Streaming now: “Madame Chair”
2023-02-09
Dear friend,
If you had plans to watch Madame Secretary tonight, or right now, may I suggest the new season of House Corrections & Institutions:
House Corrections&Institutions 02-07-2023 2:35 PM (jump in about 16:00 to skip preliminaries)
If you're wondering what your State Representative does for eight hours a day or more, there's a lot of this.
A leader of some kind in Vermont government, or an organization related to Vermont government, comes into our committee room and we talk to them.
In this case, morale among both incarcerated persons and correctional officers is low. Like, 30% of officers reported having suicidal ideations low. For that depressing Powerpoint slide and others, check out this Department of Corrections presentation.
Our committee talked with the Commissioner and the head of the VSEA, and things got emotional, and pointed.
Now we get to see the Gell-Mann effect. Once you've watched the same testimony a VT Digger reporter watched, how did they do capturing it in a story?
Around the halls of the State House, we ask each other, "How's your committee going?"
All around I'm hearing, "Great."
We have smart, dedicated Representatives having difficult conversations on policy.
For those who don't normally include Montpelier, Vermont in your daily streaming, give these videos a try. I'm including my non-Vermonters, too. I want to invite all my friends to learn a little more about this issue, wherever you are.
As of today, Vermont has 1,345 incarcerated persons, and another 411 detained. The newest correctional facility is 20 years old and already out of date. The one facility housing our 107 females is particularly antiquated. Vermont's count as of this morning for those residing at our contract facility in Mississippi is 124.
We're succeeding at keeping violent criminals locked up, and none of them died in COVID. But we're not succeeding at effective rehabilitation and re-entry.
And as you'll see from these videos, and other testimony, things are no bueno in the staffing and management of those facilities on a number of key measures.
I'm not writing to you to give you one more thing to worry about. Please. I know your worry plate and mine are already full.
Don't worry. We're working on this. Myself and other committee members were very critical of Commissioner Deml and Executive Director Howard. But they are working hard. Their staff and their members are working hard. Everyone knows this matters.
Don't worry. We're going to make good progress on this. Chair Rep. Alice Emmons is doing a great job steering our conversations and bringing the committee up to speed.
My only request is this. I want you to care about this issue. And I want you to be more informed.
Because at some point I'm going to ask you for something.
I'm going to need to ask for your ideas. Your suggestions. Your design ideas for the next generation of correctional facilities (they can transform but they are not going away). Your volunteer time. We will need to ask for tax dollars. Legislators reading this, I'm going to need to ask for your support on a bill or a budget.
I want to ask more Vermonters to think about a career in Corrections. I want Commissioner Deml to tell his entire department why they are there in terms so clear that they go to work feeling inspired instead of despair.
I want Vermont Department of Corrections to succeed so hard that young folks in southern Windham County seek out a job commuting up to Springfield or working in the field because of how no other job gives them as much daily contact with lives they are rehabilitating and changing.
Please tune in.
And here's the link to our committee homepage, with agendas, documents, and link to the livestream: https://legislature.vermont.gov/committee/detail/2024/17
Our schedule is a little lighter today -- the Franklin County Field Days Agricultural Fair Capital Projects Grant Request.