When we look at how some of those services are delivered within the correction system, it’s obvious that folks don’t have any choice in where they get those services, or what price points to get those services at, which creates a real problem when you have very limited resources and an inability to earn those resources. And we also see things costing far more within an incarcerated setting than they might for folks on the outside.
For the terminally online, this discourse has been done to death, but if you’re the token Vermonter at the dinner table this topic will likely come up. We want to prepare you for this possibly drunken, certainly awkward conversation.
Vermont, like every other state, has contracts between its Department of Corrections and private, for-profit companies to meet incarcerated people’s commissary, media, and telecommunication needs. The State of Vermont allows these corporations to charge prices that far exceed anything paid by Vermonters on the outside. Moreover, the state receives a portion of the proceeds, incentivizing DOC officials to continue the practice without scrutiny or legislative oversight.
As a growing transphobic reactionary movement throughout the country uses both state and informal power to intimidate trans people out of public life, Vermont media shows mixed ability to cover these issues with sensitivity.
In Part 2 of this series, we look at how Vermont’s incarcerated workers are exploited by the State, the Vermont Department of Corrections, and the many nonprofits and municipalities that employ them.
This November, the Vermont Abolish Slavery and Indentured Servitude Amendment to the Vermont State Constitution will be presented to Vermont voters for approval. The bill intends to update Vermont’s Constitution regarding slavery, clarifying that “slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.”
After the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights recently opened an investigation alleging incidents of antisemitism at the University of Vermont, students and
The $90 million project, popularly known as “Cop City,” is set to be the largest police training facility in the country, replete with firing ranges, helipad, explosives facilities and an entire mock city for advanced training.
The Winooski School District’s almost-completed $62 million school expansion project has been in the news for being behind schedule and incurring rising costs. What is likely unknown to the city’s residents and most Winooski school officials is the project’s use of over $400,000 worth of incarcerated labor, worth millions in real labor costs, on average making less than $1 an hour.
Dear A Leftist™, I try to always put my name on anything I write or say. Why do some leftists stay anonymous online? I think if you wouldn’t say something face to face you shouldn’t say it at all!
Data strongly suggests that while Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George uses progressive language, her office is often in lockstep with local police departments, from arrests to incarceration and restorative justice.
In the latest episode of Unsolicited Bridge Pics, Gabrielle Bills is joined by fellow members of The Rake Matt Moore and Mike Fife to present
Burlington Housing Authority residents are concerned and confused by a lead removal program’s unclear temporary relocation plans, which require them to find housing using substandard stipends and accommodations far below the costs of housing in Burlington.
An investigation by The Rake Vermont discovered that Burlington attorney and former Ward 1 city councilor Ed Adrian resigned from the Vermont Commission on Women (VCW) shortly after he engaged in an aggressive line of questioning of an abuse survivor during a February 2022 VCW meeting.
Edge Pharma LLC had “a history of serious violations” before a complaint was filed by the United States on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 20.
In the middle of a spring marked by widespread anti-trans political action and legislation in the US and heightened transphobic and homophobic violence in Vermont, Wright invited right-wing activist Karlyn Borysenko onto his radio program.
Burlington’s interim Chief of Police Murad has joined ex-NYPD Chief Bill Bratton’s new venture, the Public Safety Research Center (PSRC), as a member of its advisory board. The PSRC has only one listed sponsor, ShotSpotter, a controversial gunfire locator service.
To local media our lives are worth nothing — but our deaths are worth advertising dollars.
While the city was struggling to raise money to cover its needs, the Weinberger administration gave a break to one of the city’s most elite and exclusive institutions: it provided a $210,000 water bill write-off to the Burlington Country Club (BCC).
Vermont’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) purportedly exists to protect the children in its care; however, youth lodged at Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Colchester had the opposite experience.