Tag Archives: Southern State Correctional Facility

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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“Culture Change” at DOC is a Moral Imperative

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More evidence that the long-awaited “culture change” at the Vermont Department of Corrections is still purely conceptual: A new study shows that the Southern State Correctional Facility at Springfield is a hellhole for inmates and staff alike.

It’s bad. Really, really bad. It’s not only an administrative and regulatory failure, it’s a moral failure. It reflects badly on anyone who’s had anything to do with our prison system in recent times: DOC officials, successive governors, union leadership, and the legislators with oversight responsibility. Anyone else? The Judiciary? Prosecutors?

Abigail Crocker, co-founder of the Justice Research Initiative, found many of the study’s results “alarming.” I think that’s an understatement.

One of those findings: 37% of the prison population, and 30% of prison staff, have had suicidal ideations.

So. In a place that’s supposed to be preparing inmates for productive re-entry into society, more than one-third of them are in despair or painfully close to it.

Well, you might say, of course people serving hard time might feel bad. But then you have to explain that 30% figure among staff, which indicates that the prison is just about as horrible for the workers as for the inmates.

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