Editor’s note: This commentary is by Joe Patrissi, of South Burlington, who was commissioner of corrections in Vermont from 1986-1991. He worked in corrections for 20 years, transitioned to the welfare department and became deputy commissioner of economic services from 2006-2010. He retired from state government in 2010 and became executive director of Northeast Kingdom Community Action until 2018.
In 1975, then corrections commissioner Kent Stoneman and his deputy Con Hogan, closed Vermont’s only maximum security state prison. It was over 200 years old.
A classification review of prison inmates determined only a handful required maximum security. Those inmates were placed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons under a unique no refusal contract. The rest were sent to regional community correctional centers throughout the state and a medium security facility in St. Albans. The prison farm at Windsor was kept open as a minimum security facility for long-termers.
The ability to place inmates out of state was intentionally limited by policy. There was criterion, a necessary hearing, and the commissioner had to personally approve each placement. Nobody liked to do it. It was a last resort when all other options were exhausted.
In 1969, the Legislature authored V.S.A Title 28, the statute that created the modern regional community corrections system. It recognizes that almost all inmates return to their communities and it is in the best interest of everyone if they come back into the community before their release under community supervision with jobs and places to live before their sentences are completed.
The goal of corrections programming is to help influence pro social behavior of inmates to make amends to victims and communities, and to restore them as law abiding functional citizens.
To achieve success, organizational culture and facility environments need to be conducive to support the work and goals of corrections. It’s a process of risk assessment, program support, case management, work release, community reintegration from furlough to parole.
Post 1969, regional county jails were replaced with new facilities in St. Johnsbury, Rutland and South Burlington. A facility in St. Albans built for young adult inmates became a medium security facility for adults. These facilities are decades old and as you can imagine are well worn from all those who have been housed there over the years.
The last county jail in Woodstock was replaced with a new facility in Springfield in 2003. Another facility was built in Newport in the early 1990s. During the same period, a minimum security 100-bed work camp was built in St Johnsbury. In 2014, the minimum security facility at Windsor was closed.
Today we have over 200 inmates housed in a for-profit prison in Mississippi. In effect we send people to Mississippi because the growth of the population has far outpaced the capacity of the system. They are there because there is simply no room for them here.
When judges sentence they consider whether to apply punishment, deterrence, incapacitation or rehabilitation, or a combination of these as sentencing purposes.
But what is happening in Vermont today in corrections with its out-of-state inmate population is akin to large scale banishment. Banishment is what the British did long ago with its inmates by sending them to Australia. Or what the French did with its penal colonies in South America.
Banishment is a practice we backed into but nevertheless own. It has grown exponentially. Banishment is a total exclusion from the community. It excludes visits from families, community volunteers, state based in-house programs, and any manner of direct contact with pro social community based networks. It isolates and aggravates an already alienated population.
We hired a for-profit prison corporation to house them so many miles from home they might as well be on the moon. Private, for-profit prisons have become a growth industry.
In 2018, Gov. Phil Scott proposed a $150 million campus with multiple buildings that could host a diversity of populations. He stated a need by corrections for long-term planning and called his proposal a long-term investment creating the needed environment to support the work of corrections. The Legislature didn’t act on it.
We need to do something. Different. Now.
The Legislature needs to step up and bring them home. Perhaps CARES Act money can be used to augment costs because so many offenders have been infected in Mississippi.
They are inmates, but they are our inmates. We own what happens to them while we have them. They own what they do when they come out. What they do when they come out is something we will or will not influence before they do. That part is on us.
As Dostoevsky said: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
