In a ruling last week, a Vermont Superior Court judge dismissed complaints brought by a woman incarcerated at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility about unsanitary conditions in the prison’s showers.
He declined to compel the Department of Corrections to address the problem at Vermont’s only prison for women.
Now, advocates say they worry that the prison’s health issues will go unaddressed. The South Burlington prison, where 140 women are incarcerated, has been dogged by claims of misconduct, including charges that its showers fail to meet basic hygiene standards.
Plaintiff Mandy Conte, who was also a key whistleblower in Seven Days’s 2019 investigation into conditions at Chittenden Regional, sued the Department of Corrections last year after her complaints about shower sanitation wound their way up to the commissioner and were ultimately denied.
At an October bench trial, Conte described stalls that reeked of sewage and were crawling with sewer flies and maggots. She had developed a foot infection at the facility, she said, and believed it to be related. Thirty-five women at the facility use those two shower stalls, according to Conte’s attorney.
Judge Samuel Hoar handed down his ruling last week, in which he affirmed that the showers were in the conditions described — but said the situation did not warrant a court injunction.
Though the stalls were, Hoar wrote, “far from a luxury spa,” he asserted that the evidence did not prove “an actual threat to health and safety,” limiting the court’s ability to intervene.
“Like an outdoor privy, the shower room may not be a place where one would choose to linger, but it appears to serve its most basic function,” he said, noting that the Department of Corrections had taken steps to address the problem.
Hoar cited a 1999 U.S. Court of Appeals decision, which states that “because society does not expect or intend prison conditions to be comfortable,” a court should order corrective action only in the case of “extreme deprivations.”
“Hoar’s opinion could have been delivered by the unghosted version of Ebenezer Scrooge,” wrote political blogger John S. Walters, who, like many, took issue with the tone of the ruling.
Ashley Messier, executive director of the Women’s Justice and Freedom Initiative, called the decision “condescending.”
“There is a large difference in demanding showers that are clean and appropriate and safe — and demanding a luxury spa,” she told VTDigger.
Messier worries that, since the court took a pass, the sanitation issues at the women’s prison will continue. The problems have been ongoing: Messier described sewer and plumbing systems that perennially failed, which she saw firsthand when she was incarcerated there herself.
The prison’s conditions have worsened since the pandemic. Before March, the shower drains were regularly steam-cleaned by state maintenance workers, which helped to rid them of fly and larval infestations. That service has since been stopped, due to pandemic-related public health concerns, according to evidence presented at court.
Biocide is still applied to the drains “regularly,” according to the Department of Corrections.
The corrections department declined to comment on the judge’s decision, citing the possibility of ongoing litigation.
“I was incredibly disappointed that [Hoar] holds the bar for these incarcerated women so low,” Messier said, calling the standard “barely indicative of any humanity or dignity.”
Others blame a system that perpetuates poor conditions in the justice system, and makes intervention difficult.
“It’s very hard to get courts to grant prisoners relief from conditions that I think the public wouldn’t accept if they were aware of them,” said Kelly Green, a defense attorney with Vermont’s Prisoner’s Rights Office who represented Conte at trial.
Still, Green said, “I thought we had a case.” At least, she added, the judge “did liken the shower rooms to an outhouse.”
The threat of retaliation
“We need to make sure people are listened to when they are incarcerated and when they bring forth complaints like this,” said Falko Schilling, advocacy director at the Vermont ACLU. He said the conditions at Chittenden Regional were “disturbing.”
But for people who are incarcerated, coming forward can have consequences.
In documents submitted with a separate petition that Conte has filed for a sentence reduction, which will be heard in the Rutland division of Vermont Superior Court, her attorney, Steven Howard, described the retaliation Conte alleges she has faced at Chittenden Regional after speaking up about conditions in the prison.
“Guards began to treat [Conte] abruptly and yell at her without cause. They would issue disciplinary citations against her without proper grounds,” Howard wrote. He described a March 4 incident in which corrections officers searched Conte’s cell and confiscated property “without valid reason.”
“This atmosphere of subtle harassment makes every day a trial for her,” Howard told the court.
Messier said she believes many of the women at Chittenden Regional have experienced retaliation for speaking up, and it can be a deterrent for others. “I think it becomes really hard as there are investigations going on, and as there are reporters that reach out,” she said.
“The women begin to feel like, ‘what’s the point?’ Because these [other] women spoke up, and look at what they have to deal with. And nothing’s changed.”
Yet Messier believes change hinges on the courage of those who speak out. “I still hold out hope that, for the people that are in positions of power and decision-making, it will matter,” she said. “That even if it did not matter yesterday, that maybe the next person that speaks out, the next woman, it will.
“My question back is always, why has it not mattered yet?”
