The state office charged with protecting the rights of prisoners has a hard time doing so for Vermont inmates housed outside Vermont, Defender General Matthew Valerio told lawmakers Monday.
Valerio testified in the Statehouse about the difficulty of keeping tabs on prisoners housed in Kentucky and Arizona. The state’s practice of housing inmates in other states is controversial and lawmakers this fall have debated it frequently.
The state corrections department contracts with private prison company Corrections Corporation of America to house about 500 prisoners in facilities in Kentucky and Arizona because prisons in Vermont are overcrowded.
Valerio’s testimony came two weeks after the Corrections Oversight Committee heard from Vergennes residents Chuck and Denise Strona, whose son is an inmate in Kentucky, about their alleged difficulty contacting the Prisoners’ Rights Office.
The Prisoners’ Rights Office is an office within the Defender General’s office that addresses issues that arise among inmates including prison conditions, prison discipline, post-conviction relief, furlough and health care.
The office is made up of five attorneys and two investigators and is run by attorney Seth Lipschutz. One investigator visits Vermont prisons daily. An investigator travels to Kentucky two or three times a year. The corrections department sends staff to Kentucky monthly, according to commissioner Andy Pallito.
Lipschutz’s office has been in contact for many months with the Stronas, he told lawmakers Monday. Without divulging specifics, Lipschutz said the parents’ complaints about their son’s conditions are different from what the son has told them about his experiences at the Lee Adjustment Center in Kentucky, he said.
But the Stronas’ situation highlighted for lawmakers the fact that the 1,000 miles between Montpelier and Beattyville, Ky., makes oversight difficult.
Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, said he wants to know there is enough oversight from the Prisoners’ Rights Office and the Department of Corrections at out-of-state facilities to know that the staffing levels are what CCA says they are, and that those levels are adequate.
“I think there is an advocacy role that is independent of the department. I want to know that both in Kentucky and Arizona that we have enough eyes on the ground to know what’s going on,” Lippert said.
“We do not have the resources, people, time, to monitor whether or not CCA is being compliant with its staffing requirements or anything like that,” Valerio said.
It would be ideal to have a full-time investigator in Kentucky, Lipschutz said, but money is always a constraint.
Prisoners sent to Kentucky do not have special needs such as complex health issues. That is because there are no treatment, rehabilitation or education programs in the Kentucky prison, Pallito said.
The Kentucky prison is a “low stress place to do time.” The Arizona facility is for high-risk offenders, but only about 40 prisoners are kept there, compared to about 450 in Kentucky.
“The biggest thing down there is not much is required of the inmates and so they have a lot of time on their hands,” Valerio said.
Valerio said his office gets more complaints from Vermont facilities but believes that could be because there are more people in Vermont. The office relies more on complaints for out-of-state prisons than they do for Vermont facilities, which they visit more proactively. They only go to Kentucky as a result of a crisis, he said.
Many complaints in Kentucky are about medical services, which are not as good as in Vermont, officials said.
In general lawmakers are against the practice of sending prisoners out of state, except that it is the cheapest immediate solution to overcrowding. Lawmakers are meanwhile working on strategies to reduce the prison population, and legislation to help that process may be introduced this session.
Over the years there have been several uprisings among prisoners, including several assaults last winter that led to a lockdown at the Kentucky facility.
A fracas in Arizona in August led to 13 Vermont inmates being placed in solitary confinement, Seven Days reported. In 2004 inmates rioted in Kentucky after allegations of guard abuse.
Valerio said the cycle of insurrection repeats itself, and said similar incidents have occurred in Vermont facilities as recently as at the end of 2013 and again in early 2014.
Lawmakers asked for strategies for improving the situation, and suggested that the Defender General’s office could be present at meetings with the Department of Corrections and Corrections Corporation of America. Valerio said he doesn’t want to impede DOC’s good relationship with CCA.
The Defender General’s office, meanwhile, has no real relationship with the CCA staff because they visit so rarely, whereas DOC has a good relationship with them, he said.
“Clearly the CCA folks don’t look at us in an accommodating way,” Valerio said.