House Judiciary hears push to fix victim notifications, adds task force language to S.109

The Vermont House Judiciary Committee on April 16 heard testimony urging changes to victim notification provisions in S.109, focusing on Sections 31 and 32 that would create a multi-agency work group to review how victims receive information about offender movement and earned time.

Jennifer Pullman, director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, told the committee the proposals are "truly simple and truly noncontroversial" and urged lawmakers to restore options that let survivors choose how much and what kind of release information they receive. Pullman said the center will absorb stipends for survivor advisors and recommended striking proposed language that would have mandated compensation in the bill.

The committee's discussion centered on two practical problems: (1) victims often do not receive information because their contact details are not entered into the systems that generate notifications, and (2) the content and format of notifications can be inaccessible or misleading — for example, notifying a survivor of a transfer when they believe the offender was being released.

Meredith Pelking, Director of Victim Services for the Vermont Department of…