Silence may be golden.

But that’s not the case at a bill hearing.

The State has a study center to analyze data from various agencies.

However, the Abell Foundation has been unable to receive data to evaluate which programs better prepare prisoners for life on the outside after they serve their sentence.

My bill would treat prisoner data the same as is already the case for data on juveniles.

I testified that we had begun discussions with all of the interested parties to see if we could reach a compromise.

There was silence from the committee members.

My first reaction was that this lack of interest meant the bill was in trouble.

But then I decided to email the various parties to jump start the discussions.

And I’ll let the committee know that we’re working to reach that compromise that would pave the way for an amended bill to be enacted.