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Officials urge steady funding, clear retention rules as Act 180 pre‑charge diversion expands
Summary
Attorney General’s Office staff, community justice center leaders and prosecutors described progress implementing Act 180’s pre‑charge diversion scheme but warned that funding uncertainty and record‑retention rules risk disrupting services and court fairness.
Willa Farrell of the Attorney General’s Office told the joint legislative Justice Oversight committee that Act 180 formalizes victims’ and participants’ rights, requires statewide data reporting and places pre‑adjudication diversion under the AGO’s umbrella, and that the office is preparing to support expanded pre‑charge services statewide.
Farrell said the AGO is focused on building a consistent, accessible pre‑charge diversion system and will seek a dedicated line item in the governor’s budget to fund grants for community providers and a staff position in the AGO to manage the program.
"The benefits of pre‑charge diversion are the timeliness and immediacy of response," Farrell said. "People are directed to contact the provider within a few days; there's no waiting through the court process." She argued those quick connections help victims and participants and reduce court workload.
Tim (speaker who provided statutory and prosecutorial context) briefed the committee on H 645 implementation and said about half of the state's attorneys have published pre‑charge referral policies on the AGO website, listing Rutland, Orange, Windham, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Addison and Bennington counties as examples. He said the AGO will convene all state's attorneys in December to encourage wider compliance.
Tim cautioned that even informal pre‑charge referrals create government records — emails, draft affidavits or referral forms — that can carry legal significance. "We're creating records," he said, and noted that retained records may be relevant to later prosecutions and defense disclosure obligations under Brady.
He said the legislature's solution to preserve necessary prosecutorial information was a nonpublic state's‑attorney database to store informal referral documents while keeping access limited to criminal justice purposes; Tim urged the committee to endorse continued retention policies that avoid deletion of pre‑charge records outside court orders.
Rachel Jolley, who leads the Burlington Community Justice Center, described long‑running local pre‑charge practice: the Chittenden County CJCs collectively receive about 460 referrals per year and report a 70–80% success rate when diversion is appropriate. Jolley said CJCs work best with first‑time offenders who can engage quickly and that consistent funding and clearer statewide governance would help sustain services.
Committee members and agency officials repeatedly identified funding uncertainty as the principal operational risk. Several speakers noted that the Department of Corrections has repurposed some historic DOC funds and issued an RFP that moves funding from 17 to 13 regional allocations, raising concerns about continuity of local programs as authority shifts to the AGO.
No formal motions or votes were taken. Committee staff were asked to collect and post county policies and a recent investments report; the AGO and providers will continue coordination with state's attorneys and come back to the committee with updates in December.
