 So welcome, Heather, again. Thank you. So we're on this mission of working with Heather and Jen. Is it Jen or is it Jen? I don't know. Jen. In terms of Priya and doing a deep dive, and we have cleared the benches here. They've always been packed. But we've been working with Heather and Jen to do a broad overview of Priya, which we've done. And then we're getting into the individual topics within Priya. We did the auditing process two days ago. And today we're doing the reporting and investigating situations and allegations. And next week, we're going to get into some other topics as well within Priya. And Phil may have been in contact with you or not. But you sent us that list. And we're working right on that list in the order that you've sent it to us. OK, so she was. So we're scheduling one next week over a few days. A few days? Not a row. Down time. And also, we're going to be tied up over the next week. The budget address and the governor and some work on the floor. So if you could, you and John could just connect with Phil after we finish up this morning. And so we'll try that. So if you're welcome, it feels good to be, we can breathe. Elbow room called Daniel Boone. Yeah. Daniel Boone. So another welcome. And why don't we just introduce ourselves inside the room here. And John doesn't have to do anything. So can you just introduce yourself? Morning, Jens Brafke, Prison Rights Elimination Act director for the department. Jenny? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we're just introducing ourselves. I know. What name are you going to use today? Virginia Redford. That's in Redford, Kosolty. And they work with the network against domestic and sexual violence. I'm Steve Howard, a Vermont State Employees Association. Thank you. OK. My name is Heather Simons. I'm the director of training and professional development for the Department of Corrections. Thank you for having me. Good to see you again. Me and John anywhere. You can't miss me if I don't go away for a while, right? So what we have been doing is trying to sequence the topics in order that make practical sense but also allow for the committee questions, which have been very thoughtful and have assisted us in figuring out which way to go. In other words, we probably, frankly, I probably want to start it without it. But having done that is a good idea, I think, in hindsight, to go to the end and then go forwards from there. This PREA standards and focus that you see up on the screen is quite literally a cheat sheet, which Jen put, she didn't put it together for us, but she had access to it. And based on the questions the committee has had, this might be useful for folks because it's quite a bit shorter. What it does is it outlines the exact number and the standards of the topic that you're looking at. And as you see, it begins with investigations. I'm not going to go through this whole thing line by line for you. It's very reader-friendly. What I would like to do is pick up where we left off on Tuesday with regards to the major topics that have to do with the standards. And that is that the Elimination Act is there to address prevention, detection, investigation, and accountability. We've had a lot of discussion with regards to the importance of prevention and referred to things like inmate education and staff training and how we need to understand really the spirit of what all this is about. And that's a key component of prevention. And additionally, where I left off was how our staff are being trained in terms of seeing and identifying behavior, measuring behavior, intervening, and using what we call the behavior continuum. The behavior continuum is part of our advanced communication techniques. We deliver it at the Academy for new recruits and recertify in it annually for facility staff. And how that's connected to reporting and investigating is it's one of the first steps in competency-based skills that assist our staff in identifying concerning behavior. So not everything is sexual behavior. Not everything is dangerous behavior. But we can say that when we see things that are out of the norm, quote unquote, out of the norm in a facility, we need to identify it. And it goes into a concerning box. So before you go any further, if you go back up to the top, you've got investigations. And then you've got 115.71, 115.71. Are those the number of your directives that indicate these specific items? No. What does that? These numbers refer to the numbers and the standards that Eric reviewed on the first day. So those are the federal. Right. And we get to legal implications. You're going to see all the relevant directives related to that next step. And I don't remember where that legal implications was. Maybe three or four down on the list. I can't. So that will be next week. Probably. For your directors. Because for DOC, the PREA standards that are set on the federal level with the prison rate elimination act, we carry that out on the state level. And DOC does that through their internal directives. And that would be for staff. That would be for inmates that have issues. It lays out what the process is. It's not done through administrative rules. Elkhorn. It is done within the Department of Corrections for their directives. The directives do have a public process to them. Correct. But it's more decisions are made and decided more internally than having ALCAR or having to abide by legislative intent of a state statute. Yes. Thank you for clarifying. Directors are designed to essentially guide the staff person. And in most cases, if you are in the weeds in your everyday duties, you're pretty much going to know what directives you're essentially going to have memorized. And then if there are areas outside of what your everyday duties are, then you have access to those directives. There is a PREA directive. There's an investigations directive. There are searches directives. You're going to find that with regards to the topics underneath under the Prison Rate Elimination Act, pretty much every directive in some way or another, we could link back to best practices or safe and secure practices. We're not going to bring every directive in here. Promise. Well, the detection component of the PREA standards has to do with what are we training our staff to look for? What are they seeing? And how do we collect more information? The detection piece is very important because of the nuances of being a resident in a confined environment. It may behavior is different. And circumstances are different. When I first started doing this work well over a decade ago, maybe 15 years, I attended American University, Washington College of Law Certification for Staff Sexual Misconduct. And at that time, they had developed what was called the Daily Dozen, which was a self-checklist for staff who needed to start training ourselves and what to look for in terms of our personal experiences in a facility, as well as red flags and warning signs, which I'll show you. No, I won't show you those. No problem. They won't show us. I will send them to you. And I have a very healthy memory of them, so it won't get in the way of the learning. The Daily Dozen was 12. Basically, what do I ask myself when I go into a facility and I'm working there and signs that I need to pay attention to in terms of me becoming vulnerable to making bad decisions or making mistakes? The red flags and warning signs was a list that was about, it was maybe about 30 subjects long at the time. And that was to train staff and administrators and what we need to look for in staff who may not be seeing that they're getting in the weeds somehow, becoming vulnerable, or making mistakes. And the design of this entire competency was around basically boundaries and undue familiarity because of the conditions of working in a facility and because you're doing a lot of time there. And I'm not talking about folks serving a sentence. Over time, we become accustomed because we're humans to wanting to build relationships. So if you're in a unit day after day, it may be that you're beginning to build a rapport with an offender. And there are a lot of different ways to describe behavior and the dynamics of building a rapport. And it can be, quite frankly, a slippery slope between gaining cooperation, establishing a professional rapport, and crossing boundaries where, although nothing dangerous has happened, it could lead to something dangerous. So we start using words like grooming, for example. We know when we look backwards on staff sexual misconduct cases, and I'm speaking generally, although Vermont has not been immune to these kinds of situations, we know that there is a difference, not always, but in most cases with female staff and male inmates. It's going to look a little like the woman falls in love. And in the opposite case with the female inmates and male staff, it's going to look a little more predatory. And again, I'm generalizing, but I want to give you a profile of the cases and the things that we've learned along the way. Also, I can't say this enough. We have kind of a public image that this is always a male correctional officer and a female inmate. It's just not shown. The numbers do not reflect that. I say it because it's hard to kind of break that thinking habit, but also because I have a very deep respect for our workforce and the department. And I want to make sure that I put on the record regularly that in most cases, we have dedicated, committed, trained officers and case workers and administrative staff doing what they need to do. There are times, though, where this isn't the case and the security rest attached to this kind of behavior can run very deep in a facility and also can start in a way that are really quite subtle if we don't look for it. In terms of these red flags and warning signs, it could look like things like someone who normally doesn't volunteer for overtime is volunteering for overtime all the time. It can show up in things like the way that we use language. So if I was working in a male facility, I might refer to my guy. He's my guy. I know he hasn't been feeling well. It could be as subtle as that that I'm not referring to all the other men in the unit that way, but one in particular might be my guy. Could be a change in routine. Am I volunteering to work sections of the facility that I wouldn't normally want to work? And does that mean that every time these kinds of things happen that there's something up? Absolutely not. But it is they are subtle enough in some ways and concerning enough in other ways that it's an invitation to ask the question what might be happening. So let me interrupt you there. If that was occurring within a male or female facility, male or female directions, who would notice that? And where would that person go to relay that information? Is that a whole concern or a sentence? What's the purpose? That's a great question. So for example, when I say someone's volunteering to help out on a different duty than they usually do, that's a strength-based positive thing to do. And so it's not really suspicious. And we need to connect it with other things that might be happening. And we don't want to jump the gun because that's not fair either. It's really we need to support a workforce that is, as you know, often very new and not very seasoned. And so there needs to be some latitude for learning and coaching and mentoring. We have a ways to go there and we understand that. So I know I'm not totally answering your question, but once it hits the level, and this is subjective of concerning, I think, you know. But where does it hit that level? Is it at the case supervisor level? Is it the superintendent level? Is it at other correctional officers that are there on that same unit? Is it coming from the inmates? Say, wait a minute here. I mean, where is that? Those warning signals. Where is that being sent to? Who is sending it? Where is it being sent to? OK, let me go back. I think this might help. Let me go backwards from there. Let's take a look at example like Dan Amora. There are others, but that is one that's just very glaring, and we all know, and it was close to home. What we know about these cases that really go south, and that is about as south as a case can go, what we tend to find out is many more people knew that something was up, but didn't say anything. And it's not always that people don't say anything because they're not willing to be cooperative or because they're dishonest, but we tend to work in isolated situations. So if there's a personnel investigation going on, we may not know all the other pieces. So if I go to work and I see Jen Spraki, and now she's wearing jewelry and she didn't used to wear jewelry, or maybe she has one earring, and now she's wearing eye shadow and makeup, and she didn't used to wear makeup, I'm not going to automatically think that she's having a sexual relationship with an inmate. But it is one of many warning signs that when you piece together, they get pieced together. Sometimes in hindsight, you're like, oh, right. She was dressing to come in to see somebody. This does not mean that I have to be very careful when I deliver this content and training because I don't want to cause unnecessary panic. So it gets pieces together with other things that might lead us to believe that something, a question should be asked, not necessarily that something is going on. Again, if we look at something like Dan and Laura, what we see is that it wasn't just a couple of people that knew something was happening. It was her name, Joyce Mitchell, right? So Joyce Mitchell did an interview with Matt Lauer. And this isn't all the reports, but Matt Lauer is the fastest way to look at it. He was doing an interview with her, and he was basically asking her what happened. And her words were, I was known for being really nice. I guess I was just too nice. And in a corrections environment, too nice is dangerous. Too nice pretty much implies that you were crossing boundaries and giving things that you shouldn't be giving. And it starts with small things like cookies and brownies and shampoo. And then maybe it's a cigarette. And then maybe it's a cell phone. And then maybe it's seven hacksaws, which I believe she brought in. So it is progressive. And it's this level of grooming that is the dynamic and profile of staff sexual misconduct. So who did the grooming? Was it the Gretchen officer in that case that did the grooming? Or was it the inmate that was grooming the Gretchen officer? Well, that's where it gets very interesting. So the male inmate was doing the grooming of the female staff person. And quite frankly, she was not convicted of staff sexual exploitation. She was convicted of, I don't remember the exact charges, but it was her behavior in terms of assisting with the escape. The public does not always see women as the offender, though in fact she is the staff person and responsible. But the perception was that she was the victim of their manipulation. And manipulation is a word that we don't train to. We don't train to manipulation in Vermont. And when our recruits use the word, I was manipulated or if we hear in training anyone saying women are manipulative, we don't endorse it as a training word. Unless, of course, our staff are willing to say, when you say she manipulated you, you are saying to us that you were outsmarted. And that does not fly with our staff. And it wouldn't fly with me. But the idea over time in terms of the last 15 years of this work is that we had to undo the thinking with regards to what particularly women offenders were able to get away with. She was too sexual. She was flirting with me. She lured me. That's not the case. And with an imbalance of power, we always have the power. So if we've been manipulated, and we go backwards from manipulation, what we see is someone who was compromised or made a legit mistake but wasn't willing to admit it. Those are the two areas that we have to train to in terms of our competency skills. If you are following the rules, if you are doing your job, you are not being manipulated. If you've made a mistake, and you know you've made a mistake, and it's turned into something more, which often happens. So I didn't do my checks properly, and I lie about them in the log, for example. It would have been easier if I just said I didn't meet my check. Because in the case of Dana Moore, I believe there were something like 400 searches that did not happen that could have caught those holes that were being put in the wall. So in terms of staff sexual misconduct, those tentacles, again, they go everywhere. Because once you start crossing the line in terms of boundary violations, other people have to get on it because someone's got to see something at some point. This is part of the detection piece. There's nothing to report until there's something to report, which is why it's so important that we all work together to look for the things that might give us a tip that something's happening. And again, it's equally important that we're vigilant about this because of the perception that our population doesn't tell the truth. We have to work even harder, and we've been fighting that perception for some time. Because you're incarcerated, then you automatically are not believable. So collecting evidence on these, or preserving evidence on these cases is even trickier, which is why we need to train to those competency skills around making observations, watching behavior, and noticing things that might not normally happen. So when I refer to the behavior continuum the other day, where I would say someone who's usually really chatty isn't talking anymore, we need to ask what's happening. Does that necessarily lead to a sexualized behavior? No, but we need to ask and find out what it is. I'm still going back to that question when we were getting into that area here that's a little too dicey. But in a correctional facility, there appears to be something other staff is detecting something is going on with either one of their colleagues, with an inmate or an inmate with one of their colleagues. What is the responsibility of that college, of those staff members that are seeing this of their colleague? What's their responsibility? Where did they go? Do they go anywhere? Or does it stay within that little confine of the officers that are staffing that unit or in that facility? In the ideal world, what would be the process and in reality, what is the process? You see what I'm saying? The ideal world is that, again, we're cultivating a corrections culture where people are talking and asking questions and not afraid to ask questions or show that maybe they don't know what to do and that we also are in a coaching and mentoring culture where we're really keeping our eye on new folks, for example, and make sure that they get the information that they need when we see something that maybe there's so much to learn. They come out of the academy and they have so much on their mind that they have to do and the pace of the facility can be really fast. But the obligation is once you see something, then you say something. You just gotta know what it is. We don't always know what it is. Just because someone's- But who would they say it to? If there's something, I'm sorry if I'm missing your question. If they're seeing something between one of their colleagues, an officer, and then they're going on. And another correctional officer on staff who they're seeing something. Where does that correctional officer- The supervisor. To the case, to the supervisor of the facility. But not limited to, right? So let's say it is your supervisor. You can go- Yeah, let's do one another. You can go above your supervisor. There's no rule that says you can't talk to another colleague and say, I'm seeing this. This is concerning, what should I do? But the it, I think, is where I was getting jammed up. If the it is, I see Jen hanging around, inmate, Jones's cell all the time whispering. I should be reporting that when we are training that that should be reported. We don't have to know anything else other than that. What's intimidating is that when we don't know what we see, this is the reality. This is very, this is daunting for new staff. I don't wanna be the guy who goes and reports Jen every time she has a conversation. This is why we have expanded this content to include all the warning signs that we have picked, we have learned and collected over the years in terms of behaviors that might be worthy of a question. Am I getting closer? There was a report done to the supervisor. From a correctional officer about conservative behavior of another correctional officer who was an inmate. That could be sexualized, but not sure. It's just the warning signs for that. What does that supervisor then do? Well, this is where the variables can go a lot. I mean, depending on what's actually happening and what the story is. So it's completely benign. It'll probably be verbal feedback from the supervisor to the staff person. I see, yeah. Not the one who reported it, but the one that was behaving, exhibiting some of the different behavior. Yeah, so Jen's hanging around that cell all the time and I'm just a supervisor. It's quite likely that I'm gonna say, why are you talking to inmate Jones twice a day? What are you whispering about? I might just ask, what's happening? That's what should happen in an ideal world. Just ask what's going on and I'm gonna find out what's going on or I'm gonna be lied to or they needed medical attention or the person who said that Jen was talking to him all the time misunderstood what they saw. So that's what I mean, Mike. It could go in many different directions. It doesn't necessarily mean, when an officer is showing that they care, it doesn't necessarily mean they're up to something. That's why this is extremely particular work around making sure that if we're in the right direction, we're in a trust environment where we can flush that stuff out without panicking. So let's carry that the next step. So the supervisor, I'm not gonna say ship supervisor. Sure. Then reported to the supervisor and the supervisor has a conversation with the officer that's exhibiting behavior and the supervisor really feels that there's something valid there. What's the next step? Where does that supervisor then go? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know because I don't dare speculate. Not because, it depends, you know. Again, that is what I'm talking about. One conversation between an officer. No, but I'm saying it's beyond that one conversation. I mean, there's other things that really looks like there is something. The boundaries are really getting much there's something there. The supervisor really realizes there's something there. Yeah. Where does that then go? In a formal sense, officially, I can't say, but I have eyes on this situation, right? So now I'm watching more closely. Would they go to you, the PREA folks, or would they go to the superintendent? No, because that's not a PREA case yet. It's two people having a conversation. What makes it become a PREA case? Well, okay. Trying to figure out which. Here's one example. A case worker was seen having a lot of meetings with an inmate. And in and of itself, just seemed like a lot of why so many meetings, which caused pause and folks are advised up the chain. Case worker so-and-so meets a lot with inmate so-and-so. I'll look into it. It's looked into when we find out that inmate had needed some extra time and was having trouble at home. Again, that's still benign. Later on, these meetings continue, but now there's like flip chart paper or paper up over the office window where you can't see, you can't see in. Still, there's nothing to prove, but this is suspicious and concerning so it gets addressed again. And feedback is you cannot be covering a window. Take the paper down. So from a performance perspective, I can't tell you exactly, because now we're getting into things like evaluations, but generally speaking, we would be upping the ante in terms of the seriousness of this, but still, this does not mean that there's a sexual relationship happening. It could be one of many things. We just know that it's not right, it's not professional and we need to look into it. The meetings continue and now there are two different inmates that are now meeting in this office regularly, not just one. And that's concerning. There's some over-sharing in a group that's observed by another staff person simultaneously during the same time. That's concerning and that gets reported. We're hovering now in a place where we need to look into something and an investigation and a conversation has to happen. From there, what is discovered that there are drawings in the desk of the case worker that the inmates have been, one in particular had been drawing of her and they were very personal. Further inquiry, we find out that she is working on weekends to quote unquote catch up on her case work. Then further inquiry, we find out that he had been writing letters to her children and he was convicted of sex offenses against children. It's not just one thing. And so I can't really answer your question. It could be that there are maybe three meetings instead of one with a case worker that inmates are some legitimate problems that need to be discussed and that does happen but in this particular case, it was eyes on and in that case, there was a relationship between the case worker and the inmates and it was very concerning. We've had cases with clinicians and with nurses and I'm going back a ways but this is a little easier to spot but an inmate might be visiting the same nurse more often. Did I do that? No, it goes off. It's not scrolling, it's going to go off. You broke it. Thank you. I don't feel good all the time so I'm going to see nurse so and so. This wasn't, if this is harder, that's a legitimate, if you don't feel good then you go to medical and you're seen and so there's nothing really to spot there in that particular case. There was never really anything until she didn't show up for work and she didn't show up for work for a couple of days so they did a welfare check and this is after he maxed out and he raped her over four times on the way to Springfield Mass where he left her for dead. They found her because she didn't go to work but she had been what she said was in love and continued that relationship after he maxed out. There wasn't really anything to say, see or pick up on that we saw that was on the books after this. He asked for regular visits to see the nurse. So it's boundary violation. Sometimes they happen and we don't see them but they're just small signs that we have to look after. There wasn't anything to report in that particular case. I have a question. I do. So Heather, you were talking about an instance of somebody covering in a piece of paper and a piece of paper, so who can report who can report that they see something that doesn't look right? Anyone. Anyone. Could be an M.A., could be an officer, could be an M.A. So I want to think a little bit about the officer culture so I walk by and I see this piece of paper over there and I go do anything because I know a person that's in there. So it's just like that, it's okay. The next person walks by and does the same thing and then these two people get together and say, I have to forget about this. It's a locker room stuff. It's a locker room stuff, yeah. So if you're a supervisor, whether it be a CO2 or a chef supervisor or a superintendent, it doesn't know about it. How does it move forward when those things begin to happen if it becomes a network and that is not doing what it's supposed to do when you talk about culture and when I came back in there. So that is, I mean that's at the heart of this, right? It's creating the culture. If the superintendent doesn't know, that's concerning. And again, to go back, in the ideal world, we're all operating off the same page and you walk by a door that has paper up on the window, you just open the door. You know that's not right, take it down. That's the idea that it doesn't go on. When it does go on and we look backwards after these incidents, what we see is always pretty much what we call a sexualized work environment in these big cases. And there's been some very big ones in this country where at the end of the day, there were always boundary violations. There was always undue familiarity and there was almost always sex. They found the same thing with the Mississippi Commissioner Chris Epps who is now serving 20 years. And it's for kickbacks and violations on private contracts with MCI. But again, once they really dug into this, they saw the same kind of thing, which is a culture where it seems like everybody knows isn't doing anything. What happens is sometimes people are reporting, but once you report behavior that's misconduct, you're not allowed to know what happens next. Our personnel process is set up in that way. So it may well be being investigated, but you wouldn't know that. It could be that 10 people are reporting it and the 10 people don't know that each other has reported it. It could be that no one's reported and everyone thought someone else did. These are the dynamics that can happen, which is why it's important to get it a lot earlier. The training has to do with the things that we need to watch each other and we also need to watch the residents. Residents in terms of change in behavior, change in requests, it could be anything with the residents, it could be not sleeping. Refusing to shower, that's a very important sign. If you're not going, if you're too afraid to go to the shower, we should have our eyes on that. Historically, we would just think you're not clean and you don't smell good and that's annoying and we might direct you, order you to the shower and I'm going back a long ways. But these are things that we would want, we want to pay attention to in a much more compassionate way than we did 25 years ago, for example. Sure, but you say we, but not all we's are the same. I put the colloquial expression as the old boys network, how do you break that? It doesn't matter if I'm at any employees or whatever, even if it means, how do you work to break that up in this thing if something happens and you can't track it back because nobody's, how do you change that? Well, if I really had the magic pill, I'd be popular, right? Yeah. What we understand through National Institute of Corrections and through doing all these case studies with incidents is that we can't do one thing at a time. It must come from the top, a zero-tolerance policy and a message from leadership that this is who we are now. And I know I continue to refer to a sexualized work environment, but that's key. And what that means is that it may not be sexual assault that's happening in the unit, but if you are making sexual jokes, if you're being inappropriate, if you're saying things that are unprofessional and demeaning to each other as staff, the population hears you and you have now disabled their faith in you. They hear you that this is okay behavior. So that is, we're very serious about tackling that. If that's not addressed, there's nothing for them to model after. So sharing information, we shouldn't be sharing information with the population. And that happens sometimes and that happens because we get tripped up. If you're working 16 hours and seeing the same people over and over again, you may not notice that someone just asked me when my birthday is or if I had a good weekend. And that's the beginning of the slippery slope. So I'm going to go through that because there may not be a miniature. How, if I'm a superintendent or a supervisor, and I see something that's, somebody says something and you're right. And I see something not demeaning what they're supposed to do as they tell you or people should realize it. And I think, boy, if I get this person, they have to have six days off or whatever. But yeah, we don't have anybody to fill the spot while we're gone. Folks are already working 10, 12, $14 shifts. Does that lack of personnel have a, could that lack of person have anything to do with the decision making that's being done human nature, I don't know. But could, we're properly sad if you have less into this, this type of. That's a very intimidating question. I don't know what you can answer. That sounds familiar, that is. We didn't text anyone. Sorry, I mean. I have no knowledge of anyone ever saying to me in my career, I let so and so slide because I don't have enough staff. The second part of the question was, if we had enough staff, would we have less of these cases? Quite possibly, because we have enough staff, which means more eyes on, more relief in terms of overtime and all the things that come with having more staffing. And of course, staffing is a major part of the PREA push, which is you need to have a lot of people paying attention to this, close enough. Promise I'm not trying to. I think I knew it was an unanswerable question. Do you know the answer to the answer? Yeah, I kind of knew that too. We have a couple more questions. Felicia, is there, so anybody can report? Mm-hmm. Who was able to start investigation? And who specifically in the facility starts the investigation? A superintendent would request an investigation. So it has to go all the way past shift supervisor up to the superintendent to start an investigation. Yeah. So if nothing ever gets past a shift supervisor, no investigations are started. Well, I think so there's, can you say more about what kind of incident you're talking about? I'm speaking generally. If an inmate came to me as a CO and said, hey, there's been X concerning behavior, I don't think it's right. What's the X concerning behavior? Because that's kind of a term. Between another inmate and a CO. Doing. Being too friendly. Just, hey, I see concerning behavior. Let's say it's just that big. Okay, that's a very good question. So, because inmates may not want to get themselves in trouble with the rest of the population. Everybody's always concerned about low back. Yeah. If a CO only has, hey, from an inmate, hey, inmate X and COX have been doing some concerning stuff, you should look into it. And that's it, that's all you got. Well, you're supposed to report that. So you go to your shift supervisor and you say, hey, I don't know how credible it is. I don't know what's going on. I don't have a lot of information. But inmate X told me that this is happening. And they kind of go, well, there's nothing to go on. Have a nice day. Thank you. That doesn't start an investigation. Because that doesn't go up to the superintendent. The shift supervisor has the judgment to say, there's not enough there to work with. We can't really do anything with that. Thank you for letting me know. Is that kind of an accurate, playing how something could happen? Are you still asking me a question? Yeah, it's to be crystal clear. I think that a lot of our cultural inside the facility issues about reporting and we're not finding out about things until way after the fact. We're not finding out that, or we're not able to prevent things because we're not looking into them until they've reached a certain point. I think comes solely because it has to escalate to a level through staff and through behavior. It has to escalate to a level in which the superintendent is involved and has to call for investigation. And I think there's a lot in that minutia that's gonna get lost traveling up. And that that could be a contributing factor. The fact that we go back and say, everybody is supposed to report. We're always supposed to be looking for this behavior. And the fact of the matter is, when somebody might come and say, this is concerning or this behavior is upsetting, it's not going anywhere. And it's not because of the investigation, it's all because there was no investigation. There's, so what you're saying, it didn't get a level of triggering an investigation. There's all the reporting of, it was really gray areas. So then the supervisor made those decisions. Never got up to a higher level, whatever that higher level is, to do a formal investigation. So that it stays within that swamp. Yeah, soup. And I hear what you wanna say. That and going to butch's point of how do you kind of break up Old Boys Club, that kind of culture that we're talking about, those complaints that get lost in that quiet minor. How are we addressing that besides saying everybody's supposed to report something? Cause quite clearly it's obvious that we're in a situation where that has failed us. And I think we seriously have to ask, who's starting investigations? At what point is PREA involved in staff's behavioral reviews? And who's able to stop or disregard a complaint? Cause if we can't answer those three questions and convey that to our inmates and convey that to our COs, we are not doing a single thing to actually change the behavior that's happening. And I think that is incredibly frustrating for me personally. I'd love to hear if there's anything that you can share with me about if any of those are something that we can address. Because I think you mentioned before that PREA is not involved in staff reviews, performance reviews. If you have a caseworker that's got paper up on their door to use your example, and that's reported and they just say, hey, you know, that's not the rules, don't do that. That's a staffing issue. That's not involving two people complaint going up issue. So maybe we can kind of structure this to really focus in. You've got people who are papers on the door agree with that. Then things escalate. Are there incident reports that if it's a higher level or lower level? I think actually putting paper up on an office door probably is an incident, right? It would be, it definitely would be performance, right? But are there formal incident reports that are submitted to the supervisor or the superintendent? Yes. And from other correctional officers or whomever? Yes. So that is a formal process within DOC? For incidents, yes. For incidents, and what would those incidents be? Like an altercation between inmates or? All kinds. Yeah, all kinds. So it's really broad. But in terms of a growing behavior, are there incident reports or not? No. Should there be? I am trying to say this in a way I can't do it. I'm just gonna speak the way I can, which is I don't want, it would be very hard for me to work for a department of corrections where I was gonna be reported for having two conversations instead of one that day. What I'm talking about is behavior that when you put them all together might be indicating that something else is going on. And we have to give some latitude. Because remember, we're not talking about the majority of our staff. The majority of our staff, respectfully, are professional and kind and compassionate. They're skilled and thorough. They are trained and skilled in writing and report writing and tracking. And they are very good at rapid assessment in terms of putting together inmate behavior quickly and watching it long term. So in these cases, that these are not the majority of the cases. I don't want to go to a place where we start writing people up for having an extra meeting or spending extra time. But there may be, I mean, I'm not in the whole personnel world. There may be some cases where there are other things happening at the same time. That's not uncommon. So there might be some performing stuff in other areas. And I know I'm not totally getting where you were going, but in the end, there wasn't really, was there a specific question or something for us to know? I think there is a serious lack of transparency and accountability in lower staff. And that is why there is a disregard for complaints or concerns. And that's why we're not getting the reporting. And it's fine to say after the fact, all of these behaviors from handing out a cookie to handing out a hacksaw led up to this. But if we can't identify those in real time inside our facilities, we're protecting no one. Not our staff, not our inmates. I'm not sure I'm doing right by my workforce and addressing that. I think that they are probably absolutely a lot more proficient than maybe I'm describing because I'm wanting to give you the profile of the cases where it's not working. But I hear you. And I be completely clear. I live in a district and I live in a county that supplies the majority of the workforce for one of our facilities. And I hear the frustration and I see their apathy in which they share their stories of things that should have been investigated in other words. Are you talking about the staff? I'm talking about staff right now. And you see their apathy? Yes. They can say, I can report this 10 times a day and it will never go anywhere. So why would I? I've heard some of those similar things. And that's what I'm trying to get at is we are doing a disservice because our COs, the people who are there 18 hours a day working overtime nonstop are trying to help. They are trying to make our prisons a better place. And it is all for naught because it doesn't go anywhere. There's no transparency. There's no accountability for them to know that something is being done. And the fact that they see nothing leads to a culture where nobody says anything. And that's what we're dealing with. That's what we're stuck in right now. That's where our public perception is. That's why we can't recruit people. That's why this is a really tough job. It's not because our staff are incompetent because it is the opposite. They give everything to this job and I hear so many of them come back and say, it's chew them up and it spit them out. So we're trying to really work from getting an in-depth knowledge where we've been with Korea and within our facilities and understanding those reporting mechanisms and the chain of command and the response. I hear back home myself as well with things reported and then they don't hear anything back. They don't feel that people have their back. A lot of correctional officers don't feel that the supervisors or the superintendent's have their back. And that's a real culture issue that we should brought up but also brought up. And I think this whole situation that has occurred through that article in seven days has really brought to light a real focus on what is DOCO about and what is the culture. And that's what we're going, that's the work we're gonna be doing this session. It's gonna be way beyond a sexualized work environment. And that's why it's important to know the chain of command and that's why the questions have been asked. And I understand that you have a question of an inmate, I do something different. What can I help you with? That's part of a correctional officer's job. But there is a boundary there and there are some of them going over their boundaries. And then when that occurs, what's the chain of command? So that is the broad scope of what Richard's going to do. I'm gonna move on to another question from little to me, little. I'll fall back to my easy question. And anyway, how much of this do you think has to do with the facility in that take CRCF for example? How isolated are the corrections officers during the day? But in terms of do they interact enough that they would be able to spot this kind of behavior in each other? Or is a correction officer said, okay, you're doing this unit, you're covering this unit for six hours, see you in six hours. And just then in terms of how the corrections officers interact, how does that work in the facility? I think it's both. It can be very isolating and there are opportunities to see things and to talk to each other. And I don't think that Chittenden is more isolating than any of the other facilities. And by isolating, I mean you may be a few hours in a unit before you get a break. But there are several other opportunities that you would see staff in the staff lounge or you're in meetings or you go to trainings and there's roll call and there's passing each other in the hallway. That doesn't take away the challenges of your time in a unit. And that, again, to speak to the culture and to all of your comments with regards to the sentiment that it feels like nothing's ever happening. I appreciate you representative for reframing the question a few times. And thank you, Chair Ammons, for saying it as well. That is a reality that we don't know. If I report something, I'm not necessarily gonna know. That's also very isolating. If I report something up the chain, I might not know what the outcome is. It's none of my business, particularly if it's personnel. I'm not gonna know the outcome. The only, quite frankly, our staff have told us for years, sometimes they don't know what the outcome is until that person doesn't come back to work again. That's not, it's not helpful. It's the reality of the personnel process. It does add to the isolation. And also, I mean, we're all pretty much the same in this area, and that when we don't know what's happening, we kind of make up the worst, right? And that is something that we have to work on as well. In addition, the accountability at the top, which is I think what you were referring to in terms of accountability, we hear this in training pretty regularly that it's hard to know whether you, you know, we need to have a healthier loop in terms of feedback. It's hard to know when you're doing a good job. And that's attached to competency-based skills because that feedback loop needs to be happening regularly. And that helps with asking questions. Is that getting to your isolation a little bit? I think that was more the first part that when you were actually talking about the facility, or my question, and the rotation of corrections officers, whether they're on for six hours alone or whether they're two hours, and then, or maybe there's more than one. I don't know how many are actually overseeing this. Sometimes I think it is only one person for four. Yeah, yes. And that's across the board. And that's an issue with the workforce is getting enough breaks. And I think that's clearly we would hear from the staff and Director Howard's in here from VSEA. We've heard that from VSEA as well, is that there's the nature of the work inside of a facility is getting in the way of retention efforts. And if you're waiting on a float to get a break, that can be very uncomfortable just being able to use the restroom. And we've got to get better at that. So I want to get back to the same behavior for other, I'm going to do it with the work staff because I think that's more what this relates to. So there's one could be a caseworker or could be another correction officer. There's obvious behaviors that that was sense of submitting that are red flags. Would that then be a case or a situation that you would find on incident reports? Or if we don't have a structure for incident reports and said something should start putting in place? I think we'd have to talk more about each specific behavior that we're describing. So I wouldn't necessarily say that any of the things that I have mentioned is an incident. If that makes sense. I think we need to be more, if you said, okay, male corrections officer is getting together with a female inmate, specifically out of sight of cameras and out of sight of anyone else, and a person sees that. Is that, does that trigger a higher level? That is an incident report. Yeah, if you're not supposed to be, that's very obvious. You're not supposed to be there. So is there an incident report that is submitted in that kind of situation? So I'm gonna look over to Jen, but I think she's gonna nod that you are gonna report that and then be asked to write an incident report. So just for clarification, when staff use the phrase incident report that is directly connected to our vendor management system, which is our database for tracking inmate behavior. So when someone says incident report, that's generally what we're speaking to. It's inmate behavior, not staff behavior. So would a staff person write a report? Absolutely. But would they write the report about their colleague or about the inmate? They would write a report about the colleague, they would write a report stating that they saw officer so-and-so off camera with inmate so-and-so, and they would give that to their supervisor. And then what does the supervisor do with that? According to our policies that would go directly to the superintendent. So where does the superintendent investigate it? That's where the investigation would then start. Do you agree, superintendent? So again, when we use the word investigation, are we doing something preliminarily to find out if there's indeed something going on here? Is this gonna lead us to a criminal investigation? Are we finding out more? Is this going over to personnel? Is it AHSIU? So there are different kinds of investigations. And who determines which investigation it goes to? Superintendent is gonna have a lot of communicating with the facilities exec over. This is what I have so far. The facilities exec, alchormier, up the chain, central office, up the chain. So there's a decision made. Investigation. That isn't pursued through the Department of Human Resources, it's not pursued in a criminal arena. There's been a decision made, either through the facility executive, the superintendent. Does that decision then get related to the offending officer? Yes, if there was indeed something happening that shouldn't have been happening. They would circle back with that office. It would be feedback. And I don't know what kind of feedback. There's so many things that can influence it. It could be a discussion. I'm just trying to see what the chain is and then how it moves back to resolve the situation. Do the officers who filed the complaint or filed an investigation, are they made aware of the actions that were taken? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Should they be? I don't know, because there's so many variables in this. Remember, I started by talking about things to pay attention to. Not everything that we pay attention to is an incident, or is worthy of an investigation. Maybe it's a mistake that requires a conversation. So if the question is, should there always be a loopback? Yes, I think so. I think we need to stay out of this vast gray area and deal with something which is an important. This is not a gray area that we were talking about. Yeah, that's what I mean. We need to talk about this specific incident that I described. Right. In that specific case. Being some place that you shouldn't be. Yeah, off-camera with a female inmate corrections officer. That goes to the superintendent. If the superintendent and the executive decide that something should happen and investigation should be done. And I'm not sure what this does. The person who reported it know that anything has happened, that the superintendent contacted the executive or not. Is there any report back directly to that one who reported the incident of the officer and the inmate? Not necessarily. It's a personnel case. So if I report another personnel behavior, I don't necessarily know what the outcome's gonna be. Okay. There's nothing in directives or nothing in policy that says that person has to be informed. If they ask, if they say, did anything happen to that report that I put in? They asked the superintendent or the shift supervisor, do they usually get an answer? Or is there a policy that says, we're not supposed to tell you where, what's the term? There's an investigation going on. I can't say anything. Since you reported it. The idea is that as the employee, I have the right to have my privacy protected while people look into this. Right, but in this specific case that we're describing, is there something that says that employee, the person who reported it, should not be told what's happened or can they be told what has happened if they ask? No, they don't have the right to know anything. I'm gonna look at C. Is that correct? Is that part of the union? Is that part of the contract? Or is that part of? It's personnel policy. It's personnel policy with the whole state. So it's just DOC. Yeah, and again, I'm not trying to like dodge the question. It's just that we're- No, I understand how complicated it is, but we're trying to just understand the specific series of steps in a specific incident. So- And I think you've answered that. I mean, the person doesn't have to be told. That's fine. That's the answer to the question. So here's the thing. They may find out when they don't come back to work, or if they are arrested. Yeah, yeah. Or if they resign. But in fact, they don't have to be told. There's nothing in policy that's, and matter of fact, there's policy that says they shouldn't be told. Yeah, and if I can just appeal to the committee in terms of how difficult this is, that's heart-wrenching part of this work. Often you are not seeing someone that you like that you're friends with, or perhaps didn't do anything wrong who's not coming back to work. I don't take this lightly. This is a gut-wrenching portion of the job that you may not see somebody. And maybe you trusted them, maybe you went fishing with them, or shopping with them, and you were tight, and now they're not there, and they didn't, you literally don't know whether they have done something that they shouldn't have or not, and you won't know until it's over, which is why we hear from the BSEA very regularly that these investigations that go on forever are debilitating emotionally, and I agree they are. It can be mind-numbing. And then of course, the person who reports it's likely gonna be a witness, so now you're a witness, and that's not easy either. This, you sign up to do a job, and the job is, people will tell you when they go to the academy. We ask them, why do you wanna do this work? Because I believe people can change, because I care about my state, because I'm interested in criminal justice and criminal justice reform, because I like working with people, all those answers. It isn't until you are sitting in the mud of that that you say to yourself, I did not know I was gonna be a witness and a personnel investigation three times a year, or that I might be falsely accused of something so embarrassing I can't, it's unspeakable, or that I've made a mistake, that I've been afraid that I'm gonna betray my friends. All of these are very human, very painful parts of this work, that when you put them all in one group, make up our culture, which is why it's so hard. And it's very hard to hear that we're not holding anyone accountable. But I understand why people, the public, or committee members, or anyone else might think that we don't, because if it looks like that, and we know how powerful perception is, if it looks like that, it's real. Perception is real. And that feeling of nothing ever happens is not new, that is not new to me, and it's not the first time I've heard it, and I've heard it my entire career, and I have personally felt it and professionally experienced it. But if you don't know, you don't know. Yeah, that's what we're working on, we don't know. That's why we're asking questions, we are to kind of help. It's understandable. So Carl, Linda, and Marcia. I just wanna follow this thread a little bit more, I've got a couple more questions. So there's a CO in main control, and while they're unlocking doors and monitoring the, they're looking at the video monitors, they just happened, incidentally, to notice a CO and a inmate go off camera. That would be a reportable, yeah. That would be a reportable incident, okay. What, so they've gotta report that to the shift supervisor. What would prevent the shift supervisor, is that a written report or is it, how does that, what does that look like? Well, again, off camera, meaning, I'm assuming what you mean is they're going some place together, they shouldn't be. So it is equally likely that someone's gonna say, where are you going? That's a possibility. Okay. Additionally, they may go to the shift supervisor and they can go up the chain and get assistance with whatever it is that they're doing. There are lots of ways to not be in the right place and that what you're describing sounds like it might be a little more obvious. So it might, the intervention might be more imminent, that more imminent. But let's say the shift supervisor was busy at that time and the person in central control is busy too. They've got a zillion different things to do. They're busy unlocking doors, they can't, for whatever reason. They relate to the shift supervisor 15 minutes later, half an hour later. What prevents, let's just say the shift supervisor goes and investigates it, but what would prevent the shift supervisor from not doing anything or burying it or not responding? Nothing would prevent her. What I mean by that is that I cannot get in everyone's head. Right, no, yeah, no. I just wanted to ask, just wanted to, if the CO in control made a report, I guess that I'm just getting at that piece of the, well, we don't know that anything was ever done. Well, let's reframe and say, obviously we can't control everyone's behavior all the time and we can't list every single thing that someone should report in terms of concerning behavior because we would never finish the list. But the bottom line is this, this is a prison and everyone is inside and the doors are locked. So what would prevent a supervisor from not saying anything is that it's dangerous not to and that it's dangerous for everyone in there if nothing is said. So there is a collective goal that when you see something inside a prison that is concerning and that is concerning, I can't think of a reason why we wouldn't do something about it because it puts potentially everybody in danger, which is really at the heart of why we manage all these not just behaviors, but we have the guidance documents attached to the director so folks know what to do when they see something. I guess I'm just trying to get it and I know you're answering these questions and these questions might be.