The following is my report that I delivered in the House Chamber on H.2.

The juvenile justice system handles the supervision, care, and rehabilitation of juveniles accused of criminal acts. Vermont’s juvenile justice system has several goals: To protect public safety. To connect youth to age-appropriate services that reduce recidivism. And to shield youth from the adverse impact of a criminal record, helping them become responsible and productive members of the community.

The system helps to prevent the taint of criminality from the juvenile offender. To this end, unlike in criminal court, juvenile delinquency proceedings are confidential. In addition, the juvenile is not saddled with a criminal record. While rehabilitating the juvenile is a focus, the system also seeks to ensure protection of the community and accountability to victims.

In Vermont, juvenile offenders are brought to Family Court instead of Criminal Court. In general, when a person is charged with a criminal offense in Vermont, the court system they enter depends on their age and the severity of the crime. Currently, with some exceptions, if someone age 10-18 is charged with a crime, they are processed as juvenile delinquents in Family Court. One of the exceptions occurs if they are charged with one of the most serious crimes such as murder or arson. In that case their case will start in criminal court. If the offender is over 18, they are processed in Criminal Court. But for individuals 18 to 21 years old who are alleged to have committed a crime, there is another path to the family court called Youthful Offender. H.2 does not deal with Youthful Offender, but it is good to have the whole picture.

H.2 addresses several issues related to the treatment of juvenile delinquents. The bill primarily amends the age range for individuals who initially appear in Family Court in a delinquency proceeding.

I will now take you through the bill.

Sections 1 and 2, starting at page _ of Today’s Calendar, concern the age range of children who can be subject to juvenile delinquency proceedings in the Family Division of the Superior Court.

Under current law, a delinquency proceeding can be brought against a person who is at least 10 years old and not older than 18. If a person younger than 10 commits an unlawful act, the behavior might still be introduced in another type of proceeding, such as one to terminate parental rights, but it could not be the basis of a juvenile proceeding in Family Court. The only exception to this is that a juvenile proceeding can be brought against a child under age 10 for murder.

Section 1 of H.2 proposes to change this structure in two ways. First, the bill proposes to increase the minimum age, so that a child would have to be at least 12 in order to be subject to delinquency proceedings. The effect of this change would be that delinquency proceedings could not be brought against 10- or 11-year-olds. Second, H.2 proposes to repeal the exception for murder, so that children under 12 could not be subject to delinquency proceedings for any offense.

This change was prompted by a recommendation in a 2024 report from the Racial Disparities in the Juvenile and Criminal Justice System Advisory Panel (RDAP).

This change recognizes that children are fundamentally different from adults. Their brains are not fully developed. Young children, regardless of the misconduct, do not have the legal capacity to form criminal intent or the competency to comprehend basic legal principles.

The Vermont Defender General’s Office provided testimony in support of this change and stated that it would be very challenging to find a youth under 12 years old to be competent to stand trial. Witnesses also noted that, in the past 25 years, the exception for ten-year-olds related to murder has not been used.

There are other, better ways to handle individuals in this age group who break the law. Courts are empowered to order a broad range of services designed to support a child and their family to address any behavioral concerns without criminalizing young children.

While about half the country has no minimum age for juvenile court jurisdiction, many of our neighboring states have a higher minimum age. For example, New York and Massachusetts both have a minimum age of 12 for children who can be brought into Family Court, and New Hampshire goes even further with a minimum age of 13 (with certain carve-outs).

No witness opposed this section of the bill.

Moving to section 3, found on page _ of today’s calendar.

Generally, jurisdiction over a juvenile ends at age 18. But current law permits a court to extend its jurisdiction if the person committed the offense as an older teenager. For example, if the person was 16 or 17 years old when they committed the offense, the court can extend jurisdiction to 6 months beyond the person’s 19th birthday. This permits the Department for Children and Families to supervise and treat the person for a longer period.

Section 2 of the bill adds one year to this authority, so in the case of an offense committed by a 16 or 17 year old, the court could extend its jurisdiction to 6 months beyond the person’s 20th birthday. In the case of an offense committed by an 18 year old, the court could extend jurisdiction to 6 months beyond the person’s 21st birthday.

During testimony on H.2, witnesses shared that there are missed opportunities for accountability when a juvenile ages out of the system and full adherence to case management plans can’t be achieved. When a juvenile ages out of the system, court supervision ends and all intervention regarding that specific case stops. To address this, H.2 extends the opportunity for court supervision so there is more time for the juvenile court supervision process to provide rehabilitation and accountability.
Turning to sections 3 through 9 starting on page _ of Today’s Calendar.

Sections 3 through 9 propose an additional 2-year extension, until July 1, 2027, on the further implementation of the Raise the Age initiative.

Prior to this initiative, most youthful offenders age 17 or younger could be charged as a juvenile in the Family Division.

Upon passing the “Raise the Age” law (Act 201) in 2018, Vermont became the first state in the country to treat 18-year-olds accused of most crimes as juvenile offenders, rather than adults.

Based on research that shows young people’s brains are still developing into their 20s, the reform was set to gradually increase the age that youth could be sent to family court, where cases remain confidential. As discussed earlier, through the family court process, offenders receive rehabilitative services aimed at helping them avoid future criminal behavior. Young adults accused of serious violent crimes, like murder and a handful of other felonies, would still be charged in adult court. The state brought 18-year-olds into the juvenile system in 2020. 19-year-olds were set to follow in 2022, but the Legislature extended that date by one year, to July 1st of 2023, as a result of the COVID emergency. Two years ago the Legislature extended that date by another year, to July 1st of 2024, and last year the Legislature extended it again to April 1st of this year.

With the last extension, this body added a reporting requirement to monitor progress by the Department for Children and Families in moving toward the implementation date. Although reports showed some progress on this measure, DCF’s last report asked lawmakers this year to pause the move indefinitely.

Since the start of the session, House Judiciary has taken extensive testimony focused on understanding the processes involved with juvenile justice, and specifically with the long-delayed Raise the Age initiative. The committee heard testimony that covered a range of perspectives on this topic. The Department of Children and Families, Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs and Department of Public Safety called for a repeal of the act raising the age to 19 year olds. The Office of the Child, Youth, and Family Advocate testified that we should proceed on April 1st. Still others, including the Office of Racial Equity and the Office of the Defender General testified that raising the age to 19 is the right approach, but we should only proceed when the change is likely to succeed. And currently, due to staffing, programmatic, and infrastructure inadequacies, DCF is not ready to proceed to this next step.

Based on this testimony, and on the reporting of DCF, your House Judiciary Committee concluded that now is not the right time to expand Raise the Age to 19-year-olds.

Adding 19 year olds to DCF’s workload at this time would stretch already over-stretched resources. DCF’s ability to supervise and serve the youth already in the juvenile justice system would be hampered. DCF, and specifically the Family Services Division that oversees juvenile delinquents, is already having difficulties with recruiting and retaining staff. In FY24, the vacancy rate for Family Services Workers rose to 11.4% with a turnover rate of 16%. Expanding to 19 year olds at this time would exacerbate this problem by putting additional stress on Family Services workers.

Also, working with 18 and 19 year olds in this context presents different challenges than working with those who are under 18. Different interventions are needed when individuals in this age group are resistant to treatment or otherwise opposed to changing their behavior. DCF needs additional time and experience to get those interventions right while working with 18 year olds.

The delay will give DCF additional experience in adapting more effective interventions for 18 year olds before adding 19 year olds. It will also give the administration and the legislature additional time to develop approaches to improve accountability for those treatment resistant individuals in the 18 year old age group before adding 19 year olds.

In short, DCF has inadequate capacity and experience to expand Raise the Age at this time. More time is needed to make sure the system is ready for the expansion.

So, sections 3 and 4 delete the April 1, 2025 implementation date, and Sections 5-9 reenact the language changes necessary to permit 19-year-olds who commit certain offenses to have their cases start in the Family Division. These are offenses that are not part of what we call the Big 14 – murder, arson, and similar serious offenses. These language changes become law on July 1, 2027 under the Effective Date provisions in Section 11. This extension gives DCF more time to increase capacity and experience for the expansion.

But to check on whether necessary progress is being made, Section 10 of the bill, starting on page _ of Today’s Calendar, outlines clear reporting requirements to monitor readiness.

Section 10 requires the Agency of Human Services to provide the Joint Justice Oversight Committee (as well as several other Senate and House Committees) with two progress reports on the requirement that the Raise the Age initiative be implemented on July 1, 2027. These are very similar to the bimonthly reports that AHS provided over the past year. They must describe the steps taken to achieve such specified goals as establishing a secure residential facility, expanding capacity for nonresidential treatment programs to provide community-based services, and improving recruitment and retention of staff.

This year a new provision was added to the report requiring AHS to provide data on the Red Clover Treatment Facility, including the number of youths who use the facility, their length of stay, their treatment needs, and their racial and gender demographic data. Section 10 also makes clear that the failure by DCF to meet one of these progress report goals cannot be a basis for extending the implementation of the Raise the Age initiative beyond July 1, 2027.

Section 11 contains the effective dates. A particularly important part is subsection (b), which has a March 31, 2025 effective date for the sections that repeal the Raise the Age provisions scheduled to go into effect on April 1st. This is necessary to ensure that the provisions are repealed before they go into effect.

The Committee heard from the following witnesses:

H.2 provides important updates to the age of individuals subject to juvenile delinquency proceedings as opposed to criminal proceedings. It also pauses the next step in Vermont’s Raise the Age initiative given the reality that more work is needed before we take that step. If we do not pass this bill, that next step will occur on April 1 of this year, less than three weeks from today. DCF is simply not ready to properly supervise and serve a population of 19 year olds at this time. And by further taxing DCF’s resources, we will be dis-serving those youth already under their supervision.

The Committee vote was 7-2-2 and I ask for your support.