This commentary is by Titan Potter of Groton. He is a farmer and former environmental justice coordinator at the Vermont Agency of National Resources, who spent six years as a policy analyst with the Council of State Governments Justice Center. In 2021, The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics released data showing that, over a 6-month period, 20% of incarcerated people “reported experiencing some form of physical violence, measured in terms of being hit, slapped, kicked, bit, choked, beat up, or hit with or threatened with a weapon.” The BJS study included 22,898 incarcerated people (all genders) from 14 different facilities, demonstrating the widespread nature of the violence that occurs in prisons.The report also revealed that violence is a result of the prison context, finding that “male inmates had significantly higher rates of physical violence perpetrated by staff than by other inmates”. Many formerly incarcerated people have spoken about their need to become violent to survive prison, as have people who work in prisons (who research shows also experience trauma and other psychological harm from working in a prison). Simply witnessing violence causes trauma. In short, nobody inside goes unscathed.And yet, there are some in Vermont who seem convinced that a new prison with more windows, open supervision layouts (to reduce staffing needs), and warm color schemes and nature posters — estimated to cost $70 million, $80 million, or $90 million depending on who you ask — will result in prisons becoming “trauma-informed” and “therapeutic”.For anyone familiar with what jails and prisons currently look like in America — the same jails and prisons that produce the violence described above — take a scroll through the so-called “jails of the future” being sold to communities across the U.S. Do they look much different to you? And remember, that $70-90 million price tag does not include the cost of incarceration per person per year in Vermont, which can be upwards of $50,000. Nor does it account for the cost of running the therapeutic programs that will supposedly be offered in these new prisons. But most importantly, the idea of a “trauma-informed prison” ignores the fact that losing one’s freedom and being forcibly separated from community is an inherently traumatizing experience. As such, there is no possible way to design a trauma-informed prison. A report commissioned for the U.S. Health & Human Services Department’s “From Prison to Home” project in 2001 clearly articulated how prisons, by their very nature, cause psychological harm and maladaptive coping mechanisms that negatively impact people and their likelihood of successful reentry. Data from a 2017 study published in the academic journal Pediatrics show “cumulative incarceration duration during adolescence and early adulthood is independently associated with worse physical and mental health later in adulthood.” Providing an incarcerated person with an hour of therapy a week will do nothing if they are subjected to typical prison conditions (“an often harsh and rigid institutional routine, deprived of privacy and liberty, and subjected to a diminished, stigmatized status and extremely sparse material conditions”) the other 167 hours of the week. BJS data show that incarcerated people experience serious psychological distress at far higher rates than the general public. Solitary confinement — often used as a form of “protecting” vulnerable prisoners — is linked to especially high rates of PTSD. Forced institutionalization will never be effective at addressing public health issues that arise from homelessness, malnourishment, lack of access to health care, substance use dependence and disorders, and physical and mental health issues resulting from these stressors. Far too often, incarceration becomes a death sentence. To anyone concerned about the economic “crimes” associated with people surviving these challenges, please consider the real economic crime being contemplated: the state of Vermont spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build and operate new prisons that will just keep making things worse.It is crucial to remember that many people who end up in jail or prison were victims and/or witnesses to violence early in their lives. Criminalizing survivors of trauma is never the answer. If we have upward of $70 million to spend, let’s invest in solutions that actually disrupt and heal cycles of harm in our community. Read the story on VTDigger here: Titan Potter: There is no such thing as a trauma-informed prison.