[W]ith calls for Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility — Vermont’s only women’s prison — to close its doors, legislators are looking into alternatives for where the state’s incarcerated women would go.
The capital bill includes a proposed $250,000 study to evaluate options for potential sites for a new facility. But advocates, including Attorney General TJ Donovan, are instead proposing that the study evaluate “alternatives to incarceration and the services required to meet the needs of Vermont’s female prison population” — options other than the construction of a new prison.
Vermont ACLU President James Lyall has spoken against construction of a new facility. In a recent commentary, Lyall noted that though most Vermonters support lower-cost prison alternatives like halfway houses and step-down facilities for the women currently housed at the South Burlington prison, many legislators seem set on building a new prison. The capital bill, he wrote, is deciding “whether the new correctional facility should be a separate facility or part of a campus” instead of whether a new prison should be built at all.
Lyall said legislators should instead be studying prevention and treatment programs, transitional housing, job training and expanding the state’s restorative justice system. Those efforts, he argues, address root causes of incarceration, and result in lower rates of recidivism.
A letter sent by Lyall, Donovan and other advocates to the Senate Institutions Committee also urged the lawmakers to not limit participation in the study to the Department of Corrections, but to also involve other stakeholders, including organizations that provide services inside CRCF, in the evaluation.
During testimony Thursday, members of the committee expressed interest in changing the language of the bill to expand the scope of the study.
Karen Tronsgard-Scott, executive director of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said there’s a clear relationship between the brick and mortar of CRCF and what happens inside. She said the current building is too small for the number of women incarcerated there, lacking space for women to do meaningful activities like vocational training.
Sen. Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, said conditions are worse than overcrowding, saying the facility which holds about 160 women “has been identified as a dump for years now.”
But Tronsgard-Scott expressed concern about building a bigger facility. She said it’s been proven that no matter how many beds are built, they’ll end up being filled, despite the fact that 80% of the women in CRCF have been victims of assault or abuse, and that only 35% commited violent crimes, with just 10-15 women at a time in Vermont falling under the category of “very violent.”
“I am often overwhelmed by the prospect of what to do with incarcerated women,” Tronsgard-Scott said. “These are women whose lives have been disasters. They’re making poor choices based on a whole series of abusive things that have happened to them. The system is incredibly complex, and when I think about what I can do and what this committee can do, we have to know that we need small things to make big differences.”
