This letter is from Su Ughetti, a resident of Essex Town.
There is no such thing as a trauma-informed prison. Let’s start there.
No matter how soft the lighting or pastel the paint, incarceration is inherently violent. It severs people from family, community, and autonomy. And Vermont, like so many states across this country, is doubling down. Not on healing, but on punishment. Not on prevention, but on profit.
Behind the $15.5 million earmarked just for the design phase of a new women's prison being proposed for Essex, lies a deeper truth: This isn’t just a facility. It’s a holding pattern for social collapse. The full cost is projected to reach $70 to $100 million. And this isn’t just about replacing one jail. Policymakers have proposed building up to four new facilities, adding more than 800 beds. An expansion that could cost over $500 million[1], while Vermont's basic social needs go unmet.
Across the U.S., resistance is rising, and the federal government is responding with militarized force, surveillance, and cages. In the past two weeks alone, anti-ICE demonstrations have erupted in at least 19 states. In L.A., over 400 protesters were arrested. Tear gas. Batons. Rubber bullets. National Guard. And in a chilling escalation, U.S. Marine Corps units were deployed. Not for humanitarian aid, but to suppress dissent. Military checkpoints have been set up across California, where Marines recently detained a U.S. citizen, marking the first known civilian detention by active-duty troops during these protest responses [2]. A $45 million military parade was held in Washington, D.C., to celebrate President Trump’s birthday, signaling the normalization of authoritarian spectacle. This is not democracy defending itself. This is the tightening grip of state repression.
In Vermont? We’re expanding our carceral footprint under the illusion of "trauma-informed" architecture.
Massachusetts State Senator Jo Comerford said it plainly: “I’m not alone in believing there is no such thing as a trauma-informed prison. Incarceration is inherently traumatic.” [3]
I agree. Yet Vermont legislators claim this expansion is about improving conditions, but there’s no guarantee Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility will close. Nationally, it's common practice: build new, leave the old open as "overflow."
Meanwhile, Vermont sends an average of 125 people per year to CoreCivic, a for-profit prison in Mississippi, paying roughly $90 per day per person. That’s nearly $3 million a year of public funds to a private prison corporation.
Inside our state-run facilities, the profit machine grinds on.
Wellpath, the private-equity-backed healthcare contractor, earns $34 million annually from Vermont DOC. They’ve been named in over 1,500 lawsuits nationwide and are currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy [4], which allows Wellpath to continue operating while
shielding itself from paying full damages to victims and families who’ve sued.
Commissary and telecom vendors charge inflated rates. A 2024 report showed over $650,000 in combined phone and commissary commissions returned to the DOC [5].
All this revenue is funneled into a DOC-controlled “welfare fund,” with no independent oversight. This is not a neutral system. It is a profit engine fueled by punishment.
And we must stop pretending Vermont is exempt from the national descent into repression. Prison construction isn’t about safety. It’s infrastructure for authoritarianism. It is the state building walls in anticipation of backlash to inequality, climate chaos, and austerity.
Vermont has, in fact, been preparing for suppression. Even without a formal “Cop City”, an urban warfare training facility where police train in militarized tactics like crowd control, raids, and riot suppression, West Pawlet’s Slate Ridge (aka Honvend Security Solutions) operates a private weapons-focused campus, complete with militia participation [6]. Built under the radar, it reflects the same pattern unfolding nationwide: preparing for resistance, arming for repression.
This isn’t coincidental. It’s a pattern: As inequality deepens and trust in institutions collapses, the state responds not with care but with force. Militarized infrastructure expands under the guise of safety. Not because we’re thriving but because we’re unraveling.
It’s what a collapsing empire looks like: more cages, more riot gear, more laws written to punish the poor instead of protecting the people. Because when power senses its back against the wall, it doesn’t build hospitals. It builds bunkers.
We need to stop investing in steel cages and start investing in care: housing, mental health, community safety, restorative practices, education, and food security. That is trauma-informed.
Most of the women held at CRCF are not only incarcerated. They are survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and systemic neglect. Nationwide, over 86% of incarcerated women report surviving sexual violence, and the majority experienced childhood trauma or domestic abuse [7][8]. These women are not “criminals” in the way the system imagines. They are survivors criminalized for how they coped with trauma.
Imagine what $15.5, $70 to $100, or even $500 million could do if spent on healing instead of incarcerating. That money could fund transitional housing, trauma-informed care, substance use programs, education, job training, childcare. It could build a statewide safety net grounded in dignity. Because you cannot heal someone inside the very structure that broke them.
Sources
[1] ACLU of Vermont. (2023). "New prison construction could cost taxpayers more than $500 million."
[2] Reuters. (2025). "US Marines make first detention in LA as more protests expected."
[3] WGBH News. (2024). "MCI-Framingham prisoners testify live in Statehouse hearing on prison moratorium."
[4] VTDigger. (2023). "Vermont contracts CoreCivic for out-of-state inmate housing." [5] Bloomberg Law. (2025). "Wellpath discloses 1,500 lawsuits and bankruptcy details." [6] Vermont DOC Financial Report. (2024).
[7] VT Digger. (2021). "Slate Ridge training facility raises legal, safety concerns in West Pawlet." [8] Vera Institute of Justice. (2016). "Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform." [9] ACLU. (2014). "Prisoners of Abuse: Women in Prison, Detained and Abused."
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