The Vermont Department of Corrections will roll out a new program in Orleans and Essex counties that it hopes will decrease recidivism and increase court attendance.
“Is the intent a stick or a carrot? We’re hoping it’s more of a carrot,” Al Cormier, the department’s chief of operations, told lawmakers at a Joint Justice Oversight Committee meeting on Wednesday as he presented a draft of the program’s policies. “This is new for us.”
The Pretrial Supervision Program, which was created this year in Act 138, could be ordered by a judge for a defendant if that person has five or more pending criminal dockets or has violated other court-ordered conditions of release. If a supervisor notes that a defendant has violated conditions while under supervision, they could file an affidavit with the court, which could lead to additional charges.
Supervision can involve regularly scheduled check-ins via phone, Zoom, Facetime or text, the department said. Different levels of supervision would be determined by a defendant’s charges and a risk assessment performed by corrections. Ideally, the pretrial supervisor would help connect defendants with community resources like substance-use counseling and economic services.
Lawmakers believe the program will prevent people from racking up new criminal charges while awaiting trial and ensure they show up to court, problems that exacerbate Vermont’s court backlog. While similar programs exist in other states, Vermont stands out in housing the initiative inside its state-level corrections department, rather than inside a county or local agency.
The legislative intent is for the program to expand statewide, but so far, lawmakers only allocated about $600,000. Corrections officials said Wednesday they want to pilot the program out of the Newport Probation and Parole Office, hiring a new employee who could oversee about 12 cases in Essex and Orleans counties. Once that gets off the ground, the program could expand using remaining funds, though Commissioner Nick Deml suggested it would require about $3.5 million to branch out statewide.
That first employee’s 12 initial cases are only a fraction of those potentially eligible in Orleans County alone.
There are 1,549 pending cases in Orleans County, of which 912 involve violating conditions of release, Thomas Zonay, Vermont’s chief superior court judge, told lawmakers on Wednesday. Of those 912, 329 involve five or more cases for 33 individual defendants.
While Zonay acknowledged that extra court time would be needed to decide whether defendants should be referred to the supervision program, “the net benefit will hopefully be reducing another level of what’s coming in,” he said.
Matt Valerio, Vermont’s defender general, warned lawmakers not to see the program through rose-colored glasses.
“The thing that I’m struck by, just at first glance … every person that’s coming in at this level is innocent as a matter of law. Given that, they have certain rights to not provide information against themselves, to not testify against themselves, to not sign releases,” he said, referring to agreements that would allow a pretrial supervisor to contact a defendant’s doctor or substance use treatment provider. “In these circumstances, I can envision many situations where defense counsel would advise their client ‘do not sign that release.’”
Still, Valerio thought the program could be a “really successful tool,” particularly if it’s chosen voluntarily by the person facing charges.
Lawmakers decided Wednesday that they would require the corrections department to review and share data on the efficacy of similar pretrial supervision programs across the country.
Deml, the department’s commissioner, cautioned that while data shows reminding people of court dates increases their court attendance, other data might be missing.
“From our research in setting up these programs, there is not a large body of evidence to support the efficacy of pretrial supervision programs,” he said. “Not that they’re not effective, but the research isn’t really there.”
Correction: A previous version of this story inaccurately described the technology used for pretrial supervision.
