SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Plans are underway to replace Vermont’s only prison for women, the dilapidated Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. Reporter Laura Ullman got a look inside a similar facility in Maine and spoke with inmates who have experienced both.
“Prison saved my life,” said Amanda Conant, a former inmate at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. “I needed to be locked up, I needed to be away from everyone and everything for a bit.”
The 34-year-old Conant says she was sleeping under a bridge last winter until she got arrested for drug charges and ended up at CRCF. “In a lot of spaces in here, it’s very, it’s very dark. You know, the bars on the window,” she said.
Built back in the ‘70s, each section of the prison feels like a different climate. Corrections officers tell us there have been several reports of bugs coming out of drains, water leaking onto sleeping inmates when it rains, and mold. The state has spent about $3 million a year on deferred maintenance.
Vermont Corrections Commissioner Nick Deml says the building is no longer consistent with its mission. “Our philosophy is the punishment somebody receives is handed down by the court, and that punishment is separation from society. Once you come to corrections, we’re not the punishers. Our job is to help you start getting ready to go back,” he said.
Deml says the proposed new facility is state-of-the-art and designed for rehabilitation. It’s modeled after a prison outside of Portland, Maine. Michelle McLauchlan is a unit manager at Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center in Windham, Maine. It’s different than the secure facility behind it. Vermont is hoping to have both. “Rehabilitation depends on the person and how ready they are, regardless of the setting. However, if you feel safe enough in a setting once, you know, once those little seeds grow and they’re ready to make those changes, here we are,” McLauchlan said.
The reentry center is a minimum security facility with 100 beds. It’s a whole other world compared to CRCF. It’s outfitted with floor-to-ceiling windows that allow lots of natural light. Residents leave their cells to go to the bathroom, wander freely in the common space, go outside to the garden, and receive assistance finding jobs for when they get out.
“We are so grateful to have the facility we have,” said Danielle Armour, a Vermont native and mother who is an inmate at the facility. She says she was first locked up at the CRCF for drug charges and the conditions made it an awful experience. After her release, she was arrested in Maine for drug possession. She says the women here don’t know how good they have it. “Self-confidence, self-esteem — those are vital parts of recovery, and I feel like if you’re not in the right space, you can’t build those things. And you need the resources to do those as well. And I feel that this place is absolutely one of the things that has helped me with all of those things,” Armour said.
After Maine’s reentry center opened in 2017, the state’s recidivism rate from women offenders dropped six percentage points down to just two percent. Meanwhile, 38 percent of women at the CRCF go on to commit crimes again.
“Ninety-nine percent of our prison population will go back into our communities in Vermont, so it’s our obligation to help those folks get ready and be successful when they do,” Deml said.
Karen Tronsgard-Scott is the director of the Vermont Network, an advocacy group for victims of domestic and sexual violence. She says many of their clients have committed crimes themselves and are imprisoned at CRCF. She supports plans to build a replacement but says less than 20 percent of the beds in the new facility will be dedicated for reentry. The grand majority of prisoners will be in the secure facility for high-risk inmates, where half of those inmates are still awaiting trial. “We think the numbers need to be flipped. So, fewer beds in the secure areas and many more beds in the reentry area,” she said.
Another critic is UVM researcher Abigail Crocker, who thinks the money for the prison might be better spent preventing crime in the first place. “The estimates I’ve seen are close to $70 million. And my understanding is that facilities in Maine were closer to $10 million. So, why do we have a $60 million difference?” she said.
The most recent cost estimates from the Vermont Department of Building and General Services show the entire project at more like $100 million. Even though — unlike Maine — Vermont is building two facilities, the project would cost four times as much as the last prison built in Vermont 20 years ago.
BGS officials say Vermont’s energy efficiency requirements and building codes, along with high demand in the construction industry, account for the price tag.
Amanda Conant, the former CRCF inmate, says the prison’s restorative justice program changed her life forever and that she’s now off to work, looking for what she calls normalcy. “It’s not a matter of if we have a jail or not. It’s if we have a new facility or do we keep the women in this, you know, dilapidated building that’s falling apart and being held together by paint?” she said.
Pending permitting and local approval, the proposed new prison in Essex is still two to three years away from beginning construction. The proposal has already met with strong local opposition.