 Good morning folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. This is Wednesday morning. We are shifting gears and putting on our corrections hat. And this morning we're going to be working a little bit on S18, which is a bill that deals with good time in the carve out. For some folks. Who are currently incarcerated. So we're going to be working on some of the things that have been convicted of some crimes that they may not be entitled to good time. As we go forward for those folks who are currently convicted. I just wanted to spend some time this morning again, as background information for the committee members on good time, how. What the law is, how it is implemented. So I'm going to turn it over to Eric Fitzpatrick, our legal staff to give us a walkthrough of the good time law. And I know we have some documents posted on our webpage. And I'm assuming that the first one would be looking at the current statute of good time. So Eric, I'm going to turn it over to you. And if you could identify yourself for the record, that would be great. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Adam chair. This is Eric Fitzpatrick. With the office of legislative council. Here to speak with the committee about the good time statute, as well as any other questions that committee may have on the legal process of how it works and how that may. Senate bill number 18, which proposes some amendments to the good time statute. As the chair was mentioning, I emailed a couple of statutes, including the current good time statute. And I'm going to turn it over to Eric Fitzpatrick. To fill and he posted them on the committee's webpage. But I wasn't sure question for the chair, I guess, whether you want me to just sort of talk about it a little bit to start with. Would it be helpful for the committee for me to pull up, share my screen and pull up the statute and. Walk through that in that context. I think we all can see this. The document on our computer. So we wouldn't need to share this. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. For you, Eric. And I think the thing is. Is to walk us through. The current law. Yeah. Great. If there are questions, if there are questions of the committee as we go along, please raise your hand, because I think that. Would be helpful to engage in a dialogue with Eric. Okay. Excellent. Sounds sounds good to me. So. As the chair was mentioning, there is, and as you see in front of you, there is a good time statute on the books currently. That as you see right from the very beginning of it, that the statute and the legislature had delegated some authority to the department of corrections to implement this program by rule as well. So you've got two things from a legal basis going on. You've got the statute and you've got the rules. Implementing the details of the program. And my understanding is that those rules went into effect on January 1st of this year. So you have a good time program that's been in effect and operating. Oh, for, I guess I would say almost going on three months now, two and a half months anyway, actually pretty close to three months. And so what is the good time program is the obvious question. What does it mean? In the sort of the big picture context, what it means is that someone who's an inmate, someone who's under department of corrections supervision, has the ability through the good time program to earn reductions in their sentence, a reduction in their minimum and a reduction in their maximum, provided that they essentially comply with certain conditions. And the main conditions are that you don't commit any major disciplinary violations. And you don't get a reincarnated back into. Back into a facility if you've been out in the community. And, and in other words, you don't violate your conditions of release and get re-encarcerate. So if you are able to do. Those two requirements comply with those conditions don't, don't get charged with another mate with a major disciplinary violation. Don't get re-incarcerated from the community. Because of a conditions of release violation, then you're eligible to earn good time. In other words, to earn this reduction in sentence in your minimum and your maximum. And the amount that you could earn, what's for every month that you comply with those conditions and don't, don't commit any violations, you can get seven days off your minimum and seven days off your maximum. So that's the amount that you can get reduced, assuming that you essentially behave well, right? So the, the seven day minimum and the seven day maximum doesn't necessarily mean that a person automatically gets released to them. Remember, I'm sure as the, as this committee has worked with the parole statutes quite a bit over the years. And what that means is that someone, once someone achieves their minimum, they're able to go before the parole board and, and hopefully from their perspective, they try and make an argument. They will hopefully be eligible for release on parole. Now that doesn't mean though that they automatically will. That doesn't mean that the parole board. Grants. The parole status to every person who appears before the board right away. All, all the good time program means is that if you think about it, since you're eligible to come before the parole board when you reach your minimum, if you're getting your minimum relief reduced by seven days for each month that you comply with conditions, what that means is that your minimum will come up sooner. Right. If you've gained some time during good time, if your minimum was five years, say, and you've earned a six months worth of good time, then instead of coming in before the parole board for the first time after five years, you come before the parole board after four and a half years. Everybody see that? So that doesn't mean though that you automatically get released after four and a half years. It just means that you get to come before the parole board sooner and argue for release. That may be granted. It may not be. But that's the, that's the way that the, the gaining of good time. Can affect a person's eligibility for release. They become eligible sooner. So. That's sort of the big picture without looking at the statutory language yet, but that's kind of the big picture of how it works. But it's important also to think about. Maybe. I know everyone has it in front of them, but to look at the criteria for participation in the program, because the next question that might come up and folks will be, well, is every inmate eligible for good time? And the answer to that is no, not everybody, but mostly. Mostly, but not everybody. So. When you look at the language of. 28 VSA section 818. And that's the good time statute, section 818. Specifically subsection B talks about. The standards. That create the universe of who can qualify for good time. So in other words, who's excluded from the program. And who can participate. And if you look at that paragraph paragraph one, V1, that tells you who, who this universe is. So it's available for all sentence offenders, including furloughed offenders. Provided that the program is not available to, and then it was. A couple of groups. Who's it not available to the vendors on probation or parole. So if you're already on probation or parole, you're not going to earn more good time. If you're eligible for a reduction of your term already under the work camp statute. Now that's a separate statute that if you're in work camps, specifically, you can get a 30 day reduction if you meet. Essentially other criteria. So if you, if you're already getting your sentence reduced under that statute, you're not going to also qualify for good time. In other words. And lastly, offender sends to life without parole. So those are your, your groups of folks who, who. Buy a statute. Can't earn good time. It's the ones who are on probation or parole. You're getting your sentence reduced through this other work camp program. Or you've been sentenced to a life without parole. On the basis of a life without parole. Effects. And. Speaking practically. There are not a lot of offenders that get sentenced to life without parole. So, so that. Basically. Other than that small universe of offenders. That. Whatever crime you've committed. You're two, you would still be eligible. To earn good time. As long as it's not, you know, murder. And some of the aggravated sexual assault offenses. Other than that, you generally don't see life without parole. So. So that's the. That's the. That's the. That's the. That's the. That's the. That's the life without parole. So. So that's the. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. Why don't we stop there? Because that might be a good stopping point for questions. And I also want to make clear to members that when a person reaches their minimum. They're eligible. It doesn't mean that they're going to be released, but there's an eligibility there. This is way beyond good time. It's way it's been. So there's two ways that a person could be. Reviewed. For eligibility to be released once they reach the minimum. One is what Eric mentioned, which is going before the parole board to be directly paroled. They're entitled to a hearing. Before the parole board. When they meet their minimum. And that would be to go directly to parole. Parole is under the jurisdiction of the parole board. The person is eligible for a hearing before the parole board. And the person is a good candidate for parole. That's one vehicle. Another vehicle is. The person's also eligible. For furlough. Furlough is granted by DOC. Furlough is under DOC. And the conditions are set by DOC, not the parole board. Furlough is interpreted as an extended hearing. Furlough is interpreted as an extension of the incarcerated walls. If it's almost like there's a shorter leash on the person where. There are conditions that are set by corrections. And corrections has more oversight. Of someone on furlough. And because those conditions can be stricter than what you would find on parole. And so that's how. There could be more violations and DOC would pull the person back in. So that's how an inmate once they reach their minimum. They are eligible. Doesn't mean they're going to be released. But they are eligible. And they're eligible for furlough. It can be eligible for parole. And the statute allows if they are on furlough. And the statute allows, because that is termed as an extension of the incarcerated walls. They would still be able to receive their good time. If they. Abided by the rules. So again, the owners is on the inmate for that. Not on DOC. It puts the honoris on the inmate. So are people clear. On those mechanisms? Because that's really important to understand as we go forward. So we have some questions here, Michael, Linda and Kurt. Yes. Eric just, I can't recall who testified with us before. I'm just, so it's kind of a repeat question. Just want to reaffirm it in my own mind here. In addition. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who this I've been talking with one of our state's attorneys in the district because I kind of bridged two, two different states attorneys, so to speak. But I'm. Talking about with him about. Good time. One of the things I assured him we were speaking to is not only. Is it obviously good behavior, but I believe there's, and I think people prior testify that there's a yard stick or a fence. And I think that's a good point. I think that the other states are. And I think that the other states are in or subjected to, that they have to demonstrate. Progress or progression. Towards becoming better members that are going to assimilate back into society, so to speak. And I would hope those mechanisms are in place. Because his one. One of them, the concern was, you know, as somebody just a good actor and putting on a good face. Yeah, yeah, I understand the, the point you're, you're getting at exactly. I think probably that's a question that's going to be better directed toward Monica. And how the DOC implements that program. Within their, within their facility. Okay. Less of one that really has to do with the statute itself. But, but yeah, it's a very valid question, valid point that I think. I think that's a good point. And she probably would have some good information on. Okay. Why don't you hang on to that one? Yeah, sure. We'll see if she addresses it. Thank you. Linda Curt and Scott. Linda. Thank you. So you described as, you know, in section B one of the offenders who were sentenced to life without parole or part of that carve out. But I think. I think from, I would ask for a little bit more clarity for maybe the committee, because there are a group of people who may have been sentenced to life without parole who went into plea bargains. And when they went into plea bargains, they are now entitled to see if they are eligible so that. I think there's a subpopulation there that. We should all be aware of that. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And I think that. Are now. Going to be considered for eligibility. And I think that's going to be what S. 18 also addresses. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point that. Just because. A statute has life without parole. As the penalty. And I think that's good. When it comes to the fact that you got that sentence. They may have plea bargain to something less than that. And if they, if they did. Then you're right. They would be eligible for. For good time. Sentence reductions. If they were. For whatever reason, they were unable to plead bargain maybe, you know, because of the nature of the crime. But they were actually sentenced to life without parole. Then they wouldn't qualify. true that not everybody who commits a crime that has life without parole as a possible penalty necessarily gets that penalty. They um it's quite quite regular that they would be able to plea bargain for a lesser penalty and if and if they did that say whatever it may be 40 years whatever whatever the penalty they agreed to then they would be able to earn good time. That's right that's a good point. That's all done in the courts. That's exactly right. Yeah there there's their counsel and the state's attorney and the judge all have to approve the plea bargain. The victims have to approve to the plea plea deal as well. Yeah I think they're also one of the one of the parties that's consulted and they get input via the state's attorneys. Yeah so I just want people to be very clear that happens within the court system within the judiciary with all the parties. It's not in DOC's world. DOC just houses them. The sentence is given by the courts. Right DOC deals with the sentence as it comes to them from the court. Okay uh Kurt, Scott, Karen and Michelle so Kurt. Yeah two things well three things first of all is my mic sounding okay? Yes sounds good to me. I think the problem before was my battery was getting low so let me know if that happens again if I sound like I'm underwater or something but anyway two things that now we're down to two. I think it would be helpful Madam Chair if you or somebody explained what happens at a parole hearing in that with regard to the victims and notification and things like that. I just don't want to get ahead of trying to understand good time first. I understand what you're saying Kurt. I don't want to confuse the committee with all these different layers of furlough and parole and and all of that. What I I don't want to lose track of what you're saying. I think it's important. I just want the committee to understand the mechanics of good time before we get into all these other nuances. Okay then we we can get to that later. The other thing is I really what what is this I really think the name should be changed. What is this being called this looks to me like it's earned time. The new bill gives a new name to good time and calling it earned time. We will get there I want right now because we have such a new committee that wasn't here for the last two years when we really did the nuts and bolts of this program. I want the new members to the committee to come up to speed so that we can understand what's being asked in s18. So there is a new name for good time. It's called earned time but currently right now the statute is earned good time. I'll hold that for later as well. You're way ahead of us Kirk. Well I'm only slightly ahead anyway. Fine I'm done then. That's good thank you. Scott, Aaron and Michelle. All right well yeah I'm one of the new people who's still confused. I want to go back to the to meeting the minimum sentence and being able to go to the parole board and and how that works with furlough. So when can an offender or an inmate ask for furlough? They don't ask. They don't ask. No they don't ask. They are eligible. They don't ask and maybe we can go to Monica for this in terms of what delineates when they go to furlough or when they go before the parole board. Okay and yeah when that happens. Let's see if we can get there. Yeah that would be good. And if you could just identify yourself for the record. Yes of course yeah good morning everyone. Monica Weber I'm the administrative services director for the department of corrections. I may also ask Dale to help with this question. But essentially the two things you're talking about parole eligibility and furlough release eligibility are triggered by the same thing which is a person has reached their minimum release date right. So at that date there's sort of like a fork in the road you could imagine where they could be released on parole and they could be released on furlough. There are a lot of as you mentioned representative Emmons a lot of decisions and processes in place around which path that you take. They are becoming a little bit more similar based on some of the justice reinvestment changes that were made in act 148. And I know you don't want to get into extensive detail which of course you know we can do but if that answers the question then we can. Well that answers the question about when. So when they it's when they they reach minimum sentence they can either go to the parole board and request parole right. Well there's a statutory requirement at their minimum release that the parole board reviews their case. That's a step that's in law. Okay. It's a review it's a review Scott. It's not saying you're going to be released. No I got that I got that part. Yeah. But but but but now how is it determined that the that the parole board or is the parole board making the decision about whether this person is eligible for parole or or or furlough. Okay so the parole board makes the decision about the parole release. And the department submits a parole summary. There's a form that we fill out that provides them with information that helps to inform their decision making. They only make the decision about parole. The department the department makes furlough release decisions. And we can do that at a same at the same time essentially. And so we will we'll send someone to the parole board. The parole board will make a decision. And we can also decide something around furlough. Dale do you want to add to that? I think one of the things that you need to clarify can you be on furlough and parole at the same time. You cannot you can only be on one status at the same time. So if for instance people can be denied parole and we could we could decide to release them on to furlough. Okay so and furlough is for lack of a better phrase a tighter leash than parole. Is that fair to say? I'm sorry I didn't hear what you your question. It's a tighter release is that what you said? Tighter leash. It's a it's a it's a uh well I would Dale why don't you take that answer. It used to have much more disparities between furlough and parole with justice reinvestment. They have really come a lot closer to each other. To understand you know really between our three main legal statuses furlough probation and parole. It's who is a decider on the conditions and violations right. So uh parole board decides what happens to violations if someone gets on or off parole and what happens with the violation. Furlough it's the department that makes those decisions and probation obviously it's the court. So hopefully that kind of clarifies those are the three big kind of buckets that that we deal with as far as legal statuses. Yes we've heard that several times and it's beginning to sink in but but I guess I'm still I'm still trying to focus on person meets their minimum sentence and by statute they're eligible to be reviewed by the parole board. Does the department also review them for furlough at the same time automatically or or is there a statute around that or So what happens is when an offender is approaching their minimum sentence we we review make sure they've completed if they have to do required programming. If there are any concerns or risks to the public we have kind of our art criteria while at their minimum individuals are eligible for release on furlough and eligible for release on parole. They are not necessarily appropriate for release. So so those are the decisions that we have to to make. Generally the the if an offender does what is required them in the facility they will be released at their minimum. The the courts create the sentence and the department just tries to apply the sentence the best we can be it that public safety is maintained. And I guess just one final question. Does the department do the department make their judgment independently from the parole board? In other words did these two two things happen independently? The parole board is an independent body so the parole board has paroled individuals that we did not recommend and they have not recommended individuals via parole. They are they're an independent body. They do one with us quite often but with our recommendations. Okay yeah and and the decision making around DOC makes a decision about furlough at the same time that the parole board is making making a decision about parole. Those two decision making processes are independent of each other. Not always. We've kind of changed a little bit with JRI so we start our we do recommend at a greater frequency for parole now. So we start our release program that program but our release process it includes both. So if someone if the department feels we're going to release this individual on furlough we start kind of that process in the parole process at the same time. We you know one of the outcomes and recommendations is to increase our census on parole while decrease our census on furlough and this is one way we're doing it is by recommending at a greater frequency. We have modified our supervision requirements on furlough to much more match what is on parole as far as contact standards and intensity of supervision. It's really based on risk now and legal status has no bearing on the intensity in this in the structure of supervision requirements. Okay maybe maybe I have to suggest one more question and that is is there any difference in cost to managing or supervising a person on parole versus furlough? Is it the same? Not really as far as a cost goes. I would probably indicate that furlough may be minimally more depending if they have electronics but parole is being put on electronics. Really in the state there's very little difference between the populations it's based on risk. The one really big advantage of parole is interstate compact that the offender can actually relocate to a different state and still be supervised. That's not an option on furlough. Is that the major difference between the two that effectively? That's and the other major difference is that furlough ease will get good time or earned reduction of time while parolees don't. Those are the two main differences as far as structural I mean the deciders are still the parole board in the department but as far as those are the real differences. Great thank you very much for the information. So Karen you had your hand up and I see it's down. I think I was getting ahead so I'm happy waiting. Michelle and then Kurt I see your hand up is it up again or is that from previous? It's up again. Okay Michelle. All right so my first thing is I just wanted to respond to Kurt's concern about the good time term. We didn't make that up. That's a term that's used all around the United States. I think there are 26 states that have good time so I think it's fine for us to revise the name to come up with something we like different but it is sort of a known entity in a lot of states so there's that. My question I'm not sure who would be the appropriate person to answer it but I was hoping maybe one of you could speak a little bit to when the parole board is reviewing a person who has become eligible for parole. What kind of factors do you consider besides the person's behavior while they were incarcerated? So for example we had some testimony from some parents whose daughter had been murdered under very violent circumstances and the sentence for the person who killed their daughter I believe was 42 years to life. So when the parole board is going to be determining at say 42 would be the minimum what are they looking into? Do they go back and look at the original crime when they're considering whether or not the person would be released or is it only based on the behavior while the individual was incarcerated? That's really a question for the parole board. What I can tell you is we would write a parole summary and they'd have all the information from the offense and the crime committed up to their behavior treatment compliance and supervision under the department of corrections. They do have their own risk assessment but that's really a question geared toward I'd say Dean George the chairman of the parole board as far as what they make their determinations for. I think you know my you know my guess it would be kind of all of the above victim impact victim safety they would look at compliance under supervision risk to the public progress and treatment those are things that they probably would look in but it's really that's really a question for the parole board. So do you have any idea in terms of people who are sentenced to many many years sentences to life how often do those people get out do you have a sense of that because to life certainly means that they've committed some kind of offense that that is you know justifying a long time is that common for people to get out if they have a two life sentence before you know or not? I don't have the numbers but if someone will have a minimum and a maximum they'd be eligible for release at their minimum so it would really depends on that that minimum release date the risk and the compliance and the treatment progress that that offender has has done the facility would determine if we'd release them or not they'd still be eligible for parole and eligible for parole at their minimum that was the sentence that was imposed by the court um but it really that's that's really an open any question it's it's individually based we do have a number of individuals that have life sentences we have a few that have I think very few that have life to life I don't I'm not sure if I'm talking three or four we don't we don't have a lot of those um so hopefully that kind of answers your question and we can probably I'm assuming Monica could probably find the number of individuals we have with a life max I don't have those numbers off the top of my head thank you per and then Karen yes this is another one that you might you can decide whether we want to address it now or later but sometime in our discussion of the sentence changes I I would like to have a review of why we ended up reducing minimum and maximum and not just one or the other it was quite a discussion and I can't quite remember why we did both you know I know we had quite a discussion and I think we all agreed it should be on both I don't recall Sarah do you recall anything specific on that I know we were trying to decide do we do minimum and maximum and we figured that we would do both I can um offer my recollection is that we heard from the council and state governments about what was going on nationally and how Vermont compared to some other states and what were some best practices around that and I know we had a lot of discussion about that and that informed our decision yeah I think it may well I'll probably bring it up again when we talk about the senate changes because I think it it has something to do with that but we can wait till we talk about their changes Monica do you want to weigh in on that I'll see your hand well I would I would just note that I think part of the conversation was also around some of the already existing time for instance the camp good time that's already in statute which also applies to the minimum and the maximum so creating a program that was um not entirely disparate um for people okay so we got more questions Karen Sarah and Michael so Karen yes I don't know if this is a question maybe more of a comment to help frame because um I I don't feel like I understand fully but being kind of part of the system for a while you get these aha moments of understanding and so to clarify for me like it sounds like the release planning system it's just a complicated complex multi-layered system for when folks meet that that minimum date and with the good time or earned time piece we're basically just considering opening that door sooner it's it's that door is already there and you know and like that's a whole system that's complicated and messy it's already what it is we can talk about that discussion but what we're talking about with good time is do we open that door sooner for folks is that a good way to is that accurate and how I'm describing it on some level yes I think um understand that as of July 1 we've eliminated some other legal statuses so our complicated release system was a little bit more simplified to everyone's benefit um I believe the reason the previous question around the good time for both men and the max was two fold one reintegration furlough was repealed and that was uh an earlier release and minimum that was a pre minimum release um it didn't work it wasn't very effective I think part of the the logic behind the good time for the minimum is to address that behavior in the facility as good time is a tool used to influence positive behavior um so the the minimum is really what drives the incarceration behavior incarceration population and the maximum is what drives the community supervision population um I do believe it was a recommendation from a group that was advising the bill on on good time as well as well hopefully that answered your question but yes I mean the good time does um open the door so to speak um and on the flip side closes the door when someone maxes out sooner if they're compliant it's seven days per month so that's so it can reduce the sentence quite a bit so let me clarify a little make sure people understood what Dale just said about minimum maximum to get to your minimum sentence you are incarcerated so if you have the good time off with both your minimum and maximum as we do now the incentive for the inmate to behave while they're incarcerated is that they will receive good time towards their minimum which means they will be eligible to be on furlough or parole sooner once they are furloughed out if they're furloughed out not paroled but furloughed out they can still earn good time in the community and the incentive there is to behave because those earned days off their sentence will come off more of their maximum than their minimum because they've already reached their minimum sentence so it also puts pressure on the inmate or the offender in the community to behave because they have something to gain which is time off their maximum because they've already reached their minimum so that's behind them so they have a goal ahead of them of their maximum sentence being reduced by those days that they've earned by abiding by the rules saying doing what they said they would do and abide by the rules that they agreed to so it still puts the on us on the offender not docy so that's why we have that's the good distinction and looking at minimum and maximum okay sarah and then michael i saw your hand went down do you still have a question michael okay sarah so manager my question is a little bit different um i wanted to make i'll and you can say if we want to hold this off till later but this is a question i think that eric might be able to answer um when we passed um act 148 um and we we with good time you know we heard from the defender general that um he had a legal opinion and i'd like to hear your legal opinion on this and that is um that when we when we passed act 148 we gave people this the the the right to earn this good time and that by taking it away um it could be teed up for if we were to take that away um uh for people who had were incarcerated when this law and it when this law passed that that could teed up us up for a constitutional challenge and i just i'd like to hear a legal opinion about that because i think that um um that's important to know uh with with this with s 18 for me anyway if like we're just if we were to address this and try to change the law that it really just could could could create this this challenge yep um i am familiar with that issue as well and the uh the it was discussed down in the senate judiciary committee also uh in a nutshell the the legal claim and you may we haven't got to the bill yet but you'll see that that uh it's essentially an expo facto idea an idea that you are um retroactively uh increasing someone's panel and i think well how is the penalty being increased that it's being increased uh for at least one theory the defender general theory would be that it's being increased because uh as of january first right when the program went into effect everyone who is eligible for the program sort of gained a right to participate so again this goes to s 18 it doesn't go to the current statute but the theory is that uh that because you you may recall that s 18 under current law the only offenders who can't participate are those who are sentenced to life without parole whereas under s 18 that has a list of six six or seven offenses uh who of folks who who while they can participate going forward they're not able to if they've already been incarcerated they can't earn any more good time so uh that could be viewed as taking away a right to earn good time that they accrued as of january first 2021 when the program went into effect on the other hand uh the attorney general argued that the program was defensible under the under that argument because if you think about it uh the the folks who are eligible as of january first were not eligible when there was no good time program in effect right which was for quite a long time so uh the the attorney general thought that the program could be defended because it's not taking away a right that someone uh has it's returning them to the status that they were before uh the program went into effect and in that sense there's no loss it's just returning to the same status that they had before so uh you know i can't tell you what a court's going to say in response to that argument i would be i would be very surprised if it wasn't litigated it's absolutely going to be litigated of course it's it's a valid argument but you know both sides have their theories and it's going to be up to a different branch of government to decide which one is right and you know as the famous famous saying that attorneys often say is that um the court the court is not uh final they don't have the final word because they're infallible but they're infallible because they have the final word so you know they'll have the final say on we'll see you in court yes i appreciate that that's that's helpful to kind of just get as uh as i'm not an attorney so to get understand the legal landscape of this is helpful so thank you for that yeah i mean if it passes i'm quite certain we'll hear more about it when it reaches the judicial branch so we still have a couple questions scott then linda i think this is fairly short um can a person be reviewed for parole prior to reaching minimum or furloughed prior to reaching minimum they must reach minimum before they're eligible for any either of those we we do have medical furlough and parole uh and what do you think of that i don't want to complicate that's fine normal furlough normal furlough and normal parole please you must reach minimum to to be considered for each either of us okay thank you uh linda thank you i was actually going to address um representative coffees questioning as well with what eric said um and i know the defender general has his argument in the attorney general have there so but pretty much it's my understanding that the legal scheme is that's going to be applied that would revert back is going to be what was the committed offense at the time so it just takes it to the status quo with actually no more severe punishment and everybody could sue and you know if you lose the first time you're done um and so it's going to be in the judicial system but the bottom line is it's my understanding and maybe eric you could clarify this that the way s18's question is actually being presented the fix that's being presented okay um it actually doesn't change the offenders punishment at all making it more onerous and had it done that it would be an issue but because it doesn't the punishment is only applicable at the time of the offense that that would be the attorney general's argument yeah i think that's there exactly okay thank you so what i'd like to do i know that there's more to the good time law um that really deals with victim notification the remaining piece of it could you just quickly go over that eric and then we'll transition into monica and dale on terms of how good time is really implemented through the rules yeah sure there there is uh as the chair mentioned there is some language in the existing statute that does uh require some victim notification and that is at the very end of the statute uh subdivision four requires that the department ensure all all victims of record uh that they are notified of the earn good time program at its outset and that they are made aware of the option to receive notifications from the department in other words notifications uh that uh uh someone's term is going to be reduced their sentence is going to be reduced um and that they may be released sooner now again that's that's not necessarily saying that the victim uh would receive that notification is that they're being where made aware of the option to receive it so they could choose to receive it they could choose not to um but uh uh i think that it's in that sense uh like you said uh madame chair it's more of a question for for the doc folks as to how they implement that but uh i think it sounds to me it reads to me like an opt-in program so that uh a victim doesn't opt in then they wouldn't wouldn't be getting that regular notification um as long as they are notified of the existence of the uh program at the outset so uh i think you'll see sorry go ahead now well the reason that we did that was we heard a lot of testimony from the victims that that for each notification that they would receive of the inmate receiving good time they sort of at times are feeling we victimize so that's why we put in the opt-in it would be up to the victims to determine if they themselves would like to receive those notifications and on a regular basis because some some victims would and some would not so that's why we drafted the language as we did for that right so i think an interesting question of of the existing statute is how did that uh how did that uh effect you know because it's easy to see sort of going forward um how you know with a new offense that's committed after the after the program went into effect you know that those victims of record are part of the court proceeding can be identified and located i'm not sure how this would have applied to um to past offenses say from years ago uh does that mean that the victims from that offense five years ago have to be contacted and notified that the program's in effect i'm not sure because but that's an important factor to keep in mind because that's that goes to some of what you'll see in s18 i think on our committees in it was notifying victims both of past offenses and also going forward right that's the discussion we had as a committee we were very cognizant of that and we're the ones that put in this language to make sure the victims community was notified and aware of when a person's receiving earned a good time so it applied both of those who are currently sentenced and then also those going forward and i think part of the issue that occurred is when the rules started being promulgated started being discussed there was a lot of confusion in the community the victims community between rules and statute and when the rules take effect it seemed like at the beginning when you go through the rulemaking processes a lot of public meetings public hearings before the rules are implemented and i think what was really happening was confusion in that when they first were notified of public input for putting together the rules that people felt that oh my god it's now in effect going forward this immediately which was not the case at all so that's where some of the confusion and pushback came from right took her uh yeah i i know i've been told before but what is the meaning of when we get a print out like this where it's italics and red as opposed to i mean does that mean it would that does that mean it was there was a you're on the bill i'll say team correct oh okay yeah we can't wait we're not there yet Eric all right i'll wait sorry okay um so eric do you want to finish going through what's in statute here for victim notification or not that's pretty much there there's also uh requirements that uh that's the victim notification piece but there's also requirements about the department notifying the offender remember that's always been in past iterations of the good time program the computation and notification of the offender was a very complex process so there's language in in the same paragraph and subdivision for the department supposed to provide notice not less frequently than every 90 days to the offender anytime they get a reduction pursuant to to good time and i have to maintain a system that documents and records the reductions um and uh ensure that victims who want information regarding changes in scheduled release have access to that information so that's the last piece of the victim notification element of it so victims who want information again who have opted in uh have a a way to access information about any early release that's going to happen because of good time so we wanted to make sure that all parties knew what they were uh accruing in good time we wanted to be very clear when we put those in place a few years ago a couple years ago we had some goals we wanted to meet that it was transparent and that good time was easy to implement that's really what we were looking at because the previous good time uh programs were very difficult to interpret and um we didn't want to go down that path we wanted it to be very clear and simple and transparent so i'm going to now shift to doc uh to talk about how this all gets implemented through the rulemaking process and maybe do a little deeper dive and how it is carried out eric people just to one last thing because uh represent amendments you would ask me about this last time and this is also sort of goes to the existing statute a little bit just for a moment remember you've been wondering about how does this good time interact with the new presumptive parole system yeah i don't want to get i don't want to get down that road yet until people understood good time okay throw them another another curveball another curveball or another fastball okay i just wanted to make sure i wasn't i wanted to make sure i wasn't skipping a question if you want i just i want to hold off on that because that's going to provide more confusion great all right we'll come back to that one yes thank you sure and so monica and dale good morning um representative emin that i would like to understand where you'd like where you'd like me to start would you do you want me to start with the rule and what we and where we are with rules and then move into uh what we're currently doing for um implementation i i just want to make sure i start in the right place i want to do what makes sense what i could go either way but i think if you talk why don't you talk about how you're currently implementing it because you're under emergency rules right and then we can transition into how we go forward with the rulemaking if we need to i really want the committee to know how the good time is being implemented at grace so um as as mentioned eric went over the statute and the statute required the department of corrections to file an emergency rule so that we could begin implementation of the earned time program on january 1st of of this year uh so the earn the emergency rule is in effect right now it emergency rules are in effect for 180 days so that's that's the authority that we're operating under at the moment and it is um relatively straightforward in terms of um saying okay we're going to look at i'm going to use january as an example so starting january 1st all of the inmates who were eligible by statute um could start to earn and it is um by month so we go through january and then starting in february we will um do an analysis and a review of all of the inmates who would be eligible um and see if they if we had to screen them out for any reason now in this case um people are screened out if they had a they were adjudicated um which means that we actually went through a um a process and found them guilty of a major dr or they were returned um from community supervision for furlough on a technical violation as long as it wasn't because of losing housing um if it wasn't their fault so we we begin we come up with this list um in february um and the sentence computation unit goes through the entire list um and will manually apply the appropriate number of days based on um the list to the person's min and max sentence so the rule has um a uh pro ration charts for instance if you were sentenced and you started in january in the middle of the month you know we would be able to apply use some partial days if you were only there for for 15 days and you um were able to get through the month without um being screened out for a dr you'd get four days off your min and max instead of seven days off your min and max so that's the first thing i just i i really want to take this kind of slowly i want to stop there and see if there are any questions about what i said i'm sorry i'm i'm working in two different issues right i understood yes this is my third issue right now so i'm following you but i'm gonna have a hard time okay and what i could just add a curiosity how many of them earned how many of them earned their earned time and were there any that got dr's that didn't okay i i do have that information for january knowing i knew you would knowing that you would ask so uh in january 1361 people earned uh an award and a credit 174 people did not because they had dr's and that was in january that was in january have you figured out anything for february i don't have february data yet i mean i i there is a delay right so we need to wait for the month to end then we have to do the the work to make sure that the for instance um the dr's are closed um then we need to apply um the award so there is a little bit of an administrative time gap here and i think the way the the statue is written it allows that because you know the notification to um offenders um and dr is that 90 day window dr is it just so that's if someone has um violated a facility rule um a major a major violation of a of a facility rule so it's a disciplinary report it's a shorthand um okay sorry thank you yeah correct and then wonder uh miss we were by any chance did you get a number for the number of people who fit the criteria in s18 as those that are um would be excluded from good time i sure did you probably want to know it um so it so understanding right this this probably changes from you know over time but the number that i have uh for january is that there are are essentially 297 people who received um an earned time credit in january who have a disqualifying offense that would eliminate them from receiving that credit if s18 passes okay that's what i wanted thank you very much oh one more thing um when i believe that when the rulemaking was made that the doc figured this would the change of in good time would necessitate hiring another staff member is that is that the way it's worked out yes we have okay okay thank you uh marcia do you still have your hand up what was that from before oh i just had a just a figure here you said 1361 earned all seven days i said that well okay they earned their time most people in january did get seven days off their min and max there were a few people who had partials so two days or four days but a substantial amount were seven days if they had already seen seven days that have been 9,527 days off that's a lot of days not to you know that is saving it will in the end save the state money huh let's say that again marcia 1361 if they all had earned seven days off for the month of january that's 9,527 less days that people will be incarcerated in the end so i'll stack up to a lot in a year but you're taking off 1300 yeah i know she said that some of them got two days some got three yeah but just just to you know to throw it out there to show you what what is going to do but if you put that down person to person because i think it really is person to person more than a lump sum because everybody's in there for different length of sentences the maximum any individual could earn in a year is 84 days right it's 84 days it's two and a half months off the sentence per year that's your maximum it does it doesn't mean that you're going to like there was 124 or so they had dr's they're not 74 174 they're not getting anything so that month for that month and you know so that's where it's hard to say when their definite eligibility date will come up it is different for each individual inmate and it's up to them to earn it themselves it's not automatically given which i think is an important distinction because there was one time way way back it was automatic you got five days off regardless so real yes and then we extended that where you had to earn it and you could get five days off automatically and then you could get up to 10 days off if you earned it so we were almost 15 days a month so there's been so many reiterations of good time and then we got rid of it back in 2006 or so um so you know this this program that we put in place right now it's not automatic that a person's going to receive that time off their sentence at earn time it is not automatic it is up to the inmate to abide by the rules and then it's a carrot and stick approach and it's a management tool as well for doc for them as well that it really helps in the management of a facility when inmates feel that um they have uh some some input in terms of the length of their stay it's up to them to abide by the rules and in turn if they abide by the rules it makes for a safer facility and is safer for our other inmates and it's safer for the staff so where are we because I got distracted by a few things here well I would uh well I was just kind of going through the basics the the other um point I'll add to this is um of that group 1361 um not all of them are incarcerated again people on furlough are are receiving this so there are people who are in the community already who are who are receiving their award um so for the 174 that didn't receive it due to dr's those were incarcerated folks correct correct just to be clear and of the 1361 do you have um would it be about 1100 1000 up 1200 right 1300 incarcerated so 174 had dr's and didn't receive it yeah if it's if it's um really relevant and it's something that you need to know I can certainly get into that level of detail but I don't I don't have the number off the top of my head I'd have to look at I'd have to do some additional analysis on my spreadsheet uh Karen Karen has a question yes I just wanted to confirm something that I thought I just heard that of the 174 that did not earn time um the assumption is that they were all incarcerated but they could be some folks who are on furlough as well right well now I'm I'm looking hold on so a dr is a is a facility based activity um yes right versus be re-incarcerated for something like say they had a a violation right right but that would show up as a different category okay so this is just for folks who were incarcerated I'm just trying to determine if there was anybody in the community that um you know did something that made it so they weren't allowed to earn their time yeah I don't see that but I will I will go back and look again the only the only thing that would happen is that those people in the community have to be returned to incarceration right so they can be in a community and have you know some other type of violation that we respond to in the community um and that would not disqualify them from earning their awards that month they have to have been returned um to a facility to be disqualified yeah that Karen would be laid out within the rules was that it is it is laid out in the rules it's also in the law uh so and maybe I'm not asking my question I I just think it is interesting to look at who is being who is not earning the time that's in the community versus who isn't earning it in the facility right because as we said that the min and the max like what is the incentive and is it working is it only working for those who are incarcerated but folks who are in the community are earning their time so I think well luckily um I have some of my fine staff who are watching us on YouTube and who are doing some analysis for me so here's here's what my uh fine um analyst has told me um 700 people in the facility 657 people in the field out of that total number that I provided to you that's great thank you that helps a lot so it's really half and half yeah okay more monica about the rules well then the the the rule if you want me to um just continue so that we you know the the the rule basically lays out the um you know who who will get the good time how we will prorate it which was not in the statute itself but it's it's a little bit more clear based on the number of days um talks a little briefly around the fact that we will um as Eric mentioned the law says that we have to know less frequently than 90 days notify an offender about their earned reduction of term and so that is a process that we um are putting in place through our offender management system so all of this information is recorded in the offender management system the law says you know we have to keep a record of it and so we do that in our um sentence computation module more or less once a credit um gets applied well we we will very shortly this will be happening um be able to run a report we'll print off the report and hand it to the offender so that they understand um what their new minute max time looks like okay so I know Kerr has a question but I just so these are the emergency rules and currently working on permanent rules I am working on permanent which will be very similar to these emergency rules but may differ a little bit depending on whether or not we do a S18 is it fair to say S18 will uh cause a fair amount of um rule making uh flurry for us in fact so which I you know it's fine we'll we'll certainly take care of it but there'll be a couple of things that we're going to need to do depending on the timing of when S18 passes so Kurt actually that kind of related to my question that the emergency rules expire what July 1st oh gosh the exact date I think is sometime in late June right 6 it's 180 days 180 days from January 1st so we need to have or somebody has to have rules in place at that point right yeah correct and we are in the process of also going through final rule making for a permanent rule so that that permanent rule will be in place by the time this emergency rule expires and right now they're the exact same rule they look exactly the same and uh okay never mind I'm trying to figure out what happens if S18 passes and things get jumbled again but I guess that's what you'd be working on yes and we are we have some contingency plans for that and how how we would need to go about doing that um but it will require a few more steps okay thank you yep so I'm looking at the time folks um I don't know if you folks are comfortable in shifting right into S18 right now or if you'd like a five minute break or so before we do that or what you're thinking is because we can shift into S18 if people are comfortable and have enough background knowledge is that okay to shift into S18 that's going to be my first question I would like five minutes okay I know that I'm just trying to think do you want to shift into S18 because if you don't then we've got other things we can do too okay so let's take five minutes and then we're going to shift into S18 which is the senate bill that does the carve outs