A deal in the works to house more federal inmates in Vermont prisons will hamper the state’s effort to reduce the number of local prisoners incarcerated in Kentucky and Arizona, the corrections commissioner said Monday.
Vermont contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service to house up to 40 federal prisoners in Vermont prisons. The feds pay the state $129 per prisoner per day.
This year the Marshals’ office asked to increase that number of beds to 85, said Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito. The DOC negotiated that number down to 60, Pallito said.
The deal will be good for the state’s pocketbook, but bad for the DOC’s goal of reducing the number of prisoners it houses with private prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America.
CCA oversees about 400 prisoners in facilities in Kentucky and Arizona because Vermont prisons are overcrowded. That number has dropped recently from nearly 500.
In fiscal year 2014, the state housed an average of 24 federal prisoners for the Marshals, according to the DOC, so the new contract in the works would add 36 beds.
The state is set to make $1.71 million from the increase, according to the governor’s budget proposal and Pallito.
However, reserving more beds for federal prisoners means the state won’t be able to bring back as many prisoners from Kentucky and Arizona.
Keeping about 36 more prisoners out of state will cost the state about $886,000, Pallito said, meaning the net gain for the state is just above $800,000.
“I wish we were in a position where we could solve it all, but we’re not,” Pallito said.
The DOC doesn’t see the money from the Marshals’ payments, Pallito said, because it goes into the state’s general fund and will help reduce the state’s overall deficit, Pallito said.
Federal law enforcement agencies aid Vermont in many ways and so it’s natural to help them out, Pallito said. Federal agents also help with border patrol and many drug cases, especially around Rutland.
“To not be a partner with them is very narrow,” he said.
The state’s poor financial situation is prompting officials to make decisions that aren’t good for people, said Suzi Wizowaty, director of the advocacy group Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform.
“I can understand why we’re doing it – because of the financial straits that we’re in – but there needs to be an alternative solution,” she said.
Her group is working on finalizing a bill to file this session to reduce the prison population and end the state’s reliance on CCA.
Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform has been working on the bill for months.
It proposes several ways to reduce the prison population, primarily by attempting to reserve incarceration only for people who threaten public safety.
The bill proposes that people who commit nonviolent crimes should not be sentenced to prison. The bill proposes alternatives including restorative justice and other alternatives that aim to prevent future crimes.
The bill, which has not been filed yet, also promotes the principle that conditions of release should not prohibit otherwise legal behavior, meaning that people should not be sent to jail for missing an appointment or staying out past a curfew, Wizowaty said.
The bill also says that DOC should not have to approve housing for people who have reached their minimum sentence and are otherwise eligible for release. More than 200 people are currently incarcerated because they lack a place to live, according to DOC.
