that sounds like they got the right guy to be that to lead that cultural that paradigm shift and make that next step or the next leap or that next piece of progression and I think you have to have that top down driven focus and you've got to have all of their subsequent leadership underneath him has to have 100 buy-in for this to be effective so it has to be really looked at and and and watched very closely by him and his staff to ensure that they implement and then they follow up on the implementation if I'm making sense that's just again how I see it from from my foxhole Linda joy and thank you madam chair so I really would like to say I'd like to commend you know Downs Rockland on their breath of this particular report it's thorough and the investigation was great and I like to commend the entire administration for what they've done but I have a question I'm trying to figure out and picking up on what Representative Morgan has just led into how do you actually create a legal compliance system when I'm not quite sure who's really accountable or in charge because I know we have Waterbury unit who does investigations I know we have what goes on in DOC what goes on in the facilities I know we have the unions coming in with grievances I know we have attorneys that work for DOC that are still under the AG's office so who is accountable if you can tell me that's an excellent question and we we can certainly address that I think this might be a good first I'll let either Commissioner Baker chime in or Secretary Smith and if if not I can certainly try to address it from at least what we gleaned while we were doing our investigation and I will highlight the question that you ask is a good one that we heard from many people staff included so do you want to speak up for this Commissioner Baker yeah Madam Chair I do want to let Jen get through her presentation but for the record this is Jim Baker I'm the Interim Commissioner of Corrections and I think to answer Representative Sullivan Sullivan's answer is I'm the one that's responsible for corrections I'm accountable I'm responsible I'm the Commissioner at the end of the day if you're going to be in a leadership role running a department is complicated and as diverse as corrections someone has to be held accountable and that's in this case it's me you have some very valid points representative about how challenging it is the deal with personnel issues you know I've been dealing with public service personnel issues for 45 years and I wish I could make the process simpler but there is a process and part of the problem I believe in corrections has been over the years that we we you may not like the process but it's a process and if you're going to treat employees fairly but also hold them accountable you have to follow a process in many of the for the lack of a better term repair jobs that that we just heard the representative reference my background I've gotten into organizations where I see people don't want to follow processes and that's where you start getting into trouble because the rules are different for everybody and I find that I have found that in corrections now the investigative internal investigative process to deal with human resource issues is it is extremely complicated can we do more work in that area absolutely and I and I'll I'll just leave it there because I do want Jen to have the opportunity to to finish out what the recommendations are I'll be more than happy to comment on the report and talk about what the plans are moving forward we have in motion some very targeted plans to start dealing with this report and beyond this report dealing with the overall culture and I'll touch on that when I when when it becomes my turn madam chair that's okay great thank you thank you so let's continue with the recommendations so Jen we'll turn it back to you so you can continue we did really the first recommendation I believe I just let me flip back to so I think this is a really good segue which commissioner Baker was talking about who is held accountable but also the complex system that currently exists for investigation there is a it starts at the DOC facility level it is then referred up to DHR we recommend that a liaison be put in place who can communicate between those two arms one of the things that we heard repeatedly was that there is not and there is not sufficient transparency between the investigatory process at DHR and the leadership in the facility itself so if that facility reports something they do not always know what happens at the DHR level if there's a decision not to continue that investigation and that is extremely problematic so having someone who is in that liaison role who can create a sense of transparency within the process that the commissioner was talking about the process that's in place for very good reasons often and is complicated by the employment relationships at play and the contractual agreements at play we think would create that sense of transparency that would give a confidence in the system that is currently significantly lacking we also recommend a monitoring committee be put in place again this this is along the same theme that we've been talking about that recommendation is on page starting on page 50 the idea is and we think that you know having many many people who continue to report to us that they think that there has been a breakdown in the integrity of the investigation and disciplinary process this monitoring committee would have stakeholders that could periodically monitor the reports about sexual misconduct that are being made and then the investigation and whether policies are followed whether the discipline is fair looking at these agency decisions it would be limited in size of very experienced people who could provide that confidence that currently doesn't exist within the system um we have covered on page 51 the gender responsibility and uh best correctional practices training i think so i'll keep moving on within the report um of course just ask a question on the monitoring committee is that something that who would set that up is that internal that it would be done with doc or is that from the agency of human services or is that done legislatively so that's a great question we recommend in the report that it be nominated by the governor um that process and and this was the great idea of tris so I will I will hand this one over to him to to flesh this one out for the committee committee but that that was the idea that it would be at that executive level to create a an independence from the agency so how and maybe tris I intervene here but how do you anticipate this being continuum between governors do you need is this something where you need legislation to establish this monitoring you know I I I thought that uh it was more important to set uh define the concept and then the details could be filled in you could certainly see the legislature not agreeing with everything in here and maybe the governor thought it wise to uh uh create this uh committee or not but but but you know fundamentally um you know I leave it to you to decide what kind of the best mechanism to do that but the notion is that there if there was some sort of a uh a committee that's independent and had some gravitas in the state and as I thought of this I thought of the uh uh frankly a couple of the the the current uh and soon to be uh retiring judges in our system who've got you know good credentials and experience uh with the criminal justice system with the correction system with recidivism with the challenges of our community with opioid abuse and substance abuse and maybe even specifically this facility who could sort of be be you know regulators on how this is is being implemented and be a little bit of a of an honest broker in whether um things are moving in the right direction given the limits and challenges we have in our system in Vermont so there it is good luck yeah right so the thinking is sort of a neutral outside entity looking at and being almost to go between between the Department of Human Resources and Department of Corrections to make sure you know you know um I guess I would say that my view of it was be they would be more macro level not sort of a court of appeals and individual cases but they would say you know look at you know take input from the various stakeholders including residents and CEOs the union um uh government administrators uh uh uh non-governmental agencies and sort of every now and then kind of be monitoring this thing to see how it goes so for example uh it's not uncommon at all as a mechanism for uh settlements of of legal actions between private parties or even public entities to have a paid monitor uh to come and make sure that a complex agreement or a complex relationship is being um uh uh abided by in good faith it felt to me that like you know appointing a professional monitor and appropriating money for it and those kind of things wasn't really a Vermont sized solution to that problem and I sort of started with my own head I can think of several uh people who could perhaps be willing to do this and do do you know really good service in this regard the fallback mechanism though is if we can't find or can't agree on you know a volunteer for this for lack of a better term then the representatives of the different stakeholder entities could be put together to form this group I think it's important that it be small uh limiting it in its bureaucratic mechanisms because there's a lot of processing here already and you don't want to just add another layer of you know bureaucracy and complexity in processing here um but I do think there's somebody a rule for a representative to give sort of a macro view at how these recommendations are being implemented and provide you know a kind of an honest assessment of it as as they're going forward that's helpful thank you thank you thank you so let's continue with Jen what I'm thinking is and I don't know what people's schedules are but maybe finish up with Jen and then take like a 10 minute break and then come back to interim commissioner Baker does that make sense to folks I don't know what your schedule is commissioner are you available to do that or not and I'll make myself available manager I'm just thinking being on zoom we need sometimes a break just to get away and move a little bit so let's see if we can do that um so Jen why don't you continue here or thank you so I think that the next uh we covered shortly before um the first question series we talked about the drug testing you know I want to be clear and this is in the report that we did not find widespread abuse or reporting of abuse of drugs within the facility that said the particular issue reported on concerning that in this report um certainly in the media has created a strong sense within the facility that if you make reports they don't do anything about that uh in this particular uh in this instance there were reports that were made over the course of I believe three-year time period and the nature of the reports meant that unless a substance was found on an individual it could not be proven so there was a sense of a strong sense that the rules were being flaunted that there was insecurity within the facility um so again this seems uh this is an area where the facility and the DOC does not have currently at its disposal strong tools to substantiate or disprove allegations that were being made to leadership over a multi-year time period uh the next recommendation again has to do with technology which we touched on briefly um and this again has to do it falls within the category that I I referred to here as tools to disprove or substantiate allegations we find that when reports are made the facility leadership in the situations that we looked at did follow the process that was in place and met with people who were part of it and if situations are denied um either by the resident in uh and I can think of one example in a situation where they believed that they were in the relationship that we previously talked about and so they denied that there was anything that had ever occurred and there was nothing uh that could prove or just that could substantiate the allegation um and so rumors perpetuated within the facility and the staff from member remained employed until he or she left so having body cameras which takes that guesswork out of the process and can substantiate any time or disprove because there are certainly those types of allegations um we think will go a long way in improving the confidence of both staff and residents there has been significant improvement in the survey the facility surveillance over the past year I think it's noted in the report there was something like on the number of 60 some cameras that were in place that has now gone to over 100 so those are great improvements um there's reason to believe strong reason to believe that there's still a lot of room for improvement in that they are motion censored um cameras and if there is no uh detectable motion occurring the cameras are not recording um so the sensitivity of those cameras again our our investigation did not go to the very micro level of looking at the specific technology and how much motion is required to trigger that camera but we know that uh there are situations where someone made a report and that uh the video was pulled and that there was surveillance cameras in the vicinity that would have captured the incident regardless of whether some misconduct was happening but that the motion uh sensor stopped triggering the footage for a period of time that meant that although there was a camera in the vicinity that could have substantiated or disproved to be you know and so that it would be unfounded it no longer it doesn't exist it never existed um and that's an area that needs to be improved because more cameras doesn't do any good if they can't be triggered um so that's an area for additional improvement again I can't reemphasize enough the importance of the body cameras we know that's a that's a significant change um something that hasn't as far as we're aware previously existed but we are aware of other states that for the same reasons we're recommending it here have required that body cameras be worn um on all COs and I believe that is it for the specific recommendations within the report again uh Tris and I are both happy to address any additional questions great is there any questions before we take a break and then shift when we come back to interim commissioner uh Baker Sarah did you indicate something did I see something yeah it's just it's fairly quick and I think it's better for the um for the DRM folks if you don't mind madam chair um um so I was this report was really thorough and I really wanted to say I really appreciated the way not just the way the work was done but the way you organized the material one question that I had that I was kind of disturbed to find in your findings was that the audits for the PREA audits that are done and required um didn't didn't um surface any of this information and I understand that that's one of the reasons why you're recommending the independent misconduct commission but would in a why do you think that is that the PREA audits didn't really surface some of some of the the things that when you're because when you're talking about that there are weak policies because I think what you're saying in this report that the PREA audits came back positive and clear at the same time that there were some pretty serious issues going on so specifically the PREA audits look to determine compliance with the PREA regulations that are in place and so to the extent that our policies did comply with those regulations which in almost every situation they did where they didn't um there was a corrective action that was taken to bring DOC into compliance but um simply complying with those regulations in a sense that the policies exist or that the process is being followed does not ensure that these situations um A aren't happening or B are happening and being reported okay so what i'm hearing you say is that it's as much a procedural issue as a cultural issue within the facilities about a reporting like that there's a fear of retribution if if event and in instances were not reported by staff or residents there's a fear of retribution there is also back to the cultural issue of a fear of reporting someone who um a resident may believe that they have a different type of relationship with then is legally permissible thank you that really answers my question i appreciate that anything else before we take a 10 minute break madam chair i'll put up a break uh sign on my screen and if everyone could mute their audio and turn off their video and we'll use you when you come back as the signal that we're starting back up oh 10 minute let's try let's uh yeah let's do close to 3 30 because as i see 3 17 so let's say 3 30 so i'd like to tie up around four o'clock a little bit after maybe five minutes after four if possible um i have another meeting that's popped up that's not connected with this at all that i have to attend to so um that just came up so i have to take care of that um so i would i'm going to put out that we are going to be looking at this report more intently and spending some time with it i want to allow committee members time to really read it over and digest it um and i don't know i know some of these initiatives maybe governor recommends in some of the budgets coming forward we don't know that at this point so we need to let that play out um over the next week or two and that will give us a little bit better direction in terms of where our focus may be so just give the committee and you folks out there that are on youtube uh some direction in terms of where we are headed as a committee so i'm going to turn this over to interim commissioner baker and before we start we do have a new committee makeup commissioner and um it might be good for the members who are new to this committee to introduce yourselves we do have a new vice chair uh representative coffee representative shaw did go up to transportation committee um so that's a big shift and we have a member who is comes from a different committee who's been appointed here and then three brand new members to the legislature so if we could start with scott and then go to michelle caron and michael um sure madam chair well we did we did do this a couple last week i guess it was yeah we did with the commissioner okay sorry that's right last friday yeah um madam chair i'm sure we glad one of your committee members told you that not me because that's great that friday seems so long ago yeah it's never good for the interim commissioner of corrections to offend the chair of the house corrections and you don't have to worry about that so again to introduce myself i'm jim baker i'm the interim commissioner of corrections and i want i want to thank tris and jen and tim's not here today for the work that they did on the report and i'm really happy to hear that what they found inside corrections was nothing but cooperation from the leadership and the staff providing the information they needed and even though the moss group is not represented here today i'm deeply appreciative to andy moss and her team at the moss group that worked on some of the focus groups that were conducted inside the facility as part of this review so i want to publicly acknowledge that and again my staff who was very cooperative you know i guess for me you know you heard me say this earlier to a question from representative sullivan um you know the secretary and i um um are taking this report very seriously um you know there's there's some troubling things in here but it wasn't stuff that i hadn't heard about before um but with much more detail and with much more clarity because of the work that was done by by d r m i want to just start out by saying that we do have a plan to address this and uh it's in its very early stages um i'll talk about that a little bit and then i will go to some of the questions that came up that that gen may not been able to answer because they're really correction related questions um and that'll be more than happy to take questions um the plan moving forward is is that i have taken bill soul bill is the district manager of the hartford probation and parole office and temporarily assigned him to report directly to me and he is the point of contact to come up with a plan to implement the recommendations in this report you'll you'll get a chance to meet him as you continue the conversations with us about the report and the first steps that i've asked him to to focus on is creating a strategy on how we're going to tackle these recommendations that's going to uh that conversation occurred last week and he's got some things to clean up in his role right now as the district manager of the hartford probation and parole office and uh why bill soul bill soul is a 40-year veteran of the vermont department of corrections and has extensive experience in dealing with the female population he led the team that moved um the females to winzer uh the female population uh when they moved there and um he uh he's been through some of the training that gen described the sensitivity training the uh responsive the responsibility training on gender um he in conversations with him he really understands the complications around um housing in a correctional facility a female population so i'm looking forward to bill um being the tip of the spear on this as we tackle the recommendations that are in the report i want to i want to just make a couple comments um about a lot of conversation about culture change and staffing you know for the folks that have been on the committee from last year you've heard me talk about this before and you know i i think it was in front of your committee that i made the statement about the sexual sexualized workplace environment and this kind of goes to the culture um i i don't i don't accept um that um and i'm certainly not challenging representative teller on this but i don't accept that it's that difficult to keep boundaries a lot of professions have to keep boundaries and uh there's a big difference between boundaries and being a predator there's a big difference and uh part of the changing of culture and this came up with representative Morgan um and i know he's probably drawing on his experience at the Vermont National Guard the challenges they had and i would refer you to those kind of stories that we've heard about the catholic church the guard the guard these are places that gen touched on that have powered differentials between certain individuals that are in a hierarchy position over other individuals and many many organizations have struggled to deal with the issues that that surround the issue of sexualization in the workplace but the place where it starts is number one acknowledging it and with you seeing the report today we released it at a press conference uh just before the holidays and i said this at the press conference and i'll say it again ask the question about who's responsible i am as long as i'm here as the commissioner i'm the person responsible to make these recommendations come to life um but part of part of changing an organization is acknowledging that you have a problem and what i'm doing today and i'll do it again today as i've done before we have a problem in the workplace with certain employees now with that said the secretary said this earlier uh one of the things that um has really put me back in my chair for the year that i've been here is the level of dignity and respect in humanity that the majority of the individuals who work in corrections show the people that were responsible for and um just to demonstrate again how complicated the situation is with with the women and the population that we have at chitin you know i'm sad to report we've all saw it this week we lost two women this week the overdose death is what we believe it is and i don't want to go too far into this today i know at some point madam chair i'm sure you're going to want to talk about those that situation only of these only if this situation of what we do for work every day was so easy and let me lighten the moment for a minute we could easily find a permanent commissioner of corrections instead of an interim commissioner of corrections because this is complicated business and changing culture and organization is even more complicated uh and and again i i appreciate um representative morgan i i want to call him colonel morgan but i don't want him to start calling me colonel baker so we'll stay away from that but i rep i i appreciate um his comments earlier about the culture and how difficult it is to change culture it takes a period of time you've got to acknowledge it and you got to send a message and you got to set a tone and and i've been very clear about this that the sexualization of the workplace the retaliation against employees and or folks in my custody are unacceptable and we we are going to work on this as we've been working on it for the last year and i'm i'm i'm humbled to hear that gen reports that there is a difference at that facility in the last year and a half two years and i and i gotta i'm gonna i'm gonna again call out just like i did last year commissioner mike touche because mine started the organization on this path and i'm i came in behind mike and i'm following that now and we have a lot of work to do i'm committed to doing the work and i'm committed committed to working with this committee and other folks to implement the changes that are recommended let me address a couple of issues that came up that i don't think you know gen was not in the position to answer and i think one of the first ones with with representative cough you asked about if they took a look at the probation and parole officers and i just want to kind of expand on that i think what gen was saying and i i don't want to speak for her but what she was saying is she was looking at the relationships that get built um between staff and um individuals that may be in the facility and then release to the community um i i don't believe that it was a deep dive into the probation and parole officers and i can i can be corrected if i'm wrong on that but just to be clear about their recommendation on the law change certainly we should work with you on that we support that we support these recommendations but there are work rules that deal with employees becoming involved it with individuals that are on our caseload either incarcerated or in the community that does not allow them to become sexually involved or in a dating relationship or other inappropriate relationships with them so those are dealt with as a human resource investigative approach with discipline um we do support having a conversation about changing the statute on that point um i i think um the question came up about the director of women's services and um as i understand it and i'm not here i understand that was uh that was a victim of budget cuts in a given year and you know we we certainly will we'll circle back and start talking with this committee and other committees about how we can make that change but for the time being um although i i don't want him to get settled into just director of women's services bill so will have the point on the issues about what we need to change and continue to change what's been changing at the facility in south brook um let me let me make another point there's a lot of recommendations in here about training and in the sexual harassment training that jen brought up it is it is troubling that that's not mandatory but i want i i mean i have i have to say this about policy and training um and i think you all you you all understand this but i think it just needs to be on the record you can have the greatest policies and the greatest trainings in the world if your culture is bad cultural elite policy and training for lunch every single day of the week let me repeat that culture will eat policy and training for lunch every day of the week that's my experience in in in coming in the organizations that need to be changed what we have here for certain individuals is a culture that needs to be changed the rest of the stuff is important legs to the stool to change that but we have to drive the point home for people to understand that this behavior is not acceptable it won't be acceptable and i'm not going to tolerate it as long as i'm the commissioner that's the tone that has to be set and that's what we're setting for the phone um we do have challenges around investigations of employees conduct and i i don't want to get into it today but i i do i do want to talk to the committee about it and i do want to touch on i think it was representative coffee that asked the question about priya um and and and it was it was a great question why could corrections pass pre-audits and still have this stuff going on it's because the priya is about checking off boxes that's what it's about it's not about being um aggressive and taking priya guidelines and making sure you're in compliance below the surface above the surface priya guidelines check off the box you're doing this stuff below that is is the underbelly of that which is what this report is about is the underbelly of what happens and i i've said this before and in private to some representatives i think uh representative emin's we've talked about it and representative shaw before um he moved off the committee we talked about it this is why corrections needs an investigative unit now i'm not talking about investigating i'm talking about investigating incidents or being ahead of proactively doing things such as looking at videotape and other proactive steps and it goes beyond this it's it's it's the to death it's the death of the two women in brood not that we would do the death investigation but we need an investigative unit to make sure that when major incidents occur that we are in fact following protocol an escape from jail an attempted suicide a suicide a death of people in our custody not that we're going to be doing death investigations that's the job of the state police or in this case the job of brolington pd but i wish i had a couple investigators trained up that when i got the call the other day that they could have responded immediately to brolington and start gathering the facts to make sure we're following policies and procedures and we're doing what we need to do to find out if there was a crack in our system that we could have done something better it causes the way it's done now causes a very chaotic situation and when it comes to the issues around paria it causes we're very reactive we're not proactive and if we're going to get ahead of this we need to be proactive not reactive so these are a couple observations madam chair that i made as um genus doing the presentation of the report um if if people want to get into specific recommendations i'll i'll give you my take on it but i will say it's a little bit early we are you know we are reacting to it and we are moving forward and we're moving fairly quickly now i just want to wrap up my comments by saying that superintendent messier the superintendent at the facility has done an incredible job in building relationships with organizations that are providing great services to the women in south parlor and she's done an incredible job and some people may say well why not just have her implement the recommendations it's because the job of running that facility is sold time consuming that it wouldn't be fair to ask her focus on just these recommendations it is in no way shape or form a silent message that i don't support the leadership of superintendent messier i do and she's doing an incredible job and i'm i'm gonna i'm we're we're layering other support around her so we can in fact move the ball further down the field but this is going to take time culture can culture change is going to take time i think you thought i i do know when talking with andy moss and we are going to continue engaging moss group in our in our work but i in my conversations with with andy moss since she did the work with drm um you know her the feedback has been consistently that there is a difference in the last two years at the facility from where it was two years ago and that that doesn't mean we say okay the clear victory move on and i and i promise this is the last thing this is not the only place where we have cultural issues around these issues right it just happened to be that it was the most high profile as a result of the work that was done by seven days so the the focus here in the goal in my conversations with the leadership team is that we're going to create a blueprint and formula on how to deal with this achievement and then we're going to move it from facility to facility to address the issues that need to be addressed this is a huge opportunity for us to step back self-reflect pay attention to what's going on be engaged be present be awake and take these lessons that we're learning here and then move them throughout the system and so that's the ultimately the vision that i have as we move forward on the report and i'm i'm i'm ready for any questions that's great thank you and i know we have a question from scott but i just really want to emphasize that any changes that we put in place either legislatively or internally within doc's realm of their policies that it is not just for the women's facility it is across the system because we may be focusing on the sexual misconduct the harassment the abuse with the women who are under our custody but i am sure that similar behavior is happening with our male inmates and offenders as well and i don't want to discount that that this is a systems issue and i want to thank you commissioner for taking this on and laying down the foundation of how we move forward so that these initiatives are in place regardless of who is in power in what position and where in the system because i think that's so important for that so we do have a couple of questions scott you had your hand up and karen did you have your hand up was that the hand i saw okay scott and then karen thank you madam chair and commissioner i i want to commend you for emphasizing the culture in the institution as as the what makes everything work and because i couldn't agree more and it seems to me that culture starts at the top and that is a the example set by leadership is is is critically important and not just not just in terms of policies and protocols but in terms of the culture which is an intangible thing many times what what i'm curious about what i what i would like to hear from you not today but as time goes on is any ideas that you might have about how how to institutionalize that cultural attitude that is that will that will survive uh a leader who is not um up to up to snuff we've we've had leaders like that in certain places in our country and so how do we how do we build how do we build an institutionalized culture that that respects the all of all of the issues that we're talking about today and again that's not something i really expect you to have an answer for right now but i would like to talk about that as time goes on yeah yeah not you know representative i'll take up a lot of the committee time but one of the things i'll say to you is just that it is it does start at the top but my experience is is that culture change happens unit by unit um you know i i can especially when you're in an interim role and again i have to say this and i heard jen saying i heard truce the vast majority of the people that work in corrections are incredible human beings i can tell you the last two days uh i've i've been with them on an emotional roller coaster ride as a result of losing those two women um they're they're amazing human beings they work very hard every day but inside there inside there is a little bit of rot that we need to deal with and so um to institutionalize we have to invest in leaders and we have to invest in leaders that are willing to stand tall and so we can talk more about that as the committee as committee time goes around so thank you you're welcome sir uh taren and then michael there um commissioner just really appreciate um your acknowledging kind of the significance of this issue the situation your commitment to change and getting the work done and then you're just your transparency and communication like this is just very appreciative of this that we're able to have this conversation move these things forward um i'm curious how this report or the recommendations have been um communicated with staff and potentially the the residents and how have they been received or just how has that been and realize it's been a short turnaround but i know word gets around quickly so curious to see just thinking of the culture piece again that's the initial response you know representative i i've gotten very little pushback from anybody around me or from leadership in the field um i i do appreciate your comments about being transparent my wife tends to tell me that i'm i'm too transparent that sometimes i'm i i say too much but um i i'm getting very little pushback and i'm i'm pretty you know my my relationship with the leadership and corrections i think you know i've spent a year building trust with them i think they trust me and i think they trust where we're trying to go because everybody i don't know if anybody in the system that doesn't want to make the system better and this is even some of the folks that you know i i hear from other correctional folks that have been around for a while i don't know about that person but when i get into a conversation with them at the end of the day deep down inside they know that our job is to protect people that are in my custody and that we have an obligation to do that and sometimes it's not an easy job it's very difficult and working in a facility is very very difficult working out in the field is difficult the population is is complicated so the report has been um it's circulating amongst the leadership team um once we get bill in place we'll start the process of some focus group conversations with the leadership on the ground and really start talking about what's in the report and what that means and that'll include our relationship with the union as well thank you michael uh yeah thank you madam chair and uh just it's kind of regurgitating a little bit of what's already been said and um and i'm not trying to get into the colonels mutual admiration society here with christian baker in terms of but to applaud him in his efforts and uh i know what he's going through like he alluded to been through a lot of this um in different forums from the military no no agency is excluded from uh having things go wrong and having you know the kind of the 1090 rule the 10 that wreck it for the other 90 in this case i would even probably be so bold as to say it's probably more on the magnitude of one percent and ruins it for 99 percent i think a majority of the time and but i by applaud the efforts of the organization overall um taking it on head on uh an old nco of mine once said he said sir he says a bad idea never gets better with time and so i the agency has taken his head on they're taking the the bad idea and fixing the bad idea and and uh taking that bad apple out of the barrel and and again being transparent like was spoken to and and again i applaud the efforts and i look forward to uh seeing this agency improve itself i think like you said commissioner i i'm very convinced i i i know uh corrections officers that work for you folks and they're good people their hearts in the right place they're uh principal people that would not do wrong and i i'd like to think that that's 99 percent of our people and i'm sure it probably is but like any other organization will will get better when the day is done and thank you sir for your efforts i i appreciate that thank you my saying is that um bad news that is not like fine wine it doesn't get better with time yeah exactly exactly so i i know when this report was um rolled out back in december there was a little bit of conversation about how the role of our facility plays into this um and i don't know gen or commissioner if either one of you want to weigh in on this we didn't touch we haven't touched on this but there was um some shortcomings that were shown about the facility itself anyone i'll certainly let gen talk about that in their report first and i'm willing to comment on it madam chair thank you yeah thank you um it was i will say shocking to go into the facility and meet the residents and hear the stories about what was just unsanitary conditions i think you've all heard about the situations in the shower it's been widely reported in the media the facility itself is old uh dilapidated that was reported widely and just not conducive to the um efforts to uh ensure that people were able to participate in the programs necessary to return um people to the communities so it's just so clear that this facility is outdated and is not able to meet the needs of a modern correctional facility from meeting with um commissioner uh messier speaking to dr fox we spoke to dr fox as part of the investigation um we understand that they are looking at the southern main correctional facility as the model of a modern correctional facility but again we didn't go we certainly didn't go to main um and aren't uh didn't delve that deep into the comparisons between that but from everyone we spoke with including the moss group um it's clear that this is not a modern facility changes need to be made uh the conditions um hearing about the sewer flies and the showers was just appalling um so thank you commissioner i don't i don't i don't think i probably can elaborate on that much more than than to say that from a policy standpoint you and i've spoken about this um he you cannot convince the women that are in our custody that you care about them if you keep them in a facility like we have but that's the facility we have and it is absolutely critically important you know and everyone knows that i speak for governor scott because i work for governor scott when i say that the administration supports moving forward on on a new facility um we've talked about this talked about it last year we've had some conversation about it this year and i think the important piece to understand is what what you heard jen say is that um it is not bill to be able to do the proper program and do it with a level of dignity and respect that every human being deserves and so we can't continue to do and talk about we want to raise the bar on what we do for the women population and then talk about um not acknowledge the fact that that facility is in bad shape and look this is not a reflection on bgs or anybody else it's just wore out and you can all stay so far out of it and i think your committee heard from from uh chief kormier this morning about the feasibility study and the importance of having the conversation to start to move forward and let me just finish it by saying this because i i as i researched today and the report and madam chair i think you know this because you've been here uh enough to remember you know we've moved the women four times four times and what you helped me out madam chair eight years four times and probably about 12 15 years okay so we've moved them four times um and i'm not criticizing everybody you know what they had to be moved for various reasons including iran and the flood understand it but if you're someone in the system and and that's the way you see yourself being treated there's nothing we can do about that from the standpoint of what i can do with my staff to send a better message and i think it's important that we understand that a big piece of what's wrong here is this that facility needs to be replaced we can have the argument should we have a women's jail or not i will say to you is that we need a women's jail but we also need the thinking around how we're going to transition women and it's a little raw for us in corrections right now because um it wasn't the finest moment this week transcend transitioning women and it's a little raw for us right now inside corrections so i i i have to emphasize the importance of this and madam chair i know where you are on it because we've had college conversations on this questions thoughts okay so that sort of lays the groundwork for us in terms of some of the issues we'll be working on on corrections um and and also on our capital budget because we don't know what's going to be in the governor's proposed budget on any of the budgets be at our budget or be in the general fund budget but we will be uh revisiting this issue of this report and all its nuances in many ways over the next coming weeks so anything else before we finish up here in transition away from live stream and to back into our real lives hurt did you have something or are you just leaning back okay okay anything else if not again for folks who are streaming if i know i don't know what our schedule is going to be in working on this i don't know i don't think we'll have much time next week but possibly the following week and then we'll need to balance the work here with this report with also our other big priority is putting in place our two-year capital budget funding which will be starting once the governor presents his two-year budget so with that if anyone is interested in connecting with the committee to testify please feel free to reach out to myself and fill petty our committee assistance and if you reach out to both of us at least for me please use my legislative email address that would be the more appropriate way to communicate so we will be back here tomorrow morning at 9 30 v s e a is coming in just to give us a little update on who they are and who they represent and then we'll go from there