Last.month a spate of media stories characterized findings of a new report issued by the Vermont Department of Corrections as “troubling,” “grim” and even “unacceptable.”
The report was based on surveys designed to provide a snapshot of the state of Vermont prisons today. Incarcerated individuals and correctional staff from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield painted a disturbing picture of the prison environment. Nearly half of the staff respondents said they had developed anxiety, depression, obesity or high blood pressure since beginning their work in corrections. Among the incarcerated, 65% reported depression and 55% post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since entering prison.
The ̽̽ researchers behind the project, Professor of Sociology Kathy Fox and Research Assistant Professor of Statistics Abby Crocker, weren’t particularly surprised by the results. They are specialists in criminal justice issues and collaborators in ̽̽’s Justice Research Initiative, aimed at improving conditions for people who live and work in prisons.
“What keeps us interested and engaged is that this research is designed to drive positive social change, as opposed to research that maybe a handful of academics read,” said Fox. “I’m really committed to criminal justice reform so to do research within the scope of that mission is really a privilege.”
The two researchers come from different academic backgrounds. Crocker is an expert in study design, using statistical analyses, whereas Fox's work is focused on interviews and focus groups to get in depth perspectives.
Building on a tradition of social justice
In collaboration with the Vermont corrections department, Fox pioneered the Liberal Arts in Prison Program (LAPP) in 2017, founded on ̽̽’s strong tradition of service and social justice.
In the spring of 2018 she taught a course bringing together 11 ̽̽ undergrads and eight incarcerated women at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. It marked the first time that undergraduates and incarcerated individuals took a course together inside a prison facility in Vermont. That same year, ̽̽ joined the renowned Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison (BPI)—becoming the first public land-grant university to join.
Several ̽̽ faculty members have since taught courses in the South Burlington women’s facility and the Northwest State Correctional Facility for men in Swanton, Vt. In the spring of 2019, Fox was looking for a colleague to teach a statistics course and Crocker expressed interest.
“I saw it as a way to engage directly with a community that’s at the intersection of my research interests—social determinants of health and justice involvement,” Crocker said.
The two researchers hit it off, recognizing the potential of combining their different but mutually supportive skill sets.
“Abby is a statistician and has different expertise than I do,” Fox explained. "I’m a qualitative researcher with different content knowledge. We were both really enamored of what we could do by putting our heads together.”
As their collaboration developed, they received support from their respective deans, Bill Falls (from the College of Arts and Sciences) and Linda Schadler (from the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences) to formally establish the Justice Research Initiative (JRI) as an interdisciplinary research group.
The overall aims of JRI is to conduct research that brings together scholars, decision-makers, and community members to focus on justice issues with the aim of applying rigorous data and analysis to improve social problems.
A collaborative methodology
Fox and Crocker are proponents of an “inside-out” approach to systems change, using participatory research methods. In this case, that meant involving corrections officials, workers and inmates to collaborate in developing the surveys. “The content was really driven by folks inside the facilities instead of questions that Kathy and I thought were interesting. That’s one of the reasons why we think it’s such a strong instrument,” Crocker said.
The June surveys—one for workers and another for prisoners—were also long, with a total of 150 questions each. Fox and Crocker were worried about the length of the survey, but their advisors in the prison system said it felt "respectful" because it was detailed and deep. In the end an astounding 70% of corrections staff and inmates completed the entire survey.
Fox and Crocker believe the high response rate reflects the eagerness of staff and prisoners to have a say, and to initiate change. The transparency of the process generated more buy-in to the final product, and provided the researchers with a more complete picture the challenges facing prisons in Vermont today.
Corrections officials who gave wholehearted support to the survey effort agree. In a recent joint press release, Vermont Department of Corrections Commissioner Nicholas Deml said “(Reform) starts with an across-the-board pledge to transparency as a central tenet in all that we do, and it will be ensured by a commitment to evidence-based approaches to make our facilities more humane, safe, and rehabilitation focused.”
Fox and Crocker followed up with “data walks” with stakeholders to share results of the survey. Workers and those incarcerated at SSCF were the first to learn about the results.
“Last November we posted all the results inside the facility and asked staff and incarcerated folks to provide feedback,” said Crocker. “We asked them ‘what do these results mean to you? What do you want to do about them?’”
The Big Picture
The surveys provide “Phase I” data that will serve as a baseline for future research. Phase II, planned for January 2022 through June 2024, will use the findings to identify priority areas for change and test innovations in the pilot site in Springfield. Other researchers, prison officials and legislatures will be watching the progress closely.
The research was supported by , or PRIN, a collaborative of five state participants: Vermont, Colorado, Delaware, Iowa and Missouri. PRIN brings Crocker and Fox into contact with other researchers at other sites, providing opportunities to share ideas and compare data.
Their research was completed under the Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative (PRII), supported by Arnold Ventures—a five-year effort to leverage evidence-based research to shine a light on prison conditions to promote the well-being of inmates and workers alike.
To date, Crocker and Fox have attracted $3.725 million in research grants at ̽̽ to grow the initiative. Plans include launching a visiting scholars program and recruiting a full-time postdoctoral associate this summer.
That puts them on the leading edge of justice reform regionally and nationally.
“The concept of research for social change is really what brought us together,” said Crocker. “Kathy was doing it through the lens of criminal justice reform and I was doing it through the lens of addressing social determinants of health. Those things are interconnected. So the natural thing to say was ‘let‘s do this together.’”