The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

While changes have been made to try and address the issue, the results have been slow in coming, frustrating lawmakers and officials.

At a meeting Thursday, leaders of the judicial, executive and legislative branches of state government reaffirmed their commitment to do something about the problem. And they enlisted the help of the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan policy research organization that has helped other states in that effort.

"Costs continue to rise at very rapid rates," Gov. James Douglas said. "There is clearly more we need to do."

Some changes to state law in recent years are promising, although it may be some time before their full impact is felt, said Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, chairman of the judiciary committee.

For instance, one problem has been offenders being returned to prison for violating requirements of their release, but not committing new crimes. So the state has put in place "graduated sanctions" or variable punishments that stop short of prison for some offenders.

And limiting how long nonviolent offenders are on probation has helped lower the number of released offenders in that system by roughly 2,000.

But implementing other recommendations of study groups has been tougher. The state is ready to build another work camp to house low-risk offenders, but has had trouble finding a town willing to host such a facility.

"We are working on citing the second work camp," Douglas said. "It has been more challenging than we anticipated."

It is also difficult to build housing for former inmates, and some offenders remain in prison because they have nowhere to go on the outside.

Although a study recommended putting 400 offenders under electronic surveillance, freeing up prison space, only about 30 are in the program, Sears said. The Legislature had approved 100 such slots.

The number of people in Vermont prisons, or being shipped to private out-of-state facilities at state expense, continues to grow and the corrections budget is expected to be roughly $128 million this year. That is significantly more than the state spends on higher education.

In 10 years, the state's incarceration rate has increased 73 percent, while violent crime has increased 2 percent. Property crimes have dropped 31 percent, said Michael Thompson, director of the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments.

Meanwhile, the national incarceration rate went up only 19 percent, he added.

There are now more than 2,000 offenders incarcerated in Vermont's corrections system.

But there are also hopeful signs, officials said. For one thing, Vermont's extremely low crime rate results in a low incarceration rate overall. Something needs to be done, said Rep. William Lippert, D-Hinesburg, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, "It's frankly unsustainable in terms of the cost to state government," he said.

But Lippert added that he is hopeful that with the commitment of the leaders at Thursday's meeting the Justice Center can help Vermont reverse the trend of prison population as Connecticut did.

"We have been caught between two pressures," Lippert said. "One of which is to get tough on crime."

He said that is not necessarily a bad thing, for instance in the case of strengthening drunk driving laws and domestic violence awareness.

"Simultaneously we have the pressure of growing costs," Lippert said. Other states, including Connecticut, have discovered that public safety can be improved while fewer people are put in prison, Lippert said.

For instance, Thompson's research shows there may not be a correlation between incarceration rates and improved public safety, Lippert said. The very fact that many Vermont offenders are housed out of state could be helpful, Thompson said.

That is because lowering the prison population in states that use local facilities can take time to save money because more prisons already exist. In Vermont, a lower population of inmates would mean almost immediate savings.

"There is an interesting opportunity it presents," Thompson said. "For every bed out of state you save, it is instant cash back into the coffers."

President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said another place the state should examine is how it deals with nonviolent offenders.

"Vermont has an unusually low number of criminal offenders behind bars and a high number of substance abusers, folks who need mental health services and young men who had difficulty learning to read," he said. "We are not talking about serial killers and rapists."

"I find it extremely disappointing we haven't made more progress," Shumlin said.

Matthew Valerio, the state's defender general, said it is a hopeful sign that the governor, legislative leaders, three justices of the Vermont Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Paul Reiber, and many corrections and law enforcement officials attended the meeting Thursday.

"This can be an important help if we can get some momentum for change," he said.

The state has already started ‹ and will do more, said Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho.

"We have done solid work in Vermont," she said. "There is some traction here for building on what we have done."

At the same time, few involved in the process are under any illusion about the difficultly of making changes needed to lower the prison population. Commissioner of Corrections Robert Hofmann said all three branches of state government, as well as local municipalities and law enforcement officials and others have to work together to make those changes.

"It's like juggling flaming Rubik's Cubes," Hofmann said.
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