Scribe Research Group presents Act 40 data showing frequent police contacts concentrate in small cohorts; committee presses for follow-up on bail and community-

Monica Weber, executive director of the Scribe Research Group, and Dr. Robin Joy, the group's director of research, told the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 6, that a multi-agency data pull for the Act 40 report and follow-up work with local Public Safety Enhancement Team (PSET) partners shows a small number of people account for a disproportionate share of police calls for service in several Vermont towns.

The data matter because they appear to separate two distinct problems for local public safety: repeated disorderly contacts that rarely produce arrest, and separate cohorts who account for retail theft and other property crime. "We are an independent organization," Weber said, describing the Scribe Research Group's role as a Statistical Analysis Center and contracted analyst for state and local agencies. Dr. Joy framed the data scope: "So when we come in to talk about data, we're only talking about data that happens in these official records, right?"

The presentation summarized Valcore (calls-for-service) data from Brattleboro, St. Johnsbury, Springfield, Bennington and Rutland gathered by the PSET. Weber and Joy said the Brattleboro analysis covered roughly 28,000 calls for service tied to about 54,000 business-location entries and produced about 2,000 arrests over the study period. Analysts grouped numerous agency call codes into a single "disorder" category (noise complaints, suspicious persons, trespass, disorderly conduct, family disturbances, etc.) and found those disorder calls were the most frequent type of response for the departments studied.

Joy displayed person-level contact charts for the top 20 people linked to disorder in each jurisdiction. For one individual in the Brattleboro study period she said the…