 This is what got me thinking about this was Robert Krapp, Robert Krapp's arrest in Florida. I was wondering where we were at with human trafficking in Vermont. We passed a good legislation a few years back that made it, and I'll recognize that. Recognize that the women who are the traffickers are victims and should not be treated here. So we shall do that, and I'm going to turn it over to you. I know we're going to talk a little bit about the state, and we may do a bill or direct Michelle to do. We may do some stuff initially in either a committee bill or a miscellaneous judiciary bill, but I think over the summer I'd like to have you work up a bill to update all of our laws regarding human trafficking, prostitution, not sexual assault crimes, but sexual those types of sexual crimes. Then at 10 o'clock we're going to hear from, and hopefully I'll get to everybody that wanted to speak, but when it's on the list, but at 10 o'clock I want to hear from James Dole, who used to be with the Polaris Project, because now he was writing for Kids Campaign, and he was helpful to us in drafting the original bills on human trafficking. So good morning for the record, Michelle Childs, Office of Legislative Counsel, and I'm just going to set the stage a little bit for what we have on the books and for the witnesses that you're going to talk to this morning looking at our human trafficking laws. So y'all enacted the Human Trafficking Chapter, so you have an entire chapter, Chapter 16, Title 13 on human trafficking. You did that in 2011. I was not the attorney on it, so I don't have really the experience about the process there, but in going through the chapter and taking a look at it, I think that there are, there's two issues there. There's the one about whether or not, I think Senator Sears has raised, is the state comprehensive enough with regard to covering all the different types of activities. And then the other issues, I think there's some language that seems contradictory or a little unclear that maybe could use some finessing. And so I passed out a copy of the chapter for you, so I'll just walk you through real quick so you can kind of see what we have on the books currently. And so, and I just want to note from this outset, so this is its own chapter. Separate apart from what you have, which is Chapter 59, which is Luminous and Prostitution, so you have a sub-chapter under 59 that is just relating to prostitution, human trafficking being different and we'll look at the elements of that. So first is Section 2651, which is the definition section. I'll just note a couple of the definitions. If you look down on subdivision three, they are commercial sex acts, so it means any sexual acts, sexual conduct or sexually explicit performance on account of any, which anything of value is promised to, given to or would be by any person. I think I just point that out because as Senator Sears noted, I don't know how many years ago or maybe three or four years ago, Senator Sears, when you worked on this issue and we amended some definitions to kind of kind of close some gaps there around certain activities that were occurring allegedly at some places up in Chinning County and we're trying to tighten up the language there and make sure that it was broad enough to cover all the activities that you wanted to cover and the human trafficking law, so I think most of us remember that one. The value would include shelter food if somebody was being... Dinner out. Well, I'm thinking like, you know, when people are sometimes brought from another country here and they're kept somewhere and they're told that they're working off their rent or... So I mean, four might cover that bondage. If you read the four, that's really where you get into the open, to the sort of sex slave type of... to God. I'll also notice, Daria attention to subdivision seven on labor servitude. So you'll see it tends to track the language on what constitutes human trafficking. You'll see it in terms of like sexual activity or you'll see it in terms of labor servitude. That's kind of a definition there. If you look at section 2652 for human trafficking, so no person shall knowingly, and I just note, you know, we sometimes skip over the mandatory of the intent piece there, but I just want to identify, I just want to point that out in this context about in terms of whether or not that's required intent state is the knowingly with regard to the person's action, the defendant's actions. I'm sorry, so 2652 section. Oh, okay. Right here. So we're getting to the human trafficking crime and the elements there. So the first one is to recruit and tights harbor, transport provider obtained by any means of person under the age of 18 for the purpose of having the person engage in a commercial sex act. So this one is one of the areas where I, again, I don't know why things were done exactly the way that they were, but I'll just note that as one area maybe to clarify, because then when you have a crime in 2653 on aggravated human trafficking, the first one that they have on that is if you basically, if you commit human trafficking and the offense involves a victim who is under the age of 18, and that's the first one under aggravated. So I don't really see any difference between what you have under 2652A1 and 2653A1, but I haven't spoken to anybody in the state's attorney's office or the AG's office, and so maybe I'm missing something there, but I just noticed that that's something we want to take a look at. So A2 is engaging in those activities through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of having the person engage in the commercial sex act. So that's one of the main differences that you'll see between human trafficking versus the prostitution chapter is they're compelling the person through force, fraud, or coercion. So you see in subdivision three, what I just mentioned, four is benefit financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture, knowing that force, fraud, or coercion will be used to compel a person to engage in the commercial sex act. Subvision five is subjecting a person to labor servitude. Subvision six is recruiting an enticing person for the purpose of labor servitude. And then seven is benefit financially. So again, you have kind of those two different categories, either sexual servitude or labor servitude. So the penalty that's provided for the lower, and it was the lower level of human trafficking, but there's no mandatory minimum, but it is up to life in prison. Very substantial penalty. Yeah. That's for the... I mean, I believe that Senator White said there's still some in the Brownville area, and I believe there's somebody else that there's still some in the Burlington area. So there's 14 in the state. 14 in the state. Which hasn't, you know, obviously hasn't received the attention of our enforcement. Or if it has, they haven't been able to prosecute her. I wanted to let the case with the most recent event where they interviewed the women working there and the women did have their papers. The women said they weren't being mistreated, that they could leave when they wanted, so they had no cases whatsoever. I know that Bennington case, they just moved the women quickly. There was nobody left to take it away so quickly. I think at that one, though, that I just mentioned the next day, the people were moved. Yeah, they moved quickly. They moved them quickly. So then we have aggravated human trafficking. Before you get that, I just want to note, on subsection C, this is in a new order and mentioned this concept in our series, is that a person who's a victim of sex trafficking should not be found in violation of either the Lutonous and Prostitution chapter or the obscenity chapter. So again, you know, ensuring that while somebody who is being either forced to engage in a commercial sex act or being trafficked, that they even can't be charged with prostitution or Lutonous or obscenity. And then again, this is an area that I think really needs to be tweaked and taken a look at because I think the language in C1A and C1B is a little confusing to me with regard to the under-18 folks. So I just kind of mentioned that as something for us to come back to in terms of the AG's office about that. I also want to note that on C2 provides for an affirmative defense. So if you have someone who is a victim of sex trafficking and they're being charged with a crime other than something that's Lutonous, Prostitution or obscenity, so perhaps they're being charged with sale of drugs, that they can raise as an affirmative defense the fact that that person committed that act as a result of their force or under duress by a sex trafficker. So section 2653 is aggravated human trafficking. So the penalty for this is 20 years to life. So there is a mandatory, one of your human mandatory minimums that you have. Subsection A sets forth the elements there. And so it eventually says if somebody commits the crime under 2652 and then under A1, the offense involves a child under the age of 18. If the person has a previous conviction for human trafficking, if the victim of human trafficking suffers serious bodily injury or death. And then if the actor commits the crime of human trafficking under circumstances that constitutes other sexual crimes. And so you see the penalty on subsection B as I mentioned 20 years to life. 2654, is this a patronizing or facilitating human trafficking? Michelle, I'm sorry, time for you to move on. So the fine for 2652 is? Yes, I did notice that. I don't know why. What? That doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. The fine for 2652 is 500,000 max. And then on aggravated, it's 100,000 max. Yeah, I don't know why that was me. Yeah, I've got it. Yeah, there's just a few little things that are kind of, didn't make sense to me in here. So we can go back, we can maybe pull the 2011 file and see if that's what we understand. But I talked to Eric about it. Eric was counsel, but it was a clerk who had done the bill. And so I think maybe, so neither one of us unfortunately have a lot of historical memory about why things are the way that they are on this one. So 2654, as I mentioned, patronizing or facilitating human trafficking. So this is where you have, let's say you have a motel owner and someone is running a human trafficking operation and having people come and go and the motel owner knowingly is allowing that to go on in their place of business. That would fit under 2654. 2655 is solicitation. So again, no person shall knowingly solicit a commercial sex act from a victim of human trafficking. That penalty there is five year felony. Can I ask, in terms of the knowingly, they have to know that they're soliciting a commercial sex act and they have to know that they're soliciting that sex act from a victim of human trafficking. Yes. Okay. So 2656, and I think did you have somebody in your witness list? I don't think this morning from the AG's office. Yep. No, the AG is next week, I think. Okay. And this is, we're going to come back to this next week. Okay. So this is if a business is convicted of viling the chapter, AG can commence a proceeding in civil division to dissolve the business under our corporation's law. 2657 is a provision for restitution for victims of human trafficking. 2658 is a prostitution conviction so you can do a motion to vacate. So it's a process, you know, some help. What would be helpful is to what's the crime of prostitution in the state now? What's the penalty? For the person who committed herself. Not more than one year. For a second or subsequent, it's not more than three years. So again, this is one thing that we want to take a look at and see if that's really, if it's how it's working with the evolution of your expungement laws. Yeah. And I know that looking at, this guy's just a little bit about Polaris project and looking at seeing what other proposals are out there for best practices for the states with regard to... We do have the employment bill coming over from the house where we could add it to that. I believe you asked yesterday. Right. But I did see that one of the things that Polaris project is advocating for is kind of having some specific language with regard to expungement and criminal history record issues with regard to victims. For victims, yeah. For the victims, yeah. So, 2654 is patronizing. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that because if you, that's the case in Florida where they're saying, well, they didn't know it was human trafficking. You're talking about the clients? Yeah, the clients. Right. That would be actually 2655 solicitation. Okay. So... How do you be interested in knowing how a prosecutor would prove they knowingly did it? All the crimes in Florida are misdemeanors based upon them not knowing it was human trafficking. But then, if you knew anything about human trafficking, you would know that it was human trafficking. How would you know? How would you know? If not, this would be very prejudice, but if not, I spoke English. Exactly. I think it would be the fact that, you know, you read it on, I think how you find out about these sort of websites that you go to and you get comments from people. That's your testimony on that foot. That's a good question. How would you know that? But I think you, an educated person, might guess that they, in the craft case in Florida, they were saying that they, not the clients, but the investigators knew, or the contend they knew, because they could see evidence that they were sleeping there and eating there. But I would think that's even tough to prove in court, because, you know, there are plenty of places where people own a restaurant and they sleep and eat there. In regards to correctional, whatever they are, the counselors at Woodside lived there, in small rooms, they told me. So they're room closets that they have to stay in. Maybe we should investigate that, Joe. Right. She's like an institution. She was on the tour. Call for it. Anyway. So, that's what I've got for you this morning. I'll just stick around and listen to the witnesses, take notes, see. I think it's pretty cool. I think a lot. In the AGES office, at the time, I remember John Turtle was very involved in working with this committee on the legislation. And we did revisit it a few years ago when we realized that happy endings weren't a part of the original 2011 law. And so it may be that it is fairly comprehensive. I do know that there are some other, there's a bill in the house right now that is requiring some notices in certain places with regard to information. That didn't go anywhere I don't think. No, it didn't. And also training for people in certain types of fields. I guess that's one of the reasons why there's been education. Not education. Well, I guess it could be true, but not education. It was specifically to say, how do you, how do you identify? How do you just, so if you were a, so I think the bill talks and talks about like if you're in the service industry or if you might be more likely to encounter that type of activity, what are the signs? What would you, what would you look for? Okay. Thank you, Michelle. We're witnesses Dr. Novotny and the Vermont Police Association. We're looking more for an update on the trafficking today, not just, but if there are suggestions for a list that can change for Dr. Novotny. So, Elizabeth Novotny for the Vermont Police Association. Thank you, Senator Sears and the committee for opening up a discussion on this. So, I hope to have Commander Proudy here the next time you continue the discussion. He's a member of the Vermont Police Association and is also a member of the Human Trafficking Commission. So, he can get into the weeds with me a little bit on this, in this area. But I just want to, in broad brush, raise a couple of issues for you. So these are very difficult cases to prove. And you've hit the nail on the head. And they're complicated. And they are labor-intensive. I mean, I think Detective Burnham is here and he's going to speak to that, but they are labor-intensive and resource-intensive. And it, you will typically have victims who are engaged in prostitution. And for a variety of reasons, they may be drug-dependent. That may also be a factor and often is. And so, traveling that and being able to prove what you suspect requires the cooperation of this person, these victims, who are dependent entirely upon these people who are trafficking them. So when you consider whether to, how to treat the crime of prostitution, I think it's important to talk to the investigators and the prosecutors a little bit more. I'll explore that a little bit more. Particularly, if you're going to consider expungement of criminal history records. So there's a difference between the actual conviction itself, the fact that you've been convicted of prostitution, right, the actual court record that says conviction and a criminal history record. The criminal history record is defined in, does it have title 20? Yeah. And it is everything. Everything that's associated with that person is their criminal history record. So if that person is a victim in a human trafficking case and we're trying to correctly right the wrong and take away that prostitution conviction, you need to be very careful that you don't have an unintentional consequence of eliminating the actual human trafficking case files that involve that particular person. So that's- I think I understand what you're saying. Yeah. So it's just something to pay attention to, is you? I haven't read the postbill yet and I thought that it took care of that problem. The court last year believed that courts saw it as eliminating the entire case record. We saw it as expunging the crime and so they hired in the budget adjustment act there's money for people to do the current expungement and that's because they wanted to go through everything. And I hope hopefully the House fixed that if they didn't we need to do that here. Yeah. That's for everything whether you was a human trafficking possession of marijuana. It was never our intent that the court needed to go through the whole record given that given that probably it was any kind of profile case there was a news story or whatever that you can't get rid of anyway. Yeah. Well the police association strongly supports that you they take that anyway that should come up in the expungement bill but I don't know if the House did it or didn't do it. So thank you by the way for recognizing it and it's actually the use of the term criminal history record and that's why there was not so much confusion but it actually has meaning and statutes and people were just following the statutes so it's great that people are focusing on that. So I think one of the two things to keep your eye on the ball which would be prostitution which is typically the inroad to proving these cases and the expungement of criminal history records versus expunging the actual fact of conviction and other than that I wouldn't leave it to Commander Prouty to talk to you about some other specific suggestions. I know that there are discussions ongoing with the current grant that's come through and I know it's going to speak about today that because these are difficult you have to come at it in a sort of QZ type approach as opposed to when you have these sexual investigation units except the unit approach with prosecutors who are assigned and skilled in these cases is probably the best practice and I know it's going to be bolstered with this grant so that's true. That's Michelle's question but I guess I'll ask this to anybody to answer it. Are our laws that much different from Florida in terms of human trafficking? You know I don't know the answer to that question I haven't taken a look at Florida. Yeah if they're they were able to get a search warrant to as you know have cameras inside the facility and clearly they see that it was human trafficking so I'm assuming they have the proof to that but then they're saying that the clients didn't know human trafficking so therefore they're being charged with soliciting prostitution and so I don't know if our laws would allow that type of search warrant to keep the land there et cetera et cetera I don't know what how our laws are similar or divergent from Florida. So a couple other suggestions to explore to explore one is a registry for employers who also are landlords presumably have that relationship with their with their employees sometimes that's perfectly acceptable might be a ski industry has a place for their ski workers and it may be completely appropriate and fine but in human trafficking it's often a red flag so it allows the state to know which employers are also housing their employees and so that's a consideration but it's not just sex sort of to you know labor or households right and I was just wondering in the Florida case it seemed as though they were attempting to deny that they have been living there even though signs were seen so would the registry speak to the people were really trying to focus on or would it capture mostly the as you said the legal businesses that well what it allows for is an opportunity for law enforcement if they suspect that you're an owner of a business and your employees are living there and you're not on the registry it gives them an inroad into the building they can't quite show human trafficking and a probable cause for that they have probable cause for something else that gets them into exposure Do you have a memo or something from Shell I don't and I would be happy to put one together As long as she's not here right now I'd like her to be happy to do that Yeah I know but I wanted to make Michelle aware I don't any other last piece is licensing of massage therapists or some sort of licensing Didn't we do that? No, we did not do that because they there wasn't a human trafficking issue at the time that they did the or they didn't recognize it at the time they did the sunrise and there wasn't harm shown in order to license somebody in the state of Vermont you have to show that there's actual harm done to the public by not licensing that's the way our licensing law works but now I've had a conversation with a couple different massage therapists and there's also now some harm done to massage therapists from clients so there's there's more pressure to do that so we'll take it up again well I always wonder why my barber has to be licensed is that because he's got a razor? yeah and chemicals and hairspray no permanent things like I use all of my I don't know I just but anyway we will we're going to I appreciate it I've never looked at it again well that's something that government operations may look at and register and then the last piece you'll get from I hope from the people on the human trafficking commission and maybe some of that grant money is going to go to this but it's once you suspect you have a human trafficking case you have victims that are extraordinarily needing and their needs are immediate they need treatment immediately they need housing you know if we're if we're going to make an in-road into the case itself we're into their care that has an immediate need I don't have an answer for you I just want to put that on the map for you to consider your discussions I know that the problem when we first started talking about this in many of these cases was the victims of human trafficking were unable to speak English and the police departments did not have translators to help them right so those are my three quick thoughts and thank you for your discussion you're replacing Colonel Burnham which is fine yes sir join the police you're obviously not I am certainly not the Colonel good morning my name is Lieutenant Lance Burnham I am I have have the privilege and I say that kind of tongue in cheek but I've investigated a number of these cases I'm also an active steering committee member of the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force and I'd really like to talk about that today because we have done a tremendous amount of work when it comes to human trafficking and I think sometimes the amount of work that we do isn't necessarily getting noticed out there and I really want to talk about that and I can certainly answer questions about some of the training that we've made to quite frankly thousands of Romaners and professionals throughout the state regarding this specific crime but just to back up a little bit in 2013 the United States Attorney's Office of the District Vermont as well as the Vermont Attorney General's Office reconstituted a group of members a lot of stakeholders throughout the state of Vermont informed the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force Currently members of the Human Trafficking Task Force involve the U.S. Attorney's Office the Vermont Attorney General's Office the Federal Bureau of Investigations Department of Homeland Security Homeland Security Investigations Vermont State Police Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services Giveaway to Freedom as well as a lot of a number of other stakeholders throughout the state of Vermont we meet monthly we have subdivisions that specialize in certain areas such as training law enforcement community outreach as well as a very robust training division that is actually going throughout the state providing certain much needed training as well as attorneys that sit on the the Task Force to keep us up to date on certain cases that are actually in front of judicial process right now we as far as training goes as of today we have trained at a minimum of about 2,600 Vermonters across the state across throughout the systems throughout the state which would include law enforcement judges prosecutors the Department of Health the Department of Social Services regarding everything that has to do with human trafficking several smaller projects over the past several years one of the most significant being the Task Force will assisting DCF to develop policy and procedure as well as an infrastructure to designate a point person for all juvenile human trafficking investigations this effort has yielded tremendous progress and the state's ability to track intervene and prevent juvenile sexual exploitation as well as labor trafficking we have also produced and disseminated a statewide PSA and sponsored a mural creation in Burlington which you may have seen on the news Neural? yes it's the giveaway to freedom in downtown Burlington we've also as with the state of Vermont we've created and dedicated a hotline that anybody can call 24-7 to either if they witnessed human trafficking or if they feel that they have witnessed human trafficking or more importantly if they are a victim of human trafficking they have a resource to call last year the general assembly adopted act 140 an act related to human trafficking which concerned child custody issues that can arise when sex trafficking survivors and children have resulted from their victimization this year the center for crime victim services as well as the Vermont state police in collaboration with the human trafficking task force were awarded $1.2 million and a DOJ collaborative agreement for this year fiscal year 2018 which will expire in 2021 the purpose of this is to again allow us to provide victim services to victims it allows us to provide training to our law enforcement officers it also allows us to provide trainings throughout the entire state of Vermont and giving us the ability to actually go that and the purpose of it we would like to firstly form a task force we are well in our way of doing that I personally am overseeing that process we are trying to identify on the Vermont state police side specifically identify detectives on each four corners of the state provide them for the most advanced training in human trafficking so that way when a case comes in we have a detective that's ready to go if a case comes in and as I said as Beth said these are very robust and very difficult cases one person cannot do them we need a team effort in this and we understand that having this task force model will allow us to pull our resources and put them where they need to be this is not just the Vermont state police that's why it's very important that we collaborate with our federal partners the FBI Homeland Security has been tremendous and they have provided detectives as well especially with the ongoing investigations that we do have currently I will say in the state of Vermont we are extremely lucky we do not have any walls with our federal partners in law enforcement we work very well together and that is not the case in every state I have gone to many trainings where the law enforcement has a tendency to headbutt and I have gone throughout the country and I am very proud of Vermont that we just don't have that I know I can call up our resident agent and say hey this is Lance I need help and I am going to get it immediately so we are very lucky with that we also have a very strong working relationship with our victim services partners I have worked with the crime victim services that I think we are well on our way really becoming a model for other states to actually follow it is very difficult cases these are very difficult cases the reality is on the law enforcement side they don't ever have to come to us victim may not ever get to the point where we charge criminal cases and we are fine with that if we have a victim that we take out of that lifestyle provide them with the services that they need we win it is a win it doesn't matter if a criminal investigation has actually happened or not do we have a long ways to go yes we certainly do but I do feel that our strong hard laws as they are written right now are strong they mirror the federal law which helps us because we have again a very strong working relationship with the US Tony's office but that is where we are right now human trafficking task force we have invited we know that there have been human trafficking laws that have been presented this year which we have not supported we don't like don't agree with how they were particularly written we invite you to one of our meetings please come and see what we are doing and I think that will open up a lot of us those bills are the way they were written can give me any I think the way the bill was written this year regarding the awareness of training and providing that the issue that I would not support is that it provided that gave sole discretion and gave that burden on to the Department of Health we have already had that established it doesn't need to go there we are providing to have the Department of Health come in and reinvent the wheel doesn't make any sense we also have concerns about the postings of flyers and local restaurants and bars regarding human trafficking I think that's not the Vermont style I think if you have as an example if you have a female that's just sitting at a table that's that's not necessary I would back Ms. Novati's decisions on things to consider about licensing massage parlors in the state of Vermont we have had three cases in the Chittenden County area of massage parlors that we have shut down and again yes our victims did not speak English sign we took those victims out of their out of their silence and we did not get prosecutions out of it but we're okay with that but we do at the same token we also have a number of cases that are in front of the judicial process now for human trafficking I have not read anything about it I think that's because they're on the federal it could be charges out there that I'm just not aware of I do know the cases that I've been either involved in or have had discussions with if there are cases in them without divulging any ongoing investigation or anything that they would take are most of them sex cases or are there labor cases as well I would say that we are seeing higher rise and I think you can back me on this is sex and an opioid addiction problem the opioid addiction and the sex crimes leading to sex crimes I think what we are also seeing is that we know that some of our runaway juveniles are being exploited they're being taken out of the state of Vermont they're being addicted to opioids and they're being used we're seeing disclosures that that is happening we are actively working with that I can say that prior to this position that I'm in now I oversaw our detective bureau in the northwest corner of Vermont and it changed the process of how we respond to runaway juveniles we don't just take a phone call anymore and if a juvenile is returned we better have a detective talking to that really where did you go what happened because you don't just run away tell us why this happened so I think we've seen changes and I think we're going to see results of that other questions anything else the one thing I do want to say is we know that these victims need services the human trafficking task force is working on housing relationships specifically in Chittenden County we are working with the mayor to develop housing in the Burlington area but you know the work that we have done through the task force I think is great we probably have not done a great salesman's job we're doing the job but we're not selling we're not telling people about it then that is our next step thank you yeah I think it's important that we that we do some kind of notice when you do have these cases you work directly with your federal partners rather than having it done by local police or is it all I mean I guess so they're not coming under Ramon Laws is that correct I think I mean I'm trying to understand whose law is it the federal law that is if the federal prosecutor is prosecuted in the case that it's under federal law am I correct yes so we're not using Ramon's Laws and I'm curious and you don't have to answer this today maybe you want to do some research on it but I think the committee would be curious about if there's deficiencies in current Ramon Law that that forces you to the feds or is it because the feds have more resources I think I can answer that through experience I don't think that I think Ramon Laws could there be some changes that I think if there are changes they need to be very minor ones I think that we as I said earlier we mirror the federal law very closely which is helpful I think the majority of the reasons that we are on the federal side at this point is because there are larger scale drug investigations that have started on the federal side and but I do think that the more we train our Ramon Drug Task Force to identify potential human trafficking we will see crimes on the on the state side I also do know that we do initially charge human trafficking cases but they get spread out as soon as you have a drug offender that knows that they have the they're going to serve 25 years minimum or potentially life in jail it's very it's a very good golden ring to say I'll plead it to for a drug charge anything so but I I firmly feel that Ramon human trafficking law is very well written and we need to if we do make modifications it has to be one of them I've built a thing going on I just was going to ask you the bill that you didn't like didn't pass the house didn't support I wouldn't say I didn't like it didn't support didn't pass the house I don't believe so okay it hasn't I don't think it got taken up okay I represent some of the and but I believe James Gold has suggested that a more rewind of having through the education department and teaching particularly kids the dangers of human trafficking if they get involved and running away they'll be struggling a lot I have provided training and I know that's a touchy subject and I don't mean to take up any time the other witnesses I provided training to high schoolers regarding this subject I know it's a touchy subject with teachers as well as Department of Education because they don't want to either shock or they don't want to concern children children know about this and I quite frankly I have taught obligations to children on homicide scenes and they take it this is not this is not this is not the scene that they've got because we why are those there without my name called home I went out once it in govops and yeah I did too and then I got I got called home but you probably got called home no I didn't get called anything they just started singing instead well thank you very much I think we'll take this up again next week I don't know what day we're going to work on our agenda but whenever we do we hope to get more suggestions of whether there's tweaks in Vermont Law and as Michelle said it's something for next year right away don't Chris before you start I'm going to say that at a quarter to ten I have to meet with one of the governor's people for about ten minutes so I'll be moving but it's not because I'm excited but you get to meet with the governor I'll be quick don't be excited for it for the record Chris Fennell Vermont Center for Crime and Crime Services I want to thank you Senator Sears and this committee for bringing attention and awareness to the issue of human trafficking in Vermont the center works to address victim service needs of trafficking survivors in several ways we've awarded we have been awarded this grant in conjunction with the Vermont State Police we also have used federal victims of crime act monies to begin direct services first rolled out in Burlington we when we originally wrote the grant last spring we had included extending that and getting a case worker in the Rutland area but at one of the task force meetings it became clear that we didn't know we were going to get the grant and that things in the Rutland area were such that we needed to act sooner than later so we actually we were going to spend half of that money and have the grant pay the other half we decided to roll it out for Rutland right away so I believe they have hired and are getting trained by the case manager up in Burlington she was spending all of her time sort of traveling the state of one person the victims compensation program provides limited funds to support survivors basic needs and as was said that we are active members of the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force and our training and community outreach director serves on the task force training and outreach subcommittee supporting dozens of trainings over the years we also advocate for victim centered trauma informed laws and procedures such as reporting that was adopted last year the scope of human trafficking in Vermont unfortunately is hard to kind of put a number on demographics and geography can easily support and hide both sex and labor trafficking and I would speak to say labor trafficking is really underground in this state it does happen but it's not sort of confined to cities or places where people could notice not necessarily in the scheme right right but rather something associated maybe a restaurant right it could be a restaurant could be a farm could be all kinds of things we also have recognized that the opioid epidemic rural isolation the ease of travel to large metropolitan areas and agriculture and hospitality industries are all known factors that contribute to trafficking a recent data collection completed by the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force reported that Vermont's governmental and victim service agencies encountered at least 250 trafficking victims from 2014 through mid 2017 yeah of the 112 months for whom at nationality could be asserted 11 of those 112 were foreign nationals within months of the South Burlington Police Department's Human Trafficking case manager taking on new cases within months she had 25 trafficking survivors on her roster for services and it really was it's one of those things you know if you built it they will come for services then you were giving no outlet for possible intervention and changes education I totally believe in it and in fact a lot of this grant which we're doing with the state police are going to be training allied professionals to understand and to look for trafficking victims not in a way that you know your suspect of everyone and not necessarily like they do with domestic violence at hospitals are you safe in your home but to do training so people can recognize signs that it's happening that dentists and hairdressers and you know across the board pediatricians everybody has basic information and a place to do a referral should that be necessary we have a long way in terms of bolstering services part of what we're going to be doing through this new grant is really working with the network on the network of domestic violence and sexual assault programs to ensure that they are on their end and they are now but to support their efforts to identify victims that they may be coming into contact with the task force stakeholders and partners have presented to at least 2600 for monitors across the various systems targeting a wide array of audiences the subcommittee for this group has worked to tailor their presentations to nonprofits or the health community law enforcement and we're going to build on that with the grant money our training director is written into the grant as match so that she can work with she's already on the task force subcommittee but so that she can really work and identify and put together effective trainings and and get those out to the public the task force has spearheaded several small projects over the last several years one of the most significant being the task force role in as was stated assisting DCF to develop policy procedures infrastructure and a designated point person for all juvenile human trafficking investigations the effort has yielded tremendous progress in the state's ability to track intervene and present juvenile sexual prevent juvenile sexual exploitation and labor trafficking we have also through the Vermont Human Trafficking Task Force produced and disseminated a statewide PSA and sponsored the mural what's the age do you have those figures you said 2014 to 2017 is it broken down by age I didn't mean to break into your time no no that's fine I don't have it but how about I before it would be helpful for us as we go further on this I think James stole's emphasis will be on children and when you said that what's still striking me I'm sorry I haven't been listening to some of your other testimonies that my focus has been on the fact that you build it they will come if you don't have the services they're not going to admit that they're human trafficked blah blah blah I'm wondering how many are under 25 under 20 under 18 who would be under DCF and the law seems to indicate that they would automatically be considered a child and needed care and supervision which would get them services if it's the older people but if you had 25 in Burlington maybe there's two in Bennington two in St. John's very in five in Brattleboro blah blah blah and you know maybe Rutland might have more than 25 but anyway I'm sorry for focusing on something else but it's that struck me there's 200 plus people and then would you say 25 of them foreign nationals? No there's 11 11 before so it's not as high as one would expect it's really not and probably because they move so much there is a lot of movement but the other thing is that it is really underground and so if people aren't looking for it or aware of it or noticing it it goes undetected she she you know that's that was what we found when we were looking at the the side what did the update was the the skill particularly the Asian massage which is what was in Florida the skill of the owners to move people from powder to powder in order to avoid detection and that does happen a lot of crossing state lines especially in sex trafficking of moving people and moving Vermonters out of Vermont especially youth and I know that the police have law enforcement have been dealing with that so the good news is that I think with the task force the Vermont task force receiving this grant it's really going to enable the law enforcement and nonprofit and other community members to gain awareness and the one thing that we're looking at at the center is to say okay where should services be beefed up is it a matter of and trying to be cost effective around it but trying to say is it a matter of the network programs not only improving or adding on to their training but actively providing services and what would that look like and how would they respond to saying where else in the state is there this need for services if there aren't services and I can't say this enough it's not going to go anywhere people will identify it but it's not going to happen the other thing because I've heard the questions about the feds the federal government being involved the U.S. Attorney's office also does have resources for victims and so that often can be a good supplement and really does augment the ability to provide services I just think we had many cases because they don't why is it somebody moving somebody and makes the press but somebody the victim of human traffic well I know that doesn't get there I was recently talking with the case manager out of South Burlington police department and out of her caseload the number that are involved with the justice system are very small they're not ready to do it they're not able to do it yet so a lot of the caseload are people who have been trafficked are being trafficked and for whatever reason have not chosen to go into the justice system to try to do that the nice thing is that both of those case manager positions are based out of law enforcement agencies and so they have the workers have developed a real camaraderie with officers they trade lots of information they they are the eyes and ears sometimes on the street for what is happening and are able to get input from law enforcement about maybe where where somebody has been taken or reaching out to them so it's an interesting combination people are charged with sexual assault and it's really a human trafficking case but as the detective mentioned that they plead to that but maybe they're charged with it in the first place because it's hard to prove the human trafficking elements yep yeah so again thank you all I think it's great that you are shining the spotlight on us well we hope to don't think it's going to be just it's going to be more than just or maybe some things we feel we need to do this year either in the miscellaneous judiciary bill or in the expungement bill what you missed when you were out and I asked about the botany to get back to you on it was she was talking about the expungement to make sure you keep the case record you can expunge the crime of the victim but if you expunge the case record you could lose the case against whoever was the trapper and that's what she said I mean like if it's case history case history file you're charged a certain amount of money so I she'll give you some and Lance pulled up the pie chart of ages and I'm hoping you can read those little I feel free to read that so and these are old numbers again the for the records from the year 2014 to 2017 80% of our victims were between the ages of 13 and 29 within that group 40% were 13 and 19 and 40% were 20 to 29 93% of those victims were female 7% were male thank you very well but I can actually send you all some follow up information that will be there any other questions for Chris just thank you could you say if we can get James Dole on one of these phones I don't know if we've updated our other or that phone they tell me it was fixed so I hear I have questions that we didn't help with the last we laid it on by 20 past 10 so I'll pass to you I didn't know I'm saying James Dole please leave your name the message anytime you call just wait another five minutes and call again two wait two minutes okay I do well okay we can take a three minute break enough time or good morning good morning James Dick Sears and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a number of other people in the room on the subject of human trafficking and so glad to be coming with you again and I noticed well we're friends on Facebook so I see you're traveling the entire United States these days very concerned I do it's so great to be able to testify before your committee this morning well we appreciate that and you're now working on human rights for kids maybe you can give us a short description of that and maybe get into your testimony absolutely absolutely so members of the committee my name is James Dole for the record I am the founder and president of Human Rights for Kids which is a child's rights organization based in Washington DC we are really dedicated to the promotion and protection of the human rights of human rights for children across the United States and one of the things that we are trying to do nationally is to raise the profile of the link between average childhood experiences and early childhood trauma to negative life outcomes and every type of that comes into contact with children so looking at this issue through a human rights lens within the educational system within the juvenile justice system but really within every system that comes into contact so that people understand the negative outcomes that are oftentimes associated in children's life when we fail to either prevent or protect children from this harm or we fail to mitigate that harm when they do experience it and then against that back job we also specifically work on policy proposals to protect children's human rights and that's really where our work has been focused this this year and will be focused over the next several years and so one of the things that I thought that I might start highlighting some of the policy issues that are coming up both nationally and in the states that are relatively new and unique particularly as it relates to human trafficking and so there's a number of things that have come up in recent weeks and months and years related to trafficking that haven't really been on people's profile so the first thing that I wanted to talk about is a unique and innovative issue area known as Sarah's Law Sarah's Law really was inspired by a young woman by the name of Sarah Kruzan and some people might have heard of her case and she was very similar to another young woman who just had her sentence commuted by Governor Haslund of Tennessee Centoya Brown Centoya Brown was a child sex trafficking victim who at the age 15 you know was picked up by John who was soliciting her for sex and ended up Centoya ended up killing her and she got basically a life basically a life without school sentence or sentence life and the possibility of the last 50 years and it was going to currently serve any life with school sentence for having killed her trafficker which she was just 15 and of course in the case of Sarah Kruzan who these laws have been named after Sarah had her sentence commuted for having killed her violent pimp in 1994 by Governor Arnold who had been charged with sexual abuse because they can highlight a lot of what child sex trafficking victims have gone through their lives and Sarah was poor she was like a lot of these girls had experienced these traffickers coming along and beginning to prove her and exploit her later on and in Sarah's case this her pimp and found her when she was an 11-year-old girl walking home from school one day and he was driving by in a Cadillac and offered to take her to get ice cream and so and over the next several years between the ages of 11 and 13 this pimp by the name of Gigi maids and views and as we developed a traumatic bond a lot of Sarah's developed this traumatic bond with him and he then exploited that when she was 13 years old and forced her to prostitution from the age of 13 to 16 at 16 years old she ran away from her for about a week and with another adult male co-defendant decided that she was going to go back and kill and rock and she did just that and when she was arrested and so went through trial she very much was treated as as a terrible perpetrator she was sort of looked at as a child monster you know almost kind of like killed an innocent man dare I say that sort of how the justice system really treated her and and I say that because upon sentencing the judge actually sent and in the transcripts that she lacked moral scruples but here with a girl who from the age of 11 to 13 had been raised and abused as some of most of the list of possible ways and then from 13 to 16 had been forced into prostitution by a violent girl and and she went away from and came back and killed her and our response of society and what the judge said was that she was the one that lacked moral scruples and the judge said subsequently said it turned to dying prison Sarah's case and Sarah and I just have this very deep friendship now because Sarah's case was one of the very first things that I worked on when I was employed at my former organization where Senator Sears and I first met which was that Claire's project and this was one of the very first things that came across my desk and we were asked if he involved in her case as an organization to support her efforts for crime and see before Congress was taken supporting through her case file that was provided by her pro bono attorneys at Perkins Cooley and we eventually did get it moved and it's a very active move in trying to get Governor Sears to be resented which she was released in October of 2013 like many children who end up in the justice system and then come out and come home it was it was a very difficult scenario of what she was facing and over time her and I talked extensively about her experiences while incarcerated and what it was like for her as a child actually having victim to have been incarcerated for in my judgment was nothing short of essentially acting in some sense of course in the law there's this discrepancy that there's a gap between currently that exists where in most self-defense statues there needs to be this tremendous imminent harm that a victim can prove in order to show that they were acting in true self-defense before they could be protected from prosecution of course that doesn't often apply in the cases that we're talking about most child sex abuse victims because oftentimes their crimes against their perpetrators are being meditated and so then brings me to the issue of Sarah's law and one of the things that we have been looking on around the country currently there are refills pending in space prosecution there's one in Hawaii there's one in Nevada and there's one in the state of Arkansas and then later today Congressman who is a Republican from Arkansas congressional district will be and what Sarah's law does is it says that you know when a child sex trafficking victim or a child victim of sexual abuse can show by clear convincing evidence that within one year prior to the commission of an offense that the person they committed their crime against had sexually abused or sex trafficking them that the judge then has more options and is empowered to depart from any mandatory sentence can suspend any portion of an otherwise applicable sentence or can transfer the child back to jurisdiction of the juvenile or family court for proper adjudication and one of the things that we're really excited about is that this is a really question out because we believe that what happened to Sarah who said what happened to St. Louis Brown what has happened to a less smart than too many young girls and women around the country is not being short of the human rights abuse. It is not an appropriate response when children lash out against people who don't know what is going on and so we're really really excited about this new sort of law. I'm happy to provide and actually I think I did provide Peggy with an issue brief and some other initial information for committee members to meet up on a little bit. Sarah has a couple of boys for girls like her and Toya who are so often less out of these conversations that people aren't thinking about but as the committee takes in all of the information testimony you hear today and think about additional ways that Vermont can continue to work on these issues and we have the commentary by Sarah copy of that we also have should for sex slave get a break or that's the headline and then we have your memo regarding Sarah's law so I'm just talking with Michelle Childs from the Legislative Council we may actually have portions of what you're talking about but we're going to have and how we can update that's great that's great thank you thank you so much for that Senator Sears and yeah you also have one of the new members one of the the only new member of the Judiciary Committee is Senator Baruth from Chittinham County and Senator Baruth is a chair of the Education Committee in the Senate and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about this material to local school divisions including teachers and ministries parents and students on preventing human trafficking absolutely absolutely so one of the things that we have also been working around the country and we currently have two different bills one in Arkansas one in Nevada that is pending it's been modeled after previous legislation that we've done in the past with survivor and advocate Holly Smith actually this was an issue that was really important for her and that was making sure that we were doing our best to focus on the prevention prevention of trafficking in children and also empowering local students to sort of you know frontline folks who come to contact with children regularly the ability to be able to identify and spot the red flag indicators of human trafficking that backdrop there is a law that we've worked on in this area specifically say that the Department of Education and Consultation usually with departments of human services or social services shall work on providing and developing these educational awareness materials to be provided to local school divisions and that those information should be available for distribution to teachers and administrators as well as the parents and students and they shall focus on efforts and strategy that have been proven effective for prevention of trafficking in children and I can actually get the direct language of some of those bills to the committee if that would be helpful that would be helpful yeah absolutely and you know one of the things that is so important in that particular legislation I'll give you two great examples down in Georgia back in I think it was 2012 2013 now they didn't do this through the legislation but they had me come down there and do a comprehensive training during in-service teachers administrative trainings and I think I want to say there was a large number over the period of a week or so but they had all of their educators come in and and learn about human trafficking and sort of red flagging containers and those sorts of things and then from that they on their own initiative designed and developed a a contest among students where I think first prize got a thousand dollars or something a thousand dollars scholarship I forget exactly what but it was a contest to have students design the best poster to raise awareness about human trafficking and then also promote the national human trafficking research center spotlight and they award I think it was four prizes in the different school districts throughout Georgia for the best posters that were designed both in English and in Spanish and one of the great things about that is it was a great way to get kids educated and actively involved in helping to raise awareness amongst themselves and giving kids the agency to be engaged in this topic as well and then the other example I want to share is when one of these levels was passed in the town of Walton, Virginia and this was a few years ago and I actually learned about this after I had left Lara's project and they had been looking to hire somebody to take over one of her sections of the one of the early guys and they really wanted to account to the children outside of the community of what they were letting them do and his little girl came home from school one day and he was telling them about this and they shared with him that they had just learned all about even trafficking and what to look out for and that he really needed to go back in part because his girls had just been taught and educated about even trafficking and so you know I think a lot of focus over the years has been on the prosecution side of even trafficking and right Lisa but I think this is a bill that really allows a state to begin this focus on actually preventing even trafficking from occurring with the most vulnerable population that we have which is our students and making sure that in those institutional settings that we are also quick to be able to identify victims when we might otherwise not be identified by teachers and I'll give you another example of this the gross month school district out in San Diego there was a pilot project that they launched several years back where I'm flaking her name she used to work as an apartment event but she developed a this program where they went into you know at risk schools and they did what she termed these social long-topsies where they would go in and get the case files of girls in the school that they knew has a system involved going through a divorce or because they had been picked up from having been truer to run away previously so they got all this information looked at these girls' files identified girls that they felt the most at risk for human trafficking and then invited those girls hasn't come during the school day to send her to learn more about red flag indicators of unhealthy relationships and talked about what human traffickers do within that context and in listening to the woman who signed this project one of the things that was fascinating was that during the course of their discussion with these girls they would talk about the different ways that tips you know try to prove that women wash girls and some of them some of them talk about this guy I'm currently talking to which was just a sort of super helpful I think potentially having prevented trafficking from occurred within those girls but also a really big model that I think could be replicated as well and it all goes back to having these sorts of laws in place that really get the Department of Education Administrators and teachers who are on the front lines with students directly involved in these efforts to prevent trafficking in children so I will follow up with the committee and make sure that I get a copy of a couple of those that are passed on the country that would be very helpful that would be very helpful James absolutely absolutely is there are there any questions for James at this point James I we've got to run because we have what's called judicial retention in about five minutes and it's where Vermont legislature gets to decide whether to retain our judges a certain group of judges come before the legislature every year and decide whether they get retained or not and it's an odd little duck but it's something we do once a year we're doing it this morning I'll be in touch or I'll be in touch and we'll keep in touch and thank you so much thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee you all have a great day thank you James thanks James bye now bye bye bye I think it's leading me in a couple of directions here but really your jurisdiction in terms of training and how I'm interested I was remembering working with Chris maybe there's some of that training that can be done without legislation that would get us involved in schools and open to it you know it could be just a word of legislative intent to have this happen yeah I'm thinking Debbie Ingram had a bill the last two years is that right maybe it was two years ago anyway to deal with a related issue which is sexual exploitation at home where incest at home and so it was a very simple bill that just said that school districts had to put up a poster in English and Spanish with a hotline number and it was amazingly difficult to get the house to go along with it and also to get the superintendent's principles because well they had a whole host of reasons why they didn't want to do it but so we wound up in the conference committee of the miscellaneous bill having to drop it because they put a real resistance to a maybe better to go through just having a voluntary thing in our schools yeah but when I went through what one of those was when I went through the jails every jail and it's going to be five posters everywhere it turns a poster about the rape hotline numbers blah blah blah I mean I just thought I was surprised at Vermont's effort and I think it's a federal effort so there may be some work with the Senate for private services and the network could do the local schools I know in Bennington the local network program does have a school person that works with schools directly on-case in Bennington not odd the guy a girl ran away from the Bennington school which is mostly from out of state but they're like DCF placements and the Bennington school group owned one of the kids ran away and she ended up with this guy in north Bennington who then now she ended up having sex with three other guys and he got charged and he was all upset about it claiming that you know he had no idea she was under 18 and he called in so you know why the hell were you even thinking about having sex with this girl whatever the reason with three of you pretty you know low down he said I didn't care about him anymore he keeps calling my home and letting me know that the only one that will help I kind of wonder if I'm just married on the morning but that wouldn't be sex trafficking necessarily but it certainly was sexual exploitation of that child who was on run away and you know I don't if they haven't caught it I wonder what he might have done you know to end up in a traffic situation understood so we won't meet until