Vermont will continue to send some incarcerated people to an out-of-state prison.
The Department of Corrections announced Tuesday a one-year renewal of its contract to house people it has no room for in Vermont at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi.
The facility is run by CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison operators in the country.
The contract renewal comes despite criticism leveled at CoreCivic from the head of the corrections department more than a year ago, when he stated he lost trust in the company. James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, made the comments in the summer of 2020 when 185 Vermonters, or roughly 85% of the incarcerated individuals held at the CoreCivic facility, tested positive for Covid-19.
“We have a very good understanding with CoreCivic now,” Baker said Tuesday. He said CoreCivic has stepped up testing for Covid-19 and added cameras so officials can observe the facility remotely.
“If there are issues,” Baker said of CoreCivic, “they are very receptive now to listening to issues.”
CoreCivic officials could not be reached Tuesday afternoon for comment.
Vermont houses 145 incarcerated individuals at the Mississippi prison, a drop from the peak of 281 in August 2019. That number has declined as some incarcerated individuals have returned to Vermont facilities and transports out-of-state stopped during the pandemic, according to the corrections department.
The contract would have expired at the beginning of the month, with the agreement officially renewed a few days earlier.
The state initiated a contract with CoreCivic in fall 2018 and renewed that two-year contract for an additional year in October 2020. Now, the state Department of Corrections has signed the final one-year contract extension as part of that agreement.
The deal comes as no surprise as the corrections department had not gone out to bid in search of another place to send incarcerated individuals it cannot hold in-state. Corrections officials have also repeatedly said they do not have the space to house the entire incarcerated population in Vermont facilities.
Sending incarcerated people out of state has been a topic of controversy since the 1990s, following a surge in prison populations and a lack of space to house people. The state at one time had sent as many 700 people out of state.
Many people and organizations, including the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, have urged an end to the practice of sending people out of state. They cite a drop in the number of people held in custody compared with years ago and push for more steps to be taken to keep people out of prison in the first place.
“The bottom line is that the state should not renew this contract ever again,” said James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s clear past time for Vermont to end its reliance on out-of-state prisons altogether.”
Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio, who oversees the state’s Prisoners’ Rights Office, said Tuesday that he was “ambivalent” about the news of the latest contract renewal with CoreCivic.
“We don’t find them to be as forthcoming with information as we had hoped from the Prisoners’ Rights Office standpoint,” Valerio said of CoreCivic, “but we haven’t had a lot of incidents to deal with it.”
Baker said the corrections department cannot house the 145 incarcerated individuals sent to Mississippi in Vermont facilities due to the lack of space, even though the population of people in custody has fallen over time.
“Here’s the challenge,” the commissioner said. “When is Covid going to wind down? We have many beds tied up as a result of Covid-19 in Vermont, using them as quarantine beds.”
In addition, he said, the corrections department is dealing with a staffing shortage.
“We’re going to have to make some decisions in the next few months,” Baker said, “because if we decide we need to go out to bid for another contract or we extend this, that is going to require a conversation.”
