Emotions ran high at a legislative hearing Wednesday morning, where lawmakers heard from Vermont’s Department of Corrections, as well as the state employees’ union and correctional officers, themselves, about working conditions in Vermont’s prisons.
Those testifying before the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee described a seemingly intractable cycle: Prisons, already understaffed, must contend with corrections officers calling out on their scheduled days to work. Other officers are then called into work on their days off. Those officers work days on end with no breaks. Then they, reaching their breaking point, call in sick themselves or quit altogether. The cycle repeats.
“They’re exhausted,” said Steve Howard, the executive director of the Vermont State Employees Association, the union which represents state employees. “They’re humanly exhausted. They’re calling their spouses in tears. They call in sick, well of course, because they are sick.”
According to Commissioner of Corrections Nicholas Deml, the department is doing all it can to alleviate corrections officers’ widely reported rates of burnout and attrition. Namely, with employees’ blessing, the department has switched officers at all six of Vermont’s state correctional facilities to alternative schedules that — in theory — give them consistent weekend breaks and adequate time away from work.
The new schedule is designed for every officer to work two 12-hour shifts, then have two days off, followed by three 12-hour shifts, then three days off. It’s a switch from the department’s historic practice of seniority-based scheduling, where officers with more years under their belt had first dibs on the best shifts — meaning, weekends off.
Jeff Reynolds, a correctional officer at the state’s Northeast Correctional Facility in St. Johnsbury, told lawmakers that the new schedules are an improvement — even for him. Having worked his position for more than 11 years, he would benefit from the seniority-based system.
“I’m willing to give up every weekend off so that everybody can have a slice of that pie,” Reynolds said.
And according to Deml, the department has seen a dent in its overall attrition rate, even though “there’s no like, flip a switch and all of a sudden, it gets better.”
But the newly designed schedules are no silver bullet.
“No schedule will hold up if you don’t have enough people,” Deml said Wednesday.
The result, according to stakeholders, is that some officers are working 16-hour shifts for days on end, and are not getting their promised time away from work. The mental load becomes crushing, said Bryant Smith, a corrections officer at the St. Johnsbury facility.
“We had staff that were literally contemplating suicide as just a means of escape,” he said.
Howard said that, even on their days off, officers are often on-call, and must be able to report to work within an hour if an emergency arises. According to Howard, what that means is, “Your days off basically belong to the department.”
“We are destroying those people,” Howard said, punctuating his sentences by banging on the committee’s table. “We are destroying their lives. We are destroying their families. We’re destroying their marriages.”
Calling the situation an emergency, Howard then took a shot at Deml, telling lawmakers that the union ultimately demanded a meeting between the commissioner and corrections officers because “we want to make sure that the commissioner actually knows what’s happening in his facilities.”
“Sometimes we wonder if maybe the management team isn’t telling him the truth, and that’s why he’s not coming to the table with a solution to a crisis which is blowing out of control,” Howard said, as Deml silently shook his head.
Later on in the hearing, Smith hinted at the exchange.
“If we could get VSEA and the state to come together as a team instead of barking at each other, we could probably come up with a lot of good solutions,” he said.
At an unrelated press conference later Wednesday, Republican Gov. Phil Scott acknowledged the unique difficulties of corrections officers’ job duties, telling reporters, “I’m sure the atmosphere itself is difficult.”
“The working conditions are important,” Scott said. “We have a long ways to go, admittedly, but we’ve made improvements over the years, and we’ll continue to do whatever we can to make sure that the conditions are palatable to a good working environment.”
Agency of Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson said providing mental health support to Department of Corrections employees was a priority for the leadership of the agency.
If you are in crisis or need help for someone else, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) or text 741741 for the Crisis Text Line.
Read the story on VTDigger here: In heated meeting, lawmakers hear about working conditions at Vermont’s prisons.