Demonstrators are planning to protest outside the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility to call for the release of grievances filed by women imprisoned there.
The state has blocked the release of inmate records to VTDigger concerning conditions and treatment of prisoners within the state’s only women’s correctional facility.
Organizers of the protest, hosted by the Vermont Women’s March, the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont and the Peace and Justice Center, say reports of the blocked records, followed by the arrest this week of a guard at the facility for sexual assault and solicitation prompted the event.
“It really raises the question, are these women’s voices being intentionally silenced?” Women’s March organizer Kristen Vrancken said. “It certainly appears that way.”
The Department of Corrections rejected VTDigger’s requests for grievances filed by women incarcerated at the South Burlington facility, saying releasing the documents would violate the privacy of prisoners and could potentially compromise security.
VTDigger reporter Alan Keays appealed the decision. On Friday, the department released a document listing the grievances filed since January 2018 by category, but the state continues to refuse to release the grievances.
The document released Friday shows that over the 14-month period a total of 1,444 grievances were filed.
The leading category of grievances was “conflict – staff” with 235.
Other top categories included “Medical: Dissatisfied with Quality,” with 153; “Medical denied,” with 117; and “Conflict – Inmate,” with 54.
There were also three grievances for the category, “Sexual Misconduct – Staff.”
Christopher Rich, a correctional officer at Chittenden Regional, allegedly solicited prostitution from a woman who was formerly incarcerated at the facility. He is accused of raping the woman last month.
The blocking of the release of grievances concerns some criminal justice advocates.
“Really it’s about transparency,” Ashley Messier, a consultant for ACLU-VT’s Smart Justice campaign, said Friday.
Messier, who was formerly incarcerated at the facility, has been in touch with women who are still in the prison and others who have left and are in the community. Messier left the facility in August 2016.
“All of us concur that we would have been happy to hand our grievances over,” Messier said. “This guise of inmate privacy, it’s not because the inmates are concerned about their privacy.”
As an inmate, she said, she and other women she spoke to would have been open to have their grievances read by people outside of the system.
“Grievance process is the only voice, way and tool that the women have to say, this is wrong, I don’t agree with this,” she said.
Corrections Commissioner Mike Touchette said Friday that the records are shielded from release by law.
“Although I can understand the frustration over being unable to obtain copies of inmate grievances, Vermont law currently deems and has historically deemed them confidential due to the sensitive nature contained within, including, but not limited to personal health information, substance abuse information, information regarding other inmates, and information that could jeopardize the safety and security of an offender, staff or facility,” Touchette said in an email.
ACLU-VT Executive Director James Duff Lyall said the state’s failure to produce records is “indefensible” and “all too typical of the Department of Correction’s lack of transparency.” The organization is also concerned about the conditions at the facility as part of a larger effort to reduce incarceration rates in Vermont.
There have been reports of poor conditions at the South Burlington facility for years. A 2012 “white paper” by local nonprofits detailed deficiencies with the aging facility, including lack of air condition, heating system failures and sewer flies and shower larvae. The report also raised issues with shortcoming in programs available to women incarcerated there.
Women represent only a small portion of Vermont’s total prison population. Incarcerated women were previously held at Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, until 2011 when the state made Chittenden Regional the designated facility for women.
Both Messier and Vrancken said that incarcerated women tend to have a history of trauma.
Messier said there are clearly problems with the building itself — it was not intended to house prisoners for the long term. However, she said, the state should not respond by constructing a new facility. She favors finding alternatives to incarceration.
A Facebook page for the demonstration also calls for the closure of the facility without the construction of a new prison.
Organizers are planning the rally outside of the facility, in a spot where they hope some of the women incarcerated there will be able to see or hear them.
“We want to just get out there and make some noise so the women inside know that we’re out there in support of them,” Vrancken said. “So that they know that there’s folks on the outside that are paying attention.”
The demonstration, originally scheduled for Sunday, was postponed until March 24 due to weather.
Alan Keays contributed reporting.
This story was updated on March 10 at 10:24 a.m.
