Category Archives: justice and corrections

We Ought to Be Beyond Ashamed About Our Women’s Prison

This, friends and neighbors, proud Vermonters, is the former gymnasium at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, a.k.a. the state’s only prison for women.

It was the gym until the prison got so overcrowded (130% capacity) that they had to convert it to a temporary shelter where (at last count) 24 inmates are sleeping on the floor in this appalling setting. Although I will admit the jigsaw puzzle is a nice touch, providing the thinnest veneer of hominess to this shitshow.

All of this is according to testimony delivered Monday to the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee by Isaac Dayno, executive director of policy at the state Department of Corrections. (Dayno’s slide deck can be downloaded here.) And this is only the newest outrage at CRCF, which has kept inmates in unsafe, unsanitary conditions for the better part of a decade. (For a dose of unfresh outrage, see Paul Heintz’ CRCF exposé, published by Seven Days in 2019. Or check out Heintz’ 2020 report on the facility’s showers providng a home to maggots and leeches and reeking of human waste.)

Dayno began his appearance by reporting his imminent departure from DOC, about which more below. In this light, his testimony can be interpreted as a not-so-subtle single-finger salute to the Phil Scott administration, which has failed to produce a solid proposal for upgrading or replacing the prison for, yes, the better part of a decade.

“We can do better,” Dayno told lawmakers. “The costs of inaction and apathy are quite high.” Hmm, remind me who’s been in charge of the situation since 2017? Phil Scott, that’s who.

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More Evidence That Nicholas Deml Was a Failure

Was Nicholas Deml the Worst-Ever Hire by the Scott Administration?

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I put the title in the form of a question, but based on what I’ve learned in recent days, there really isn’t much doubt about it: Nicholas Deml’s tenure as corrections commissioner was a complete disaster, and he leaves the department in a perilously weakened position going forward.

To recap, Deml was an outlier from the very beginning. The Scott administration normally promotes from within, and the Department of Corrections usually places a high value on seniority. Deml’s three predecessors*, ~~Nicholas~~ Michael Touchette, Lisa Menard, and Andrew Pallito, had each served many years in DOC. (Menard and Touchette began their corrections careers as prison guards and worked their respective ways to the top of the chain.)

*Not counting James Baker, who served as interim commish between Touchette and Deml. Baker didn’t have corrections experience, but he did bring a lengthy background in law enforcement leadership.

And then Deml was hired in November 2021 from a post with the Central Intelligence Agency. There was hope that as an outsider, he would instill a long-overdue culture change to the department. Despite his lack of corrections background, he must have had some great ideas, right?

Well, his four-and-a-half year tenure was marked by the sadly customary kinds of missteps and scandals. And then he quit in July, in a Friday afternoon newsdump, with less than three weeks’ notice and without any sort of immediate job prospects aside from a vague nod toward launching “an advisory practice to continue the work I care about most.” (More on that later.)

At the time, I wrote about the strangeness of his departure — and the complete lack of curiosity about it from our Pillars of the Fourth Estate. Knowing what I know now, I see nothing strange at all about his sudden bugout, and I’m even more perplexed at our media’s quick dismissal of the story. There is evidence aplenty that Deml’s tenure was disastrous. You don’t have to dig very far to uncover it, and you don’t have to work very hard to find former department officials willing to spill the beans.

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Return of the Ghost of Deals With the Devil Past

The Incredible Disappearing Corrections Commissioner

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Well, this is a new twist on the old “Friday Newsdump,” the storied tradition of minimizing the impact of bad news by pushing it out on a Friday afternoon or early evening. I guess we can call this a “Monday morning newsdump.”

I’m referring to the sudden announcement, with absolutely no explanation given, that Nicholas Deml is resigning as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections, effective less than three weeks from now.

The announcement came in the form of a press release from Gov. Phil Scott’s office, which included the naming of Deml’s replacement: Fformer Burlington police chief Jon Murad will step into the roleon August 15, the day Deml officially departs. No reason for Deml’s resignation was offered.

And apparently, there was little effort to find out by the Grey Gardens of our Fourth Estate. The stories posted by VTDigger and Seven Days essentially barfed up Scott’s press release with no indication of much additional effort. Not even a line saying “Deml was not immediately available for comment.” Vermont Public‘s story did include one line from am emailed statement in which Deml wrote of launching “an advisory practice to continue the work I care about most.” That’s the only hint I could find, anywhere, of a reason for leaving or plans for the future.

Other media outlets, including the comatose Burlington Free Press and WCAX and WFFF/WVNY, led their stories with Murad’s appointment. Deml’s resignation didn’t even warrant headline placement.

That’s awfully thin coverage for a significant departure, likely thanks to the weekly rhythms of the newsroom. Monday is for gearing up to full operations after a weekend of little to no activity. You’re trying to get some news out there ASAP, and often starting from scratch. Which means that Monday morning isn’t quite as good a time to bury news as Friday afternoon, but it’s not a bad second choice. The administration got the kind of minimal, incurious coverage it probably hoped for.

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It Was Supposed to Be an Emergency Drill for Students, But Now It’s the Adults Who Are Ducking and Covering

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Far be it for me to imply that the Burlington Police Department doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing, but in this case they clearly didn’t.

The BPD is in hot water, possibly to be joined in the pot by the Burlington Public Schools and Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, whose recent reappointment of Police Chief Jon Murad, over the objections of her fellow Progressives, now seems like maybe not such a great idea.

On Wednesday, a group of 20 Burlington High School students were on a field trip to One North Avenue when screams rang out and two women ran into the room, pursued by a masked gunman. Who opened fire.

It was a drill staged by the BPD with the apparent goal of scaring the shit out of the kids and maybe giving them PTSD. “I’m shaking and crying because I’m like, Oh my god, I’m gonna get shot,” one student told Seven Days. “It felt so real.”

In an utterly inadequate press release blandly (misleadingly) entitled “BHS Scenario Response,” the BPD called this a “roll- playing scenario” (sic) that “was not directed at any students or faculty.”

Pardon me, but what the actual fuck? The masked gunman was in the room with the school group and gunshots rang out. How in hell were they supposed to know that it “was not directed” at them?

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Even By Phil Scott Standards, This Is a Stupid Veto

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Gov. Phil Scott’s dozens upon dozens of vetoes fall into three rough categories:

Principled, which involve an honest philosophical difference between Republican executive and Democratic/Progressive Legislature.
Easily avoidable, in which Scott proffers an objection that could have been easily cleared up with a little effort during the session.
Transparently phony, in which Scott gins up some excuse for a veto because if he came right out and disagreed with a bill’s premise it might damage his “moderate” image.

Today’s veto of H.645 is a combo platter of number 2 and number 3, a particularly toxic blend. The bill would ensure equitable access to restorative justice programs. In other words, kind of a squishy criminal justice reform that wouldn’t appeal to someone who wants to be tough on crime. For instance, Phil Scott.

But instead of addressing the issue directly and risk tarnishing his centrist cred, he claimed that he had to veto the bill because it lacked the necessary funding to put it into practice. (His veto message is very brief and includes no hint of any other rationale.)

Implementation of the measure would be handled by the Attorney General’s Office, and unfortunately for Scott’s chosen rationale, AG Charity Clark quickly replied that her office could handle it with no problem, at least for the next fiscal year, with its existing resources.

Yeah, kind of embarrassing.

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It’s Complicated.

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My first reaction to the passing of Sen. Dick Sears? I was sad. Honestly. He was a genuinely nice guy who always tried to do what he saw as best for Vermont.

That said… I think the Senate will, on balance, be a better place without him.

See, it’s complicated.

Dick Sears was one of the last remaining Old Lions of the Senate. Like his fellow members of the pride, he was a raging institutionalist who loved the Senate exactly as it was. I see the Senate quite differently: far too self-absorbed and far less functional than it ought to be, too closed to new ideas and too scornful of the Legislature’s junior chamber.

But of all the past and present Old Lions, Sears was the most valuable. He brought a lot to the table. As longtime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he knew the law as well as anyone. Due in part to his own humble upbringing, he often thought of the law in terms of those caught in its crosshairs, and that’s a rare quality in anyone who held a position of authority as long as he did. On the other hand, he thwarted many a reform measure if he thought it went too far, and was especially loath to enact any new gun bills.

And his voice was curiously silent when it came to the, shall we say, questionable practices of the police in his own backyard.

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Phil Scott Prioritizes Corporate Profits Over Public Safety

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The headline might seem outrageous, and I’m sure it won’t make anyone on the Fifth Floor happy, but it’s the plain truth.

Vermont’s judiciary system is grossly underfunded and understaffed. The result is a huge backlog of pending cases measured, not in weeks or months, but in years. Gov. Phil Scott’s solution? Cut a few more positions from the courts.

This is the same governor who said, in his State of the State address, that public safety was one of his top priorities. The House decided to boost the Judiciary instead of strangling it, and approved a bill that would pay for more positions in the court system by increasing corporate taxes and fees by a skosh or two. This appears to be a no-go for Scott, who would rather kill any kind of tax or fee increase than, I don’t know, fully fund the judicial system at a time when he claims that we face a public safety crisis.

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A Decent Interval Might Have Been Appropriate

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The Vermont Political Observer.

a.k.a. theVPO: Analysis and observation of Vermont politics from a liberal viewpoint

Category Archives: justice and corrections

We Ought to Be Beyond Ashamed About Our Women’s Prison

More Evidence That Nicholas Deml Was a Failure

Was Nicholas Deml the Worst-Ever Hire by the Scott Administration?

Return of the Ghost of Deals With the Devil Past

The Incredible Disappearing Corrections Commissioner

It Was Supposed to Be an Emergency Drill for Students, But Now It’s the Adults Who Are Ducking and Covering

Even By Phil Scott Standards, This Is a Stupid Veto

It’s Complicated.

Phil Scott Prioritizes Corporate Profits Over Public Safety

A Decent Interval Might Have Been Appropriate