Vermont Governor Phil Scott focused his weekly briefing today on public safety priorities he would like the legislature to pass.
The Republican is using his weekly press briefings to review his priorities as the Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature consider bills on the issues. Last week he talked about affordable housing and this week he noted significant concerns about rising crime from law enforcement, municipal leaders, business leaders and retirees.
“Data from the Council of State Governments has shown Vermont’s violent crime has steadily increased since at least 2007,” Scott said. ”So it’s clear to me and to many Vermonters we need to do something different which is why we’ve proposed a number of steps to the legislature. Some have described my approach as tough on crime. I’m not talking about going back to the approach of the 80’s and 90’s or some wild swing to the right.”
Scott said while criminal justice reform is a critical necessity, the legislature must address unintended consequences in some proposals.
“First we need to focus on repeat offenses,” asserted Scott. “We had over 5,000 arrest warrants for failure to appear just last year and over 12,000 of our 21,000 criminal dockets involved repeat offenders. So we proposed a number of initiatives to make sure people show up for court. We also know many crimes are fueled by drug trafficking. We must update current law to make sure those selling and trafficking these dangerous drugs are held accountable. We’ve also proposed increased investment in prevention, treatment and recovery. We also need to delay the Raise the Age provision which has created a number of unintended consequences that harm rather than help our youth.”
As an example, Scott said drug traffickers are recruiting youth because under the Raise the Age provision accountability is less likely. Jaye Pershing Johnson, the governor’s counsel, noted that the Columbia Justice Lab provided input to the legislature regarding the proposal to raise the age for juvenile offenses, but feels that data did not take into account caseload information from the state Department for Children and Families.
“So I think that the committee has a lot to consider when its thinking that it just wants to proceed with its sort-of philosophical orientation or to really look at the circumstances on the ground and decide whether they’re setting the system up for failure.”
Department for Children and Families Commissioner Chris Winters added:
“We have shortages of family service workers,” Winters said. “Those family service workers serve both the juvenile justice side as well as the child protection side of the work that we do. So to add any additional caseload to them right now would place an additional stress on the system that we just can’t afford at this moment.”
