 So when we get off the floor We're gonna be here working with Priya And then at 1030 I think I think someone To be set up might be Are you Well I don't know This is Solid oh and consolidate consolidate your furlough status Different statuses of furlough, so that's what's creating people coming in and they were saying if you do these We can save anywhere from a hundred and six to a hundred and thirty-five out of state beds And that would be a savings of about $1,000,000 To Build their So, anyway, the other thing, Sarah, and I had a brief conversation with the parking lot last night about what we've been hearing in terms of when there's allegations and how it goes up to the Department of Human Resources and how that is playing out in the corrections world. And also looking at qualifications or salary correction officers, and that impacts the classification they have obtained to government operations. So, we're going to have a joint meeting talking about that. Great. Yeah? I did hear a little bit yesterday up in appropriations about investigations, the hotline, how corrections has more investigations than any other partner in the state government. Well, they're dealing with people hands-on in a confined environment. Yep, and the situation for safety is an issue. Safety being what? Well, safety for if you're relying on a fellow officer to keep you safe and you don't trust that, and that's a pretty serious situation. But, so the hotline now for DOC staff goes directly to the general counsel's office at the Department of Human Resources. And where was it finally for? I don't know. It's going internally, what's that? Hi. Would you like me to answer? Yeah. So, the agency, it was originally the agency of human services hotline that was for offenders and staff. And then when Rob Hoffman was the agency of human services secretary, the agency said we will no longer be answering this phone. That was a long time ago. And the department attempted to get that line to be answered. Because again, this is part of Mark McLaughlin said that there's a very strong value in this hotline. We need the hotline. And so we attempted to, we worked with the network through a grant with Priya to have it answered by the network. But unfortunately, because of the way the phone system works, it would only call the Rutland shelter. We don't know why, but that's what would happen. We tried to get prisoners' rights to answer it. They said that they could not. And I know, in other words, one other group we attempted to work with, I don't remember who it was, and they would not answer it. So the department kept it itself because it was better to have something than nothing. And so that's sort of the history of that hotline. And we attempted, when Mike Touche was the facilities exec, and then when he was the commissioner, he attempted again to resurface conversations to get that phone answered and unsuccessful. No, go ahead. I heard part of it, and then my, I think I screwed up trying to download the things I had to focus on something else. So where is the hotline now? Is it where the Attorney General's office? Do we go cancel? My understanding from email is that it went, it's going directly to the agency's office. Still? That may have changed, and I just don't know that. Okay. Nobody wants, you know, what it feels like between where staff can report and then where inmates can report. It seems nobody wants to deal with it. That is correct. It's a hot potato. Yes. Nobody wants to deal with it because I know Mike Touche has been looking for, was looking for an independent entity for a number of months prior to the article. For a number of months. Years. For the inmates. Mm-hmm. Nobody wants it. We have been told it's too frivolous. No one has time. And there was a concern, again, what originally stopped, and Karen referenced it, Director Tronsgard Scott referenced it when she was up here, who would have thought the phone would be so complicated. Zoe Gaskin was working for the network then, and we had a sub-grant with them, and we worked on it for over a year to try and get that hotline. Do you know how much a soldier might be willing to stack the hotline? Okay. Okay. So, and I... That was... Okay. It's really serious though. No, no, no, I'm not saying it to you. For about two seconds, that'll solve the first problem arises. So, I understand the problem with the phone a lot because you just can't put a phone on the wall and say hotline because the minute you get on the hotline everybody in your unit knows that you're going to win something. There's that as well. So, it's really complicated about the facility and the location and the confidentiality and who you're talking to, of course, way, way to compete. I don't think you can say enough that it goes way, way beyond the politics, but it's way different. And because of those complications with the phone, that was why the department did change its policies in regards to mail, so that when we provided the network addresses, our mail directive was reflected that any mail that was sent out to an advocate was considered legal mail and therefore was not to be read. So, there was that amendment made in our policy because we know that it's challenging for an AMA to be in the unit and make a report of sexual assault. So, if you can write it, it's more confidential. Back to a question I had, isn't this the requirement of PREA? To me, it seems like it's not really an option. The requirement for under the PREA standards is that we have more than one method for an AMA to be able to make a report. It does not require that it's a hotline for this very reason because of the complications of the unit, confidentiality. And so we have the external line that can be called. There's an email address and a phone number that rings directly to the PREA office so that folks can call in and make a report that way. We do use or reference the hotline that was being answered by out of the commissioner's office, which was the one that used to be the agency's line. We provide the advocate addresses and phone numbers as well. So inmates can write or they can also notify their family member that can call in. We do provide the prisoner's rights number as well as prisoner's rights address for folks to be able to write or notify a family member that can then call. There was an attempt made to be able to have prisoner's rights be a direct dial. But again, that was, prisoner's rights said they did not have the staff to be able to do that. Well, maybe what we need to do, maybe that's one of the things we as a committee can really work on in terms of a state has to have a dedicated line that goes to an independent, outside of the agency. That goes somewhere. And the PREA standards have two different sets. One of which is that offenders have the ability to make a confidential report that there's no obligation to follow through. So that in other words, a person can seek care and safety for themselves regardless of wanting to make a report. The other obligation is that we have means for people to be able to make a report that comes back to us. So there's those two different requirements and that's what prison, because prisoner's rights is, they're also state employees. That's the group that we are using. So when a report goes to them, they would notify us of the allegation that was reported so that we can investigate it. So to be clear, you are following PREA standards? Yes. Yes, we are. You may want to go beyond that. Go ahead. Okay. Let's shift gears. So we're going to continue our presentation from the Department of PREA offices of the department just to give us more background. And we have some new folks who are sitting around the room. So I would suggest Heather, if you could start just introducing yourself and then we can go around the room. Yes, thank you. Heather Simons, Director of Training and Professional Development and Department of Corrections. Hi, Kelly Chingolin, Field Training Coordinator, Department of Corrections. Hannah Lane with the Vermont Commission on Women. Tom Habsmore, Representative of the Vermont State Employees Association. Jessica Barker, I'm with the Vermont Department. All yours. Good morning. And thanks again for having us back. So this morning what we have... It has introduced yourself to the rockers. Sorry, that's fine. Jennifer Sprapke, the Prison Rape Elimination Act Director for the Vermont Department of Corrections. So this morning what we had for the agenda is we wanted to cover three main topics that are really about the vulnerability of folks in correctional facilities. So one of which is acknowledging the pathways and profiles of women offenders and how it's different for that of men coming into the system. The second one is gender care and custody, which I did already come and talk to you guys a few months ago a little bit about transgender inmates and what that means. Today talking about the vulnerabilities that folks encounter when they come into a correctional facility and that they're in an increased risk of sexual assault. And then the last part is acknowledging the difference. I know Chair Emmons has referenced a few times in committee about the importance of men. The article focused on women, but acknowledging that we house males as well. And understanding that rape itself has a different definition at times. In other cases, legal, the law is different as far as how it reflects to men and societal perception about gender and sex and rape when it comes to men that can increase vulnerabilities in a correctional facility. One thing for sure is it'll decrease the reports that you're likely to get because males are less likely to report sexual victimization. Those are the three main topics for this morning, so I wanted to start by talking about women offenders. And what you have in front of you, I'm not going to go through every slide, but this is the presentation that we deliver to staff at the Correctional Academy. I was actually just there yesterday and delivered both the pathways and profiles of women offenders and the gender care and custody curriculum. We have an entire day split in two. And really the thing I wanted to start with is acknowledging what brings women into a correctional facility is different than what brings men in. We know that women's introduction to crime is usually connected to a partner or a familial connection. It's not a stranger. It's not an experiment. It's connected to a relationship. So when you're asking somebody to quit or to get clean, in most cases you're asking them to end a relationship. Which, well, if you've ever asked anyone to break up with someone, that's real complicated. And the best way I can describe it is if anybody's ever been a smoker, you smoke in certain contexts. You either smoke when you go to the bar, you smoke when you drink, you smoke when you drive in a certain location. And what's really hard for folks is when they quit smoking, when they experience that event, they really want to smoke because that external event is a trigger. And so for women, a lot of times the relationship is the trigger. And so they can't end one without the other. For example, a woman that I had on my caseload, we were doing an assessment and I asked her, when did you start using? And she said, oh, you know, I started when I, I think I was like 11 or 12. I said okay. And I asked her if she thought she had a substance abuse problem. She said no. And then when we went through and looked at her use, it was clear she had been expelled from school, she missed work. She couldn't really be stable because of her substance use. And so obviously there's a perception issue around what's a problem. And when I asked her why she started using, what she said is her mom smoked marijuana and when she was a kid and when her mom was smoking marijuana, she wasn't allowed to be out of her room because that was her mom's version of good parenting, right? I'm going to use, but I know you shouldn't be here, so you stay in your room. And so this 11, 12 year old girl figured out that if I want to spend time with mom, then I need to start using. And so she did. She started smoking pot. She went out into the living room. She sat down. She started smoking and her mom didn't kick her out. And so the message to her was that's my connection. It's not that drugs are bad. It was the only way that she could actually have that relationship with her mother and have that connection. And so that's one story, but the reality is every single woman in our care in custody, good morning. It's okay. No, you're all right. Every woman in our institutions has that same story. It might not be 11 or 12 and it might not be their mother, but it's going to be someone they know very well, someone they love or loved, someone that said they love them. And so the use is what is the bridge between them and that individual. And so one of the things you know in working with corrections is you can't just say no didn't work for a reason. If you just put in substance abuse treatment where you talk about how risky it is and be clean, that's not enough when you're working with women because women aren't compartmentalized that way. One of the catch phrases that's out there that's actually the best I've ever heard is that women's crimes are embedded in the styles of their lives. Their crimes are, their drug uses, their patterns are because they're pervasive. And everything is connected to something else. You will often see women who are selling drugs because they don't have a job, because they don't have employment skills, because no one will hire them, because they are the caretakers of the children. They can't get the kids in daycare. Then they can't afford daycare. They can't afford to work because they have nowhere for the kids to go and they know if they don't provide for their children that they're going to go through a termination of parental rights. So what's your choice? If you find a job that's not enough to cover daycare, you run the risk of losing your children. So you don't work. But then the external is that the world sees that you're lazy and you're willing to be on welfare, that you're not motivated to work. And then when that's the way folks treat you, then that's how you feel. And we know from the news and what we see that when women don't feel good about themselves, they're more likely to go to a doctor and doctors are more likely to prescribe them medication. As a society, women are over-prescribed medication for depression, anxiety, and then the more medication, the more likely we deal with addiction. And the phrase that you'll hear among the majority of the population is chasing the dragon. I don't know who came up with that. I'm not sure why it's a dragon. But referring to that addiction, that once you use once, that first high is amazing. And every addict will tell you every time they're used, they're trying to get that high again. And one of the things that's unique about women is it is actually harder for women to achieve that high than it is for a male. One of the reasons is because women have more fat cells than males, just the way we're built. And when you use drugs, that substance is stored in your fat cells. So if you use one day and then use two days later, you still have some of that in your system. So the next time you use, you need more. So because of genetic makeup of women, they need more the next time. And then when you add in the connection, when you add in trauma and self-medication, you can see how it snowballs. And so when we train staff on working with women offenders, the place you have to start is understanding what got them there. Understanding that it's not just one thing. What we see with males is they come in, they have an alcohol problem, they have a drug problem. They either do treatment or they don't. They go to group or they don't. We don't see the quote drama. We don't see the argument, the resistance. They go. Because they say, listen, I just got to go do this group, get this off, check, all done. And then I can move on to the next thing. But if my drug use is connected to my relationships, my criminal history, my family, because I have kids that now I'm not home with, my job history, my education, quitting that substance isn't just that simple. And so it complicates the work that we do, which is why I'll tell you that I like working with women more than men because it's exciting. There are so many facets to pay attention to. It's never boring. And I know Director Simons talked in testimony before about when we go back in time, the history is you hear staff say, I'll take a use of force. I'll work with men, I'll pick a use of force because that's easy. Dealing with a verbal challenge of working with women is hard and it's exhausting. And so that is true in life. I mean, males that we know in life, females that we know in life will say, oh my gosh, I don't want to get into an argument with a woman. I mean, that was actually what any member said. Well it was almost sort of said this morning, you hear everything and you've got eyes in the back of your head, right? That notion that you don't win. And so it's no surprise then that you would have staff, whether male or female, say I'd rather engage in a use of force because we're the Department of Corrections. So sometimes that's what folks think they're in for. But what we know of today's workforce and it happened yesterday with the class I'm training is that's not what they're here for. They didn't sign up to work for the Department of Corrections because they can't wait to engage in a use of force. They just spent 40 hours an entire week learning how to communicate. And while I'm training working with women offenders, one of the things we talked about is why is it that a woman might not want to shower? Why might she not want to shower? One of the tools that we give them is there's a video called Healing Deem which I can actually send to the committee if it's something you would like to watch. And it's a video about a woman who is, she's actually a spokesperson now across the country. She had over 100 offenses, career criminal, started when she was a kid, never going to get out of the system, drug user. She had every risk score you could imagine, top of the line. One relationship turned it around, she got herself clean and sober and now she's a spokesperson for that experience. One of the things that she talks about in the video is her mother. And she, like every other young girl, loved her mother a lot. And her mother was a cocaine user and a drinker, started using probably before Neen was even born. And her mother didn't really care for her and used her as a babysitter for her younger siblings. And at one point, when Neen was 14, her mother signed her over legally to get married to one of her mother's ex-boyfriends. And when Neen got clean, she still has a relationship with her mother, which is very, I mean, you actually see video footage of them interacting. And it's very tenuous because her mother still uses, her mother asks her for money when she sees her. But what Neen talks about is all she ever wanted was her mother's love. It's all she ever wanted. And at one point, her mother said to her, I want you to come home. And Neen was thrilled. Her mom finally wanted her. When she got home, she realized, no, her mom just wanted her home to be a babysitter. And she talks about how when she, her cousin sort of adopted her and took her in to take care of her. And she was, I think, 11 or 12 years old, maybe 13, I can't remember the exact age. And she didn't know how to shower. Her mother had never taught her how to bathe. And so I asked the class yesterday, when you have someone who isn't showering, what do you do? What do you say? Do you know what it means? And we talked about that video and how it might be that she doesn't want to shower because she doesn't know how. It might be that she doesn't want to shower because she doesn't want to take her clothes off because she's been a victim of sexual assault. It might be that she's watched every video you have as well. And she's afraid she's going to get sexually assaulted in the shower. And so we don't train staff to say, go take a shower, you stink. We train staff to say, hey, I noticed you haven't taken a shower. And we wait. And we don't do it in the middle of the day room. We pull them aside. And can you imagine if that's you having to fill that silence? You're not going to say, I was sexually assaulted, I can't go in there. You're not going to say that. I don't care how quiet of an environment it is. Those are words that are so painful and so hard to say. So we wait. And if they don't say it, then we can offer it up. One of the things we can do is would it be helpful if you show it during head count? Would that be helpful? We have soap. Do you need soap? And we'll have that dialogue hoping that those prompts will get a response. And one of the recruits asked me in class, well, what if they don't respond? What do we do in that moment? Because I don't want to embarrass anyone. And I said, that's okay. It's not critical and it's not an emergency. So wait. Then you talk to a supervisor. Then you talk to a case worker. We pull them off the unit and offline we say, tell me what's going on. Because here's what I know. You have a rule that says you have to shower. Because here's the other thing. They're not alone. They're sharing a cell. They're in a unit. Eventually there's going to be an odor. And now they're going to get shamed. Somebody's going to say something. So we have a duty to protect her too. So we have to find a way to balance that out. So when we're training the city academy, and that's one of the things I want to talk about with that article, it is not just that simple. It's not just about a shower. It's not just about a DR. It's not just about drug use. It is layer on layer on layer. The women that we see, this has been going on for generations. To use need again, her mother married her off when she was 14 years old. She talks about the first time she used meth was because the husband that she had, it was a domestic violence situation. She couldn't clean the house enough. She couldn't clean it fast enough. And so the response was domestic violence. He would abuse her. So she used someone introduced her to meth. And she actually says, I clean my house. I clean the neighbor's house. I clean every house on that neighborhood. And she said, I never got that beating again. That's what it took for her. So when we provide those programs, we are not just saying methadone, methamphetamines, cocaine, crack, it's not good for you. How do you tell that woman that it's not good for her? Because that's what saved her. And we judge that survival skill. She lived and she chose herself and she used the intervention she could at that moment. So when we provide these programs in a correctional facility and these correctional officers are experiencing these women, we have to tell them first that there's a back story you may never know. You have to assume that some of this stuff is true. That she has experienced that trauma. So we don't yell across the day room. We don't slam doors anymore than we have to. Here's the other thing. Jails are trauma triggering. Period. I think that actually came up in committee earlier. The doors slam. The radios are loud. There's yelling. There's movement. There's a flashlight signing in your shell in the middle of the night. You don't control the lights. You don't control the time. You don't control when you get up. People make you take your clothes off. Jails are trauma triggering. So we have to know that when we partner with the network that you can't do deep trauma work in a correctional facility. The one who does trauma work will tell you that that actually is more detrimental to the individual because you are then exposing them. You can't break down a wall and keep them in a bad environment. That's unhealthy. So it's survival and it's mitigating as best as we can. But you can't do deep trauma work. That work has to be done outside of an institution, outside of the system where they actually are in control of some of those safeguards. Some of it can be done in some of our transitional houses. Some of the programs we work with, Northern Lights, Ares House, Dismiss, some of that work can be done there because of the structure of the setting and that they aren't locked in. But they still have a roommates. They're still not in control of who they live with and they're not alone. So that may also be limited at those points in time. But I really wanted to kind of expose you to the picture of what we know we see. And we're not unique. This is what corrections is seeing across the country. So it's no surprise if folks don't know the discipline data across the country is that women offenders are over-disciplined. And what that means is they get more DRs or discipline reports. Now, I'm not going to say that they get more DRs for assault because they don't. Right? We have a range. We have minors. We have major Bs and major As, which are the most serious. And there's two things we know across the country. And there's a work group that spent, I think, five years developing a discipline manual to help folks modify how they do their discipline within institutions. One is you ask a guy to go empty his garbage can and he empties it or he doesn't. It's that simple. And anybody who's been married, whether man or woman, or had a child, you say empty the garbage can and they either go empty it or they don't move. Now, you ask a woman to empty the garbage can. Why? And it's why. And when you say empty the garbage can, and we literally did this example yesterday at the academy, and she comes back and says why. And then you say empty the garbage can because that's what we train them. We're not going to answer why because that's not the point. Empty the garbage can. And she comes back with, why are you making me empty the garbage can? You didn't make Kelly empty the garbage can. We're not yelling. We're not mad. But we're staying on course. So empty the garbage can. Now she comes back and says, well, you didn't ask me to empty the garbage can yesterday. Why are you asking me today? Naturally, what people think is you're either being manipulative, you're a jerk, or you're being argumentative. Well, that's not what we train. What we say is, I don't know if I can ask you a question. Who me? Well, the committee. I don't know if I can ask. So you might not like hearing this. Why do you think that she's asking those questions? Your attention. Okay, could be attention. We'll go with attention. No one else has an answer. Perceive persecution. Yeah, to gain respect. To gain respect. She's gained, so listen, if we go back to that example of me when I was a little girl, women experience sexual abuse and domestic violence at a young age, and it's usually with a very close partner, either a family member, someone who has defined for you what love is. Your sense of self-being. This is not an external. Where we know young boys experience sexual violence usually through a connection, not that family member, more so anyway, where it is like a coach of friends, family member, priest, that kind of thing. So her sense of self and her trust wheel has been ruptured very early. So when you say to her, empty the trash can, her history in life has said, the people who are supposed to care about me, I don't know if they do. So when she says why, she's not being disruptive. She's assessing, are you one of the good ones or are you one of the bad ones? The only way she can. That's her survival that she's learned. Which is why we train staff, don't get mad. She's not challenging you. It sounds like it, but she's not. And in the end, you're going to win. One, you go home and two, whatever you want done will be done. So you don't need to get mad about it. You don't need to cause a big kerfuffle over it. What happened? So just simply say, empty the trash. Please empty the trash. And go about your way. And then when you come back and you see she's emptied the trash, thank you for emptying the trash. That is Women's Corrections 101. And we have to train our staff that that is going to be your entire day. Which you can imagine, that's why some people on the outside I'll take a use to force because I do not want to sit there and listen to why all day long. But I'll tell you what, the staff we have are incredible at it. So patient and so understanding. That doesn't mean everybody's awesome and it doesn't mean everybody has a great day. But that is working with women. But you can see why when you have a discipline structure and if you don't teach communication the right way, that you're going to write somebody a DR you're going to write somebody a discipline report for being argumentative because you perceive the why as a challenge. What's not? So what about the situation like that? I'm putting it in the testimony yesterday that Heather gave where there are situations that could be grooming on both ends. Oh yes. So I can see that situation, that example you just gave as an opportunity for grooming That particular one isn't often what we see as grooming from the women. Usually what we see is the intro conversations that are getting personal. They start asking about personal life. Now that's where it's very interesting because we know women are relational and that it's about connection with one another. And so it's the balance of what is you trying to create a connection versus what is you gathering information that then is going to become something else later. And what we train staff is somebody asks you a personal question that question is not inappropriate. Somebody asks you if you have kids where do you live what's your favorite color I mean there's weird questions. But the question itself isn't inappropriate. I mean first of all if you go to a high school reunion or a wedding or a family reunion or go on Facebook that's what's on there. Now it's inappropriate. It's public and you smatter it all over everywhere. What we say is your answer makes it inappropriate. So if an offender asks me where I live my response is mine would be I live in central Vermont. Why are you asking? Where do you live? Because I don't know why she's asking. And I'll give you an example from my own career I had a woman on my caseload ask me if I was lesbian. And I said no I'm not. And the superintendent I think I told my supervisor about it and the superintendent called me and told me that I shouldn't have answered the question that it was a personal question. And I said well but it isn't because I didn't tell her what I was. I could be bisexual I didn't answer it. I just said I wasn't that. And she said well that's personal and you shouldn't share it. And I said well we have staff that wear wedding rings that's just as much of a reveal they are saying that they are connected to someone. So I asked the slippery slope and I said okay well alright. So I had another woman on my caseload this might sound weird that I would have two people but I don't know I guess it's I stereotypically look at and she asked me if I was a lesbian. And I said well I cannot answer that question but why are you asking? The reason she was asking is because she and her partner had just moved here from another state and they were living in Burlington and they were not for me what I knew about the community because she was trying to figure out was she being isolated because she identified Native American her partner was African American or was that just how the community was she didn't know. And so when I shut her down by saying I can't answer that question now because I said well why are you asking I then got what she needed but it's very easy for a person to think that that could be manipulative or we're grooming anything. She was asking a completely appropriate question of I'm new here what do I need to know? And so we train staff and we have to train staff on how to answer and how to respond not not answering and shutting those things down which is what we do and on Tuesday I trained the account it just so happened I was just there this week eight hours on PREA and staff sexual misconduct and we talk about that very thing. When somebody asks a question what do you say and we train them and I'm very clear with people it is rude to say I'm not answering that it is rude to say that's not of your business it's rude to say around that's that's one that's that if you don't train somebody to properly answer the question you get what they would say in the world where are you from around imagine if someone said that to you that's horrible and so we that's not an answer if somebody you don't have to say well I live obviously I live in the state why are you asking oh well because my family's looking to move here and I want to know about the area oh alright well what is it that you're looking to know if I can't answer it maybe I know who can see you've given them what they need and it had nothing to do with you that is where grooming starts and the other thing we'll see is it's no surprise with what I've talked about when women are victims of sexual and domestic violence at a very early age that becomes a part of their life and boundaries they're not taught appropriate boundaries love a matter of fact another section of the video of healing mean this one woman talks about how love was hitting because that's what she grew up in and then that's what she had experienced and so when she looked for a partner she looked for someone that and she said when he wasn't hitting me I was hitting him because that's what it was and you know someone else one of the members of the class actually said it was true I grew up in a pretty rough house and yelling everybody was always yelling and so when I was looking at partners I was looking at partners that were yelling because that's what I knew and so what we see in the correctional facility is these really lax boundaries and this over sexualized because let's face it if you have spent your life getting what you need from your body then that's exactly what you're going to keep doing in a facility when you want something you're going to use the thing that has gotten you what you've got that you needed before and so what we'll see is they're measuring their outfits so that they're a little more exposed they'll stand if you haven't been in the units a lot of times the phone that the inmates use is close to the officers podium so once they're through with the phone they'll kind of maybe pass the first slide I have nothing I hope you scroll through it but they stand close and they stand close and I said this we actually had a staff member we had received a report there was an allegation that came forward that the inmates were reporting that this officer was engaged in a sexual relationship with this one so the first thing we do is we pull up video because that's the easiest thing to do let's pull it up let's see what we can see and what we watched is this is actually a very similar scenario so imagine this is the podium right here and she comes out and she's on the phone and then she stands here like this and he's standing there at the podium and we watch him take a step he creates a distance away from her so then what does she do she takes a step towards him and no exaggeration all the way around the podium and he doesn't even realize it so what did we do we pulled him in and we said tell us about what you do in your unit so we did and we said okay tell us what happens when this goes on and he's like oh well I would do this I would do this and we said what's the best tool we pulled up the video and we said take a look at this and we watched him go he didn't realize he was eating he had no idea and so now what we have to do is two things one we have to set an expectation with him but don't matter we now need to remind him that's your podium you own that you're responsible for creating that boundary so you have to create that boundary now if that were you if you were that staff member and you walked out of the office you're thinking uh oh I'm on their radar I might be at risk of getting fired so now I gotta go crack the whip we know that that's what staff are gonna think so we say hold on what are you going to do how are you going to approach this with her and you get the look I don't know because they haven't thought about it so we literally template it with them and every single staff member this is what I've said to them you go up to her you find her first and you say I haven't done right by you my job is to make sure that you're safe and that you're doing what you're supposed to so when I don't address certain behavior I'm not helping you succeed and one of the things I've done is I've let you hang out by this podium and I want you to know my commitment to you is I'm not gonna do that anymore so when you see that happen and you see that change this is my change and I wanted you to know up front so you weren't surprised because the last thing you ever want to do with a woman is change things up because what's the first thing she thinks what did I do I thought we had a thing it doesn't mean it was sexual we had a relationship we had a something and now you're different he must be mad at me she must not like me I did something to upset them nope, no you didn't I didn't do my job and so we send them with that template because that's our job we want them to be successful and we want the women to not be surprised and to not have that trauma trigger of my world changed of my fault nope, not your fault at all we had another absolutely I'm sorry so Heather you just explained a situation where you have a current employee committing just just doing something different that might be outside the north so you pull that employee in you retrain that employee or make some suggestions to him and you just we heard you earlier that you just gave this particular presentation yesterday for four hours to the recruits do you do and what would trigger it ongoing on a regular basis training for all your officers so that they don't get in the situation that you had the podium situations is there a scheduled thing or when something happens or because people forget so I have two answers to that one we can always do more as you know the complications around our stipend schedule and required training and hours to fit it in we do as much as we can per the federal PREA standards we have to do the baseline PREA training which contains a component of this every other year in the off year we have to do some sort of reminder we have to do some sort of education so yes we do we can always be better so early on in the discussion seems like years ago it was probably just a couple weeks ago the chair asked do you do any of these trainings reminders during Gulk and the answer was at the time I don't remember the answer without looking it up but I don't think I heard a really positive response to what that was happening on a regular basis so I can only answer to when I was there if we're talking about shitting them specifically and it was not like a regular part of roll call because roll call is I mean it's 10 to 15 minutes because it's before shift it's right before they go on shift and you're covering hot topics of that week so if you have you know let's say the flu broke out and you're letting people know that there's stuff going on with the flu you'd be covering that if there's it's been a tough week and let's say we got word that a woman who had left had died during overdose that might be something we would discuss if we are super short on staff we would discuss that if we had received or if we were aware of more than one issue or it was one that we were like yeah this is a good thing that's a reminder we would if we use that case for an example what would have been covered in roll call is a reminder about the podium is your space folks shouldn't be in that area a reminder about boundaries and making sure that you're maintaining your personal space that would be what we would have said I think that's what maybe what was driving it something simple just gentle reminders or not some general advice to the staff that this is what we treat I don't know along with just the sentence I think what you find is a lot of that stuff is going to be a more informal delivery because every time management does a tour if I see any of that we're pulling that person aside and having conversation with them because I hate this expression but it's useful you don't know what you don't know and when you are working in the same unit with the same group of people every day there's patterns you become a creature of habit as much as they do because you have to survive in that unit so if somebody has a bad habit of yelling if somebody has constantly wants to pick a fight over the television then you know who that person is and you figure out how to management so that's often times the things that will happen is you become as immersed in that culture as they are and so what we have to do is kind of pull them out and help be that external mirror of did you know this was happening have you seen this so we heard I think we heard also about units after so many days or if the period of time is good because it breaks the trend of familiarity your smaller facilities create I mean I'm thinking it's pretty hard to get away from anybody into a different population area or whatever the current make up and you may not want it but the current make up of facilities create a barrier to good personnel practices within correctional facilities oh I see why you gave media out of not answering but I'm up to it so one of the things that I do in my other life is I am a trainer with the National Institute of Corrections and I travel across the country and how to operate women's facilities and what I will say is that it's a really first of all it's incredibly fun and you learn so much when you go to other states and the best thing I've learned is that we're no different than anyone else I trained in California there were three facilities there and this one guy admitted on day two that he wasn't going to listen to me because of course they ask how many inmates you have and when I say 140 he's thinking you don't have a clue what you're doing because they got a 2001 institution and he said but man you have me everything you experience we experience and I said well because people are people and across the country the guidance is you got to shift you got to move people so when you have bidding rights and post rights it becomes a problem because a person can bid on a post and stay there kind of forever in that if they're the most senior somebody who's that post would be that so if I bid on a post and I'm let's say the post I want is house one because that would never nobody would bid for house one over and over because it's one of the busiest units at Chittenden but if I bid on house one and I have 15 years in at Chittenden there isn't anyone else that's going to have more seniority than me I'm going to get that post every time and that's true at all of our facilities so when you said that I am not going to say that we should eliminate the ability of folks to bid for a post I'm saying that nationally they have identified the risk whether you're at a male facility or a female facility when it comes to over familiarity of someone being able to be in the same location over and over and over again that really plays into many many layers here is that part of the union contract at all or is that part of the larger VSE that I don't want to answer because I don't know and I don't want to be wrong how many lifers do you have in Chittenden lifers I didn't study that one how many lifers do they have in Chittenden you mean of offenders inmates how many with the life sentence I probably wanted to the only two that I think is Patricia Pru and Jody Herring I think they're made I don't know she got it most it was the third yeah I know what you're talking about I can find that information out well well until they rock they rule pardon what did you say they don't what if they rule because they're the oldest it doesn't work that way it doesn't always work that way that will happen in male institutions it's not necessarily the same culture in female institutions the dynamics are different as far as popularity in a male institution aggression rules, strength rules because that's how we raise men what we know is women learn through connection and when men learn through differentiation you look at a playground king of the hill little boys that knock each other off they're not trying to beat each other up they're trying to assert themselves because that's what we have told men they're supposed to do when you put them in a correctional facility where they're all tough and strong somebody has to be the strongest and a pecking order ensues because this is what's so important their masculinity is what keeps them safe in a female institution there is no masculinity there is no femininity there is no this will keep you safe because the same threads don't apply that does not mean that women don't assault each other it does not mean that women don't sexually assault each other it looks different in both cases but it's not what you see what you actually see is very similar to what you would see in like a elementary school playground which is the gaggle whoever has the biggest gaggle because that's what happens you get your you make your grouping and the other thing we see is families they make families in there because that's what women want is they want that close net and so you will see women who come in who had children and now they're in a facility they don't have their children and start taking care of the younger ones and we have to be all over that because you will have the 40 something year old or the 30 something year old that is doing the laundry of the 20 something year old no no you're not but at the same time and this is what corrections does it's all about separation we say this is my favorite part about corrections you should not hang around with other criminals so as soon as you get out of jail we're going to make you sit in the lobby of a probation and parole office with nothing but criminals you're going to go to groups but then we say don't connect so we have two more questions yes I just wanted to make sure it's not the new direction so this presentation that you gave this is something that you give to the this is part of so I noticed that a lot of the data in here is from the 2000 so it's 20 years old and while I don't imagine that I don't know how often do you update it how often is training updated because we've changed there's been a lot that's happened within corrections thinking we've updated national trainings and then I have a follow-up question but maybe you can answer that first okay sure so unfortunately the national data slides they haven't put out new data and it's one of the things that I discussed with the group that I'm with but unfortunately with some of the funding issues they've had they have not been able to get the new data that would reflect in the specific stuff that we've discussed so what we have done is we've amended some of the percentages when we present it but we haven't amended the slides because it's specific to a survey and some research that was done and so we don't want to modify it to make it look like that was the research so we amend the totals and we tell it when we present it so it's just is the work that we're doing is just between investment which has a lot of this data some of this data and will that be helpful to you? I'll take whatever data you want to send absolutely so one of the follow up questions that I had is it's really clear that training needs to be different it needs to be gender the training for corrections officers working in a women's facility it almost sounds to me like it's a specialty in a way and so we've heard when we visited the facility a few of us visited the New Hampshire facility the staff there rotate out I'm a little unclear what the policy or the practice is in Vermont with understanding that there's a need for a different kind of understanding how to work with women in the facility and then this inherent problem about familiarity so how is it working in Vermont what's the practice and policy around that for staff to be required to move to other facilities after a certain amount of time we don't have that requirement and again we don't have a separate contract or personnel policies for staff at the male facilities versus the female facilities so our current folks can again I'm not sure if it's in the contract and in policy just because that's not my area of expertise but folks in the Vermont Department of Corrections can bid for a post and then they can have that post that is that is what occurs so what I'm hearing is there's a potential for some you know over familiarity remind us when you were the superintendent of this facility is that right? yes for six months oh boy I was out of Chittenden for about a year and I was there for five years before that it was right after superintendent Adams left I was superintendent for six months and then Sheryl former deputy commissioner Sheryl Ilverta came in and she was the superintendent so I'm sorry I do not know the timeframes no it is curious what in relationship to the the the article is in it yes in answer to your so you know what we're talking about yes very familiar with what you're talking about yes then what she might be able to say well and I think I didn't know we got more questions did you finish the answer that was just okay yes I would love the data and the one other thing I did want to say is that because we talked about this with the class yesterday is this unit is done at the academy because the riskiest time for inmates is their first 24 to 48 hours they're not at Chittenden for the first 24 to 48 hours they're at the men's institutions and the staff at they haven't come from Chittenden County correct correct which that's actually some of the tiniest numbers we have the women are coming from Hartford White River, Rutland, St. Johnsbury, Central Vermont they're not coming from Chittenden which is a huge shift when the women were moved to Chittenden that's where the majority of them came from but they learn because they have to in the work we apply how it affects women differently in all of the trainings the staff that work in a male facility they communicate with men all the time and then they get a woman that comes in and it's a shift and so when we open this training that's the first thing we study is I ask them how many of you in here think that you don't really need to listen to this because you're not going to Chittenden and they're all like listen up because you need this more than they do that's just the nature of the work and so what we do after this is we incorporate this stuff into act sorry advanced communication techniques into non-lethal use of force into use of restraints into contrabanded searches into first-aid CPR mental health and medical issues we cover these principles in greater detail and we put them in all the trainings because what we can't do is say well I went to women offenders training so I know women no you don't that was one unit and treating it like one unit and specialized is just silly you need to know how those principles all apply to people you're working with and it needs to be pervasive not just a one-time one-stop shopping and so a lot of these components are then moved into those units that they get throughout their stipend schedule every year so that was I did want to make sure that I said that we have more questions which one then Kurt thank you I did answer my question we didn't know what you did answer my question but we wanted that so could we say but first of all post we were talking about post within the facility or just the facility no sorry so booking alpha unit house one those are considered posts okay wow so could you say that best practice for managing employees within any facility is a rotation of people throughout that facility I will say that best practice would encourage you to review that I won't say that best practice is explicit that you should move people but best practice would say you should review what your policies are review how your incidents are occurring and should you be doing that you mean you as a DOC as the DOC no no no as a DOC yeah no not you department of corrections as a whole and then facility specific should be looking at because you may have so for example booking at Chittenden there are two officers in booking so that might be an example where you would not need to rotate that post because it's you and someone else not to mention the fact that there's so many things that happen in booking you're not doing the same thing you take a post like Bravo that's a more in Chittenden that's a more isolated post because you go down a hallway and go around and the unit officers desk is over there so somebody walking by can't see now you go to house one everybody and their cousin is walking by that unit door all the time so they can see in so it's harder for something to occur house two the only unit that's upstairs and so that's more isolated so that might be a post where you would look at rotating but you would have to look at the incidents occur in those units not just sexual misconduct incidents occur in that unit more often than not because you want to be smart about it and then maybe it's that you maybe best practice would say that you change the way you do training for those posts so they might have training required annually versus rotating the post it would have the flexibility but you best practices you should look at it to determine what is best and if that would be beneficial to the staff and the population thank you two questions and I can put them in the hands and then you can make the point question do which which COs receive this specific training the eight hours that you're talking about here and what is can you be a talk a little bit about stipend training yes every single correctional officer that is hired by the Vermont Department of Corrections receives eight hours of this regardless of what facility they're going to um stipend training is currently what we use in that there's ten hours of stipend training that a person can get paid for by a stipend rate and then after that it's over time our stipend schedules at the facilities frankly are full with their core comps because they have mandated core comps so advanced communication techniques non-lethal use of force fire safety first aid CPR advanced communication techniques if I didn't say that I feel like I'm missing one that's okay but when you look at ten hours advanced communication techniques is four four-hour units so that's spread out through the year but for a correctional officer they are required to attend those core competencies in order to get a satisfactory or at least a satisfactory evaluation so they would have to attend those every single year otherwise they would get an unsatisfactory evaluation until they completed those and could be terminated because they are required to have those baseline trainings and they're obviously all the most important ones now what has happened with the federal PREA standards and so the direction the agency was taking and the department was taking before the article coming out is sexual harassment is required well it's not a core comp because it's not one of those mandatory supplements for a correctional officer but the state says you must do it so that got added in and then there's specific training under the federal PREA standards that's required so we now have more required training than we have hours for and that is an issue so quarter to ten a few of us have talked up here we need a break so this might be a good time to stop and continue in about two, three minutes five minutes at the most just take a quick break we'll come back and we'll continue and there's some other documents here too so maybe we can get to some of those other documents we love the first log in and boys that we have in our facilities as well their first safe experience is in our correctional facilities it's the first time they haven't worried about being attacked they haven't worried about their power being shut off not knowing what they're going to wake up to the next morning because the reason why jails are structured the way that they are is because then you know what to expect it's the same thing every day and so the other point of that for the males that we hire to understand that you might be the first male in her life that has looked her in the eye that hasn't requested sex from her, that hasn't touched her that hasn't yelled at her, that hasn't disrespected her and understanding how important and powerful that is and one statement that I have made publicly everywhere I've been is there are some folks out there who are under the school of thought that you should have same gender working together so you have women working in a women's correctional facility and I don't support that and the reason I don't support that is because men can provide something to women offenders that a woman never can which is value value from men where they are not hurting you and they are respecting you and it is so important for the women to experience that before they leave when they are clean, when they are sober when they are able to see it so even if it means they only experience it one time it's one time that they got to experience it and I will say that anyone who thinks that if you have a woman in distress that you should always send a woman in that doesn't know what they are doing because more often than not when we have a woman in distress it's actually the men that we send in because there is a different line of communication and it is more receptive, it is heard better and she feels more valued here like having a man validate how she is feeling and so that was all I wanted to say on that so I did come to talk with you guys already about gender care and custody and around what that means and so if you have already looked ahead at the slides you will see that literally what we are doing is we are defining lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender queer, questioning and intersex the first slide that shows some articles these are real articles that have come out since we have been delivering this training one of the most disturbing ones that we talk about with the class is the top one the California Attorney General vows to halt ballot measure that would legalize killing gay people there was a gentleman who in California had submitted a bill in which if you were caught engaging in homosexual activity you were to be sentenced to death and if the state did not carry out the sentence then the citizens of California were ordered to do it and it was specific that it was by bullet to the head and the reason we put this article up here is because what we get from more than anyone is did you make that up is that real and people need to know that that is a police set and you know we train correctional staff to leave their personal values at home but you can't do that I don't care who you are that would be like anybody expecting you guys to leave your personal values at home you have them but there is a way that you have to norm them so that you're not in conflict because it's not about you and so one of the things that's really important is we teach people diversity right we say you cannot discriminate if you don't like someone's sexual orientation or someone's gender that's fine you can have your own opinion but you can't discriminate and so that means we have to train staff that when you have an offender that has a new cellmate moves in and that person's transgender the world does not have a great understanding of transgender and if we're talking about men there is a great misconception that transgender equals gay and gay equals predator just not true but that is the perception that's out there among men because sexuality is attached to masculinity which in corrections is your safety and so we have to train staff that if someone comes out and says I don't want that such and such in my cell they have to acknowledge that that person's afraid and they're allowed to be discriminated or assault anyone and so we have to coach them and how to respond where you are valuing that person's feelings and what they've said without telling them that it's okay to discriminate but also letting them know what the expectation is and that's a balance because the federal PREA standards appropriately so have identified the extreme vulnerability of the LGBTQI population I talked with you guys a little bit of a graphic that we use because it's really helpful for folks to understand what all these things mean because keep in mind we have 20-something year olds and we have 60-something year olds that we're hiring and if you're of the more mature end of the age spectrum you have never heard of any of these things and so learning this is complicated and so what we do is we use this as a means to help folks understand we're talking about transgender we're talking about the brain we're talking about how a person thinks about their gender when we're talking about intersex which is the new term for hermaphrodite which is a biological medical condition affecting genital status that's your sex that has nothing to do with what you think it has everything to do with how you're born and your anatomy and then expression is the whole thing because it's this simple in this room and I said my name was John and I said I wanted to be called he you probably repeat it the first time but the second time you'd look at me and you'd say you see a woman and you'd naturally say she because that's what you've been raised to do so your expression will change because if I want you to treat me as male then I have to show you male otherwise it's just really hard for folks to remember because it looks different and so we use this tool to help folks really understand and so we'll literally go through and we'll say okay lesbian where is that on the gender bread person it's the heart so it helps with that visual reminder as we go through it it's a really useful tool for folks in the Vermont Department of Corrections we talked about this before inmates when they come in they let us know their preferred name first name only they can't change their legal name with us their last name they can have it changed through the court but not through us so they would let us know their preferred name so if it's me and I said my preferred name is John we'd write down John I say I want to be called he or him so you would indicate he or him I can also choose they if I wish for my pronoun that would be indicated on the paper I would use to aid in the presentation of male in the outside world if I said I used a chest binder that I wore men's briefs you would indicate that on the form I would be allowed to purchase male underwear off of commissary we don't provide underwear to the male inmates we do provide underwear to female inmates so cisgender females and transgender females can get underwear from the department because we provide them males cisgender males do not get underwear the department doesn't provide to them therefore we will not provide undergarments to transgender males but they could order it from commissary if we have a transgender female that's requesting makeup because cisgender females can order makeup off of commissary transgender females can order makeup off of commissary a chest plate would also be something that a person can request if they come in with it they keep it same thing with a prosthetic penis our directive actually says that if someone comes in with it it's explicit that if someone comes in with it we will do a search but the person will keep the item and then the individual can request they can state who they want to do the PAT search and we are now in the process of amending our policy to reflect strip search as well so if I came in and said I wanted to be a male and strip search by a male that would be indicated on the form that form then goes to central office where the facilities executive Al Cormier our medical the person who is currently in charge of our medical which is Max Titus who was here last week I think and then myself I'm only in an advisory role they make the decisions and I advise on what's best practice and they would make a recommendation to the commissioner so up for those that know we did have a transgender female at one of our male institutions and the staff believed that she would actually have a much better experience at Chittenden had a conversation with her she agreed she said that she would like to move if she could we staffed it she went to Chittenden she was PAT searched and strip searched by female officers and she lived in the unit and so again when we're talking about someone who's transgender we're talking about someone who is I'm not going to scroll all the way through but sex male identifies female and she was housed at Chittenden and that is what our process would be for anyone that requests it but the individual has to ask for it we might initiate a conversation or let them know it's an option if we think someone would benefit from it the way hormones used to be is our old medical contractor like a bunch ago did not provide hormones they believed it was elective so there was a transgender male at Dale that's how long ago this was wow don't say the 90s you're making me older because I started there it opened in 2000 so the medical contractor wouldn't give him his hormones that he had been on for a long time the department actually said give him and he sued anyone and what the judge said is if an individual is coming into a correctional facility you must maintain what they're on but they can't add it well we have since ignored that in a good way not the bad way in our medical contractor if somebody requests hormones and it makes medical sense they'll be put on hormones regardless of whether they were on it or not that's our current medical practice and we actually are most recent as we have an individual that is requesting gender reassignment surgery I don't know if that has formally come through but I would expect that's going to be coming through shortly and frankly we should expect that it's going to come through and other states have in Massachusetts granted and paid for gender reassignment surgery over a decade ago for an inmate so this is the new expectation I will say the same so when we first started doing this work our superintendents were very concerned especially those at the male facilities because what they said is we are going to have men who are separated from women who are now going to identify as transgender so they can get pat searched by women and I said I double dug Daria, let's see how it goes and here's why I say that I have made it very clear how men remain safe in a correctional facility is their masculinity so when they identify as transgender they are opening themselves up to victimization persecution judgment ridicule so it's not just as simple as saying I'm transgender and guess what we've never had more than 20 inmates at one time that have identified as transgender and to my knowledge at this point we have only had two who have chosen accommodations because they were attempting to get something and those were addressed it is not the epidemic because it's so much different from men to identify that way and we don't have we chitin at one point had four transgender males and it was before this procedure was even in place matter of fact in our first audit with our first federal PREA audit the auditor actually wrote in the audit report which you guys might have it reflects she was really impressed with the work that we did because chitin is a staff and so you've got a lot of I'll say new age thinking or more updated thinking and so our staff this is not an issue since you are the house institutions committee the one thing I will say is when we're talking about gender care and custody we can't forget about staff and we know that we have hired staff that are intersex and that are transgender and we don't decide our personnel and there is no state regulation around what to do and the reason why is because in most jobs we say it's gender neutral well in our job it isn't we have policies that mandate certain things for men and certain things for women and here's the thing to consider if you are an inmate and you have to get searched who should search you because if I walked in to get hired by the department of corrections and my example is before and I presented as this and said my name is John through DMV I can change my gender on my license with no other documentation so I change my license to say I'm male but I look like this it is fair to say that if I went to do a strip search of a man then he might have a problem with that and who wins I don't have the answer to that question I'm bringing it up as something for folks to consider and think about I will say that the question has been asked to the PREA resource center because the federal PREA standards have as you know because it's been discussed rules and regulations around cross gender searches and the question has been asked the word is cross gender not cross sex we can assume someone's gender we don't know we can assume their sex we don't know their sex I don't know what physical anatomy someone has so if again I tell you I'm male I present female male is my gender so then I would not be performing pat searches or strip searches on women so if I went to the women's facility and I said I don't feel like doing strip searches or pat searches I could choose to identify as male and they would call me John and I don't have to do pat or strip searches technically we have not had anyone do this so I don't want to cause alarm or say that I'm concerned this is coming it's possible right now and so that is something to keep in mind when we're talking about this very material that we have to keep in mind about staff and one of the things that I did share is I was training this at the academy we had a break and I had I will go back so in case anyone this definition of intersex and I had a participant approach me and they I would put them in their mid 20s and they said I think that's me and I said what do you mean? cause I really had no idea what they were talking about and they said I think that's me I think I'm intersex and the look on their face was this look of like relief and like a light bulb dawned and I said oh really now in my head and my heart I'm devastated and I'm devastated because no one should learn their gender status their sex status from somebody training at a correctional academy that's terrible I mean that is terrible and I said okay that's great and they started saying things like you know I've been on hormone treatment I don't do this I don't do that this is different and now I think I understand why and I said well we work with the pride center out of Burlington would it be helpful for you to have a conversation with someone who is an expert in this cause that's not me and they said yeah I think that that would be great and I said okay so I did say that I'll let the academy director James Rice know so that I can get any information and they were like yeah that's fine so I reached out to the pride center and I told them what had happened and they said absolutely here's our point person gave that number to the academy they got it to the participant they called they came up to me at graduation to tell me thank you so much I spoke with them they had gotten all this information there you go did you have I'm looking at the time 10 more minutes so I don't know how quickly you can answer this if you can't that's fine take it off so I want to swing back the employees a little bit and I would like you to go back to that ID card you just showed on the screen so the an inmate comes in they have to fill out their legal name and if they then they can fill out their preferred name and so and I take this from a little bit of personal experience so I somebody comes in and they want to identify as a female so their preferred name is Jane however their legal name is John so the correction officer knows this because he sees this forms so and maybe that person that wants to be identified is not really transitioned yet to more female status so the our employee calls the inmate John and what happens is there any I can't imagine a disciplinary thing coming along but there could be I suppose I mean what happens I experience this personally many years, not many years ago 15 years ago or so and I have a friend of 30 years transition and to this day occasionally I will call her by his inmate and we also have a laugh about it when it happens but not out of any malice but just out of habit I guess I can't answer that one so staff are trained that if you make a mistake you acknowledge the mistake so if you identify the inmate so if it's Kelly and she's going by the name John then I if I said Kelly and I would say sorry John it's that simple we also tell staff that for staff that are concerned that they're going to get it wrong or make a mistake and a lot of staff do this anyway they use last names so her last name is Chamberlain so I would refer to her as Chamberlain that's not wrong the same thing would go as if I use the wrong pronoun if I said she and I meant to say he I would acknowledge the mistake now so it would be it's a low level but let's say that John came forward and issued a complaint we pull the staff person in and we've had it happen the staff person says yep totally did it was a mistake we remind them you know the accommodation you know yes I do okay now if two things one it's only John that that staff member does it with hmm we now got a look at that and or if the person does it continually then it's the difference between performance and misconduct right negligence versus mistake and that's how we would handle that if we had a person that was only doing it with John or doing it continually it would become a misconduct issue or so would that rise to the level of sexual misconduct it would be discrimination and potentially harassment that's what we would be investigating it as because it would it would fit under harassment in sexual harassment because it's discrimination keep pointing at John because transgender is a protected class again if the offender came forward and said this happens let's say it was one report the very first report but he does this all the time he snarky when he says it or she snarky when she says it or she laughed when she said it or said you're not a real woman or you're not a real man oh it's been elevated that's not going to get the benefit of the doubt we're now looking at it we can get that inmate to inmate oh absolute when we have if you get a more inmate to inmate can you do staff to inmate to you we do and when that has occurred it's been because we will have some inmates that will identify and then they will modify their identification I can tell you there's a transgender male that's Bennett Chittenden that has changed their gender four times and so what happens is the staff get the staff the staff get worried because they're afraid they're going to get it wrong because they don't remember what the new one is and the inmates will say things like you can't make up your mind why do I have to and then the officer has to address that what I want to say is I don't want you guys to go down the path of that a person would do that because they're messing with the system because remember the folks that we have have experienced such levels of trauma that and your gender identity is very much connected to that sense of self which has been disrupted and what we will see for folks that have experienced sexual trauma it can impact their identity and so you can have at times folks that will identify male and then identify female when they've been trauma triggered because they are reverting or regressing and we actually have in here what do I do be aware of them use the right ones use the right words get your information from staff the words make it acceptable or unacceptable so and that it's confidential in the sense that it should be on a need to know basis so obviously we have to tell each other but you're not chatting about it at the water cooler and it says in there that if you make a mistake somewhere oh yeah plan ignorant is not a pass so if you're not reading your emails or checking your clipboard then you're being negligent you are expected to know admit what you don't know and accept the fact that you may sometimes say the wrong thing be human that's what we trained today so another one of your documents is talking about person rape we have said many times when you receive a sentence to be incarcerated it's not a sentence to be raped can we sum up that article or what occurs within five minutes the point of that article and you'll get it from the content itself is to understand that we view rape and sexual assault differently with males than we do with females specifically that article is about inmates not staff so I want to be clear we're talking about male inmates this notion that real men don't get raped and that those that engage in sexual activity in a correctional facility are gay the numbers don't lie the majority of sexual incidents that occur in a correctional facility are with males who identify as heterosexual not homosexual those who are likely to be victimized are more likely to be young, effeminate LGBTQI or the perception of LGBTQI sex offenders because of the pecking order they're seen to be the worst so it's fine that they get victimized and we are not talking about folks who are looking for love we are talking about the same thing you see on the streets these are folks who want something and they will take what they want we know in male correctional facilities there's a phenomenon called protective partnering and I'll do this really quickly Phil do you mind if I use you only an example alone so I'm the youngest smallest Phil's the tallest, Kelly's the next tallest he's the kingpin in the unit, she's second they don't they are on terms where it is they know not to mess with each other so what happens is Phil makes it clear because I came in I was new I didn't know any better he offered me something and I took it and now I can't pay it back so Phil has made it clear that he's going to get it back and he's going to get it back through sex so I now know I'm going to be sexually assaulted by him in swoops Kelly now Kelly's no dummy she doesn't really care about me but she knows how the system works so what she says is I'll take care of Phil for you you're going to take care of me now here's what I know Phil does not have my best interest at heart and it's going to be violent Kelly at least appears to be giving me some choice so what happens is I pick Kelly because it involves less trauma keeping in mind that both are awful but I pick Kelly she takes care of Phil keeps him off my back and it looks like we're in a consenting relationship that is protective partnering that is what we see at male institutions where does opioids come into that believe it or not or contraband drugs actually have a greater impact on the women from what I've seen in the data of sexual abuse and misconduct in the correctional setting and it's because the women want the drugs and they will do anything to get it and we have women in that facility that will exploit them and so it's not going to be necessarily sex but it'll be making out, it'll be property and it's all they are a slave to that addiction we're in a male facility it's more about power it's power and control who's the alpha male and you will see every educational video and I'm happy to send you a New York's video because the Moss Group actually worked with New York Department of Corrections to design their video and it's awesome and the correctional officers watch both the male video and the female video in Vermont before they go through the PREA unit and it's inmates saying things like this is what you don't know kindness is offering someone something you just offered me fruit because you were eating it and you were like would you like a piece of fruit that was very nice in a correctional facility it's not nice I am offering you fruit so that I can now charge you interest and get more back from you it is not kindness and so you will see these inmates in this video saying do not take anything from anyone you will see they'll say you come in your cell and your laundry because you know your laundry positions your laundry's in your cell and on top of it is a Snickers bar don't you eat that Snickers bar you carry that Snickers bar out into the day room you say thank you very much I'm all set and you put it down you are young you're small you're in a jail you're terrified you walk in you see a Snickers bar and you say oh thank god I'm gonna be okay it's 100% the opposite that is what we see and it looks like courting then it goes violent with the women it looks like courting and it will stay as courting and it's this perception of love and there's a relationship until it ends and it's an abrupt ending it's not violent with the men it's violent the old notion of don't drop the soap the soap comes later because what it is is I now owe you something and you're gonna take it in the shower but the soap is just that catchphrase that people use that's what that article is about and you have to understand I mean we literally have had not correctional officers in my personal life that have said if you eliminate prison rape you are eliminating the greatest deterrent for men to stop committing crimes that's literally what I've had men say to me the fear of getting raped is what stops them from committing crimes if we were to eliminate prison rape what reason do men have to not go to jail that's men telling me and if that's real that's terrifying that is a societal statement right there I believe to some extent that's real one thing I do want to say about that is and I know Director Simon said this in earlier testimony Vermont's some of the safest facilities in the country I mean our auditor was telling us about how another institution that she did an audit at where they had passed and she was hired to go in and re-audit them because there was a belief that if they had passed this facility was not doing headcount and they were not doing headcount because the inmates just moved around whenever they wanted to and the reason they were doing headcount is they couldn't account for inmates and it's because they were kidnapping one another and forcing them to live under their beds to use as sex slaves and this is not ten years ago this is within the last couple of years that that's happening we have never had that in our facilities that does not mean we have not had males or females that have been victimized because we have um did I make it? yeah you made it we're close we just have to be downstairs in six minutes oh it's all downstairs for me