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Racial slurs, cold meals with small portions, and difficulty obtaining medications are among the complaints from Vermont’s 215 out-of-state inmates who were recently moved to Mississippi, according to advocates.

But advocates and officials agree that things are getting off to a far better start than they did at Camp Hill prison in Pennsylvania and previous locations for the state’s out-of-state inmates.

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“The response has been one of overwhelming relief that they’re not in Camp Hill anymore, so that’s the lens I am looking at it through,” said Emily Tredeau, a staff attorney at the Vermont defender general’s office.

Barry Kade, a lawyer from the Northeast Kingdom and an outspoken critic of poor conditions in Pennsylvania, said the move has gone better than anticipated.

“When you hear Mississippi, you don’t anticipate a pleasant transition,” Kade said.

Tom Dalton, executive director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, agreed that the move to Mississippi has been much better than the one to Pennsylvania in the summer of 2017.

“I don’t want to paint too a rosy a picture, because that wouldn’t be fair either,” Dalton said. “But the transition has gone much more smoothly.”

Vermont signed a contract in September to send out-of-state inmates to the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in northwest Mississippi. The facility is run by CoreCivic, the country’s largest private prison contractor.

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The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties said shortly after the deal was announced that sending Vermont prisoners to Mississippi could be “even worse” than sending them to Pennsylvania.

The civil rights organization opposed the state’s move to send prisoners to the privately run facility, saying that the prison company would put profit over prisoner needs.

Since 1998, the Department of Corrections has housed a portion of Vermont’s prisoners out of state due to lack of capacity in Vermont’s facilities. The prisons, now totaling 13, have included county, state, and privately owned facilities, from as far away as Arizona to as close to Vermont as neighboring Massachusetts.

Scroll over timeline to see changes in Vermont’s out-of-state prison population and where they were located. Graphic by Felippe Rodrigues/VTDigger

The number of Vermont inmates sent out of state has ranged from a high of 669 in 2010, to a low of the current number of about 215. Attorney General TJ Donovan says he is determined to get the number down to zero, but says that would take years to accomplish.

Vermont has a two-year deal with CoreCivic, with options to extend the agreement. The terms of the contract with CoreCivic stated that 350 beds will be made available to Vermont. The Mississippi facility has capacity for more than 2,600 inmates.

According to the Vermont Department of Corrections, the state pays CoreCivic $71 a day per prisoner in the first year of the contract. That rate increases to $72 a day in the second year.

Prior to the move to the Mississippi facility this fall, Vermont’s out-of-state inmates had been sent to the Camp Hill State Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania. That contract ended after state officials raised concerns over the treatment of inmates at that state-run facility.

Complaints ranged from difficulty communicating with people outside the prison, little time outside cells, and inadequate medical treatment. In one case, a prisoner suffering from terminal lung cancer was not provided with palliative care. Three Vermont inmates died there over roughly a year-long period.

Mike Touchette, the Vermont’s deputy corrections commissioner, said those issues had not come up so far at Tallahatchie, or were dealt with before they made it to his office. Touchette said the clearest indication to him that things were going better now was a drop in the number of complaints and small claims suits filed by inmates in Mississippi.

“We had very few of both,” he said, noting that the department has even received letters from inmates saying that the move from Camp Hill to Tallahatchie was the best they’ve experienced.

But prisoners haven’t been entirely happy. Among the concerns Kade said he has heard from Vermont inmates now serving their time in Mississippi is a complaint of “one rogue” staff member.

“She was making racist comments,” Kade said he was told. “She was transferred to a different unit where the Vermonters are not housed.”

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Other complaints centered on the food, he said, with meals prepared in one building on the prison grounds and then brought into the unit housing the Vermont inmates. As a result, Kade said, the prisoners said the food was cold by the time the meals were served.

Inmates also expressed concerns over the small portion sizes, he said, though more recently those complaints have focused on breakfast only, which is often a dish of oatmeal described to him as barely covering the bottom of the plate.

Dalton said when inmates were moved to Pennsylvania his organization was “inundated with complaints, phone calls, letters, family members contacting us” with a lot of serious concerns.

“Literally, with the transport to Pennsylvania, I had a spreadsheet with categories of complaints,” Dalton said. With Mississippi, he added, “There hasn’t been really any themes, it’s not like we’re getting the same complaint over and over.”

The complaints he has received regarding the move to Mississippi, Dalton said, have not only been fewer, but also less severe.

Some of the complaints have centered on the quality of the food, he said. “Which is important,” he added, “but it is not the same thing as having to fear for your physical safety.”

CoreCivic Public Affairs Manager Rodney King provided a statement Friday on the move, and referred further comment to the Vermont Department of Corrections.

King wrote in that statement that the transition has been “smooth,” with Vermont prisoners “actively participating in education and reentry” programs while at the prison.

“Our facility management team and staff continue to work closely with Vermont officials to ensure all services provided meet or exceed their expectations,” he said.

CoreCivic in October declined a request in October from VTDigger to tour the facility, saying the company wanted a “reasonable settling-in period” for the Vermont prisoners. The company has since agreed to allow a facility tour.

Tredeau of the defender general’s office said she and another colleague would meet with the Vermont prisoners in mid-December about legal issues and to get a sense of how things are going.

Some of the issues she would be focusing on whether prisoners are getting medically assisted drug addiction treatment or Hepatitis C treatment if they need it. She also would be asking whether the transgender prisoners being held there were being treated OK.

“I’m not optimistic about Mississippi prison providing that,” she said, noting state laws legalizing discrimination against the LGBT population.

Matthew Nault, director of facilities operations for Vermont’s Department of Corrections, said only three visitors had made the trip to Mississippi to visit Vermont inmates.

He said CoreCivic was “working out the bugs” in a plan that would allow Vermont inmates to have video-enabled computer tablets allowing them to communicate with family on a regular basis. Nault said a law library accessible to inmates would be up and running in about six weeks. Until then, inmates can request Vermont-specific legal information from the department via the postal service, he added.

Touchette, the deputy commissioner, said the state was also still working with CoreCivic administrators to figure out whether Vermont inmates can receive medically assisted drug addiction treatment that they are legally entitled to under Vermont law.

He said that no prisoners in Mississippi had officially requested medically assisted addiction treatment, and that the state was trying to keep recovering prisoners in state until they were confident that CoreCivic could provide treatment if needed.

The department sends corrections officials to Tallahatchie every six weeks, he said, to talk to prisoners and attempt to address grievances. He confirmed that prisoners had complained about temperature and quantity of food, but said “that was fixed fairly quickly.”

Touchette said he hoped the good start meant Mississippi would work out in the longer term.

“Having some stability in your life is valuable,” he said, “and our preference is certainly not to move them every year or two.”

Editor’s note: Information about the law library has been changed based on new information from the Department of Corrections.

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