Inside Vermont’s prison for women
2023-09-12
Dear friend,
If not for the razor wire, Vermont’s sole prison for women might look like a typical warehouse in this commercial section of South Burlington.
CRCF Main Entrance
Klinger’s Bread across the street is a great place for free people to get coffee and a bite, for example.
Here’s Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF) on the center of this map in South Burlington.
CRCF is in the midst of a busy commercial area, near a dance studio, childbirth services, a bank, and a playground.
If we only considered CRCF and not Vermont's five other correctional facilities, we might believe that corrections is a visible part of the typical Vermonter’s life.
CRCF is located on a busy street in South Burlington, a city of 20,624. South Burlington is next-door to all of Vermont's largest cities.
Chittenden County's population is 168,865. Any of those residents could drive by CRCF on a given day, and even meet for a coffee at Klinger’s. From there, they might notice the 51-year-old spider-infested warehouse for women across the street, and give some thought to the 109 women residing there and the hundreds of staff who make the place work.
That population density in Chittenden County also makes available to CRCF a relatively high number of state agencies, social services organizations, 12-step programs, and job training opportunities. DOC and other organizations regularly bring in volunteers to work with inmates.
For example, here is the home in CRCF where kids can visit mom, in the Kids-A-Part program run by the nonprofit Lund.
Kids-A-Part program room at CRCF.
For my first post on prisons in Vermont I imagined I’d do a long narrative with lots of photos like these from my recent visit to CRCF, accompanies by DOC staff and my colleague Rep Emilie Krasnow of South Burlington.
Those will be coming in subsequent posts. For today, that's as far inside as we're going to go.
For context, let’s zoom back out. Our state totals about 626,562 people. According to census figures, the balance in the general population is tipped a bit toward women. With prison, it’s leaning strongly the other way.
As of today’s Daily Population Report, the Department of Corrections (DOC) is housing 1,396 individuals, which makes us the state with the fewest number of people incarcerated.
Of the total population, Vermont is housing 109 female inmates, mostly in South Burlington.
If you are a woman in Vermont today, you have a 3-in-10,000 chance of being incarcerated. That’s 0.034% of Vermont women.
A male today in Vermont has a 43-in-10,000 chance of being incarcerated, or 0.43% of Vermont’s men.
Being incarcerated could mean that you are:
Sentenced and doing time as a convicted offender
Detained and awaiting booking or trial
Vermont does not have “county jails” or separate lockups for individuals awaiting trial. Whether you are sentenced or detained, you’re going to be spending time with everyone in the same statewide facilities.
To be clear, most individuals awaiting trial are released on bail and not detained. The State has to meet many requirements to hold someone without bail. The majority of these requirements are focused on guaranteeing someone's presence at trial.
I'm often asked, “Does Vermont have private prisons?”
We do not. All six in-state facilities are owned and maintained by Vermont's Buildings & General Services (BGS).
BGS is the state agency responsible for over 240 state buildings, from rest stops to state office buildings. Like other state agencies, the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) leases its facilities from BGS.
However, in addition to state-owned facilities, DOC contracts with a private contractor to house men at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi. As of today, 126 men are there under the care of CoreCivic. This is a population serving long sentences.
Coming back to Vermont, contrast the South Burlington location of CRCF with the residence of 180 men in Swanton, Vermont.
Here’s Northwest State Correctional Facility (NWSCF) on a map of the same scale as the South Burlington map above.
Northwest State Correctional Facility, in Swanton, Vermont
What do you think?
Gives the impression to me of a solar-powered ware-fortress in a field.
Let’s zoom out and see NWSCF’s neighborhood.
NWSCF, surrounded by fields in Swanton, Vermont.
As you can see, Vermont’s single largest group of inmates is housed in a place that is more likely to be stumbled upon by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson than the typical Vermonter.
NWSCF is in Swanton, a small town that’s an eight-minute drive (no bus available) out of downtown St. Albans, a city of 6,942. NWSCF is in close range to enough workers to operate, but it’s out-of-the-way of normal life. That makes everything from family visits to volunteer programming harder to provide.
Most of Vermont’s inmates are in more rural parts of the state—out of sight and out of mind for Vermonters elsewhere. CRCF and Marble Valley in Rutland, with 139 inmates, are the exceptions.
Out of 251 towns and cities in Vermont that rely on these facilities, six host one within their borders. It’s not easy. Let’s take a moment and appreciate these six municipalities for what they’re doing.
South Burlington – Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF)
Rutland – Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility (MVRCF)
St. Johnsbury – Northeast Correctional Complex (NERCF & CCWC)
Newport – Northern State Correctional Facility (NSCF)
Swanton– Northwest State Correctional Facility (NWSCF)
Springfield– Southern State Correctional Facility (SSCF) - built 2002
To those six towns and their surrounding communities, thank you for carrying this burden for the rest of the state.
The Legislature has asked the Scott Administration to look for a new site for a new women’s prison to replace CRCF. In House Corrections and Institutions, we are due to get a progress report by January 15, 2024.
This kind of facility needs some acreage. With today’s real-estate market, I would not be surprised to see NWSCF itself or a similar site appear in the recommendation.
This kind of site might be the only viable option. However, we must also consider tradeoffs with the state’s vision for rehabilitation in the community.
Thanks for reading!
P.S. What are your comments or questions on corrections in Vermont? I'll be sure to cover them in upcoming newsletters, along with anything else on your mind.