Tag Archives: Department of Corrections

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

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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

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It’s been a minute since I wrote about the disastrous tenure of Nicholas Deml as corrections commissioner. To recap, he was on the job for the better part of five years and during that time, there was an almost complete turnover in the top ranks of the Department of Corrections. Most crucially, just about anyone with relevant experience left the department and were replaced with people who had no discernible background in corrections or law enforcement.

And now I have a bunch of numbers that underscore Deml’s failure to bring the long-awaited culture change to DOC. They come from the state of Vermont’s 2025 Employee Engagement Survey, available online for the entire state government and for every individual agency or department.

The results show rampant disaffection within the ranks at DOC. The numbers for Corrections employees are, across the board, substantially worse than they are for state government as a whole. If Deml had any positive impact on the department, it sure as hell doesn’t show up in this survey.

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Return of the Ghost of Deals With the Devil Past

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When I was reading The Manchester Journal’s account of an ICE detainee being whisked away to a prison — oops, my mistake, a “processing center” — hundreds of miles away, it rang a faint bell in the back of my mind.

As The Journal reported, Davona Williams had been moved without notice to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.

North Lake… Michigan… why does that sound familiar?

Well, it happens to be a repurposed version of the North Lake Correctional Facility, operated by GEO Group, the for-profit incarceration giant. When North Lake was operating as a prison, the state of Vermont contracted with it to house hundreds of Vermont inmates. It’s located in what can fairly be described as the middle of nowhere; Baldwin is a town of 863 located roughly halfway between Grand Rapids and Traverse City. I can tell you as a native Michigander, that’s deep in the Michigan countryside. Not exactly an easy trip for a family wanting to visit their incarcerated relative. (A 13-hour drive from Montpelier, in fact.)

And that’s where Davona Williams now finds herself. Wonderful.

But there’s more, much more, to tell about the grubby history of the North Lake Name Your Penitentiary.

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Phil Scott Bends the Knee

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It’s been obvious since January (if not before) that Gov. Phil Scott has adopted a very different tone when it comes to That Man in the White House. It used to be that Scott felt no qualms about openly criticizing Trump. Lately, his approach has been decidedly more circumspect. I used to chalk this up to a new realpolitik in which the November election gave him many more Republican allies in the Legislature, most of whom are avid Trumpers. In response, Scott had to be more careful.

Now? I think Phil Scott is bending the knee, taking the coward’s way out, keeping his head down, sacrificing principle in favor of expediency. He doesn’t want to join the likes of Harvard, UPenn, immigrants, transgender folk, Stephen Colbert, the Washington Commanders, and Rosie O’Donnell in Trump’s crosshairs.

Two points. First, Scott’s transportation secretary refusing to cooperate with Attorney General Charity Clark’s lawsuit over cutbacks in federal funding for electric vehicle infrastructure. Second, his staunch defense of state cooperation with Trump’s immigration regime despite the fact that his own Department of Corrections is having a hard time dealing with the feds’ extraconstitutional thuggery.

Also this: A carefully worded statement from Clark that hints at a broader Trump-avoidant stance by the Scott administration.

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Come to the Table, Talk to the Hand

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At his Wednesday press conference, Gov. Phil Scott was studiously noncommittal on the use of state prisons to house federal detainees. He unironically expressed the belief that it might be better for detainees like Mohsen Mahdavi to be kept in Vermont instead of being dragged off to Mississippi (where Vermont routinely sends its own inmates) or some other hellhole. But he left the door open to working with lawmakers on that issue and others, as the Legislature considers ways to manage state cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Behind the scenes, something very different is happening. The Scott administration appears to be stonewalling a legislative panel with jurisdiction over the prison contract.

This comes from Independent Rep. Troy Headrick, a member of the House Corrections & Institutions Committee, with additional input from fellow committee member, Democratic Rep. Conor Casey.

Headrick wrote a blogpost on April 16 detailing “executive obstruction” frustrating the committee’s work on the issue. “In committee, we have developed a tri-partisan consensus,” Headrick writes, “that Vermont has no business being complicit with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]’s repeated violations of due process, the First Amendment, and basic human rights.”

Unfortunately, he continues, this effort to end the feds’ use of state prisons to hold detainees has been “stalled… by direct interference from the Governor’s office.”

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Phil Scott Dips a Toe Into the Resistance River and Finds the Water a Bit Chilly

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At his weekly press conference, Gov. Phil Scott refused a call from Senate Democratic leadership to terminate Vermont’s agreement with the federal government that allows immigration detainees to be held in state prisons. “I’m not sure it helps the people being detained by moving them out of Vermont,” Scott said, citing a report that one detainee expressed relief that he was being held in our B.L.S.

And you know, he’s not wrong. At least not in one important way. Immigration attorney Brett Stokes of the Vermont Law and Graduate School and Falko Schilling of the Vermont ACLU told VTDigger that they’d prefer their clients to be close at hand, not sent to unknown facilities in other states — or even overseas. I understand that, and I think we should take their viewpoint seriously.

That said. There is a moral dimension to this question that Scott did not address. Do we as Vermonters want to be complicit in the Trump administration’s crackdown on alleged thought crimes? Are we comfortable being part of this authoritarian project? Phil Scott apparently is, as long as we can help shave the rough edges off.

I must also point out a bitter irony that went unnoticed by our news media.

“I get the frustration that people are feeling. People want to do something about what they see happening,” Scott said. ““But is that in the best interest of those who are being detained to just ship them off to somewhere else, Mississippi, Texas, wherever?”

Ahem.

Mississippi, you say?

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If They’re Pondering a Rebrand, I Suggest “Illpath”

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Vermont’s three-year prison health care contract with troubled provider Wellpath is off to a whizbang start. Right off the bat, 15 inmates at the Northwest State Correctional Facility were given the wrong medication by Wellpath providers for their substance use disorder. And now, we have a Wellpath employee in a highly responsible position who has — well, I’d call it a “checkered past” except that all the squares seem to be the same color.

In September, Wellpath hired Robert Stevenson to be its top employee at the Southern State Correctional Facility. Turns out Stevenson lost his nursing license in three different states for “diverting or wasting opioids,” according to VTDigger.

And we only know this because one of his subordinates looked up his record, discovered his malfeasances, and reported it to Wellpath. Its response? The whistleblower was fired.

I’d call this a clown car, but that would be unfair to clowns.

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Why Don’t We Govern As If People Mattered?

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Two stories on a common theme appeared Monday morning on VTDigger. The first was about a “spate” (their term) of deaths in Vermont’s prison system, mainly at the Springfield facility. The second was about another rise in opioid-related deaths that puts us on track to break the all-time record set in 2022.

In both, I heard echoes of the lamentable deal struck by the Legislature and Scott administration for a partial extension of the motel voucher program — an extension loaded with poison pills. Not only does the program leave 800 or so households without shelter, it also makes the voucher experience as unpleasant as possible for its clients from now on. Who are, just a reminder, some of Vermont’s most vulnerable. You know, the ones Gov. Phil Scott likes to say he’s committed to protecting. Echoes also of a fundamental approach toward human services programs for the poor: Make the experience difficult and unpleasant so recipients are incentivized to GTFO, one way or another.

It’s like a soup kitchen that dumps vinegar into its food because if it tastes good, people won’t be incentivized to get their own damn dinner. Mind you, not enough vinegar to make anyone sick; just enough to discourage them from partaking unless they’re truly desperate.

This approach is all too common in our social programs. It’s a lousy way to meet the needs of our most vulnerable. It’s morally questionable, and if you’re not into the “morality” stuff, it’s also counterproductive in terms of financials and outcomes. People suffer needlessly and face tougher barriers to achieving self-sufficiency, which I think is what we’re supposedly aiming for.

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Black Lives Matter, Except When They Don’t, and Even When They Do They’re Pretty Damn Cheap

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Hey, remember when the good folks of Montpelier painted “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in front of the Statehouse, and they got really upset when a guy committed a minor (and easily expunged) act of vandalism on it?

Well, the state of Vermont effectively obliterated the entire thing — with the spilled blood of a Black man. And the promise that “BLACK LIVES MATTER” will remain a well-meaning myth as long as Kenneth Johnson’s life can end so cheaply. And as long as Shamel Alexander gets a measly $30,000 in recompense for his wrongful arrest, conviction and imprisonment by the justice system of our fair state.

Johnson died last December while in custody at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. According to a report from Vermont’s Defender General Matthew Valerio, Johnson’s death was the slow, painful result of negligence by medical and prison staff.

Valerio’s report, which you can find at the link to Seven Days’ website above, provides more than adequate grounds for termination and criminal prosecution of multiple unnamed staffers. Valerio outlines a case of homicide by professional negligence that’s appalling and inexcusable.

And an example of Your Tax Dollars At Work.

I don’t know what’s the worst part of this. To begin with, Johnson was in prison awaiting trial. He faced some truly heinous charges, but he hadn’t been convicted. He still wound up with a death sentence, thanks to your public servants and their designees. His medical care was botched from the get-go; he had a throat tumor obstructing his airway that could have been treated, but instead he was thought to have a cold or some other minor ailment. His pleadings for care fell on deaf ears.

From the report: “Security video showed Mr. Johnson in various stages of agony. He died after hours of struggling to breathe while nearby nurses did nothing to help… One [nurse] claimed she did not perform adequate checks [on Johnson] ‘because he was so fidgety.'”

Let’s hope this nurse quickly becomes an ex-nurse. She seems more constitutionally suited to a less vital profession, like maybe convenience store cashier or DMV clerk.

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And now, a word from the Department of Corrections’ Corrections Department

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When last I wrote, I brought you the sad, unfinished tale of Valley News columnist Jim Kenyon’s quest for a visit to North Lake Correctional Facility, the Michigan for-profit prison contracted to house surplus Vermont inmates. And I promised an update when I heard from the Shumlin administration.

Well, here it is. Just got a nice call from Corrections Commissioner Lisa Menard and Director of Facility Operations Mike Touchette. The gist: Kenyon’s request got lost in the shuffle, and Menard would be happy to have him tour the prison.

For those just joining us, Kenyon submitted a written request to the Department of Corrections on August 13. There was no response for over a month. And then, DoC simply told him that his request had been passed on to prison operator GEO Group. Kenyon emailed GEO directly on September 25. As of the 30th, he hadn’t gotten an answer. And another reminder: Menard only recently became DoC Commissioner; she replaced Andy Pallito earlier this month.

Which brings us to the present. What about the delay in responding?

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