 Hello, welcome to the judge Ben show. My name is Ben Joseph. I'm a retired Vermont Superior Court judge. This is a program in which I interview people about the legal issues in Vermont. It just happens that today I interviewed someone in British Columbia about domestic violence. It was interesting to hear how they handle these these problems there, different country. My guest today is Ingrid Jonas, whom I've known for many years. A long time ago, I did something called the public defender show. And I think you are a guest in that show, weren't you? That is correct. Wow. A long time ago. Well, Ingrid, now you've got a different job. What you are, you work for the Vermont State Police. I am a sworn member of the Vermont State Police. I've been, I started out as a trooper like everybody starts out. And that was back in August of 98 that I began my career there. And now you're a major. I'm now at the rank of major. I was promoted to major in September of 2017. Wow. Wow. That's great. Well, that role is much different than the role of being a good old trooper, regular road trooper. All right. Well, you're, what is it, you're in charge of support services? Yes. So there's three different major positions in the Vermont State Police. One is running the field force or all of the folks who people commonly think of when they think of a state trooper, people on the road in the marked cars. The other side of the house is the criminal investigative division. So playing close detectives who respond to major crimes and other types of crimes that maybe take more time to complete. My side of the house is all of the back end support for those two sections. So recruiting new members. In service training, internal investigations of Baron impartial policing. All the dispatch centers that we have the emergency communication centers. All of the infrastructure stuff. Wow. Now was there a time when you were a trooper dealing with domestic violence cases. That was actually why I joined state police was because I had done work as you know, from our, we knew each other before that. Doing advocacy work in the community actually in Burlington, working with victims survivors of domestic and sexual violence and also working with men who were convicted for domestic violence offenses. And then left that work to become a trooper in hopes of really being the type of trooper that, you know, somebody who had experienced a violent crime would want to talk to about would trust, you know, to speak to about what had happened to them and then hopefully make a difference in that area of domestic and sexual violence. What percentage of the of the Vermont State Police is female. We're actually a little bit above the national average for police agencies or at least state police we are I think around 14% women members right now. It's still much lower than we'd like it to be. But what's the what's the percentage of women and the other branches law enforcement in Vermont you know, I, that's a good question I think it's between probably eight and 14%. The Burlington Police Department might be higher than than state police. And, but I'm not entirely certain right now. But I would think it probably averages, you know, eight to 10%, perhaps. Well, it just seems to me obvious that the situations in which would be an advantage to have a woman trooper handling domestic violence case was that your experience. So I think, I think it did help me, I think what's most important really is, you know, in order to solve complex crimes, you have to have those skills of being someone that people want to talk to. So, gender aside, that is really what you're going for you want people to tell you what happened, and trust you enough to do that so that means, you know, authenticity and good listening skills and really making someone feel like you care. So, I think first of, it might not necessarily be a gender thing, but I think those are the qualities you need in order to do good police work. I think that there are things we can't really control. If you are the victim of a crime, you will be talking to an officer who may or may not trigger you or remind you of a perpetrator, or that type of a thing that we don't have control over. So, ways that, you know, any way that you can like mitigate that type of thing so I think it did help me. I don't know if it was gender or just like communication skills or what type of thing but I do think it can be a help. Well, did you go to court and testify in some of these cases? Yes, I spent, I did spend time in court, I spent about 11 years as a detective doing sexual assault investigations and child sexual abuse cases and of course you know there's a lot of overlap, sexual and domestic violence. But I did have cases that went to court, both domestic assault and sexual assault cases. I've been troubled by the fact that so many cases aren't even going to trial now because of the plague and the backlogs and all that stuff. Yeah. I think that must be a real problem now. Can you shed any light on that? Well, we did notice and I actually brought some numbers to talk about here. I'm just going to switch screens from the camera for a second and just look but we had, I had, had us run some numbers on domestic violence related responses in 2020 as compared to 2019. So family disturbances are up. Domestic abuse order violations are also up. And I also noticed and this somebody brought this to my attention today as I was preparing for this to she had said you should run the numbers for domestic crimes committed in the presence of a child because as you know those are those can be that's an enhancement right numbers were scary high for last year during COVID. So it feels to me like COVID is unfortunately kind of like the type of environment where things like abuse of power and domestic violence can really thrive unfortunately. I don't know if that's answers your question but our numbers were up for those types of cases during last year and what would you do you have the actual numbers I mean, we said, yeah, I can give you those so let me just look at that again. Bear with me here. So in 2019 we respond and we're just Vermont State Police so we're one where the larger agency but we're just one of say 80 agencies, police agencies in Vermont. Vermont State Police members went to 1180 family disturbances in 2019 and 1304 family disturbances in 2020. In 2019 we did 94 abuse prevention order violations as compared to 113 abuse prevention order violations in 2020. And there were, and these are not official numbers but six domestic violence related homicides. As compared to five domestic violence related homicides in 2019. Again, I think those numbers need to be verified by the Fatality Review Commission but those are rough numbers. So higher across the board and then for enhance for crimes committed in front of a child and just bear with me here for a second. Like in 2019 for Vermont State Police, we had a total of 46 crimes committed domestic crimes committed in front of a child whereas in 2020 we had 62. So that's quite a yeah. Well, I just think the effect on the children is just, it just ghastly, just ghastly. The little boys get the idea that it's okay to punch mom. I think it really has an effect in their behavior later on. Absolutely. And just living in that type of trauma has known effects on people's wellness really. Yeah, yeah. It brings back some sad memories, you know, children who were victims who then become perpetrators. I've seen that. I've seen that awful. I once had a case where the young man was. I learned in the pre sense investigation that he had been sodomized as a youth. And then as an adult he sodomizes woman in the similar fashion the thing that been done to him. It's ghastly. Well, is there a do you have enough resource do you think that the state police had enough resources was there something that could have helped you do the job better. You know I think that there are now types of tools that we didn't have back then you know for example there's the leaf leafality assessment protocol which is basically a validated risk assessment tool out of Maryland that is it requires partnerships with community based organizations that work for crime victims, but essentially you ask a very small number of questions to the victim in a domestic crime. And depending on the way the victim answers, it can then lead to indicators that that person is at greater risk than someone else perhaps. And in those instances, the officer can then make a direct referral that moment to the community based organization for survivors. And that is something that we really want to build partnerships with community based victim organization so we can do that work. So I think risk assessment tools are are important. I think that, you know, building capacity so that officers have more time to dedicate to these types of cases is important I mean these cases are really potential homicides in the future right we've seen such a link in Vermont to that rate that 50% rate or 50% of Vermont homicides are domestic violence related homicides and I think each one of these cases as you know I could be preventing a homicide based on how well I investigate and the report that I build with this victim and relying on experts to get victim services for this person. So building in time and training for how really to how to view these and that's a leadership matter for law enforcement agencies how do you prioritize these types of crimes. Wow. Well, did you, you spent 11 years doing this kind of work. Well, I spent time on the road doing sort of first responder domestic violence work as quite some time ago, and then, and of course you get an array of all crimes, and not even crimes but just respond to motor vehicle incidents and crashes and you know and there are some domestic or family violence calls within those, but then I was able to become a detective for a number of years doing specifically sexual assault investigation for adults and children. And that was working in a multidisciplinary team environment where you have a prosecutor and detectives and become advocates and workers, working together on these types of incidents. Did you have. Did you did you suffer from any lack of resources and doing this with other things you needed to do? Well, you know, yeah I think that just this type of work is we need more people dedicated to doing it and we need training and support to do it. Well, I just, I'm just concerned about the, you know, the resource problems that the state has, you know that there's not enough money. I, in my brief stint in the legislature, very serve one term. I remember getting up once and saying that the, the Trump tax cuts it saves the wealthiest 2% of a month, approximately 239 million a year. You know, so I suggested that perhaps we could raise the state's progressive income tax and capture some of that money and use it for things like what you and I are talking about. And there was utter silence on the floor of the house. It's hard. It really is hard. I don't know. I don't know where you're going, but I, but I think this is, I just think that the kinds of things you're talking about obviously need resources and they take time and they take training. I read something this week that referred to budgets as moral documents that speak to the efficiency or your community's value system. So, I think that's what you're saying. That said it much better than I did. I mean, yes, that's right. That's right. It's it's really. Yeah, the inequitable distribution of resources, you know, there are children and then child victims that really need help. Yeah, support to get through this. It's really tough. What are on the Vermont State Police 400. We have 334 sworn members and then roughly another 80 to 100 civilian staff members and dispatchers. Oh, okay. And there are how many police officers and, you know, like sheriffs or municipal police. I think that there's about 1200 all together in Vermont from all the different from local police departments, sheriff's departments, state police department of motor vehicles. Well, if it's a state police or between three and 400 than the other police agencies would be about 800 or so. Correct. Sounds right. Yeah. Well, let's say, you know, it's a tough job. It's a tough job. No, really, I just, you know, I don't know if I ever tell you that I was once the first assistant special prosecutor for Pennsylvania. My job was my job was supervising and prosecuting police. Wow. And we had a there was a substantial problems in Philadelphia, especially. I look back on some of that working and I think about my experiences with police in Vermont. And Vermont has it really good compared to other places. I remember once talking to two cops in Philadelphia. And this one very handsome big black guy told me that he had drawn his gun once in 10 years. There was another little white cop there we saying well I've drawn my gun once a week. But I, you know, you know, so I just think people don't appreciate the, the really good quality of all the people who've gone to the law enforcement in Vermont. I think they should be entitled to more respect than they seem to be getting recently I am concerned about that. I think that someone could see George Floyd get murdered in Minneapolis and then think that all the cops are violent. It's just, it's just nonsensical, you know, just nonsensical. That's life. That's life. There's, I think there's a lot of conversations and trust building that needs to happen. There's a lot of work to be done that just any, I mean, there is so much racial inequity in our country. And we, you know, I think we really have have not done that work that we need to do and it's just anything that you neglect for that long and don't don't own and address is just not going to go away. So I think that everybody has a role to play in that. So I've been encouraged by a lot of the discussion and public, you know, information being put out about racial injustice. And I think there are a lot of people just don't don't want to deal with that. But I think we all have a responsibility to acknowledge that. I do. Yeah, really an important thing. But I just think that, you know, it's one of the things that I was drilled into me as a judge was in every case is unique to its facts. And you can't generalize in one case to another, you know, not all cases are the same. Right. Not all cops are the same. Not all defendants are the same you got to use individual judgments. They got to be fair. I think that I've been encouraged that a lot of people that I've dealt with Vermont really do believe that and behave that way. But, you know, it's hard. It's challenging stuff. Very challenging stuff. Well, what are you going to do when you're no longer a state trooper you're going to you got some going to take the summer off. I don't know I am. I would look forward. Once this career comes to its natural conclusion I would love to get some downtime and kind of brush myself off and figure out what's next. Yeah, I am. Yeah, it'd be nice to just have some downtime. I've just been appalled by seeing people who have to retire because they reach the ripe old age of 55. Yeah, what. Yeah, I wish I could be 55 again. Right. And actually that is only for state police. And in terms of while state police and then a few other sworn members in state law enforcement. It's a very near it's a narrow group that has that mandatory retirement age and I think I don't know for sure the history of it I think it's probably been out long since outdated, but it just rest. I think it's really 55 is not old, and you could just be getting your skills as a, you know, a leader or a major division commander whatever your role is, and then you have to leave at the same time. It does enable you to leave when you're still pretty healthy and, you know, do something different so it's kind of a mixed blessing in a way. Well, I won't be a blessing for the state of a month to lose you. Thank you. You're, you know, you're, you're special. You're really special. Thank you. I want to thank you for coming in today. And if, if as always happens after you do one of these conversations, if you think of something you should have said, or I would like to say, you got my number will will do. I think we're Jonas too. Okay. No, that sounds good. I hope, and I know that you have had these are we spoke before and you have the numbers for community based victim services organizations but just making sure that people have those numbers if they need. Well, I've asked that those telephone those 800 numbers be put on the screen for this one it's broadcasted. Yes. So, and, and I've asked Karen Jonah, Karen trans guys got it to Vermont network to be sure that all her organizations tell people to watch this thing and get that number. I hope their phones start to ring a little more. Actually, I don't think I want them to ring but I think, you know, people need help. If there's a need. Yes. Well, I've been an honor. Thank you. It's so nice to see you even though it's virtual. Yeah, it's even though it's virtual. It makes me look bald, but I'm not really not. You look great. You look very healthy. Well, you look great too. It's great to see you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have any thoughts for something else or somebody else I should talk to, or you want to come back with other people. Just let me know. We'll try to set it up. Very well. Thank you. Bye. Bye.