Gov. Phil Scott’s administration is proposing that Vermont contract with a private company to build a 925-bed correctional facility in Franklin County.
Calling it a “10-year vision,” Secretary of Human Services Al Gobeille emphasized that the complex would be constructed gradually over the course of a decade.
Legislators asked the Agency of Human Services to come up with a plan to address the state’s aging correctional facilities as well as shortcomings with its mental health care system. The recommendation is in a report from administration officials to legislators.
The facility would house male and female offenders, including those with mental health diagnoses.
Its construction would cost roughly $140 million, according to the agency’s estimates. A private company would build the facility and then lease it to the state.
Scott’s communications director, Rebecca Kelley, said the governor supports the “vision” laid out in the report and “recognizes there’s a lot of work to do to make it a reality.”
The project would replace the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington and the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center would close. The new facility would eliminate the need to send Vermont prisoners out of state, according to the report. The report suggests that the facility could save the state money over a 20-year period.
The House Committee on Corrections and Institutions will discuss the matter at a Statehouse hearing Tuesday.
“We’re going give the report a full vetting and we’ll do our due diligence,” said chair Rep. Alice Emmons (D-Springfield). “It’s going to be a long conversation.”
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And communities and school boards across the state are harangued into closing schools and cutting costs.
As expected, a Republican Governor advocates for a private prison. Creating an incentive to imprison people is NEVER a good idea. Vote for James Ehlers in 2018 to stop this madness.
Didn’t we learn from the experience of Pennsylvania where a juvenile court judge was arrested for sentencing young people to jail time at a private facility. He got a kick-back from the private corporation for every person he sent to the facility. Prisons are a public responsibility. How about criminal justice reform first, before we sell our souls?
We need to stop incarcerating the mentally ill. It is not a viable solution. We need less prisons and more mental health treatment. Otherwise they are released sicker than they went in.
We have got to stop supporting the private prison industry. Prisoners are people, not commodities! Yes, they have erred and must serve their sentences, but putting them in the hands of organizations who’s first priority is their shareholders is a huge mistake. This industry needs to go away.
Its not going to be a private prison – its going to be built by a private company and leased to and run by the state. Also, the mental health facility will be a stand-alone with the purpose of getting MH folks out of incarcerative setting and into MH facility. Read the friggin article before you post your knee jerk reactions.
Perhaps this comment thread has proven that adult education should be a priority in this state? It’s like none of these commenters are capable of reading and absorbing information. It’s a sad state of affairs out there…
Where and why in St. Albans ?
A better use of taxpayers money would be to take a long look at the cost benefit of incarceration, which is an inverse one. We are not getting good outcomes from incarceration. Prisons are a holdover from a time when there was not the technology available now. Incarceration is expensive, long prison sentences do not deter crime, and “corrections” is a misnomer. Let’s look at what is done in other developed countries around incarceration, invest in more restorative justice programs, and stop incarcerating people who pose no safety risks to our communities. Instead of building better prisons for older inmates and the mentally ill, let’s find a better solution for them than incarceration.
Why close the one in St Albans? It is hard enough for the visitors to make it there let alone Franklin county!
“Why close the one in St Albans? It is hard enough for the visitors to make it there let alone Franklin county!”
Seriously?
Where do you think St. Albans is?
“Where and why in St. Albans ?”
Seriously?
Where and why would you guess? Take a wild guess. It’s not difficult.
This scam is being foisted upon Vermont by a for-profit prison company. Any review of their operations over the last three decades would make it clear that hiring them, an outfit whose employees have to sue in major class actions to get paid legal wages, who abuse and even kill inmates, who get paid for specific services then concoct documentation to make it appear that they were doing their jobs, who have bribed a long train of public officials with cash and quids pro quo, would know better than to deal with them. It would be like hiring the mafia to deal with the shoplifting at your store.
Their business model is larceny, purely and simply. The state has been contracting with them for decades and should have learned its lesson long ago.
Doing the math based on FY2015 stats, this adds a net 300 beds to the VT incarceration system, assuming all out-of-state prisoners are brought back home.
Meanwhile, the prisoner population has been trending downward. (Per the VT DOC’s own statistics)
This isn’t to save money.
http://www.doc.state.vt.us/about/reports/f…
Private industry making a profit from keeping people in cages for alleged “crimes” that harmed absolutely no one, is the last statement I would apply to the word “Vision”. Turning people into criminals with unconstitutional “statutory law” is becoming way, way too profitable for the BAR association mob and their cronies. Courts are being run like revenue collection (extortion) mills, being fed by an ever increasing police force that doesn’t work for the communities they are sworn to serve.
Youd be able to release many if you redo all of Christina Rainville cases in Bennington County! She built many cases here with the help of a lot of corruption of dcf and such! Over sentencing for those who were guilty also .. some should be incarcerated for crimes that arent ! I travel to Pa to see my loved one! Why we pay these States is beyond me.. but most of them treat our inmates better and some .. Vermonters die with little explanation of why:( Im mixed emotioned on this matter but will continue to listen .. ACLU is our last chance to freedom for these inmates! Thank you
This is a bad idea for so many reasons, not least of which is that for-profit prisons are immoral.
I wondered when Scott’s republicanism would surface and how.
The very idea of for-profit prisons is antithetical to what Vermont is. Vermont is not about shareholders in other states profiting off of the misery of incarcerated Vermonters. Vermont is not about the state agreeing to occupancy quotas, which these for profit prisons are notorious for, thus incentivizing the state to incarcerate more people.
Governor Scott needs to be pressed hard until he absolutely repudiates this idea.
No private contractors involved in incarceration, unless they’re incarcerated. And in the private prison industry, most of them deserve to be in their own jails.