As I mentioned yesterday, I've received a lot of feedback on my diary looking at the transfer of women inmates from the Northwest Correctional Facility in St. Albans to the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility – a fundamentally different type of prison that was simply never designed to inter such an inmate population. One person who stepped forward is someone who worked with these women inmates in both facilities.
While this person did not wish to be identified, they did wish to give be a first-hand accounting for the record. The interview, which covers a lot of the same territory, but does shed new light (and from a different perspective).
You had professional experience at both the Northwest facility and the Chittenden Correctional Facility. it's been suggested to me that a lot of folks who work in corrections thought this move was a bad idea.
Yes, for a lot of reasons.
I don't think I heard anybody ever say "wow that's a great idea."
What were their concerns?
Well, the big concern was the one that's been all over the media, and that's that they don't have anything to do. They had a great workout space up there. Curves in St Albans had donated all their equipment when they closed. They had zumba classes, they were able to work. They had the print shop, they had modular homes – they had stuff to do. They were able to move about the building… every hour you could go outside. Because its not a regional facility, the rules about going in and out and that sort of thing were a lot different than at Chittenden.
So when they moved to Chittenden, a lot of stuff was taken away. Their ability to learn new skills was taken away, their freedom to go outside or move about the building was taken away. They're confined to a much smaller space – the units are much smaller. Chittenden actually added beds to the units, so there were actually more women confined to the units than there were men. There's a lot of things that were taken away and there doesn't seem to be – although who knows what the higher ups are doing – but there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort to change these things.
What was the difference in the environment, beyond what they had to do and what facilities were available to them?
The environment is a lot different. Chittenden is an older facility – part of the environment is the feel of it and the energy of it. So you have all these women and everybody knows everybody, pretty much. They have history with each other, with each others' boyfriends, with each others' sisters, and on and on. So you've got all these women in these confined spaces who can't go in and out of the unit like they used to do, to get away from each other. So there's a lot more backstabbing and manipulation and catfighting and that sort of thing, which adds to the environment for sure. It's not nearly as clean – and when I say clean, I mean – the inmates clean, but there's just so much that you can do. Like, some of the floors have broken tiles, and the wax buildup is just gross. Their medical unit is teeny teeny tiny compared to St. Albans. It doesn't have an infirmary, so that if people are sick or need to be watched or whatever, there's no place for them to stay. So they either get sent back to their unit, or they end up having to go to the hospital. There's no place to stay in Chittenden if you're sick and recovering from surgery, or detoxing, or whatever.
It's just a much smaller, older facility that's not as clean that is making them anxious, and a lot of the women have anxiety and depression. So it's adding to those mental health issues, which add to the whole environment. I mean, it's like they’re caged, they feel caged – and they are, compared to what they had.
It's also been suggested to me that the Chittenden facility isn't really set up for long term.
No, that's not why it was built.
And there are long term inmates with long term sentences.
Absolutely. It was set up as a Regional facility, so that – you know – people come in, they're processed, they stay until their court date or whatever, and then they go off somewhere else. They're not supposed to live there long term.
Did you feel that there was any attempt from the staff at Chittenden who had been there for a while to adjust how they do things?
Not at all. The line that everybody used was "I'm gonna treat the women just like I treated the men," and I'm like, that's not going to go over so well. Women communicate differently…. the women are very proactive, they're very interested in problem solving, they're interested in their rights and sticking up for themselves, where the men just sat around and complained a lot, but aren't very interested in change, or instituting change, or being part of that change. But the women are, very much so.
There was a lot of talk from the Shumlin administration when they were supporting this that this move would be good for the women, because they'd be closer to services in Chittenden County. There's talk about a grant to try to build another building, I understand there's talk about putting in a ramp as I understand there's no wheelchair access to outside – a lot of promises that its going to be better, it's going to be good. Did you see any sign of any movement to that?
No, I mean, when they say they're going to have more access to services in Chittenden County, what services? Did they set any of that up beforehand, which is what should have been done. They didn't know this move was happening. It's not like they were "oh we have three weeks to prepare," it wasn't like that. They should've made sure that there were services in Chittenden County and that contracts were set up, and that there were things available.
The wheelchair ramp – I actually know that particular woman, and knew her at St. Albans and knew her at Chittenden, and heard the assistant superintendent tell her 'we have the ramp, but we just don't know where it is – but as soon as we find it, we'll make sure it's out there.' She had been there probably six weeks by then, and hadn't been outside. And [she] really, really wanted to go, and she's smart and she can stick up for herself and has made phone calls and, you know.
The particular woman with the wheelchair, I know… she was trying to [unintelligible on tape] for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) violations, for disability violations, more than just the [ramp]… but, the problem with that – in order to make a phone call, a number has to be on your approved phone call list. You can't just call anybody, and you have to go through a process to get a number approved. So she can't just call here and call there and whatever and whatever – because, it's such a process.
What do you say to the folks who say, ' well, you know, they're prisoners, they broke the law. It's not supposed to be nice, it's supposed to be hard – they shouldn't complain…'
The point is that they went from a facility that had flat screen TVs in their cells. Large airy day rooms, free movement – within limits of course – throughout the building every hour, they got to go outside whenever they wanted, they got to see their friends because everybody could move throughout the building – units could visit with other units while they were outside or at chow or whatever. They went from having all these things that everyone deemed appropriate for inmates, because they had it – that's OK. It's OK for everybody here in St. Albans to have these perks – but don't complain when we take it all away. That's not right.
Where the men who came from Chittenden, who went from not having these perks, they're like, in inmate heaven right now, with the TVs, and the workout space, and the going-in-and-out with their buddies. It wasn't an even trade, or even close to it at all. That's the thing about it, so they do have a right to complain.
A lot of these women are mothers. Are most of them? Is that fair to say?
I would say a good number of them are mothers. That either still have their kids, or lost custody of their kids.
Do they have the same sort of access to their kids that they did in the St Albans facility?
No. Actually, in St. Albans – well, there's two different things. One is the Kids Apart program, and I honestly don't know – I think to be in the Kids Apart program, I don't know, I don't want to give wrong information, but you have to meet certain criteria. You have to attend classes, you may be have to be in danger of losing them – I don't know. Not everybody sees their kids in the Kids Apart program. The other thing is just regular visiting. In St. Albans, they were allowed to hug their kids when they came in. Now, they're not allowed to hug their kids. Some of them don't have their kids come in, because it will upset their kids so much that they won't be able to hug them. They can't hold their babies, they can't – yeah – they are definitely restricted access.
Does it surprise you that this hasn't seemed to be an issue with people given the generally progressive inclinations of lawmakers and the new Governor, I mean, why has this fallen under the radar screen so much?
Because they're inmates. People in the general public, people don't want to hear about inmates. Inmates are bad, inmates are bad people, they broke the law, they did this that or the other thing. They don't want to hear about them, they want to know that they're in the jail and that's all they want to know. They're not in their neighborhood, it's not their relative, so they don't have to worry about it. So, no – I'm not surprised. And if people don't realize, it's a very subconscious thing like a lot of things are in our culture, they don't realize that they consider inmates a lower – I don't know… they're like the low, they live on the wrong side of the tracks, so we don't think about them. They're in jail, so we don't have to worry about them.
We should not lose site of the fact that better than either was the Windsor facility. And that this is the third location, not the second, that women have been shifted to in a short period of time.
Quite a disturbing picture. I would be curious to know just how many of these women have psychological and addiction issues. Even the hundred-percent healthy mind would suffer under the conditions that are described above.
If you add pre-existing mental and addiction issues, how likely is it that any of those prisoners will emerge a more productive member of society?
In fact, because of the differences in attitude from men that are being described, a female prisoner is likely to emerge from such conditions, angrier, and therefore more desocialized by the experience than even a man would.
It is simply disingenuous to say that the penal system in Vermont is in any way rehabilitative.
How far we have strayed from the Governor’s promises in the campaign season!
There is very little rehab focus in Vermont Corrections that is effective. Caseworkers are overburdened and it is not just the folks who get sent out of state that are ignored up until the time they are about to be released back onto the streets with limited or no skill improvement or positive outlook.
On the other hand, I suppose there are folks, mostly not doing their reading on this blog but some who are, who react negatively to the “flat screen, exercise machine, free movement and liberal visitation” of the facility at NW. In a time when many who are paying the bill are making decisions about their own ability to afford their own cable, etc, some concern is justified. Back in the day when people went to prison and learned to do somewhat meaningful work in order to provide a self sufficient system within the walls-dairy, farming, baking-as well as making number plates- before cheap corporate interests forced in house stuff out in the name of free market competition… maybe things were more positive.
Bottom line for me is that we as a country continue to put so many folks behind bars for silly stuff, while wall street rapists smoke fat cigars and we move closer and closer to a police state where apparently, if Winooski and Wall Street are examples, no one is policing the police.
Maybe the draft does need to come back, so that families of regular Americans can see the impact of our failed policies, and a new generation of Hippies, SDS and Pathers can rise up and bring us another generation of younger, pure spirited politicos to lead us until the CIA decides to schedule another event in Texas….
Boy, what a basket of free range association….