SmartTranscript of House Judiciary - 2025-01-21- 1:00 PM

[Chair ]: This year? Maybe this Tuesday afternoon, the twenty first of January. And, following up on our couple days of, education and oversight of juvenile justice, we're gonna be focusing specifically on the raise the age initiative, that the next step of raise the age is to go into effect on April first, raising the age from nineteen. And we definitely wanna explore that issue for that deadline as well. And we're gonna start with, Tucker Jones, assistant general counsel, Department of Public Safety, which you're about to say and repeat to me because, identifying yourself for the record and proceed. Okay then. [Tucker Jones ]: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tucker Jones, and I am the assistant general counsel at the Vermont Department of Public Safety. Yeah. An official happy New Year to you all, and welcome to the new members to this committee. And thank you for taking the time today to hear from me on the topic of raise the age specifically. There are other aspects of juvenile justice that I know will come up this session, but I think today we're really focused on this question of the April first, deadline for the expansion of delinquency jurisdiction to include nineteen year olds. So in my mind, you know, this topic is whether you're gonna land the plane at that airport, to include nineteen year olds on April four first or whether you're gonna divert to another airport. And you are all the pilots in that plane, and you have to make that decision. Now this has been the plan. You've kind of filed the flight briefing to land this plane at this airport several years ago, and you've delayed this flight because of the weather a few times. And now it's coming up, and you're making that go, no go decision of whether to take this flight. Mhmm. So I you know, as I mentioned, I'm assistant general counsel in the Department of Public Safety. I used to handle, as a deputy state's attorney, a juvenile matters in Addison County, before this, a few years ago. So I used to handle the Chin's docket, which was wonderful work, but as relevant here, I handled the delinquency and mutual offender pieces at that time. So I had that background when this question was posed to me earlier this fall of what to do, what to advise, really, the commissioner on, this flight plan that you all have and what my recommendation is to her regarding whether you should take off or not, whether you should land at destination airport or not, or whether you should divert to another airport. And so as a pilot, the number one thing you do, the first thing you do is to get the weather reports at the destination airport regarding the conditions on the ground there. It's the most important thing for a pilot to do when they're planning a flight and they're gonna take off. So this past fall, I just started to kind of do my own leg work to gather the weather reports for the commissioner so I could advise her well, because I had my own weather reports from my personal experience, but it had been a few years. And you really need the most up to date weather reports at this nation airport so you can make an informed decision. You know, the first thing I did was to call some former colleagues who still do this work. You know, I had one that's been doing juvenile work for twenty years in Vermont, so they're kind of the first person I reach out to to say, hey. Help me out here. I gotta kind of say something intelligent to, my boss about this. How are how are things going on the ground? What do you think about, you know, April first? Now anecdotes, you know, shouldn't carry the day when you're making important decisions, but it was the starting place of gathering what the issues, some of the WV states' attorneys are seeing on the ground, today, and that was helpful. There was kind of a out of that hour long conversation, I got a laundry list of some of the perceived problems that they're running into with the delinquent youth, and there's kind of a variety of issues there. But I won't get into the anecdotes that she provided me because I don't think it's really helpful to make your decision. I I sometimes those anecdotes are helpful when they give you that unfiltered initial reaction of what, you know, what they just say without reflection. And I I don't know. I just feel like because I got that initial quick reaction, to me, it was a kind of a helpful starting point. But I said, what do you think of this April April first deadline? And she said, it's gonna double all the problems I have now with eighteen year olds. And then we spend an hour unpacking what that meant. I think as we go, you know, late maybe even later in the week talking about some of the other weeds of juvenile justice, we can flush out some of those specific issues that seem to be prevalent in the system now. But in terms of the weather reports, I really went and got three. The first one was, one you actually some of you may recall from last year, which was what are the DCF workers saying who are tasked with being probation officers for some of these youth? And some of those DCF workers testified, they're also union representatives last year, in the senate judiciary, which picked this up originally, but then also in your committee when, that bill came around. It was all really kind of mostly done, you know, in the senate, but then you had your hands on it too. Though there I I think there were three union representatives. They testified on February sixteenth of twenty twenty four in the senate judiciary, and then April twenty fifth of twenty twenty four here in this room. And last year, DPS did not I I don't think we testified on any of this, but we watched it all because it, you know, it it kind of impacts us, all of this. But we weren't really involved in it directly. But, nonetheless, I I watched all this, and I took some notes. These are the salient excerpts, from my notes from this weather report. Rick so so now I'm gonna kinda give you the these notes. This is the this is the weather report I got from from this April twenty fifth and February sixteenth, testimony. Raise the age would be detrimental to our work. In my opinion, it would not be possible to manage it under current workload. Our system is failing. If we don't press pause, we will do more harm than good in our community. We are stretched beyond the breaking point. Youth are significantly more dangerous today. The impact of drugs and weapons have been devastating. Resources for substance use are just not there. If implemented now, it will create more harm. The house is already on fire. Kids we are seeing are different with higher needs now. We do not have a system in place to address these youth needs. We are not ready to do raise the age. So that was February sixteenth and April twenty fifth twenty twenty four. Those were the the excerpts from my notes from some of that testimony. Since that time, you know, joint justice, I know, had some hearings over the summer, and the Department of State, Saturities, and Sheriffs provided written feedback in September of twenty twenty four. So now, you know, the April, that was a while ago now. Now we're getting more up to date September. And those are kinda posted in joint justice. I think they're gonna be testifying separately. I I looked through those, again, to try to get now a little bit more up to date weather report for the commissioner of what the conditions are on the ground at the destination airport. These are the salient excerpts that I pulled from that kind of joint justice, written written submission. Our DCF office is losing workers consistently. They have not done the legislative work necessary to make this a reality. Raise the age creates barriers and delays for circumstances which do not comfortably fit in family court due to safety or severity. Raise the Age burdens overworked participants in the process with more hoops to jump through. It benefits it benefits no one as youthful offender status is already available. DCF is not ready for raise the age. It can't manage the current juveniles and youthful offenders on probation. The court does not have the proper resources and laws to compel eighteen to nineteen year old delinquents to engage in the process. I recognize that DCF is understaffed, overworked, and constantly triaging their cases, but this does not serve our community. This is a statute that only benefits young offenders and does not similarly protect young victims. Which report was that from again? [Chair ]: Could do you have a date on that one? No. There was a few. This is [Tucker Jones ]: Department of States and Attorneys and Sheriffs comments submitted to joint legislative justice oversight on September eighteenth twenty twenty four concerning grades the age. [Chair ]: I think I think we have that on our, website. I think it was put on last week under, by Kim McManus, the document from which that came, I believe, just that one. Alright. Go ahead. So those are [Tucker Jones ]: the two weather reports I got, you know, from conditions in the ground. It's not looking great from that feedback, obviously. So, you know, it's nice to have at least three pieces of information, though, to to kind of expand the world view here to just get a sense of the rest of the reality, kind of a bigger picture. So, you know, one of my questions is, well, how is the literature looking on this? Because the original, like one of the original goals here was that we would be reducing recidivism for for young folks. And so, you know, one of the things we talk about is their goal is to improve this would actually improve public safety. And, you know, to be more specific, I think we can say one of the theorized benefits of Raise the Age is to reduce recidivism for for these young folks. And there is obviously a theoretical body of re you know, research there that was the in large part, the impetus, for for this originally. And, you know, in the meantime, I I just wanted to get a sense, you know, what's some of the literature out there. My understanding is there hasn't been a study on implementation in Vermont on kind of how it's going. Right? Like, how are the youth doing? Where is the data on the outcomes of the youth youth since we've implemented this? It's a kind of an important piece of the, you know, puzzle to take into account, and it didn't seem like there was a really kind of thorough analysis there. But in those conversations, someone sent me at least a twenty twenty two study from Massachusetts by a professor of criminology at UPenn named Charles Loeffler. [Speaker 2 ]: And [Tucker Jones ]: I wanna share with you some of the excerpts from the discussion of that study. I sent the copy of that study to Nate to post, and I actually also printed off copies for everyone. So I can you know, I'm done. I'll I'll just hand those around, and I think I sent you a copy as well. Again, this is Massachusetts, but it's twenty twenty two, and it's you know, they implemented it for seventeen year olds. And I'm kind of curious of how it's going there because we really want to see whether those theorized benefits are coming to, you know, fruition. So here are the excerpts that I pulled from the discussion section of the study in Massachusetts. In spite of this large and expanding policy footprint, relatively few raise the age implementations have been rigorously evaluated, and scholars continue to debate what the long term impacts of raise the age will be. Contrary to expectations in this study that I'm quoting from, Raise the Age did not lead to reductions in recidivism for affected seventeen year olds. Instead, recidivism for this group actually increased by between four percent and five percent over the five years that followed the implementation of Raise the Age. [Chair ]: Can you repeat that for me? [Ken ]: Just wanna make sure I got [Tucker Jones ]: Contrary to expectations, Raise the Age did not lead to reductions in recidivism for affected seventeen year olds. Instead, recidivism for this group actually increased by between four percent and five percent over the five years that followed the implementation of Raise the Age. Further analysis also revealed a considerable amount of treatment effect heterogeneity. Seventeen year olds without prior justice involvement were found to have a seven percent increase in their risk of recidivism over the five years that followed the implementation of Raise the Age. For this reason, we recommend taking a cautious approach to future expansions of Raise the Age until evidence of projected benefits can be confirmed. The results of the present investigation suggest that any pending or future implementations of Raise the Age must grapple with the expanding evidence base that Raise the Age policies, while well intentioned, have produced limited evidence of programmatic benefits to affected populations and growing evidence of iatrogenic harms in the form of increased future justice involvement. Growing evidence of iatrogenic harms in the form of increased future justice involvement. I had to look up the word iatrogenic. [Karen ]: I shouldn't [Tucker Jones ]: have admitted that, but I know. [Chair ]: So we don't have to? [Speaker 5 ]: We have to. [Chair ]: We have to. We have to. We have to. We have to. We have to. [Tucker Jones ]: We intended. Unintended harms. [Chair ]: We'll say unintended. Yeah. [Ken ]: I'm a long way around the thing. [Speaker 2 ]: I'm not [Tucker Jones ]: did I mention? So I I reached out to the author of the study and spoke with him for an hour last week. And I'm well try to characterize the kind of thoughtful and nuanced, you know, perspective that academics have on these things. But nonetheless, I saw that, and I thought, well, this kind of you know, this is of interest to us because many people in this space come in and say, well, this is gonna improve public safety, so therefore, commissioner Morrison should support it. And I have to, you know, respond with we should take a more nuanced view of it. We should be kind of probably more specific that the goal is a there's a theorized benefit of reducing recidivism. The research appears to be mixed at best, and there's some actual indication that specifically for youth without prior justice involvement, which were really so some of the ones that we were targeting the most, we're we're having these adverse outcomes, at least in other jurisdictions, which, of course, you know, is not directly pertaining to what we're doing. Those are the three weather reports that I gave, you know, to the commissioner. And perhaps not surprisingly, she's not too keen on getting on this plane with you all and would like to not take this trip at all or divert to another airport, at least. That's you know, seems to follow from some of this feedback from the weather reports on the ground at the destination airport. Here's a good point to pause, I guess, so I'm happy to [Angela ]: So I'll be eager to read that article. I love looking at research. I'm wondering where you factored in the Columbia Justice Lab research that they did on supporting Raise the Age in Vermont that came out last February? [Tucker Jones ]: The what they submitted to the legislature, that's their kind of update on Raise the Age in Vermont. And the report itself. I don't know if you've looked at those. Is it, like, nine pages, something like that? [Angela ]: Yeah. I gotta look for that. [Tucker Jones ]: This is how I understood that. If we're talking about the same submission, it's kind of an update, nine, ten pages, something to that effect. This is how I understood that submission. January twenty twenty four, I believe. And then yeah. This is how I understood that submission. There seems to be consensus that we don't break quantitative data in Vermont, and kind of the best we can do quantitatively is number of number of cases. And my understanding, that report, is that they were trying to draw some conclusions based on number of cases. I didn't under you know, I don't understand that because in my view, whether it's ten cases or a hundred cases, that's not very helpful to me to understand whether we are, in fact, getting the outcomes that we're designed to get. Really, what we want to make sure happens here in the juvenile justice system is that youth are successfully rehabilitated and therefore are, you know, aren't gonna be, recidivating in the adult system once they get there. My understanding is that we have very sparse information, and my understanding is there's some consensus on this, about the outcomes in the juvenile justice system in Vermont. And I don't I didn't think it was kind of, from an academic perspective, you know, appropriate to draw conclusions from number of filings, number of, you know, discharges, what whatever the kind of limited data that we have available. Again, because if we have ten cases, that's fine, but it doesn't tell us much about what those outcomes are. Are the youth is it better for them? Why are we having increased recidivism in this system here, you know, in in in other jurisdictions? [Angela ]: So can you that's [Angela ]: a you raised a great point. Are you able to tell us what the recidivism rate is currently for nineteen year olds in the corrections system? [Tucker Jones ]: I don't know. I don't know. But if you're When I go [Angela ]: to a different airport, don't you wanna know if the destination is worse or better than where you're thinking you're going? [Tucker Jones ]: Well, the the the go no go decision really in my mind of whether you're gonna try to land the plane is, you know, what the risks are on the ground of where you're going. And in my view, you know, again, where I come from in terms of advising on weather reports is you really wanna know what the conditions are on the ground where, you know, where where you're where you're headed. [Angela ]: Do doesn't corrections have high like, the how what you were saying about DCF sounded a lot like what we've heard about DOC and the number of staff that they've been able to hire, etcetera. So I'm wondering how are we doing with nineteen year olds currently? If we're doing great, that would be a good piece of information to have. [Tucker Jones ]: Yeah. And I it might be you know, I when I think of data questions that I don't know, I always in my head, I'm thinking Robin Robin's the data guru at CRG or or maybe DOC themselves, but I don't have the, you know, recidivism numbers out of DOC myself. But I know there's, you know, folks I know Robin, you know, the she had something from twenty twenty two on the CRG website. I defer to her to explain it. I you know, because I don't, I I don't know, but it's actually on recidivism for for younger people. And so it's, again, two years old, but that she might have something profitable to say in that regard. [Chair ]: So so I I'll I'll get I'll put that on the website. I haven't looking at it right now, actually. [Tucker Jones ]: Karen and then Ken. [Angela ]: Yes. Yes. And I think I pulled it up too. I think it was shared by Judge Davenport last week. Was it the last one? [Chair ]: Maybe. Yeah. [Angela ]: So it's on from last week. So two questions. One, this is helpful to hear how the department came to the decision of not getting on the plane or not. And so two questions with that. What is the definition of recidivism that was used for this study? [Tucker Jones ]: For the Charles Loeffler study for the UPN, Massachusetts one? [Angela ]: The one that you're referencing. [Tucker Jones ]: I don't know. We'd have to look at how they kind of define it. [Angela ]: Okay. So I just bring that up because I think it's if we're gonna be comparing things, it's important to compare apples to apples to apples to oranges. And so that's one thing I think is important with it. And I'm gonna forget my other question on it, but it will come to me. I'll come back to [Chair ]: it. No. [Tucker Jones ]: It's fine. I I it's a good part. I have some more kind of thought. [Chair ]: So, Ken, first. I I was under the impression that we're actually having more problems with younger people. Instead of looking at raising the age, it's that the the brands have suffered in, it's actually going down as as much as, like, in age thirteen and stuff. My base is not what I'm getting for information. [Tucker Jones ]: You know, in in terms of the data landscape on on crime in Vermont, we do have a good sense of big picture trends year to year over time. There are some you know, again, coming back to Robin, they they themselves kinda published NIBRS data on this in response to a legislative report actually recently, and I went through some of that and looked at these overall trends with the pandemic and what we've seen kinda since twenty eighteen. And, you know, we have seen some concerning trends for general overall population number of reports of crimes in the NIBRS numbers. Specifically, you know, this but I'll just caveat it here. Those numbers, from my view of it, didn't have good age breakdowns. So I, you know, I don't know. Again, Robin might have a better sense of whether that data can be parsed in a more detailed manner. These are general trends for the overall population. Some of those general trends, though, are concerning, and it is why public safety remains kind of out there as a as a as a significant issue, and a priority, you know, for for the commissioner and for the administration. On both the violent crime end of things and the and the property crime end of things. For violent crime, you know, twenty twenty four was the third consecutive year with more than twenty homicide victims in Vermont. We don't have data that goes back far enough to tell us when we had a streak that long, for, that many homicide victims in the state. I'm I'm sure maybe someone does, but our data doesn't go back far enough. During this time frame of twenty eighteen to twenty twenty three, NIBR reports of aggravated assault increased forty percent. So we're talking from six hundreds to nine hundreds, you know, in that territory, twenty eighteen to twenty twenty three. And then in property crimes, the greatest increases we are seeing are thefts from motor vehicles, thefts of motor vehicles themselves, identity theft, which is more of a might you know, not as many reports of that overall. It's those are big ones, and shoplifting. And those numbers have all more than doubled between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty four. Those are the four that have the biggest increase. Yeah. So but, again, so these increases are of significant concern, but I don't have a good age breakdown. Now there are is testimony, some of which I I'm not sure if you received all of it, of specific issues with youth essentially telling law enforcement officers when they're being arrested, I'm eighteen. There's nothing you can do about it. And some of those anecdotes have actually piled up, and there was testimony in judiciary about that problem kind of during the heyday of the pandemic and the and the social disorder that we saw. It might be helpful to kind of bring a renewed focus to those cases so you're aware of some of the kind of adverse kind of outcomes you're seeing there where you've learned that there's no accountability and act based on that knowledge. But I don't have that presentation here of those individual cases. I believe it was the Bennington police department in senate judiciary a few years ago that presented that information. [Chair ]: So two things I seem to recall was, one, the the the COVID pandemic. And the other thing was, I believe I believe the younger were being groomed to do this at a much younger age because they knew the lack of of accountability that they'd face from how they were being trained. You know, I [Tucker Jones ]: was referencing that kind of Bennington PD testimony. Again, I don't I'm not sure if you got it here, but one of the issues that emerged from the law enforcement community during this time as in the pandemic, as the interstate drug trade was kind of at its peak there for a while, these DTOs, drug trafficking organizations, were specifically using younger people to transport the drugs north and the cash south because of this insulation. We also had [Chair ]: the sex the sex trafficking in there too, if I'm not mistaken. [Tucker Jones ]: Yeah. There were a lot of examples of past few years, and I, you know, again, don't have all of them in front of me, but it was actually one of the most adverse impacts because the whole point of this was to actually protect those youth, not to make them more readily exploitable. And so these iatrogenic effects, these unintended consequences, you know, those were some of them, certainly, that the law enforcement community was seeing during the pandemic. And therefore, with and some of these were anecdotal, individual case here and here, a few cases down in Bennington, you know, some out of Berry. Those were coming in. This is caution flags going up for the commissioner on you know, because of this, some real concern that we were seeing, some unintended consequences there. But then, again, I think it really came down to the weather reports on the ground more recently that we were giving the commissioner that really led to this concern about whether to get on this plane at all to begin with. Now that's the end of the story in terms of the department's feelings on the topic. Because when the department looks at those weather reports, there's not much room to suggest that it makes sense to fly into that airport. That's an inter you know, that's a view, interpretation of those weather reports that are available. But there's another phenomenon yeah. [Chair ]: Go ahead. Karen. [Angela ]: Why are we need some weather? I remember what my other question was. And it was so, again, appreciate the study because I don't think a lot of us are familiar with this study. And so trying to understand it is so this is specifically to Massachusetts. There's a the piece of recidivism, I'll be curious to see how it compares to what we have for data on recidivism here in Vermont. The other piece I'm wondering is if you can explain how the Massachusetts, raise the age program compares to Vermont. [Tucker Jones ]: I don't. You know, I I I'm not an expert in that, and so I don't really know. The only thing I do recall from this is that, they were actually weren't going up here into the age terror territories that we're looking at with eighteen year olds and potentially the nineteen year olds. My understanding is they were raising the age that was analyzed there. They were expanding raised the age to actually, I believe, seventeen year olds. And and I'm sure there are other distinguishing factors in all of this too. They have an entirely different system than we do. Right? And so I acknowledge that. [Angela ]: Appreciate if you're comparing, though, and saying, like, we don't want to go to that place. I think it's important to understand how the other destination, you know, creates their weather reports, what systems they how was it measured. And so if you're gonna make that judgment, I'm not gonna go to that area. Again, it's comparing apples to apples. So I just wanna make sure we're doing that piece. [Tucker Jones ]: Absolutely. And, you know, I I agree. And, you know, I I love some of these academics because they're so they speak in with such nuance and caveats. Right? Where it's gonna be an hour long conversation saying, well, it it was so nuanced and caveated. And, of course, it is. This is just one study. There's certainly more. There's some of them are discussed, the other the landscape of the literature. But, you know, it's just one. It's kind of out there. What what did strike me, though, with the Department of State's Attorney's kind of written comments there was the consistency that they had with DCF social workers' feedback. And that consistency over time for two different departments experiencing separate aspects of the system was a flag in my mind as to some level of reliability there. And in a way let me put it this way. When I spoke with Charles Loeffler last week, he's a real academic. And so I asked him. I said, what do you think? What do you what are the implications of this for Vermont? And he is a teacher, so he saw it as a teaching moment, and he turned around and said, what do you think, Tucker? And I paused there because it was just a phone call, just the two of us. There's no one else in the room. Fisher wasn't there. It was just me. I was like and he was genuinely asking. He was a really smart guy. Thoughtful, nuanced, caveata guy. And he said, what do you think? And I said, I guess, honestly, literature aside, I focus on the feedback from the people that are on the ground in Vermont, and I focus on the environment that we're in up here with the social disorder that we saw through the pandemic. And I focus on the closing of Woodside and the lack of secure facility for eighteen year olds and nineteen year olds that's currently in the state. And I said, I you know, whatever the literature says, that is more important to me as a weather report on the ground of the destination the destination airport. That's what I said to him. And I said to him, the word that comes to my mind is stabilize. Stabilize the system. Make sure we're not getting iatrogenic effects before you expand it in this environment and with this weather and where we are. [Angela ]: If you have a follow-up Yeah. One I love that you keep using the vocab word. I'm gonna start moving. I'm yeah. My piece is about different piece that you said, though, is about the consummered consequence, which, again, I really appreciate that we wanna take a look at of, youth who are then being used to commit crimes because they're saying they don't have the same consequences. So I just wanna confirm what I'm hearing is that the perspective from your is that having them go to criminal court would be the solution to that. [Tucker Jones ]: So we're talking about, you know, the airport here is whether nineteen year olds should be having their cases initiated and as delinquencies in sealed proceedings in the family division or not. So it's really just those. Or whether the existing system of youthful offender status should account for the this population under age twenty two for now. That's kind of the the big thing, and and the real thing with the delinquencies is the where they start. You know, so it starts right off the bat in the family division. Youthful offender status can start right off the bat in the family division in the discretion of the prosecutor as a direct file. But then there's also the petition process for anyone under the age of twenty two that's already in place so that they can move their case anyway. Hence, the comment from one of the dep deputy state's attorneys in that feedback. You know, I'm not sure if you caught that. It it benefit it raised the age. Raise the age benefits no one as youthful offender status is already available. That's that's what they are getting at is that for this population under age twenty two, they can ultimately get there anyway. So this big kind of push isn't necessarily, you know, there's no rush, basically, because there's a structure in place. So [Chair ]: before you go forward, just a couple quick clarifications. You know, one is, you know, you mentioned that public safety is priority of the commissioner and, the administration. Just be assured that it's a priority of this committee as well. And just a couple clarification, you mentioned the increase in the homicide and aggravated assault and a couple others as well. Those two types of offenses would start at criminal court, whatever we do here. So that that's not so much the issue. It is misdemeanors and other felonies, and and other felonies that can be transferred from juvenile court. I'm not coming out with an opinion on this one way or another right at this point. Just wanna make that sure that that's correct for itself. Not per person. Yeah. No. That's a good point. [Tucker Jones ]: Right? The big fourteen now, right, now that we have, are they excluded from presumptive filing? And earlier, I was talking about about those those bigger trends for the violent fences. One of the real persistent things in what we're dealing with the most is is the property offenses and and how to deal with that. You know, thefts from motor vehicles, in twenty eighteen, there were one thousand one hundred and fifty two reported thefts from motor vehicles. And in twenty twenty three, there were two thousand seven hundred and eighteen. Shoplifting in twenty eighteen, there's one thousand six hundred and seventy two reports of shoplifting. In twenty twenty three, there were three thousand three hundred and eighty eight. So it's those doubling of those those figures that I think have some well, your some communities are holding dedicated meetings on the topic of public safety be cut in response to some of those trends through the pandemic. Now that's the end of the story as far as DPS is concerned. The we don't you know, I don't think DPS DPS has enough weather reports at that stage to take its view and its position. But I think it's helpful to point out in your process that there's another factor at play for pilots. When pilots are planning a trip, they often are general aviation pilots are planning a trip. And as they develop this plan, pressure builds to execute the trip and to take the flight because they've said they're gonna do it. They have passengers in the plane that are traveling with them, and the passengers want to get to the destination that the pilot is traveling to. And those pressures are a phenomenon that are informally known as get there it is, getting to the destination. The formal name for it is plan continuation bias. It's a psychological phenomenon in which external pressures to get to a destination result in pilots too steeply discounting adverse weather reports at the destination airport because they have pressure on them to go. This happens frequently, and as a result, it's one of the main risk factors for controlled flight and to land for pilots, because of that pressure to take the flight from themselves and from the people that are traveling with them on the plane. The example so as a result, the FAA trains pilots about the the psychological bias, the planned continuation bias. And what it trains pilots to do is to make sure that they know that the weather reports at the destination airport are more important than all of the other pressure to land the plane there. I can see that psychological phenomenon kind of occurring here, too. There is this interest in just doing it. You have people relying on you to do it. The common scenario in which it occurs is when a pilot, general aviation pilot in a small plane, is bringing traveling somewhere to a wedding, and they're bringing guests of the wedding to the destination. And the wedding's happening, whether they go or not, and so pressure builds to execute the flight when there's not an easy alternative to get there on time. That's what happened with JFK Junior in nineteen ninety nine when he had a flight scheduled that he was gonna fly from North Caldwell, New Jersey. [Speaker 5 ]: Okay. [Chair ]: I didn't [Tucker Jones ]: know that. He was flying from North Caldwell to Martha's Vineyard, and he was flying took that flight path, involved thirty miles of open ocean. It turned into dusk. They were pushed back in time, and there was haze that night. What happens in those three conditions is that you can over open ocean, you can lose the visual horizon as a pilot. And if you're flying visual flight rules, that can disorient you, and you don't you you lose where what's up and what's down. He had the decision to make of whether to take off that night, and they were going to a wedding. And he was bringing his wife and his sister-in-law, and it was getting dark, and he didn't have much experience flying over the flying over the open ocean. And they they use that case as an example of planned continuation bias for pilots. What are the conditions of the ground at destination airport? Take that take that for what it is. Wedding guests want to get there. So so I haven't [Chair ]: I haven't had as much time at the center forklift. Right. So we have to land at this airport years from now, and it's a really important meeting that we have. It's it's actually gonna help supposedly. There may be arguments about that. Our justice system. And the airport managers are saying, well, we don't have enough people in our tower. We don't have enough people to put in the plane. We're saying, we're landing there two years. Oh, you can't do it now? Well, we'll give it another year. We're gonna land in three years. Alright. We know we're gonna give you until April when we're gonna land this. Can you please man the flight towers and the personnel to help us land this airplane? And for whatever reason, they're just not getting the personnel. So so that's, [Tucker Jones ]: I think, more of a metaphor that I'm [Chair ]: dealing with here. It's not this plain continuation. It is that we've been telling the administration for three years, if not longer, five years. Actually, it's five, six years since the two thousand nineteen plan for implementation that here are the staff we need in the airport to land the plane, and there's been a refusal in my perspective to do that. So, anyway, I agree with the weather report. That's where we are now. You know, we don't have the staff, and that is problematic despite giving us a ton. And the question is, do we find another airport to land us on? It it seems to be where I aim at least, but this is early in the process. I don't know if, like, my metaphor worked quite as well because I haven't had much time to to work it. Well, hey. [Tucker Jones ]: I really appreciate you engaging with me on my metaphor because I know I was out on a limb here a little bit doing this metaphor. But I do you know, I think I think there's some value in it. And, you know, for what it's worth, who am I? I'm Tucker Jones. We weren't invited to the wedding. But That was great. But but we're passengers on the plane. We all are, and you guys are the pilots. [Chair ]: There's there's Yeah? [Tucker Jones ]: How's that? And [Ken ]: Yeah. [Tucker Jones ]: Oops. And and, you know, I can't speak to that. I one of so I just can't speak to that. Sure. Sure. But one of the observations I'd make is I think that the supervision programs that they have in place at DFCF for fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds, I my hunch is it hasn't translated as clearly to the older population as we're as folks hoped it would. And there's a lot of really dedicated, smart people over there that have been working on those transitions. But, you know, part of this is the secure facility and whether it can actually house eighteen year olds and nineteen year olds. You know? My understanding, for example, is that Middlesex can't house eighteen and nineteen year olds as part of the the the contract. Maybe I'm wrong there, but the the temporary facility. But so that's you know, I they're try they're working I know they're working diligently to try to get this new facility off the ground, but I think it's proven more difficult. Yes. You know? So there's a lot of dedicated people who are actually trying to staff it. You know, one of the SAs here, the first line, our DCF office is losing workers consistently. This my experience with social workers is they get into this field because they care deeply about youth, and they often get into it to support this chin stocket, children in need of care and supervision. And now we're asking some of them to effectively experience probation officers for eighteen to nineteen year olds. And I think that's perhaps a greater challenge, a greater stress than, than our, you know, than we than we fully knew or acknowledge it. No. [Chair ]: I agree. And and we'll hear more from DCF as well. So and go ahead, Angela, and then on on Zach. [Zach ]: Well, I just wanted to offer that I there are obviously a lot of assumptions packed into the planned continuation planned continuation bias metaphor narrative. It serves DPS's purposes very well, but I can assure you that it's not I'm not so concerned about about getting to a wedding or getting people to the wedding as I am their their life after the wedding. So when I'm thinking about what's best for youth, that's what I'm thinking about, and that's what informs my decisions, not a plan that was made before I even got here. [Angela ]: Just wanted to offer. [Tucker Jones ]: Yeah. No. And and I appreciate that. And I, you know, I I acknowledge it's a it was a stretch of metaphor anyway, you know, and I don't insinuate, you know, bad intentions on anyone. Right? Because I know you all are trying to just do the right thing and trying to kinda figure this out and land in the right place. But you will be subjected to pressures to make it you know, to to just try try to land it. [Chair ]: That's it. [Karen ]: Tucker, first and foremost, thank you. I think this is I think the metaphor is is well taken, and, you know, I fully indulge that. You know, I think I think it brings up a lot of really important points in the context with the current political environment in the state and the challenges that we as a collective group on judiciary face and also just the broader legislature as well. So I think those points are relevant once again. To to stick with the metaphor, you know, thinking about the the infrastructure, and the climate at the destination, is it your perspective and the department's perspective that it would be reckless at this point for us to try to land this plane? [Tucker Jones ]: Well, I think you can draw your own conclusions from those weather reports of how you would characterize it. I mean, the I I looked over at the commissioner when I said, she doesn't wanna get on this plane. Right. And she nodded to that. Right? So there's there's some sense that you know, it kinda comes back to what what I said to Charles Loeffler when when he asked, you know, what do you really think here? And I I said, you don't really need the ask you to study. If we don't have that facility up in Virgins and we're dealing with digging out of the social disorder from the pandemic, why would we be doing anything other than trying to stabilize Right. The existing system? I mean, you know, sure. If you wanna use that characterization of reckless, I you know, I you heard those weather reports. Now you'll get more weather reports. You know? Maybe DCF has some has more updated language here of, you know, do they has anything changed there since, that was April twenty fifth when but strong strong words at that time and consistent words with the state's attorneys. [Chair ]: Sure. [Karen ]: So I guess maybe not even reckless, but potentially dangerous. Right? [Tucker Jones ]: Well, you know, this isn't theory. You know, you're not tasked with theory. It was theory in the beginning, of this being a good idea, the theorized benefit of reduced recidivism, for example. But you're dealing with actual behavior out in these communities. And it's hard because unless you've been in the room where an eighteen year old is spinning around in their chair and rolling their eyes at a superior court judge in a black robe. You know? And you walk out of that hearing before you've ever even met any of you, and you think the people in Montpelier could not have intended all of this. You know? That was one of the anecdotes that I had. [Karen ]: Thank you. Yeah. Alright. Thank you very much. [Chair ]: I appreciate appreciate your time and and your testimony. Did you have any other additional if you have any written additional written testimony, if you could submit it to Nate so we could get it on online as well. [Tucker Jones ]: And I put I sent Nate that study, and I maybe I'll send it may it might be helpful to send you some of the kind of floats that I was reading, though. [Karen ]: I reposted the documents from the meeting the other day, those two that were brought up. Okay. So those are in the new and out as it's full there under. Yeah. [Chair ]: Exactly. So Thank you. Don't see that we have Chris Winters, I don't think. [Angela ]: And Lindy. [Chair ]: Yeah. I was gonna ask who are standing in. So Erica and Lindy, whoever wants to go first, Deputy Commissioner Radke, thank you for being here. [Erica Radke ]: Hello. Thank you for having us again. Commissioner Winters did want me to, express his apologies for not being able to attend. He did have some emergent issues he needed to get to right away. So, for the record, I'm Erica Radke, deputy commissioner of the family services division of DCF. I really wanna thank you all for inviting us back to have an opportunity to discuss raise the age again. Last week, we sort of did more of an overview, and we were hoping to come back this time, to talk a little bit about, our our position, you know, based on the the press press conference. And also wanted to you had some specific questions that you asked of us in terms of presenting, information from the the life of a social worker and some additional caseload data. So we do have that as well. So what I'll do is just, offer some, brief opening remarks, and then I'm going to turn it over to, family services supervisor, Nikki Duran, and to adolescent services director, Lindy Boudreaux, and they'll be able to talk, more specifically about that information that you did request for us to bring back. So as you know, we did have the press conference last week, and the department's really been looking critically at raise the age at this legislation. And based on what we've learned from the rollout from this first phase, we do believe that there needs to be some reforms made to youthful offender statutes to better serve our youth and also a repeal of Raise the Age for nineteen year olds, really to ensure accountability. There have been a number of lessons we've learned over these last four years, with working with eighteen year olds. And we found that, you know, there have been some positive outcomes that are far more likely when young people are able to avail themselves of housing supports, programs, work to forge enduring connections and relationships within the community, and when they exhibit a willingness to use the treatment and services offered. But along the way, we've also learned that, there are there's a critical challenge for us when we have youth that are able to just simply reject services or refuse to engage in treatment. And therefore, they don't have we're not able to provide with this legislation as it is currently a proper motivation to help them achieve those better outcomes for their future. As a result of this accountability gap, youth really do run the risk of not discharging from probation, of recidivism, and continued negative like circumstances. And, of course, that's not, what we want for the youth that we're serving. We really do want to have a system that helps them, move into adulthood positively, life abiding, and to to do the things that they really do need to do and really want to do. In addition to this lack of accountability, there's also a challenge of resource constraints. During the course of the juvenile juris jurisdiction expansion, which really began in two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen session, DCF has been tasked to fill more need with less programming. And despite our our efforts to expand service capacity, we really just don't have the program needed to manage the existing service population. A good example of this is our limited capacity to serve individuals requiring a secure setting. The red clover treatment program can serve at most four youth under the age of eighteen at any given time. And we know that if there is a rush of youth, a number of youth coming in that have committed some type of delinquency all at one time, we can be full at at any given moment with four four kiddos and still then have a a lack of capacity. So those, issues are things that we're grappling with when we look at raise the age. But what I'd like to do now is, really drill down and let you hear from, Nikki so that you can hear from, family services supervisor, somebody that's working, with her team as well as having a caseload herself in the field to see how Raise the Age impacts those that are doing the work, out in the field. So at this point, I'm gonna turn it over to Nikki. [Nikki Duran ]: Hi, everyone. Thanks, Erica. So I have prepared something that I'm hoping to read to you all. So as Erica said, my name is Nikki Duran, and I'm a family services supervisor in the Burlington District Office. I supervised the juvenile services team and previously was a worker on this team for four years. The Burlington District Office has five identified juvenile services workers, and collectively, our team holds one hundred and eight eight cases currently, which averages about twenty five cases per worker with me as a supervisor holding three cases myself. These a hundred and eight cases are made up of at risk cases, specifically Chin c youth deemed to be beyond parental control, Chin's d youth, which are youth experiencing truancy as well as youth engaging in delinquent behaviors and youthful offenders. When the need arises, the juvenile services team also carries child protection cases. When young people are placed on juvenile probation, they are court ordered to complete juvenile probation conditions. These conditions are created to repair the harm of the incident and for the youth to engage in treatment specific to them and their identified risk areas. Workers complete a Yazi youth assessment screening instrument with youth to identify these risk areas. Successful discharge from juvenile probation is achieved when youth complete these treatment recommendations prior to their probation term expiring. Due to our team of juvenile services workers having to support multiple case types, some of which we are the legal guardians for, the over eighteen year olds often get less case management support than would be ideal due to the impossible task of workers needing to triage all of the things they are responsible for to ensure child safety. In practice, youth between the ages of eighteen to twenty two do need more than our current capacity allows. The day to day work with these young adults expands beyond just monitoring their probation conditions. Many of the youth we serve have complex needs including including support and finding safe and supportive long term housing, substance misuse treatment, mental health treatment, opportunities to increase supportive peer connections, and educational and employment opportunities to support them as they continue into adulthood. Unfortunately, our community struggles to have adequate adequate resources to support these young adults. Often, youth need to wait for identified individual counselors and due to wait lists, if a youth is not consistent in their treatment and misses a session or two, the provider will need to clues close the referral and move on to the next person on the wait list. Due to their age and oftentimes other circumstances, like some I've previously mentioned, youth eighteen to twenty two often do miss appointments and need to be re referred to services. The staff supporting these youth do their best to partner with the youth and support them in engaging in their treatment. However, ultimately, it is on the youth to engage in the services needed to successfully complete their probation. Outside of wait lists, there are also limited resources to begin with that specialize in supporting youth and treatment for specific offenses. Currently the state of Vermont does not have specific programming to target concerns for firearm violence, a resource desperately needed to address the safety issues in our community, and many times the community resources we typically access to support these youth and families decline providing services due to the risk to staff. This leaves youth who desperately need support, connection, and treatment in their same environment without the resources to make a change and reduce their risk. There are also very limited providers with training to engage young people in treatment related to harmful sexualized behavior. There are often wait list for this service for our youth which impacts their ability to get the treatment they need to successfully discharge from probation. In addition to support, these youth also need accountability. Over the last several years, there have been multiple cases in which a youth on juvenile probation have not been successful in engaging in their court order, probation conditions, and treatment. Despite workers' best efforts to engage these youth, we have at times needed to file violations of probation due to lack of engagement in their probation conditions. While filing these violations allows an opportunity for the youth and court parties to discuss why they are not able to be successful, there isn't any additional accountability filing these violations can offer in the juvenile delinquency docket. For some youth, it serves as a motivation to engage. However, others choose to weigh out their probation term without additional consequences for engaging in their probation conditions. This does a disservice to the youth, any identified victims, and the community at large as the hope of juvenile probation is to have young people engage in treatment to reduce their likelihood of causing harm in the future. The individuals who provide case management to these young people do so because they care about the youth and their community. This work includes long hours, a level of intensity that most people do not experience as we sit with youth and families in their toughest moments. This work is done with this work is done best with strong relationships and an ability to engage young people in tough conversations. Sometimes though, this is not enough to have youth be successful on juvenile probation, and there does need to be a consideration for how the system can best provide these young people with not just support, but also accountability. Thank you for your time, and I appreciate you considering my testimony. I hope this gives you better insight into the work family services workers devote to this population every day. [Karen ]: Thank you very much, [Chair ]: Nikki. And if you have written testimony, if you could submit that to, our, committee assistant, Nate, so we can put it on the line. And Angela then Karen. Oh, I I saw them as well. Same exact time. [Angela ]: So Karen then Angela. And I'm not exactly certain who this question is going to, so it might also be going to a chair to see if this is gonna be answered. But I keep getting confused as we talk about this. I appreciate the concerns about a secure facility and services that are available to address serious crime. Like, definitely, I you're not and I guess my piece is I really see this race age is focusing on the misdemeanors that it's gonna be addressing, that it's allowing nineteen to be considered. For everything else, there is a criminal a court pathway for both. Is that I'm just trying to understand that because There is. I'm hearing the serious piece, but if there were concerns that about that, then they could go the criminal court route. Where we're kinda really looking at misdemeanors is the door that's really opening. [Chair ]: No. Not just. I mean, that so felonies other than the big fourteen could be filed or would be filed in juvenile court. [Karen ]: But could you I should actually have Eric [Chair ]: answer this as the expert, but I'll try. He can correct me if I'm wrong. But those can be transferred, but but that's a motion practice that can take a a pretty significant amount of time is my understanding. Eric, anything else to add to that? I think that's generally right. Remember, direct file is also one option. Yeah. Direct file into the Family. Into family. Nope. And that's for a big fourteen. Right. But for if it's a felony, that's not a big fourteen. It goes to the family division Correct. That's right. Or a misdemeanor. [Angela ]: But there are only it's only misdemeanors that we are putting in. We're saying that there is no option for criminal court. [Tucker Jones ]: And not. No. There's still [Chair ]: I mean, the felonies as as well go there. [Angela ]: Pretty much. Could could transition out if there's a motion. Right. So the only thing that is really stuck is the misdemeanors. So there would be no option to go to criminal out of it. Yes. Correct. Okay. So that's what I I guess it it's making me want to understand data of it because I just appreciate the concerns about the security piece of it and the services for serious crime. I'm like, what does that impact versus opening the door to allow misdemeanors to go up to nineteen year olds? So, again, I don't know if you have a a response to that, but I just in hearing that, I feel like I wanted to confirm that. [Chair ]: Oh, so I'm gonna have Eric. Did did you wanna answer that? Just to just to flesh that out, it it it it does cover the the nineteen year olds who commit non fourteen big fourteen felonies. Those would start in the family. They don't now not the expected problem. So it's not just. Yeah. Just Got it. You could. But but the there's the misdemeanors can't be transferred to the criminal court, but the felonies can be? Correct. Right. So that'd be the main point. So I don't think there was a question there for you, Nikki. We but we need to Alright. Write that out here unless you wanted to comment on on the difference between dealing with, an eighteen year old, because that's what you deal with now, who has a felony as opposed to a a misdemeanor if if there's different considerations that you face. [Nikki Duran ]: We do serve youth, within the eighteen juvenile delinquency, that have significant, violent offenses. That would be the only thing that I would add is that, you know, when I look at my workers' caseload numbers, there are youth that do fit into that bucket. [Chair ]: K. Appreciate that. Paige? So I have two questions. [Zach ]: The first one is is really [Angela ]: quick and could be for [Zach ]: anyone about because you just heard from Tucker Jones that eighteen and nineteen year olds could not be served [Angela ]: at Wright Clover. Can you fact check that one? [Erica Radke ]: I believe Tyler Allen can help out with that. Tyler? [Chair ]: And if you could identify yourself for the record, Tyler. [Tyler Allen ]: Of course. Good afternoon to the committee. My name is Tyler Allen. I'm now the high end system of care director for the family services division of DCF. And so part of my responsibility is overseeing the development of our, what we're calling high end system of care programming, and Red Clover was the first of those. The Red Clover program, the contract only allows for placement up to the eighteenth birthday. So only under the age of eighteen in that program. [Zach ]: Okay. Thank you for that. And then my second question, I think it's for Nikki. Hi. Thank you for being here. I wanna understand one question that keeps coming up in my mind is, like, maybe we need to be looking at some and I don't even know if this is legislative necessarily, but, like, probation tweaks, changes to, like you know, rather than just scrapping, raise the age. But so I wonder if you can say a little bit about a youth who is not, not completing probation successfully, not completing the terms of their probation successfully, having a hard time engaging. And you've I think I heard you say that at some point, given understandable pressures on DCF employees who have a whole other have an entire caseload and may have to kind of triage things, it sounds like. That youth who may not be successful you know, successfully completing probation is kind of lost a little bit to sounds like lost a little bit to the system and may not end up will not, in many cases, end up completing their probation successfully. And then and then what? Like, I I'm trying to understand, you know, if accountability is one of the things that we're focused on, what's happening at that point when when a youth is not really engaging, not being successful, and and is sort of lost to the system? Mhmm. And correct me if that's not a fair characterization as well. [Nikki Duran ]: No. I I do think that makes sense. And I guess what I would say is is if I could think back to an example of a case where that happened, you know, workers really do try to engage a youth that is, you know, not successfully completing their completing their probation conditions. We use a lot of different types of engagement strategies, but some of the things that I can think of is saying, you know, we have to meet this month. Why don't I meet you at your therapy appointment so it's one last appointment that you have to attend? What if we call to see where you are on the wait list together during your scheduled time with us to to be able to make sure that you have some support in making that phone call and in engaging in your probation condition, which could be therapy? Let's, you know, work on your resume if if, you know, you're not able to find employment, and typically, one of our probation requirements is that a youth either be engaged in some kind of educational programming and or working to increase their, you know, pro social time working. So we really do try to meet youth and really engage them. What I'm kind of speaking to is, you know, my workers have twenty five cases around that, each, so they can't do that for every youth, even every week, just by capacity reasons, not including all of the other things that they're tasked with. When we've really tried to to do that deep engagement with youth and we're still not seeing traction and them being able to to complete their probations typically, then we do go to file a violation in probation to highlight what the concerns are for all the court parties of what the youth isn't engaging in. And then if we've tried that, you know, there is a clock ticking where we're gonna lose jurisdiction in the family division. And if a youth has not completed their probation conditions by the time that we are going to lose jurisdiction, then we do typically file an unsatisfactory discharge, acknowledging that the youth did not complete what we had what we and the court really had asked them to do within the time frame allotted, and there there just isn't anything else that we're able to to do. [Zach ]: And then what happens? Their case for that use. [Nikki Duran ]: Yeah. Their their case closes with us and it and the court case closes, and their their case is sealed. [Zach ]: That's that's what's interesting to me. Seems like a gap. And I it you just made me wonder. I I've been wondering this since last week. How involved are youth facing probation? How involved are they in co creating the terms of their probation? [Nikki Duran ]: Mhmm. Yeah. So we, you know, we do the Yazzie assessment that I mentioned very briefly in my testimony, and that really is a conversational opportunity with youth to talk through what their experience is. It covers things like mental health, substance misuse, employment, and use of free time, community and peer connections. I find it to be a really helpful tool in kind of inviting youth in to talk about what we might be expecting them to do if once they are placed on probation. They have an opportunity to speak to their attorney when DCF and the state's attorney proposed probation conditions, and then if there's things that the youth and their attorney don't agree with, they have the opportunity in court to kind of discuss those things, and then the judge ultimately makes a order of what they're asked to complete. I think that there are some youth that are in a position and have a desire to be active participants. And sometimes, you know, you get, like, I just tell me what I have to do and I'm gonna do it. And so it it does vary youth to youth, their willingness and openness and level of engagement in that process, but that's typically for a worker what we strive to do to include them. [Chair ]: Gotcha. Thank you. Yeah. I think [Speaker 2 ]: there's a question for Nikki. I guess we do first names with each other in this committee. Can we do first names for witnesses too? That. Yeah. So you identified two issues, and I just wanted to get a little clarity on them. I think I also find the the issue of the time out timing out of probation very interesting. Is that something that you have seen happen? How how frequently are you seeing that happen on the ground in Burlington? [Nikki Duran ]: Mhmm. I would say, you know, I just gathered a little bit of anecdotal data Yep. For our division in November, and there were three youth at that time that either had or were, you know, on their way to having that be the end of their case. And that's just since I've been that was within a I've been a supervisor for about a year, so those were the cases that I could think of in in our office. [Speaker 2 ]: Okay. And when you and when you see when you say, a youth who is, like, going could sort of anticipate that subduction is going, it's because they're not engaging in any of the probation conditions, and you can tell that they're they're gonna time out before there would be a cons like, that that they're gonna lose the the court's gonna lose jurisdiction. Or Right. Yeah. Okay. And then just second question, the other one of the other issues, if I understood your testimony, one of the other issues was around resources available within the community for, I'm assuming, probation conditions for juveniles to access. Are you aware and this is asking kinda outside of your scope of expertise. Are you aware if, those same agencies and, departments are also being tapped for, people in the criminal court who are trying to, basically successfully complete their conditions of probation? [Nikki Duran ]: Yeah. One of the so the two kind of things that I was speaking to specifically were treatment for sexualized offenses. The protect one of the practitioners that we use does serve adults as well. I there are more practitioners that serve over eighteen than under eighteen, in that area. And then I don't think I'm not sure if some of the if some of the other resources also serve adults, but we do, you know, connect with agencies that only serve young adult spectrum. Youth and families is one that we work with a lot for our youth, and they serve up to the age of twenty three, I believe. So still some of that, like, adult population, but young adult population. [Speaker 2 ]: Yeah. I'm just trying to understand if some of the bottleneck of resource, availability, if that would actually make any difference given the fact that, you know, if we didn't do raise the age and you had nineteen year olds going through the criminal court, if they're just accessing those same resources, but and there's still a bottleneck happening there, even though they're not on juvenile probation, they're just on normal probation, but they're going to the same place, then is that really something that this committee should how how how should we weigh that as a consideration when we're trying to decide what to do? Thank you. [Chair ]: I have a couple of questions. So, eighteen year olds, BCF can detain an eighteen year old if you had a place to be to to hold them. Is that correct? Or do you have to take custody of an eighteen year old first, and are you able to do that? [Speaker 5 ]: So I I can answer this one. So for the record, I'm Libby Boudreau. I'm the adolescent services director for family services. There is an option currently in statute related to the delinquency population where we are able to take custody of an eighteen year old for the purposes of placement only. We do not have as, Tyler mentioned, we do not have a secure facility that currently houses eighteen year olds. So, technically, the law allows for it, but we do not have a facility that will take that population as a delinquent youth. [Chair ]: Alright. Appreciate. Thank you. So just other and anybody can weigh in on this observation, which will then be, do you agree or or not? But so eighteen, nineteen year olds, you talked to Mickey, you talked a lot about the services and support that they need. Is it a better place to get those services and support from DCF than DOC? Then maybe that's a rhetorical question in my view, but if you'd wanna comment. [Speaker 5 ]: I'll I'll just speak to that again if if the committee doesn't mind. We had recently done a survey because, as you know, we have limited data about the outcomes that, we have for youth in the juvenile justice system. So we surveyed the field, to find out what is working and what's not working and where folks are feeling we're at in relation to the ability to move forward with the nineteen year olds. One of the pieces that folks highlighted as a concern was what we were just talking about, which is the limited accountability. So as Nikki mentioned, youth literally can age out as a delinquent in cuss in in the juvenile justice system. We do not have the additional layer of accountability that the useful offender cases have. So as the youth turns or hits the end age for eighteen year olds is twenty and a half or can be up until twenty and a half, jurisdiction ends. There's nothing more for the court or DCF to do at that point. The youth is done. Whereas with youthful offender cases, if there are concerns about the youth's engagement, we can seek additional interventions from the court through violation of probation. Ultimately, we could request a revocation of that status. In that case, if the revocation is granted, return to the criminal division for sentencing. So there is an additional layer of accountability for those for those, useful offender cases. When we were pulling staff, that was one of the things that a lot of staff highlighted that there seemed to be a higher level of engagement with the older youth who had youthful offender status. And they, in part, they attributed that to a strong collaboration between DCF and BOC, really being able to provide additional layer of supports to those youthful offenders that they were providing supervision to, but also a higher level of accountability because of DOC being involved. I think whether it was a perception from the use, maybe, that the Department of Corrections was was a had a harder stance or was a has a higher level of accountability to them versus DCF. We're not entirely sure, but there was more engagement with them. And for youth who are eighteen or over, who are useful offenders, we can they can actually be lodged in a DOC facility. That is a difference between the youth who are delinquent or, as we're calling them, raise the age youth. That can happen for a short period of time with judicial oversight. Just wanted to mention that. Another piece that that staff also highlighted that were concerns related to the success of the eighteen year olds in the current raise the age population is lengthy delays in the court process. So when we have a limited period of time for supervision with youth, if you wait, you know, a year upwards of a year in some circumstances to be able to get from the time of filing through the point of adjudication, that youth is sitting, and there's nothing happening with that case. Services, unless the youth jumps on board early on, for their own, you know, desire without any court expectations, they they have no treatment. There's nothing there's no services that are being provided at that point until they're adjudicated. And then at that point, then the clock starts ticking, if you will, and supervision and support start for that youth. If there's, again, if there's, any kind of delay with the wait list, you're looking at maybe another month or two before the youth can get in, that's even further delaying the process. That just cuts down the period of time that the youth has to engage in services, reduce their risk, and be successful in completing their probation conditions. But we've already talked about the fact that we have limited resources when it comes to being able to to house eighteen year olds and nineteen year olds. That's that is a limitation in our system. We do have two programs available to eighteen and nineteen year olds specifically, which is it has been outlined in our raise the age reports that we've been filing. But that's return house and the two zero eight program in Bennington. So I do have some data last week when we testified. [Chair ]: Before before you go there, Lindy, the question from, Barbara. [Angela ]: And my question may I'm not sure who best answer it. But one thing that I've been thinking about [Chair ]: is [Angela ]: if you can say how much of things not working the way you had hoped is due to not having adequate resources to implement this. So that's sort of part a to the part b. [Speaker 5 ]: One of one of the things that's hard, and I was of the folks on the screen, I was one of the only ones who was here at the time that we actually did raise the age. I've been with the department for almost thirty two years. I've been through this whole process. And at the time, I will say that a lot of this was based on speculation. We didn't know what the impact was going to be. We certainly did not predict a pandemic. I did not predict the closure of Woodside, which was our only secure facility and provided a significant portion of our system of care support for the population that are on the cusp of being charged in criminal division or being charged in family division, but our their needs are high enough where we need a higher level of support to be able to manage those cases. That's a significant gap as was indicated by Tucker when he testified earlier. So I feel like we had best intentions, but all of these external factors and the actual realization of as it's happening, press to the place where we're at right now. The other thing to that I wanna point out is that we, over the this time, ten years, have also built other components into our jurisdictional scheme that have increased the workload on DCF. Yeah. Right. Those are those are great additions. The expansion of the availability of useful offender status up to the age of twenty two. That's a large population that had a a significant boom at the year after it went into effect, but that also had a big impact on our workload. And so all of those things need to be looked at when you're looking at the impact. We've been talking about isolated populations, the number of eighteen year olds or the number of nineteen year olds. But when we're talking on the ground in the moment in the field, we need to look at all of the youth that our juvenile services staff serve. So that's one of the things that I think is another piece that we can't just look at raise the age. This has been a accumulation of many different changes over the years, which have been positive, but have left us in the position that we're in right now. And I do I do have that data if folks wanna see it. [Angela ]: So I just wanna say that in hearing the testimony, and I missed a bunch, although I'm shook up. We'll see in tech last week quite a bit. I'm very worried that we're not we're all, but there's a movement to assume that race the age isn't working when, really, the model never got a fair chance to be implemented when we didn't have a lockdown and didn't have the resources that were adequately needed to to try it. And one thing that I worry about because we've met with DCF so much over the years and, you know, what do you but but if I I know you you work at the pleasure of the governor, and if you're not allowed to ask for the resources you need, you're not allowed to ask for the resources you need. And it makes me it it just makes me worry that we're taking, not anecdotal, but, like, the experiences people are are feeling without looking dissecting the issue. And it feels like a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are so many research studies that, have been looking at this since Vermont is not the only state, and I don't wanna cherry pick one and throw the baby out. I also want to think about, is DCF the right place to be doing this? Because maybe maybe there's another maybe it's not deal free or DCF. And I just want us to sort of think about, like, would it be something that needs to be elsewhere and or make sure that the resources are there to really do the model the right way. [Chair ]: Is there a question in there or do or comment on [Angela ]: I guess, like, if you think I'm [Chair ]: yeah. I'm ready. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I mean, if you want if you have any input on that on on those thoughts. [Erica Radke ]: Sure. No. I I appreciate what you said because it's, you know, we work with young people. We wanna make sure that they have the best outcomes. And I I can hear in your voice just that intensity of making sure we're doing the right thing. And I I think that Lindy outlined a good point about our resources and how it's sort of broad based, but I don't want to also forget the fact that it's still in terms of accountability. Even with resources, there's an issue that has to be addressed, a gap there that even if we were fully resourced, we weren't we're not gonna get the outcomes that we really want. And while I'm here also, Lindy, I'm hoping you could circle back and talk a little bit about we started early talking about Red Clover and kiddos, delinquents, and who would need to be going into that program. I hope you could add a little bit of information to that as well. [Chair ]: Yeah. Go ahead. [Speaker 5 ]: Would it be myself or Tyler? Specific to what? Oh, [Erica Radke ]: in terms of, you know, the kids, they were someone was saying, well, you know, red clovers for those serious offenses. Is that really a raise the age type of issue? And I was hoping you could sort of talk about the kids that raise the age encompasses. [Speaker 5 ]: Sure. So, as as, Eric clarified, the raise the age population is not just the misdemeanor cases. Certainly, those are probably the majority number, but they also include the non we call them non big eleven, because there's three additional exceptions. Other folks have been calling it the big fourteen, but that does exclude the big eleven from the initial filing. It's not to say that those cases cannot come back to the family division as a delinquency charge. They can. They more than likely will not. However, we do see those cases come to us for youthful offender consideration and so a lot of these youth we we may be serving through the youthful offender opportunity that is afforded to any nineteen at this point, any nineteen year old any charge, sorry, for nineteen and up is qualifies to the offender consideration. I do have some data [Chair ]: on before I'm going to I'm going to hold off on that data a little bit longer. I definitely want to go over that data, but before we jump into that. Tom, I believe you got a question. [Ken ]: I did. Thank you for being here. Mine is a little resource related as well, and I was just sort of [Tucker Jones ]: thinking [Ken ]: about about my history with the family court and having get involved in it quite a bit and watching you folks work. [Chair ]: And I appreciate what you're doing. I know it's not easy. [Ken ]: What would be the impact taking or well, even now without the impact of anything, how much does your ability to be able to interact with other agencies and resources affect your ability to be efficient and and do what you need to do? Do you feel it's compromised now? Or if we take this on, it would be significantly more compromised. And I'm specifically thinking about the judiciary. The judiciary has a tight schedule. They have a backlog. We need you here tomorrow. That's the only day we can do the hearing. Now that that that's sort of a just an example, but explain to me if if the court and you have a good enough working relationship and you have the resources to be able to do what you need to do. [Erica Radke ]: I'm gonna defer to you, Lindy, on that, but I don't think it's necessarily the relationship is fine. I think it's more just the backlog itself impacts us, but I want you to provide some further detail. [Speaker 5 ]: Yeah. That that's exactly right. I would I feel like in, from the central office perspective from my working relationship right down to the district level, and if you can certainly speak to this, that, folks have a great relationship with judiciary and local court staff. If the courts asks us to appear, we appear. There there's no question about that. But I agree. I feel like the clogged dockets is really what's impacting our ability to have a really quick response to circumstances. And that is one of the key points in this work is that better outcomes, come when you have a swift response, and we're not able to do that. Over the course of the past ten years, throughout the various, legislative changes, we have offered off ramps, as we call them, to traditional prosecution. And we can't control whether or not those are afforded to you. We can do the steps related to the to the YASU, the youth assessment screening instrument. We spoke about that last week and provide recommendations to the state's attorneys about court diversion or pre charge or other opportunities, but we we don't control the outcome and so we've tried to build a system that is responsive to individualized youth youth needs based on research versus the responsibility principle, and offered opportunities to staff and to youth to meet those principles. But again, we don't make the decision. So I feel like we do have the relationship, and I don't know, Nikki, if you wanna speak to the impact of, court dockets. [Ken ]: I guess I was kind of partially aware of it as well as court dockets and how it how it affects your ability to have the time to do what you need to do even back at the office. [Nikki Duran ]: Yeah. I, you know, I think that, what I would say as it relates to raise the ages, we do see a delay, of when, a youth is charged with an offense, in the delinquency docket and when they're adjudicated, which, you know, can, also impact a youth's willingness or maybe desire to engage because, you know, in their mind, this happened a really long time ago. And for a lot of you, that really is the case. I so I do think that the time frame does impact our ability to engage youth in being responsive to what happened. And where I see where I think it works well is within the youthful offender cases. We meet with the youth much more early on where, you know, the charge is filed, and then we have a consideration hearing usually within, like, forty five days, from when the offense is charged. And I I do think that that somewhat works a little bit in our benefit when it comes to our work engaging with youth because we're able to have a little bit more of a quick response to engage them in those conversations of what they might need to do if they're adjudicated and placed on youthful offender probation that we don't have the opportunity to do in in delinquencies. [Chair ]: K. Thank you. So I have a quick question logistically for you. Are you folks able to stay on for a little bit longer? I think we need a five minute stretch break here. The room's a little warm. So we're gonna just go off live for just five minutes, and we'll be back. And then Zach has the first question when we get back. Is that alright? Thank you. Are we off?

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