Vermont is one of five states participating in a five-year research project surveying the living and work environments of prisons. The secondof three surveys was released this week by the Vermont Department of Corrections and University of Vermont researchers.
The Prison Research and Innovation Network, known as PRIN, was created in 2019 by the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute to research prison conditions and find ways to improve the corrections system. Five states are participating in the project.
Urban Institute Justice Policy Center Senior Policy Fellow Jesse Jannetta says the PRIN project uses data to promote change.
“Every PRIN participating state DOC designated one facility, a pilot facility, to be the primary focus and host for the research and the change work. That’s Southern here in Vermont. The way that the project is structured intending to use foundational research to help assist with problem identification and prioritization, developed in close collaboration with the staff and with people incarcerated. And then building on that foundational work is then identifying what are some specific changes and innovations that might be made in an attempt to address the issues being laid out in the data.”
Vermont Department of Corrections Commissioner Nicholas Deml noted PRIN is a voluntary effort to study in depth the vexing challenges of the corrections system and find solutions.
“There are four principle goals of the project. The first is to understand prison environments and the safety and well-being of those who live and work there. The second is helping prisons to collect data and promote transparency and accountability. And the third is supporting evidence-based changes to improve prisons and ensure safe and humane environments for all. And the fourth is to develop data-driven recommendations for the facility and for the department and promote those improvements systemwide."
University of Vermont Justice Research Initiative co-founder and Associate Professor of Statistics Abigail Crocker says the surveys are comprehensive, providing an accurate representation of what life is like inside the Southern State Correctional Facility for both the staff and incarcerated individuals.
“One of the alarming things for everyone is the rates of suicidal ideation for both staff and incarcerated and what we saw in the 2022 survey for staff was that rate was 30% and for incarcerated it was 37%. Something that really stood out was the 100% of staff reporting that their co-workers show signs of stress. And we see similar issues showing up in the incarcerated population. But the key thing for the incarcerated population related to idle time and what the repercussions of that are.”
Commissioner Deml says problems highlighted in the survey results are persistent in corrections facilities across the country. He outlined some of the programs the Vermont Department of Corrections has already begun to implement in response to the survey data.
“On our staff side we launched the Stability and Sustainability Plan, an effort to tackle some of the systemic staffing challenges we were facing. And that was really driven by the PRIN work. We’re rolling out honor’s units and we’ve seen a great positive result from incarcerated individuals. We immediately launched a Suicide Advisory Panel to try to find solutions to address some of the underlying causes of suicide ideation amongst our staff and amongst the incarcerated. And we’re looking to expand other programs that directly target the mental health concerns.”
Also participating in the Prison Research and Innovation Network initiative are Missouri, Colorado, Delaware and Iowa.
