Summary
"It's so heartbreaking," agrees Senator Hinda Miller (D-Chittenden), who used to teach yoga to women in prison. "These women made bad choices and got stuck in a downward spiral they couldn't get out of. That could've been me in there."
"If you hear a 10-33 over the intercom, that means there's an emergency," she says. "Just get up against the wall and let the people hurry past." We never hear a "10-33," but the warning is most colorful part of our tour.The men, by and large, were more inclined to talk about "making the right choices," "learning from my mistakes" and "doing things differently than I did before." Eric Marcy is a 34-year-old work-camp inmate dressed in a tie-dyed T-shirt and blue Sweat pants, with a goatee and a skull tattoo on his forearm. (Unlike Valley Vista, this facility's staff have no qualms about inmates being identified by name.) The St. Johnsbury native is serving 18 months to five years on a drunk-driving conviction. He began drinking when he was 13 and now has seven DUI convictions. This is his second time through the work camp.See the full content of this document
Extract
Inside Stories; a Legislative Posse Makes the Prison Rounds
It's never a good day when you board a bus bound for prison, and today is no exception.
The weather is cold and miserable as our group of eight state senators - seven Democrats and one Republican - and two reporters leaves the Statehouse for a tour of three drug-treatment and correctional facilities. The trip, organized by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Sears and Senate President Pro Tern Peter Welch, was part of a legislative effort to "connect the dots" and see what's broken in Vermont's correctional system. Going in, the senators...See the full content of this document
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