The Vermont Department of Corrections has announced that it will move ahead with plans to pursue two sites for a new women’s prison in Essex, estimated to cost the state $70 million to complete and take 10 years to build. A proposed 158-bed facility with a separate 30-bed “re-entry facility,” organizers opposing the construction call it “just another prison” and another chapter in the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) long list of abandoned promises and lack of oversight.
Investigations going back many years have highlighted unsanitary conditions, misconduct, and poor treatment of incarcerated women at the current Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF) in South Burlington. Conditions are so bad that even DOC representatives are using it as a talking point in selling the new construction. Opponents say that an institution that has let CRCF become saturated with mold, human waste, pests, staff drug use, and abuse by officers should not be handed the keys to a brand new $70 million facility.
Organizations that oppose the new construction have emphasized that new prison projects fail. The Vermont DOC’s claim that it will offer a “trauma-informed” facility is not only rejected by formerly incarcerated women but also experts, with multiple studies from the American Public Health Association citing that incarceration of all kinds negatively impacts mental health. These studies were brought up on record by Annie Ramniceanu, the Mental Health Systems Director for DOC during a joint hearing between the House Corrections and Institutions and House Healthcare Committees.
Earlier this year, the Prison Policy Initiative detailed the hollowness of the common talking points that advocates of prison construction use. The author writes, “the prevailing claim is that the only way to solve the problem of incarceration is to expand our ability to incarcerate — when in fact, communities would be better served by shrinking jail populations. This sunk cost fallacy often leaves communities without real solutions and holding the bag for decades.”
“There is a plethora of information suggesting incarceration does not work – what amount of evidence is needed to convince us it is a failed system?” wrote FreeHer Vermont and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in a press release in response to the DOC announcement.
DOC is considering building the facilities of this prison project on one of two separate state-owned lots in the town of Essex, in Chittenden County. One location is on 50 acres off Colchester Road, adjacent to Landfill Lane and a Chittenden Solid Waste District depot, and 1.5 miles to the nearest bus stop. The other location is off River Road, on 25 acres of land between a large solar farm and a staging area for heavy construction projects, and is a half mile from the nearest bus stop.
At the Colchester Road location, the state-owned parcel contains wetlands and several protected areas designated “Rare, Threatened and Endangered Species,” according to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Wetlands Inventory Map.
Since the new facility’s announcement, groups like FreeHer Vermont and the Vermont ACLU have held rallies, weeks of action geared toward public education, and calls to fund more public services, not prisons and police, for multiple years. They also have pushed legislative action with H.445, which would institute a five-year moratorium on new prison construction and lift the suspension of state support for public school renovation.
The $70 million planned for a new prison — which ACLU of Vermont estimated from government figures might run as high as $140 million — could be spent on many competing priorities. For example, lawmakers currently refuse to fund new school construction for the many cities and towns in dire need of new buildings: estimates for those run around $300 million per year. And the new normal of annual flooding across the state, along with the difficulty in obtaining even partial federal compensation for damages, provides another avenue in which tens of millions of dollars could be spent.
Activists point out that Vermont’s tax dollars won’t just pay for the bricks and mortar: those dollars will, if history is any guide, fund the DOC’s abuse and exploitation of the incarcerated inside. The Rake has reported on the shocking abuse of young people at Woodside, the private profits made from price gouging incarcerated Vermonters, and how the DOC couldn’t even carry out the most basic prison reform pilot program.
At press time, the Vermont Department of Corrections jail population stands at 1,414. Among those, 442 are detained, meaning they are being held without or prior to sentencing (those held without bail or who cannot afford bail). Just 104 people are currently incarcerated at CRCF, 39 of whom are being detained and are not subject to any sentence. Of the 60 sentenced, according to FreeHer Vermont, only 13 of those have more than five years left until their minimum release date — a heavy price tag for such a consistently small long-term population.
“Alternatives to incarceration are not always complex—they can be as simple as creating housing for the 63 people in our state prison system who remain incarcerated due to lack of approved housing, or bolstering substance use programs,” said Jayna Ahsaf, Vermont Campaign Director of the FreeHer VT campaign. “Incarceration is not care, and we must ensure that prisons do not continue to detract from the solutions and services available in the community.”
Volunteers with FreeHer VT are already canvassing and talking to Essex residents to rally opposition to the construction. The next step is the Essex Planning Commission’s meeting on Thursday, when state officials will present their plans in more detail — and members of the public will have a chance to be heard.
Update: August 8, 10:20am – updated to clarify that DOC is considering building on one, not both, of the Essex sites.
Matt Moore is a writer from Vermont. He is on the editorial collective of The Rake Vermont.
