 Hello. My name is Ben Joseph. I'm welcoming you to the Judge Ben Show. This is a program on community TV. It used to be Channel 17 for the veterans like myself, but now it's town-meeting TV. So, in any event, this is a program in which I interview people about subjects that concern the legal justice system in Vermont. I've been doing this for quite a while, and I'm delighted today to be doing something that really is so positive. My guests today are Harmony Bourgeois. I spent some time in France, so I'm still pronouncing Bourgeois like Bourgeois. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Courtney Whittemore? Well, that's not French. We don't have to fool around with that. Okay. All right. Got it. And today we're going to talk about the restorative justice center programs. So Harmony, we're going to start with you. And what is the RJC? Thank you for having us. No, it's my pleasure. So we're an agency that offers an opportunity for meaningful dialogue, right? So we're an alternative to the traditional criminal justice system, and we give opportunity for people to repair harm that they've caused. So the law kind of deals with the criminal aspect and the punishment part, and we're focusing on repairing harm in relationships. Very good. And do you have offices in both Franklin and Grand Isle or just in Franklin? Our main office is located in Franklin, but we serve both counties. Okay. All right. And I'm hoping that one of the things that we'll accomplish here today will encourage people to use, make these programs available in other counties. Is that happening at all? It is. So every county in Vermont has a CJC or an RJC, mostly every county. Okay. And the list of programs that are offered by the Franklin Grand Isle restorative justice center, you've got yours. This is just if you could just name them. And we'll start there. Yeah. So you want me to just go through all the services and we can kind of talk about them individually. So we do a program called pre trial services. We deal with adult court diversion. Wow. We have a camera app program. We do we have a whole youth services department. We have a special victim coordinator. We are victim centered. So we have victim services. We do a driving with license suspended program reparative or restorative panel process. We also do a re entry program that Courtney will talk more about later. But program we have transitional housing, a community vocational services to help with employment, community housing services. And we do COSA, which stands for circles of support and accountability. Wow. Busy. So how many people work in your various programs? You know, so total staff is 10, including myself. And you are one busy person. When I try to call you on the phone, I just I got a cup of coffee, get a comfortable chair, and then I'm gonna wait. You know, I do my best. You do. You do. It's remarkable what you do. Okay. And how long have you been with the RJC? So I believe it'll be my sixth year tomorrow, actually. Wow. Wow. Happy anniversary. Yes. Happy anniversary indeed. And you so you supervise nine other people, nine other people. Wow. And who decides if a person should be referred to the RJC? So that will that will vary based on what program we're talking about. Okay, can come from state's attorneys, probation and parole, the judge himself can order, people can self refer. So it really depends on what program we're talking about. Okay. And does that person have to be charged with a criminal offense in order to be referred to your program? The majority are in the criminal justice system. Yes. It doesn't have to be. But the majority of people we work with, yes, within the criminal justice system. Okay. And is RJC uses an alternative to court ordered probation? So it can be a condition of their probation, but it's an alternative process. So we're focusing on repairing harm and relationships versus kind of like imposing a punishment. Yeah. Well, you know, I just got to tell you this is I had a problem with a garage door in my house. So I call overhead door in Burlington, I'm out in North Hero. So they said, Well, the guy will be there, you know, the morning. So the morning comes and I go out to the garage and this guy's up in the ladder working. So I'm holding the ladder for him. And he looks down at me and says, Hey, you're a judge, Joseph. I said, Yes. And I thought, Oh, you know, you put me in jail. I said, no kidding. Oh, yeah, the first time you met me, you put me on probation. And then the second time you met me, I've done something really nasty. Translate crime of violence. And I said, Well, that's enough. I'm going to give you nine months to serve. And I want you to straighten up. Let's get it done. So then he says to me, judge, I got out eight years ago. And since that time, I've worked every day. I'm married. I have a four year old kid. And he looks in your right in the eye and he says, Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it can work. But often incarceration is is not so sanguine, you know, it can be difficult. Harden can be traumatic. Oh, amen. Amen. What is the adult diversion services? So court diversion is a restorative process that individuals can come through with. Generally, they have minor, minor charges, we can deal with driving license suspended retail theft, things of those, those in that nature. And they will come to us and go through a restorative process, and essentially create a contract to repair harm caused. That might be various things from, you know, reflections, apologies, restitution, if that's owed. And once they if they successfully complete, which is the goal, they have the opportunity to have their charge then dismissed. Wow. Well, that you provide real incentive. What's Tamarack? Tamarack is similar to court diversion, but it deals with individuals who may need support around mental health or substance use. So a lot of the times it's referred to us when the state's attorney or maybe the individual's attorney feels that the underlying cause of the crime might be due to mental health or substance use reasons. So we would connect them to support and help them through a restorative process as well to make amends. And you kind of follow them along so you know whether they're doing that doing the right thing? Yes. Wow. We would get releases to speak to any counselors, stay connected through that process to make sure they're getting the support they need. And again, we would create a contract with them as well to to repair any harm that was caused by the crime. Wow. And I'm just going through this list. Yeah. This thing you gave me here. Use services. What's that? So we have a few different programs within the use services. We would do a restorative process for all of them really. They also have court diversion for ages 10 to 21, I believe. And we also have the barge program, which stands for balanced and restorative justice. And that's similar to a reparative panel where kids may be involved already in the in the system. Wow. And now going down the list, victim services. What's that? So we have a dedicated victim coordinator. We are lucky in that aspect. And we are really victim centered in our office. So our victim coordinator is reaching out almost in every program here with the exceptionary entry, which Courtney will talk about later. But our victim coordinator reach out to any victims involved in these crimes and ask them if they like to participate in the process. So they always have a voice. And their voice may be no, I don't want to participate. And that's okay, too. Of course, it's up to them. Do most people want to participate or are they not inclined? I wouldn't say most, but a lot. It's just a substantial number, as we would say, I would say a substantial number, which is really, to me, makes a big difference in the restorative process for people to be able to face the individual, maybe in some cases, or have to hear what that person says about how it's really affected them, which the court system doesn't a lot of times give the opportunity. So amen. Yeah, amen. And people charged with driving with license suspended. So we have a great driving license suspended program. People can come to our office. Alicia is fantastic. She helps people. She has contacts at the Vermont, the DMV sorry, and she will help people with reduce fines and get their license reinstated immediately so they can drive, they have to be under a contract. And of course, all those things. But yeah, I mean, a license in Vermont, as probably anyone knows, is super important to have to be able to get. Oh, amen. Anywhere. I live in North Europe. I get it. And finally, what do you do with restorative panels? Restorative panels really are for referrals can come from a judge, they can come from a state's attorney, they can come from probation and parole. And those are for individuals who are not only charged with the crime, but they they've been convicted of the crime. So it may be a condition of their probation, for example, to come to us to have a restorative panel. And a restorative panel is really again, just about meaningful dialogue, creating an opportunity to repair harm caused by the crime. I got to tell you, I'm constantly thinking of what restorative justice is, is probation with a heart. I mean, you know, really, you're trying to help these people and not just threaten them with incarceration. Well, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And the law, of course, it's about, you know, the law has the laws of the law, whereas they feel like, you know, what we're trying to do is really, really focus on, I'm gonna say the emotional aspect, but it's really about relationships and and emotionally dealing with those things that, you know, people were all human beings. So we all make mistakes. And we all need to talk about that in order to move on, in my opinion. No, I understand. I understand. I'm going to give you a rest. Courtney, your turn, kid. And you've got several things that you're responsible for in the RRJC. Transitional housing. So I'm the director of reentry services. So transitional housing is one of the programs that we have where we have 10 individuals that we can house in our program that are coming out of incarceration in our transitioning into the community. And our transitional housing program works with the individuals to connect them with services to support them with whatever their needs are, and just to help them get back on their feet and hopefully successfully graduate from our program into their own independent living situation. So it's kind of like stepping down back into the community, getting your feet underneath you and then moving forward towards independence. What kind of caseloads do you have? So so for the transitional housing program specifically, we have 10 beds there. So that's pretty kind of a fixed number. But we also have two other programs that we work with, which is the our community vocational services in our community housing services. So we have two staff members that are able to go out into the community and work with individuals who either are currently under supervision or have a history because we open that up a little bit so that we can serve more individuals. And those two individuals can help people find employment link with different service providers in the community and hopefully also help them find housing because housing, as most of us know right now is incredibly difficult to navigate and hard to find. And housing first models have shown that if someone has a safe place to live, and they have a better chance of being really pro social and successful in the community. So those caseloads, each of our staff member can carry 30 individuals. We try to cap it at 30. I don't want to go much higher than that. So a lot of work. I understand. So we try to cap it at about 30 for community based individuals that we serve in each of those programs. Just stunning to me that all this work is being done because it was obviously this is not something that the probation staff could handle. I mean, this is a and because it's not focused on incarceration, but rather success outside of incarceration. People are more inclined, I think to participate. Well, that's true. Well, probation officers have a lot on their plates already. Their caseloads are enormous. And one of the amazing things about our organization is how closely we're able to work with probation and parole. They send us referrals for people on their caseload where they're like this individual, we recognize this individual needs some extra support. Can you guys work with them? So we often get referrals from PO's that are noticing that the people they are supervising need extra help and then they come to us and we can do the same. We have open communication with their grant funders, the Department of Corrections. So we have very open communication with probation and parole and really value them as as partners in the work that we do. Interesting. Interesting. And what's COSA? Yeah, COSA. COSA is the Circle of Support and Accountability. And this is a program. I can see why you'd rather use the initials. I know, shorter, snappier. So this is a program where we have a staff member and they are working with what they call the core member. So this is an individual that typically is someone who's coming out of jail recently. And they pair that core member with three community members, volunteers. Wow. And what they do is is that for one year, they meet every week for an hour and they create a community, just a small community around this core member who talks about the things they're struggling with, talks about their successes, kind of creates an amazing connection in a pro-social support system for that one kind of person very specifically so that they can feel supported in their time after coming out of incarceration. Wow. Yeah, it's a great program. We've seen amazing results from individuals that are really committed to going through the process. And the people who are participating in this, are they volunteers usually? So the whole process is voluntary, right? So the core member, they can choose if they want to join and have this support. So they're also voluntarily doing the process. And then the three people that are on their team are solely volunteers from our community that have indicated that they want to help other people in this way. So our volunteers in our whole agency, not just for COSA, but our whole agency volunteers are so incredibly important for the work that we do. We couldn't literally do our work without them. And the taxpayers aren't paying the cost. I'm sure there's that too. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, gosh. I know I've bugged both of you about recidivism. And I understand that it's difficult to generalize about this. But I gather that there is some indication that there's the people who complete these programs and participate in them are less likely to reoffend. Is that true? That's the goal. And I would say that that's true. I don't have a specific number for you today. But that is most definitely the goal. Yes. I think in a lot of the work that we do, well, numbers are important in terms of like getting, you know, getting that exact number of who's better, how much better. And there are those numbers out there. I think the way that we view success is a little differently in terms of we view success as the connections and the relationships that we've built within our different programs, having individuals come back to us and voice how helpful our work was and the support that they felt in our program and what they're doing with our lives now, that is kind of a real telltale for us of the success and the difference that we're making within our community. So the stories are kind of, they're the ones that feel, that give you the feels that what you're doing actually is making, making a difference. Well. Is that too much? No, no, I'm just so impressed. I just think it's great. I mean, I started a long time ago in a much different place. West Philadelphia is not the sanguine place that Vermont is and is a tough, tough scene. I suspect it still is. Well, when I'm, when I want to stress is I think that this is beneficial. And from my days at the Wharton School, it's cost effective. I think it really for what goes on here, it's really so important. What could you just, we were going to have another person here today who couldn't make it to talk about your pre-trail services. Could you describe what you do for pre-trail services? Sure. So pre-trail services is usually a referral made by the judge. The state's attorney can request it as well or a person can self-refer. And what that is is they're asking for help to get connected to supports throughout the pre-trail, the entire pre-trail period. People may need help with a variety of things, in particular mental health and substance use. But, you know, we help in all facets, driver's license, that there could be a variety of things that people need. And we would help them throughout their entire pre-trail period. And we are a report back to the attorneys and the courts. Things are confidential, but if people are needing the support and wanting it, it's really beneficial to the individual. And do you help people, well, just for example, do you help people get their driver's license back? Absolutely. That kind of thing? Yep. Well, you know, in Vermont, that's so important. It really is. How can you have a job without a driver's license? The amazing thing about our organization is if someone comes to the door for pre-trail services, right, and they identify all these different needs, we can do internal referrals within our own agency, so it kind of becomes like a one-stop shop. Wow. They can go and we'll get help with their license through Lisha through the DLS program. They can get help with finding employment with Becca for employment services or housing with Michelle. So we're able to kind of help address whatever the barriers or the needs are for the individual that comes through. And if we can't do it, we have amazing community partners who can. Well, and these are the kinds of things that the defense attorney can't do, or it's very unlikely to provide. Is that right? It's time. Right. So their defense attorney is really there to focus on their specific charge and the legal system. A lot of times, again, I'll just say, individuals are a lot of times in the criminal justice system because of all these various other barriers that are that are hindrance, really. So if we can address other things that are needed besides the specific focusing on the specific crime, you're going to make a huge difference. Oh, I'm just so sorry I didn't have this available to me earlier on in my career. This is really great stuff. Well, just to get back to the case loads. What are the case loads in your program? We're pretty much topped out on our case loads, which is great. Great for staff, not great that we have that much need. But so we do have my staff, Becca, who does our employment services. She can go up to 30. So she has, you know, she can have a good size case load. And then Michelle, who does our housing, also can have a case load of 30 in the community. And you have a need for more service providers. Sure. Well, I didn't mean to be, to sound preposterous. But yeah. I mean, I think that the need is there. And I think with any kind of service, we want to do more. I think we always want to do more. We are just kind of we can do what we have the time for at this point. But we're always willing and super interested to learn different ways that we can introduce restorative justice into other areas in our community and what that could look like. So I think we're always interested in taking on more as long as we can balance that, you know, safely within our organization. Well, I used to hear people talk about money talks. So where do you get your money? So we are strictly grant funded. We have grant from the Attorney General's office, the AGO. We have a grant from DOC, the Department of Corrections. And we have a grant from DCF for our youth department. Those are base level grants. We also do get some town appropriations. If we go to, you know, select board meetings, explain what we do. Some towns are willing to put in their voter budget a little bit of money for us. And of course, donations. But yeah, it's difficult. It can be difficult, right? As Courtney was mentioning, we get overwhelmed sometimes with cases. And it's hard to kind of put a cap on that because we want to help. We know we're making a difference. We want to keep doing it. But we are limited, I hate to say, by money. But that's the reality sometimes is, you know, we have a staff and you can't overwork your staff either to the point of, you know. So, yeah. But you're, you know, you're saving the community a lot of money. It does save the community a lot of money. If you look at what it costs to go through the court system or what it costs to incarcerate an individual versus our programs, it's astronomical savings. Wow. That's pretty good. Really, that's really important. Well, so how do you judge the success rate of your individual programs? You have some method that you use or you just plug away? A lot of times we just plug away. Of course, we have our reporting and our data that goes to our grant funders. I will say diversion, court diversion, for example, is about an 85 to 90% success rate. So, you know, it varies, though. It's hard to kind of nail that down specifically to, as Courtney mentioned, success to us might mean something totally different than the data. So, you know, people come a long way. You want to comment on that? Sure. I mean, I think that, as I mentioned earlier, the success rate is based on the stories. And I think that when we have individuals who have come into our program have just left incarceration, they create relationships with us, they stay with us for a year or longer, and then we get invited to their weddings. That has happened. So, we have these amazing opportunities to create relationships with people. And I think our success is based in that, not necessarily the data, but the data is good, too. Well, no, I think that the friendships are really important. It sounds kind of, it's not profound, but a lot of these people are on their own, particularly now. God knows. Well, I will just say that's the point exactly, right? So, when people are, when people are in isolation or alone, they cannot change. I mean, they're not going to make effective change in their life if they're isolated. If you can offer community and support, that's when you're really going to, going to see the success. Well, that certainly has not been characteristic of probation supervision. It's difficult, right? I mean, they, they're focused on, yeah. Well, I just think for the probation supervision is they want them to do better, but it's always with the thought in mind that if you don't, I'll put you in jail. And that kind of kills the relationship. Yeah, I mean, they have a certain job that they have to do, right? And a certain capacity that they can do it, do it in. And that's why they partner so great with us, because we're, we're on that other spectrum that can focus on different things, maybe then they can focus on or have the bandwidth to focus on. And I think with the Justice Reinvestment Act that has come through, I mean, they're looking at different interventions that they can use that isn't the end result being just go to jail. They, they recognize that sending somebody back to jail doesn't create any kind of lasting change. And in fact, sometimes it just creates more harm. Oh, please. Absolutely. So it's, it's amazing to see the Department of Corrections looking at different interventions, different partners and different ways to kind of meet the needs of the people that they're supervising. So it's been really amazing to see kind of that shift be happening and super happy to be a part of it and to partner with people who are, who are interested in looking at it in that way. Well, I'm getting the five minute sign flashed at me. So I wanted to say, is there anything else you'd like to add? Just again, we are a community involved. We encourage volunteers, if anyone's interested in volunteering, they can reach out to the Justice Center, Franklin Grinnell Restorative Justice Center. If you're interested in any of the programs we mentioned, we welcome, we welcome it. Is there a phone number? Sure. 802-524-7006. 7006. Okay. Okay. So if you want to, if someone's out there and wants more information or is interested in this, for a friend or someone in the family, 802-524-7006. Okay. And any closing thoughts? No, we just thank you and appreciate having us. Yeah, we appreciate the opportunity. Well, I appreciate what you're doing. I think it's, it's been a long time coming and I think it's going to make a big, big difference and have the system operates. Thank you all for watching. I'm going to try to have this thing distributed through the various town meeting TV or the equivalent throughout the state because I think this is something that could be used universally. So long. Thanks again.