This commentary is by Maggie Chavez of South Royalton. She is a third-year JD/Masters in restorative justice student at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Prior to admission she was a paralegal for the public defenders in New Mexico.
The law guarantees the right to adequate counsel for indigent persons facing criminal charges in the United States. The Vermont Legislature has made attempts to ensure that Vermonters, especially those deemed indigent, have access to services at a time in which they are most in need. Currently, Vermont provides 14 public defense field offices throughout the state, half of which are private law firms that have entered into contracts with the Defender General to provide services.
However, a recent VTDigger article has highlighted the issue present in hiring and retaining these essential advocates. An already excessive workload is about to become much more burdensome after the Defender General announced the receipt of notice from a firm in Orleans County not seeking to renew their contract. This follows a concerning, but not unknown, trend of overloaded and underpaid public service offices feeling the burden of an extremely backlogged court docket that was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.
Excessive workloads continue to negatively impact clients, the criminal legal system and the public. Clients are unable to receive adequate assistance from their attorney who is saddled with an unreasonable workload, facing the threat of burnout on a daily basis, and forced to limit their time to avoid ignoring the litany of cases still awaiting them. Even in Vermont, this harm disproportionally affects people of color.
Among the chief complaints to the Legislature by Defender General Matt Valerio about the struggles in finding staffing, a lack of applicants was apparent, as was the ability to increase the funding needed to support the representation needs. Contract counsel has been a more cost-effective method providing public defense services here in Vermont, yet grossly underpaying these firms leads to turnover. Private prices may be more profitable, but not every person involved in the criminal justice system has the luxury of paying for their due process.
This is an opportunity to continue looking into different methods of restorative justice as a means to lighten caseloads on all sides. Despite the common misconception, these programs work for repairing harm and reducing recidivism in the long term, something that is often missed is the potential to resolve multiple cases at once. Restorative justice methods seek to heal a harm that has been committed, find a mutual resolution for the parties to restore said harm, and address the underlying issues present to assure that future harm does not occur.
The narrative that the judicial process leads to justice for all parties is false. Victims essentially lose their voice during the court process, as the prosecution takes over their story and the process of seeking justice when an incident occurs. A crime is reported, law enforcement gathers facts which are later presented by prosecutors, and is resolved either through plea agreement, trial, or dismissal.
Depending on the case type, a victim may receive restitution but otherwise are left to pick up the pieces outside of the court process. While it is commonly believed that the prosecution is an advocate for the victim, in reality they are the representative of the public. Victims don’t always receive answers for the harm experienced, may have trouble accessing the restitution granted to them when incarceration is implemented, and also can be left unresolved when legal issues require a dismissal.
Using restorative processes, there is an opportunity for all parties to come together and discuss the real consequences coming from the harm committed. An integral portion of restorative justice relies on the voluntary participation of all parties, involving members of the community for support, creating a space that allows for open and honest dialogue exchange and providing a means of accountability to assure there is no harm in the future.
Victims are empowered to speak about the harm and how they were affected by it, ask questions about what led to this harm and express what will start the healing process to becoming whole again. If the victim does not want to engage in face-to-face interaction, they have the option to send someone in their place or submit a letter. Restorative justice is a person-centered process and brings humanity back to an otherwise dehumanizing process.
Bringing community back into a process aligns with the “it takes a village” mindset that many generations have been raised to understand. As a community, we can hold not only offenders accountable for their actions but allow for offenders to hold themselves accountable. The community is able to hold each other accountable in how we are reacting to harms, how we contribute to healing, and look at ourselves in the process.
Additionally, a 2019 study on recidivism and cost analysis of Vermont court diversion processes found that completion of these processes resulted in a recidivism rate of only 16.78%, compared to the 42.4% reported by the Department of Corrections. The costs for facilitating restorative processes are also substantially lower than the traditional criminal justice system. We save money, we address the backlog on court dockets and we start to bring humanity back into the system and our communities.
