Dealing with systemic racial disparities is a major theme in the Legislature this year. However, despite multiple proposals, there’s one big problem: The state doesn’t have the data it needs to figure out where inequities begin.
A new bill is trying to change that by establishing a Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics, with a related advisory panel, to find out where the racial disparities are in Vermont’s criminal justice system and how to address them.
“Not having this information leads us to making wild speculations sometimes,” said Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Robert Sand, a Vermont Law School professor and former state’s attorney, said the bill presents an “incredible opportunity” to finally understand what’s driving the racial disparities in Vermont’s criminal justice system.
“Without accurate data, we rely excessively on stories and anecdotes,” Sand said. “Stories are important, but stories alone shouldn’t drive policy.”
Lawmakers walked through the bill for the first time Wednesday morning. The legislation, H.317, would establish two distinct entities — one to collect data, and the other to analyze it.
The first group, the Bureau of Racial Justice Statistics, would primarily collect data and synthesize it. The second group, an advisory panel, would oversee the bureau’s work, develop policy proposals based on the data and report its findings to the Legislature each year.
The bureau would collect a huge amount of data in both the criminal and juvenile justice systems — demographic data on all involved in the court system (victims, perpetrators, lawyers, judges, police), data on interactions with law enforcement (basis for arrest, length of pretrial detention), information on restorative justice programs (who is and isn’t being referred to those programs, and what the case completion rates are), information on access to defense attorneys and how experienced those attorneys are, and data on plea agreements (how and when they’re offered and to whom), among other things.
The bureau would then figure out where in these systems racial bias and disparities are most likely to occur.
It would be required to maintain a public-facing website to ensure transparency and maximize the public’s ability to understand the information being collected.
Etan Nasreddin-Longo, chair of the state’s existing Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems Advisory Panel, told the House and Senate Judiciary committees Wednesday morning that his group has spent the past three months looking at the legislation and what it would mean.
Nasreddin-Longo said this bill ought to be a template for data collection and analysis in all areas of state government
“To assume that the criminal and juvenile justice systems are separate is perhaps a bit — I don’t know what I would call it — wrong? Certainly shortsighted,” Nasreddin-Longo said. “As we all know, racial disparity exists in many locations.”
The racial disparity panel’s main concerns are to ensure the new bureau is independent, that its work is done with competence and transparency, and that it receives sufficient authority and funding from the state.
Independence is the chief concern, Nasreddin-Longo said — in particular, where in state government (or outside it) the bureau could be located to ensure utmost independence.
“If the data is collected and analyzed by agencies too closely affiliated with law enforcement, then no matter how accurate, there will always be a shroud that it was biased,” said Rebecca Turner, a member of the racial disparity panel and an attorney with the Office of the Defender General.
Turner suggested four acceptable locations: the Secretary of State’s Office, the Office of the Vermont State Auditor, the Human Rights Commission or the National Center for Restorative Justice (a nonprofit group separate from the state).
Turner said some seemingly obvious locations for the office are not as good as they may seem. For example, the Agency of Digital Services, she said, would focus too much on data expertise and not enough on understanding of systemic injustice that is critical to this work. And, placing it under the jurisdiction of Xusana Davis, executive director of racial equity, would not be wise either. Davis serves at the pleasure of the governor, a situation that would “allow politics to enter the fold of the bureau,” Turner said.
Lawmakers will continue to take testimony on the bill in coming weeks.