Responsibility
The Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) has a wide range of responsibilities. A central one is ensuring the safety and well-being of all the people under its care. This includes the residents in the six Vermont prisons and a facility in Mississippi. The total changes constantly, but currently is around 1300. A steel bed to sleep on, three meals a day, health care provided by an outside vendor. Mental health personnel to help residents cope with incarceration. Corrections officers (COs)paid to watch over us and to ensure that violence is not visited on us by other residents. (more…)
Good news from the legislative session
In general, the past biennial of the Vermont legislature was not a great one for criminal legal reform in the state. Although overall the number of incarcerated people in Vermont has decreased over recent years, the legislature has increased the penalties for some low-level crimes, for instance retail theft, which will most likely have the effect of increasing the prison population. The best way to address property crimes of this nature is to address homelessness, addiction, and poverty. Vermont needs to understand what drives crime in order to address it. (more…)
Finding Hope Within
There is a unique exhibit at Brattleboro’s Brooks Memorial Library for the months of June and July. Finding Hope Within showcases writing, drawing, collage, and crochet from women incarcerated in the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, Vermont’s only women’s prison. The show includes some poetry that has been set and illustrated in letterpress by A Revolutionary Press in South Burlington, one of the exhibit’s curators. The library is also hosting some events related to incarceration to complement the art exhibit. (more…)
A new prison is nothing new
“The traditional closed institution has a consistent record of failure over the last 200 years. With increasing caseloads and steadily rising costs, Vermont cannot afford programs that are proven failures and will only become more wasteful of money and human potential.”
These words were written not by some radical activist, but by Department of Corrections Commissioner Kent Stoneman in a 1972 report titled “A Comprehensive Proposal for Corrections in Vermont.”
Crossover
March 15th was the last legislative session before crossover. Crossover is when bills that have passed out of one chamber, house or senate, get passed to the other, senate or house, to be taken up, And since this is the second year of our legislative biennial, any bill that hasn’t “made the crossover” will need to be refiled the following year. (more…)
Good Things Take Time
A Common-Sense Approach Can Address Addiction and Crime
Haste makes waste, an old adage that rings true today. The ability of opioids to take root in our very state, towns, neighborhoods and families took time. Yet the recent Bill H.534 demonstrates how quickly lawmakers jump to increasing multiple retail theft penalties into some serious jail time. Quick to make this choice, versus meaningful rehabilitation time for those repeat shoplifters, likely stealing to support a pernicious opioid addiction. (more…)