[S]T. JOHNSBURY — Selectmen roundly rejected a Department of Corrections request last night to allow more sex offenders to stay in temporary housing at the work-camp facility in town.
The reason most board members cited? Lack of transparency from the state agency.
“I don’t think they’ve been open with us other than making a request for more beds,” Selectboard member Dennis Smith said.
The town and department made an agreement in 2017 that, among other things, freed up 56 beds in one wing of the Northeast Correctional Complex for ready-to-be-released inmates who have completed minimum sentences but lack adequate housing on the outside.
That included people convicted of sex crimes, though only those from Caledonia County.
The correctional department now wants to include sex offenders from Essex, Orleans and Washington counties, too. According to Corrections Commissioner Mike Touchette, the move would help the department fill vacant beds, return prisoners held out of state, save taxpayer money and improve reentry efforts.
But the department hasn’t sent the town regular reports about its compliance with the agreement, which the agency is supposed to do as part of the contract.
“They’re not even following the terms of the current agreement by not providing information that we have requested on a regular basis,” board member Jeffrey Moore said. “Why bother?”
The board unanimously declined to act on the request.
Touchette said Tuesday that his department indeed hasn’t held up that provision of the agreement.
Why?
“I don’t know that I can give you a good answer, other than that we haven’t done it,” he said, adding that the agency plans to correct the failure.
The correctional complex on U.S. Route 5 features both a prison and the work-camp facility, where inmates have greater freedoms and can join crews that perform maintenance and other projects around town. Each day worked means one day off their sentences.
Touchette said there are two housing units in the work-camp facility: one for crew workers, with a capacity of 56, and one for inmates eligible for release but lacking approved housing, with a capacity of 50.
Between them both, 46 beds are empty right now, Touchette said. The number of work crew–eligible inmates has declined significantly over the last few years, he said, because of factors such as diversion programs.
The commissioner said that allowing more inmates to stay in the St. Johnsbury facility means the state could bring more of its inmates back to Vermont from a prison Mississippi where more than 200 are held.
The department could either directly place those inmates in the St. Johnsbury building, or clear space for them elsewhere by shuffling prisoners from other state facilities to the Caledonia County complex, he said.
Evidence shows that maintaining connections with families and communities is important for inmates’ success in leaving incarceration, Touchette said.
“It’s our goal to have all the inmates brought back to Vermont at some point, and this is a good step in that direction,” he said.
And it would save taxpayers money, he said, because by sending prisoners out of state, “we’re essentially paying almost double for a bed right now.”
Selectboard Chair Kevin Oddy said Monday night that he suspected the department’s goal was to bring back out-of-state inmates, but he didn’t detail why he was opposed to that.
“We were very specific around that issue for some very good reasons,” Oddy said, referring to discussions about housing of sex offenders during the original negotiations with the state. “There’s other places that folks can be housed.”
The state also asked the town about allowing more sex offenders to stay in the St. Johnsbury facility in January, the Caledonian Record reported at the time.
Oddy said then that the town should expect something more from the state in exchange for changing the agreement, the newspaper reported.
“If we’re gonna consider this … this is a bargaining chip for us,” he said, according to the paper.
On Monday, Oddy gave Town Manager Chad Whitehead a message for state officials:
“Just notify them that we’re quite happy with the agreement the way it is — and wish they’d follow it.”
