The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union slammed the Department of Corrections on Monday for preparing to send state inmates to a privately run prison in Mississippi.
Following reports of abuse and multiple deaths, more than 200 Vermont inmates currently living in a Pennsylvania prison will be moved next month to the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, VTDigger.org reported on Sunday. The Mississippi facility is owned by CoreCivic, the company formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America.
Vermont had contracted with CCA to house inmates in Kentucky and Arizona from 2004 to 2015.
Critics such as the ACLU say Vermont should focus on reducing its inmate population through criminal justice reform measures so that the state would not have to enter into pricey contracts to send inmates out of state, where it is more difficult to monitor conditions.
“They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result,” ACLU of Vermont executive director James Lyall said. “Vermont’s use of out-of-state prisons has a grim history, but this is a new low. The same concerns that motivated Vermont to terminate the Pennsylvania contract apply in full to this latest contract.”
Earlier this year, Seven Days reported that CoreCivic had met with state officials in the months before Human Services Secretary Al Gobeille unveiled a proposal for a $150 million prison campus in Franklin County. That proposal was dropped.
Correction, September 13, 2018: A previous version of this story reported in error that CoreCivic faced a lawsuit from the State of Mississippi alleging it engaged in bribes and kickbacks with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. CoreCivic is not a defendant in that suit.
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That would be a stupid move by the DOC, doesn’t sound like they have many brains anyway. They should keep them in Vermont. I imagine there are plenty of people that are in for minor crimes that could be let out
Sending our Vermont inmates an additional 1,000 miles away to an institution in Mississippi owned and operated by a company that has clearly engaged in unethical and possibly illegal acts to make a buck off the system is absurd and totally beyond the bounds of reasonableness. Phil Scott is a corporate whore who is willing to do anything for campaign money. He deserves in a jail cell himself, not in the governor’s office. Even Dick Snelling had more morals and ethics than Scott. And yes, I would be happy to tell him this to his duplicitous face.
This move is just more of the “welfare queen” mentality of the depraved Right Wing GOPers. They want Law and Order, Endless Wars for Empire and Corporate Profits, but not pay any taxes for these. They want to live in a gated community Disney/John Wayne Fantasyland.
The “free market” cannot run prisons well, except for the shareholders. If what you really want is a return to slavery and penal colonies then just come out and say it instead of hiding behind a bunch of American Enterprise Institute and Federalist Society bullshit.
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Here’s an idea – instead of trolling and whining on here, call your legislator and encourage them to build more beds in Vermont – there’s space in the Springfield facility for another building.
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the inmates that are in pa are not murders that are from vt. it makes no since to sent then from on nasty place to one that is worse and that is privately owned trying to feed them less and pocketing the rest of the money that should be going for food .has anyone figured that out yet ok send scott down there to live for a month and let him come back and see for himself how human it is.Noone out there is saying what all our inmates are dying from when they are sent out. Does anyone know how all these men died or they just dont care .