SOUTH BURLINGTON — Vermont’s prison population decreased by more than 17 percent in the past four years from 2,103 people incarcerated in 2011 to 1,734 currently, according to state officials.
Gov. Peter Shumlin says that decrease is the result of a more “rational” approach to criminal justice adopted by his administration, a policy that focuses on diverting nonviolent offenders into drug treatment and other programs that don’t lead to incarceration.
Shumlin cited a study by the Council of State Governments, a membership association for states, that projected Vermont’s prison population would reach 2,619 by 2015, or 885 more people than are currently incarcerated.
The disparity between that projection and the actual number of prisoners is evidence that he’s delivered on a 2010 campaign promise to reduce incarceration rates and invest the savings in early childhood education, he said at a Monday news conference held outside the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility.
The annual cost to incarcerate someone in the state is $62,000. The governor said it follows then that Vermont is saving more than $40 million each year over what it would have spent had the Council of State Governments’ projection proven accurate.
Only 271 prisoners are currently incarcerated out of state at a private prison in Michigan. That’s 52 percent fewer prisoners incarcerated outside Vermont than when he took office in 2011.
Advocates for bringing those prisoners back to Vermont argue that the distance from family and other support structures as well as worse conditions at the private prison make rehabilitation difficult and recidivism more likely.
However, Shumlin said Monday that, while he would like to limit the number of prisoners in private out-of-state prisons, he has no intention of ending their use, because of the lower incarceration costs and the lack of capacity in-state.
During Shumlin’s five-year tenure as governor, the Department of Corrections budget has grown 9 percent, far less than 30 percent growth in corrections spending during the five years preceding his time as chief executive, according to figures provided by his administration.
Shumlin cited several policies enacted on his watch that have driven the reduction in incarceration, including decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2013 and earlier this year signing a law that reduces to one year the period people must wait to seek expungement of their criminal record.
In 2011, the governor signed legislation aimed at helping prisoners transition into the community after incarceration and at reducing recidivism rates, according to a news release issued by his office.
Department of Corrections officials were not able to provide recidivism rates from 2011 to 2015, the period during which Shumlin highlighted a reduction in incarceration rates. DOC Commissioner Lisa Menard acknowledged that “it does not necessarily follow” that reduced incarceration means that recidivism is also on the decline. Menard said that recidivism figures are collected over three-year intervals, and the data from 2012 through 2015 is not available.
However, officials said data collected from specific diversionary programs shows they are having an impact on recidivism. In Chittenden County, the Rapid Intervention Community Court allows low-level offenders with addiction or mental health issues to avoid charges altogether if they complete the program.
In its first two years, from 2010 to 2012, 7.4 percent of people who successfully completed the program were reconvicted as of 2014 versus a 25 percent reconviction rate for those who dropped out of the program, according to Bram Kranichfeld, first deputy state’s attorney for Chittenden County.
Kranichfeld said that as criminal justice reforms in Vermont are increasingly tailored to addressing the underlying issues that drive crime, specifically substance abuse, mental health and poverty, the “quality” of interventions that can avoid incarceration will improve.
In 2014, the state passed a pretrial services bill designed to allow nonviolent offenders arrested for certain crimes to seek treatment for drug addiction rather than serve jail time. That program was fully implemented as of Oct. 15, according to administration officials.
In the “rollout period” leading up to its full implementation monitors who are supposed to screen people charged with crimes for eligibility entered 800 people into a pretrial services database. Monitors contacted 36 percent, or 288, of those individuals. Only 4 percent of those contacted declined screening.
The state has invested in making drug treatment available as an alternative to incarceration, but the demand for treatment far outstrips its availability. People seeking treatment on their own and people referred to treatment from court diversion programs often face a waiting list for treatment.
Shumlin said the purpose of Monday’s press conference was not to declare victory, but to highlight progress and call for continued reforms.
Making a more fundamental change in criminal justice
Attorney General Bill Sorrell said that while incarceration rates have dropped recently, they’ve increased 300 percent since the mid-1970s. He believes the state should make a structural pivot away from incarceration in meting out criminal justice.
“I think we should be looking at this through a new lens,” Sorrell said.
Incarceration rates are the product of “thousands of individual decisions” by prosecutors, judges and corrections personnel that determine sentencing and when to allow people into diversion or early release programs.
Sorrell wants the Legislature to consider passing a resolution, which he intends to draft with input from the public and stakeholders, that would call for a commitment across the branches of government to significantly reduce Vermont’s reliance on incarceration in criminal justice.
“That can mean more of the programs that keep people out of the system, but for those convicted and who should be incarcerated, should they be incarcerated as long?” Sorrell asked. Sorrell will hold three forums across the state in December to gather public input on a potential resolution to present the Legislature.
Sorrell acknowledged that there are risks in reducing sentences and taking other steps to drive down the prison population, but he argued that the over reliance on incarceration has costs that outweigh those potential risks.
Shumlin said that when he first pushed for criminal justice reforms intended to reduce the number of people in prison during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, it sparked a “heated debate.” His Republican opponent, former Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, raised fears that those policies would put the public in danger, he said.
While things will go wrong in some instances, systemic dangers have yet to present themselves, Shumlin said. Meanwhile, the state is saving money because it’s incarcerating fewer people than it has in more than a decade, he added.
As Vermont continues to consider criminal justice reforms the greatest obstacle will continue to be “politicians that are scared to take risks,” Shumlin said.
