SmartTranscript of House Corrections&Institutions 2025-01-14 1:00 PM

["Chair" ]: Welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Tuesday, January fourteenth. We have a very, packed full hour. We're gonna be talking corrections. And we've got six new members to the committee where corrections is a whole new topic. And there's gonna be a steep learning curve. I just wanna let everyone give everyone a heads up. We will have corrections in quite a few times. And I think we can give or DOC can give really a basic overall of DOC. But to really get into the nuts and bolts and really understanding DOC, once once we start getting bills, sent to us that deal with DOC and we start taking testimony on those bills and working through the language, that's when you really start to put the pieces together for DOC. So it's gonna be a steep learning curve. We're here to help you. Ask questions. Ask questions because DOC is not as we perceive it to to be as laypeople. To start working in it, it's a very different environment, and it's very different than our preconceived notions for them. So we do have brand new committee. And before the commissioner come comes on up front, let's introduce ourselves. James? [James Gregoire ]: James Gregoire. I'm from Fairfield Pletcher in Bakersfield. Connor Casey. Good to hear, buddy. ["Chair" ]: Gina? Jamie Galpetti. Here you tell. Jerry Morrissey Bennington. [James Gregoire ]: Brian Meniere from South Burlington. Joe, good now, State Albert City. Hey. Joe Harris. ["Chair" ]: He's from [James Gregoire ]: Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello, Andrew. We've moved from Schubert, Mount Holly. [Will Greer ]: Will Greer, Bennington. John Sweeney, Shelburne, and c George. Should mean seven. ["Chair" ]: So before we get to DOC, we also have some visitors here who are not part of DOC. So, Steve, why don't you introduce yourself and just where you are? [Steve Howard ]: Sure. I'm Steve Howard. I'm the executive director of [James Gregoire ]: the Mon State Employees Association. Hi. I'm Paul Goschilling. I'm the advocacy director for the ACO. [Will Greer ]: Hi. And I'm Jordan Satter. I'm a policy advocate for the ACO. ["Chair" ]: So whenever we have a lot of testimony, but not quite so much with BGS necessarily with the capital bill, but particularly with DOC, we're gonna have a lot of other folks that are not connected to DOC in a direct way where they're not part of the department, but there is a lot of interest in what's happening in DOC. So we'll have a variety of folks always sitting around the room. So commissioner, why don't you come on up? And I would say if we could [Nick Dimble ]: See that there's no additional space this year. You think as the institution's committee, you would be able to select a space, a room with more ["Chair" ]: room? Okay. You weren't in our old room for me. I was in the one down the hall. Thirty three? [Nick Dimble ]: Oh, no. ["Chair" ]: Weren't you at the beginning of [Nick Dimble ]: the hall three years ago? ["Chair" ]: We were over on that end. Yeah. We were thirty three before. That was time. We're all lovely. [Nick Dimble ]: Well, good afternoon, folks. My name is Nick Dimble. I'm the commissioner of corrections for the state of Vermont. I'll maybe let Nick and Haley introduce themselves, and then we can jump in. ["Chair" ]: Hi. I'm James. I'm our communications director for UMC. So I'll be seeing a lot of you the next couple of months. [Nick Dimble ]: I might be getting on the [James Gregoire ]: policy director for the department. ["Chair" ]: So, commissioner, if you can start us all up, I know that you've got a three ring notebook that you've put together, and, also, I'm assuming that folks have [Nick Dimble ]: There are even pictures Yes. For those of us who aren't great readers. ["Chair" ]: And folks have this on their desk. [Nick Dimble ]: Oh, yeah. And I think well, Isaac's got it up on the board too. ["Chair" ]: Okay. So this is this is good. Reminds me. [James Gregoire ]: Yeah. Absolutely. ["Chair" ]: For Phil, when we have documents handed to us, it's if we could connect with Phil to let Phil know if you want it in paper form or if you're more comfortable working on your electronic device or so we know how many copies to make. If people want a paper copy of something that's gonna be presented to us, if you folks can connect with Phil and let him know, so when documents are submitted by the people coming in to testify, if you want a paper copy instead of going to your iPad or laptop to bring it up electronically, let him know and Phil will will make copies. K? We're a little behind the truck. They're with us. Housekeeping with our own. Keeping with us. Well, [Nick Dimble ]: for better or worse, you get to spend most of your session with us on the DOC side. So this is my fourth legislative session, my fourth year as the commissioner of corrections in the state. It was a bit of a learning curve for me. I don't have a correction background either. So I know what you're probably feeling. Even for those who have been on committee for a few years, we might still be at the beginning, trying to understand how all this works. And I think the chair teed it up well. This is a complex system that does not operate the way you think it does. I almost guarantee it. But we're here to provide you with any information that you want. Happy to answer questions offline. You may also, over the course of the session, get constituent outreach about cases and things that they need help with. We are always willing to help manage some of that with you too and get answers or connect folks with the right people. We do have a constituency services team that sole job is to help folks navigate our system and whether it's parents or spouses or friends, family who are interested. That's an available resource to anybody in your districts, to help them through the system, as well. And I'll note, I'm from Hinesburg. So pretty close to a few of you in the room. I drive through Saint George every day, spend a lot of time in Shelburne. So nice that we have some neighbors on committee too. Let me give you an overview of the department itself. The Vermont Department of Corrections is the only corrections agency in the country that's housed in the agency of human services. I think that's important to us and important to the state for a couple of reasons. There's the practical reasons that we're married up with our Department of Mental Health, the Department of Health, children, families, our Medicaid agency, that makes it a lot easier to help clients who are moving between the different departments. And you'll find over time that the vast majority I'm sorry. ["Chair" ]: That's a horrible question. [Nick Dimble ]: Listening to me [Steve Howard ]: I am just trying to get to die. [James Gregoire ]: I've given up. I can [Nick Dimble ]: I can do it loud [James Gregoire ]: if you are? ["Chair" ]: I've placed this chain. Yeah. On. Nobody ever wants [James Gregoire ]: to get himself recorded either. I'm off before I turn it up. I did get yours. Oh, yeah. Here. We'll share. ["Chair" ]: Oh, it is? Yeah. I haven't I under [Nick Dimble ]: tweeted it. [Will Greer ]: Okay. Thank you. [James Gregoire ]: Find it. [Nick Dimble ]: Alright. Let's start from the top. ["Chair" ]: No problem. [Will Greer ]: Right here. So [Nick Dimble ]: You're in the right one there. Yeah. That document right there. ["Chair" ]: I don't know what's on your desk. This is Diana. We go to the patient. I'm so sorry. That's why you're sometimes on a hard therapy. [James Gregoire ]: Thank you, Marie. [Nick Dimble ]: Alright. ["Chair" ]: Can you do that again? That's that's [James Gregoire ]: a one off, Marie. You [Nick Dimble ]: will find, though, that most of the folks who are in the DOC system, either incarcerated or under community supervision, are also being served by another AHS department. And so that continuity of service and managing their cases is really important to us. Symbolically, I think it's important, though, because it says to the state that we view corrections as a human service, what we are doing is providing services. And I think that that sets us apart. There's a couple other things that set Vermont apart, though, to Vermont is one of only five states in the country who has what's called a unified system. And that means that anybody who is in any type of incarceration status in the state of Vermont is in the state system. In most states, local jails or county jails manage the detainee population. So those are folks who are arrested for a crime but have not gone through trial. Those are usually not handled at a state level. The state prison system is usually separate. But in Vermont, because of our size, we've unified that system. So the Department of Corrections manages everybody from the moment of arrest, all the way through the end of their sentence, and also everybody who's on any type of community supervision in the community. So in Vermont, primarily there's three types. There's probation, parole, and furlough. Don't ask about furlough today, because we'll spend about eight weeks going through that later in the course. But those three types are comprised about five thousand, I think, individuals today, out in our communities under one of those types of supervision, that's all managed by the Department of Corrections. We also just started last year, a pre trial supervision program. So that is supervising individuals who are in community but awaiting trial, and the legislature got some criteria for how somebody qualifies and that program is aimed to target those individuals who are racking up many crimes but are not incarcerated, or maybe not complying with their conditions of release. They're not coming to court on their court dates and things like that. And so that program you'll hear a lot about this year. I think there's interest in this body to expand that program statewide. Right now it's it's limited to the Newport area. So those are the types of community supervision. Again, we'll go into a lot of detail on those over time, because there's a lot of nuance in that, system. We have six correctional facilities in Vermont. They're mixed, so they house both detainees and sentenced individuals. You'll see different ratios at each facility, but each facility has some of each. They're regionally dispersed around the state. There's five facilities that are focused on men and one that's focused on women. The women's facility is in South Burlington. Then we have a men's facility in Swan, St. Albans area, men's facility in Newport, in St. Johnsbury, in Springfield, and in Rutland. And so you can see, you know, constellation around the state. We have twelve probation parole offices. Those are in every county except Essex. ["Chair" ]: Am I missing? What other county doesn't have? [Nick Dimble ]: They're in all your districts anymore. ["Chair" ]: Oh, no. Except we can't [Nick Dimble ]: Oh, well, we have the Middlebury. Oh, Grand Isle. You're right. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. So all so we do have coverage in those counties, but they're managed out of the adjacent, district office. So facilities, the correctional facilities are run by superintendents. Some people call them wardens in other states. Here, they're they're called superintendents. The probation parole officers are led by district managers, and so those are our highest level of leadership out in the facilities and the field. I'll clarify it. When we refer to the facilities, we're talking about the the prisons, the jails. When we talk about the field, we're talking about those probation, parole folks. We also have our own correctional academy. So we do all our training in house. That is currently in Lindenville up by St. Johnsbury. We're about eleven hundred staff, and we have about a two hundred, two twenty million dollar almost exclusively general fund budget, making it the largest general fund budget in the state, by staffing, one of the largest departments in the state as well. ["Chair" ]: Before we go further, any questions, basic questions on this? [Nick Dimble ]: And forgive me if this is too kinda elementary, but I know it's a complicated system. I wanna make sure we kinda get everybody to a baseline. ["Chair" ]: People don't understand well. [James Gregoire ]: Yep. You said field offices were kind of what probation and parole what was the other one? You you defined it. So field [Nick Dimble ]: Oh, facilities. I'm sorry. Yeah. And so those would be the six actual, institutions that we have. ["Chair" ]: So how many people do you have under your custody right now between incarcerated and those out in [Nick Dimble ]: the community? Yeah. So we have about fourteen hundred on a daily basis right now incarcerated. That's about sixty percent sentenced individuals, forty percent detainees. And then we have about five thousand folks on community supervision on a daily basis. And those numbers move every day by ["Chair" ]: about sixty four, sixty five hundred folks that you will see as supervise one way or another. [Nick Dimble ]: I'll also mention we do have, I think, one hundred and fourteen individuals who are housed out of state. And that's because we don't have enough capacity in the state to house everybody in our custody. They are at a contracted facility in Mississippi. But they are included in that fourteen hundred total. [James Gregoire ]: Just because you brought them up, those hundred and fourteen, are they able to vote in Mississippi? Well, they're [Nick Dimble ]: they vote in Vermont, but from Mississippi. Yeah. And that's and so this is another interesting thing about our system. I don't think it's in this deck, but Vermont is one of only two states where currently incarcerated individuals have the right to vote. Mhmm. And so we enable that, and are working to even improve that system here in the state. We also set up, that opportunity for folks in Mississippi, but we also help support through the Secretary of State's office. Anybody who's in federal custody is also allowed to vote if they're a Vermont resident. And so we help them with that process as well. Thank you. ["Chair" ]: Yes. [Nick Dimble ]: Alright. Push on. The organization, fairly straightforward. We think of it as kinda three main categories. Facility field, we just talked about those. And then the third would be our central office, our administrative functions. We We have a list here for your viewing of the different things that are encompassed in each of those. To give you a sense, I mean, roughly, I think about two thirds of our staff are facility staff. And then another good chunk, our field staff, and the smallest percentage is central office. But the the bulk of our staff are in the facilities or in the field. This last year was the first year that we introduced a strategic plan for the Department of Corrections. That had never happened in at least modern memory. And we have folks who've been in the department for forty years. So say for the last forty years, we haven't had a strategic plan. This was the culmination of a lot of work by line staff, supervisors, managers, and senior leadership across the department to really anchor ourselves to the things we wanted to see the department do. What you'll come to learn is that corrections is pretty insular, tends to stick within its own space, and also reactive. We it the legislature makes laws, judges send us people to incarcerate or supervise. And and we have historically taken a pretty reactive stance to that. We are hear what is expected of us, and then we do that thing. And we've tried to change the mindset over the last few years to really say, we're experts in this field. What do you wanna see the correction system look like? Next year, five years from now, ten years from now, thirty years from now? And if we don't plot that out, and then start setting goals to go achieve that, you're not gonna see the system change. You're gonna get the same system today you had thirty years ago. And I think that's one of the principal criticisms of corrections across the country is is they've been run historically is pretty reactive, and not proactive. And so our strategic plan was an effort to really set out our top four priorities and then begin to design the future of the department the way we want to see it. Those four priorities are staff and staffing. So that's the human beings that work for us, how we take care of them, how we hire, recruit, train, retain those folks, and staffing, how we actually staff the system. How do we use personnel to help manage, the institutions and the field work that we do? The second priority is health and wellness. This is another area we'll spend a lot of time talking this year. We run a robust health system in the Department of Corrections. But historically, we've thought about it as just the provision of direct health care. And we know that the social determinants of health, all these other factors impact what somebody's overall health and wellness is. And so we're in the process of tearing apart our health system and redesigning it to capture things like recreation, nutrition, wellness activities, nonclinical mental health, all the way through the community standard of actual delivery of health services. We also are running a justice system within the Department of Corrections. And so we're prioritizing, ensuring that that system is just as diverse, that we have equitable outcomes. And then the last priority is modernizing the system. You I will encourage you to come visit us at any of our facilities and we will happily facilitate that and and lead you through that experience, but you'll see that much of our work is done on paper with pencils. We don't have a lot of technology. We're using very laborious processes to do much of our work. And so one half of that is modernizing our technology, modernizing our practices. And the other half is modernizing our buildings. The newest correctional facility in Vermont is nearly twenty five years old. They are all challenging in their own ways, many more than others. But they're old buildings and we're stuck with infrastructure that was designed at a time that corrections was not run the way it's run today, and yet we're stuck within this, these physical limitations. And so it's modernizing the the infrastructure as well. So those are the kind of the four areas that that we're really anchored to as we look to this year and the out years. But very proud of that work. And and it really was designed by staff from all levels of the department from all over the state. So very excited. ["Chair" ]: So, Commissioner, I do wanna stop there to also put time for questions. But I think for the health and wellness where you were talking about the health care, not just for staffing, your department, but also for offenders who are housed there, that when someone is incarcerated, whether they're a detainee for a sentence, they lose any health insurance that they have. Yeah. They are not covered by private health insurance. They're not covered by Medicaid, and they're not covered by Medicare either. So it's all on the state's nickel. Right. And then we're having an aging population. So if they're going in for CAT scans or MRIs or any of those procedures, we end up paying for that. Will and then Kevin? [James Gregoire ]: So they're not even on Medicare ["Chair" ]: if they qualify for over sixty. Two. Right. [Nick Dimble ]: There's an exclusion in the act that established Medicare and Medicaid that prevents people who are incarcerated from being eligible for those services. Okay. ["Chair" ]: I've been I've been across that. Yeah. [Nick Dimble ]: We'll talk a little more about that because that's changing slightly. And Vermont's leading one of the states leading that effort nationally. But I I think it's a little bit in this deck. Certainly, we'll spend more time this year talking through that. ["Chair" ]: I just wanna give folks a heads up to to realize, you know, we think everyone has insurance or some of this is being reimbursed. It's not. It's on our nickel. Kevin? [James Gregoire ]: Could you give me a couple examples of modernization in the last ten years? ["Chair" ]: Well, [Nick Dimble ]: good question. So things that I think we're teeing up right now. So our correctional officers aren't wearing body cameras today. Despite that being now an industry standard, both in law enforcement and in corrections. We don't have Wi Fi in our facilities. We don't have I mentioned that much of our work is done in paper logbooks, clipboards, pencils. We don't have inventory tracking of a correctional officer comes in for their shift, and they go to main control to collect keys or radio or some other equipment. We don't have an inventory system that's all written down in logbooks. Those are the types of technological updates we wanna see. On the practices side, you know, I think we are constantly grappling with are the practices so sex offender treatment, for example, or, domestic violence treatment, substance use treatment are the ways we're doing that the best ways right now. And we want to continually evaluate and then improve those processes. And then infrastructurally, we're seeking to build a new women's facility right now, because the current one is more than fifty years old. It was designed to be a men's detention facility, and the infrastructure is crumbling around the people who live and work there. So those are the kind of categories when we think about modernization. Those are the types of things we're pursuing. [James Gregoire ]: Thank you. ["Chair" ]: Sean? And just with [Will Greer ]: the modernization of the buildings, are you is that something that you're you're thinking about, like, making them a more, like, positive area to be in? Like, is it and is it renovating? Is it, like, this new women's facility? Is that being built, like, with new thoughts of rehabilitation in mind? [Nick Dimble ]: Yeah. So the design will be totally different than what Vermont has ever experienced. The the current concept is to have a secure side and a reentry side. So basically unlocked people can go out for work during the day, but you work your way into that it's not you know, not everybody gets to go there. I think importantly, though, the way the facilities are designed is really important. So we're seeking to design a therapeutic environment, lots of light, lots of access to outdoor spaces. And I think most importantly, that that'll help the folks who are secure there and are working their way out to get back to the community. But for the staff, they also work in these environments, and it's really difficult. And so we've gone around to some of the best practices nationally, Maine is actually a great example, particularly for the women's facility. And the testimonials from staff about what it's like to work in an environment with Windows. It's it's a game changer. And so we think that that will help not just the population who's incarcerated, but also the folks who, are working there. And and I think the other important thing about the therapeutic environment is prisons and jails in the United States are not therapeutic. But we are expected as a system to help people through all these different, recoveries and and prepare them to go back in the community to be successful. The infrastructure we have designed around them is not supportive of that. So that's the kind of work that we're going through on the infrastructure side to try to build a better system for the state. Thank you. Okay. Alright. So some data about population. Vermont has the second lowest incarceration rate in the country. I think maybe we have the lowest, but this graph says it's Massachusetts. I think one of the complicating factors there is we have, sentenced and detained individuals. I told you about that. We also hold federal detainees for the federal government, so folks who are awaiting trial in federal court in Vermont for crimes that were committed in Vermont. I think that skews the data slightly, but either way, one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country. We've seen a precipitous decline in our prison population over the last ten years, starting to observe a slight uptick, particularly as it relates to detainees. And we can see that in some of the data. But as I mentioned, we have about fourteen hundred folks incarcerated, about five thousand folks in the community. And those numbers have remained relatively steady in the last three and a half years that I've been here. Just to give you a little bit of history, in twenty nineteen, the state did, a program through the Council of State Governments called the Justice Reinvestment, Initiative. And that led an effort to decarcerate this many individuals out of our prison system. That happened to coincide, if you remember, twenty nineteen, right that took effect, and then shortly thereafter the pandemic started, and those two forces really pushed a vast majority of individuals out of our prison system. To give you some context, at one point, not all that long ago, we had close to eight hundred individuals incarcerated out of state, and we're down to one hundred and fourteen today. So show some of those numbers. We also have the lowest number of individuals on community supervision right now that we've had in in modern history. So those have been efforts that this legislature has taken on and the department has operation.

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SmartTranscript of House Corrections&Institutions 2025-01-14 1:00 PM

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