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Vermont panel aims to reduce inequalities

By Patrick Mcardle
[email protected]
MONTPELIER, Vt. — A 10-page report presented to the Legislative Joint Justice Oversight Committee on Tuesday by members of the Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel makes several recommendations for responding to what the panel clearly calls “white privilege.”

The report calls both white supremacy and white privilege “awful terms” but say they describe the “truest nature of the problem that all Vermonters face.”

“These are terms that in their fullest essence describe not merely simple costuming and the burning of crosses but rather a system of unequal interaction that causes great and real pain to Vermonters. We call upon all persons of good will to do their best to rise above feelings of discomfort, alienation and pain to address white supremacy and white privilege and their effects,” the report said.

Etan Nasreddin-Longo, chairman of the racial disparities panel, on Tuesday called the report “18 months of hard work.”

“I know we’re all hoping it’s going to go much further than just today,” he said.

Nasreddin-Longo said he expects the legislative committee will invite the panel to talk with them about subjects that weren’t detailed in the report like “use of force” and the juvenile justice system.

“I mean, I’m not kidding myself. That’s a huge amount of culture change that report contained, and it’s not realistic to think it’s all going to happen overnight,” he said.

The Legislature, which created the advisory panel in 2017, charged its members with creating a report that would address at least three specific issues. The report, dated Dec. 4 and reported out to the legislative committee addressed all three points.

The report recommends the Human Rights Commission, or HRC, be the home for the “public complaint process to address implicit bias across all systems of state government.”

For the HRC to fill that role, more staff will be needed, the advisory panel suggested.

There are also many communities where the HRC are unknown, which would require greater outreach. A similar push was recommended for the 211 phone line system which could be involved in directing callers to available resources for issues of racial disparity.

For the second goal of preventing racial profiling, the report suggests first responders work with behavioral health experts to screen for mental health issues or substance abuse.

The public should be given more opportunities to learn about their own rights and how individuals might report racially disparaging incidents.

The report suggests the expansion of community policing across Vermont.

“The community policing model helps to break down barriers between law enforcement and the communities they serve, resulting in improved information exchanges, more transparency and less susceptibility for implicit biases to influence decision making,” the report said.

The final question the advisory panel was asked to address was whether race data should be collected beyond traffic stops.

The report said the members of the panel “spent a great deal of time” talking about the collection of racial-identification information.

“The panel agrees that increased and improved data collection is necessary to combat racial disparities in our criminal and juvenile justice systems. Our current data collection system is not sufficient to understand the reasons why our systems produce unequal outcomes on the basis of race. Available data does show, however, that disparate outcomes exist,” the report said.

A system that includes data collection from the judiciary and state prosecution and defense attorneys as well as an office to aggregate, analyze and centralize the information are also recommendations.

Nasreddin-Longo said what he heard from the legislators who heard the presentation of the report was a desire to hear more about mechanisms of accountability.

“We’ve got 12 really, really smart and dedicated people in that room. I want to know what the brain trust comes up with,” he said.

Many of the recommendations would likely be productive but require the use of new systems and new staff and therefore would require more state funding.

“It’s going to be a tap dance, I think. What can they do that actually does something in the real world that gives Vermonters of color and allies a sense of motion but is still fiscally responsible? That’s a hard question,” he said.

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