House Judiciary Committee hears testimony backing H.382 to standardize Vermont criminal-justice data
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Summary
Witnesses told the House Judiciary Committee that H.382 would create consistent, public criminal-justice reporting across Vermont agencies but will require technology upgrades, clarified agency roles and attention to data quality. Committee members requested written testimony and additional technical detail before moving forward.
The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on H.382, a bill to create standardized public reporting of criminal-justice data across Vermont agencies, during a committee meeting (date not specified). Representative Kevin Christie introduced the bill and said it aims to provide 'guardrails' so policymakers and the public can evaluate fairness initiatives with shared facts.
Susana Davis of the Office of Racial Equity told the committee that the division’s review found three categories of data relevant to the bill: data that already exist and can be compiled, data that are not currently collected but should be, and data whose collection would require significant technological or infrastructure modernization. "Some of [the data points] are already collected or that they exist somewhere. Some of them are not currently collected, and we agree that they should be," Davis said, adding that data quality matters because "if that first [race/ethnicity] input is incorrect and future reporting ... is based on that, then the whole chain is tainted."
Andre Kamanen of the Division of Racial Justice Statistics described the "data lake" concept the bill envisions and warned of the work required between raw collection and analysis. He urged clear definition of who is responsible for cleaning, uploading and standardizing data so agencies and the DRJS do not duplicate effort or leave gaps. "There needs to be a clear understanding of how the data is collected, especially if it is to include historical data where formats may have changed," he said.
Patrick Atilio, a volunteer analyst with the Racial Justice Alliance, described his multi-year work aggregating Vermont traffic-stop data for trend analysis and recommended a favorable report on H.382. Atilio said consolidated traffic-stop reporting has helped agencies identify disparities and change policies; he also outlined a framework to prioritize "high-impact, high-discretion" decision points—such as stops, pretrial detention and sentencing—for systematic data collection. He told the committee that the aggregated record he works with encompasses roughly 1,300,000 recorded traffic stops, which he said helps identify patterns across agencies.
Committee members asked for clarification about memoranda of understanding for interagency sharing, the division of responsibilities (for example, how bail information held by both the Judiciary and the Department of Corrections would be reconciled) and the role of qualitative data alongside quantitative metrics. Davis said the bureau recently completed or is completing an MOU with the Department of Corrections and stressed the need to make data accessible and "digestible for laypersons" as well as technically available.
Representative Christie said the committee has received written testimony from three of the four agencies addressed in the bill and expected the remaining testimony from the courts to be posted; the committee recessed and scheduled further consideration as members review the submitted materials. The committee then moved on to the next agenda item, H.410.
The committee asked witnesses to provide additional technical detail and documentation of data holdings and MOUs before formal action on H.382.
