Burlington Police Chief: Criminals are “running roughshod over our communities”
The main issue, he said over and over again, is a revolving door criminal justice system that means there is little consequence for all but violent, higher-level crimes.
Lack of cell coverage hampers electronic monitoring of Vermont inmates
“Vermont, being as rural and as lowly populated as it is, the cell service can be a barrier to deploying electronic monitoring devices,” said Michael Touchette.
Corrections commissioner says Vermont’s inmate population has declined
The last two years, the Legislature and administration, faced with a recession and tight budgets, took numerous steps to try and curb growth in corrections spending with a wide array of administrative, legal, budgetary and policy changes.
No.1 method for cutting recidivism among addicts? Don’t send people to jail
John Perry, the retired director of planning for the Vermont Department of Corrections, said sending hard-core drug addicts directly to treatment instead of prison could save the state’s taxpayers roughly $4 million a year
Budget cuts add to recidivism woes
Stress on resources limits community mental health treatment services for offenders Read more in this series ‘We just don’t have the people’ ‘This is bankrupting our state’ Prison, a tough environment for mentally ill Many of Vermont’s prisoners have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, and the majority of them are eventually released into the community. [...]
‘We just don’t have the people’
Providing mental health care a challenge for prisons Vermont does better than many states in providing mental health treatment for its prisoners, according to a consultant, Milliman, Inc., cited by the Joint Legislative Corrections Oversight Committee. But the author of the report goes on to express concern that the efforts may be insufficient to ensure [...]
‘This is bankrupting our state’
Prison population growth tied to recidivism, mental illness Half of Vermont’s prison inmates released in 2004 had new convictions within three years, according to the Department of Corrections. Vermont doesn’t track recidivism by prisoners’ mental health status, but a 1999 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that the national rate is even higher [...]
Officials say suicidal inmates are now monitored more closely by Corrections
Dr. Delores Burroughs-Biron, the health services director for the Department of Corrections, agrees that therapeutic options “should be part of almost any state statute that people who have a mental illness should be afforded certain protections.” The corrections community agrees, she said, that segregated prisoners need to be monitored closely “for the purpose of following [...]
