By Brian Cina
Editor’s note: Brian Cina is a VermontState Representative for Chittenden-15. Cina is a clinical social worker with a full-time therapy practice and is a part-time crisis clinician.
State-sanctioned punishment and violence perpetuate harm under the guise of accountability, justice, and public safety. Since 2017, Governor Phil Scott has pushed for new prisons while consistently undercutting public education—a key driver of health and crime. Vermont plans to build a $100 million “women’s re-entry facility,” but we could instead expand justice reinvestment efforts and redirect funds toward housing, health care, and education.
The true economic and social cost of incarceration incurs a moral debt that lasts for generations. Decades of disinvestment and the erosion of the social safety net have worsened poverty, housing insecurity, lack of care access, violence, discrimination, and other social and structural drivers of both health and criminal behavior. The carceral system fails to address root causes and often does more harm than good—worsening health disparities, increasing recidivism, and reinforcing criminogenic factors. Incarceration is a costly and ineffective government practice that imposes significant social and economic burdens.
Yet mass incarceration is on the rise in the U.S. in 2025 as national crime rates fall to the lowest since 1961. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. currently restricts the freedom of more people per capita than any other independent democracy— “nearly 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,277 juvenile correctional facilities, 133 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories — at a system-wide cost of at least $182 billion each year.”
Vermont is no exception.
In 2024, Vermont—despite having the nation’s second-lowest incarceration rate—spent $199 million on its Dept. of Corrections and had the second-highest cost per prisoner. In 2023, the DOC signed a $21.4 million contract with CoreCivic for up to 300 out-of-state private prison beds due to in-state overcrowding. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, “65% of the 1,358 people held in Vermont’s prison system have either not been convicted of a crime and are being detained pre-trial, or they have already served their minimum sentence but are being held past their minimum release date.”
In 2022, 19% of those incarcerated past their minimum release dates remained in prison due to a lack of suitable housing.
Housing is a practical tool for breaking cycles of incarceration. Vermont can invest in more supportive and transitional housing grounded in the evidence-based Housing First approach. For those with longer sentences or higher needs, residential recovery facilities can provide cost-effective, community-based alternatives to correctional facilities. Created in partnership with FreeHer VT and shaped by the voices of those with lived experience, H.456 proposes establishing a state-funded and community-based continuum of care for justice-involved individuals.
The VT Dept. of Corrections is currently under a $113.5 million contract with Wellpath to provide health care in our correctional facilities from 2023 to 2026, despite serious concerns about safety, quality of care, and financial difficulties. While incarcerated, individuals are cut off from their existing care providers and often receive inadequate treatment within Vermont correctional facilities. Both correctional staff and residents reported widespread negative health impacts and dangerous conditions in the 2022 Vermont Prison Climate Survey.
Rather than spending on out-of-state contractors, Vermont should invest in its local healthcare system to provide continuity of care from incarceration and hospitalization to community-based settings. As the General Assembly reimagines healthcare delivery and finance, we must ensure equitable access to comprehensive care for all, including justice-involved individuals, especially those who are incarcerated. Justice does not require the violent denial of healthcare as a human right.
“In fact, violence merely increases hate…Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” said Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., guided by the teachings of Jesus Christ, responded to state violence with spiritual clarity now supported by scientific evidence.
We are at a crossroads. Humanity can continue down the path of harm, punishment, trauma, and despair. Or we can choose a different future—one rooted in restoration, redemption, recovery, and hope. Reinvestment from incarceration into community care can finally fulfill the dream of deinstitutionalization. This choice is not only fiscally responsible—it’s a moral imperative.
