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| Auditor to investigate Vt. Prison contracts |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/01/2004 |
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State Auditor Elizabeth Ready is looking into how the state awards and monitors contracts for prisoner care in response to six inmate deaths and concerns about prisoners' mental and physical health. "We have gotten a lot of complaints from prisoner advocates and letters from prisoners," she said Feb. 20. "Some people have told us that conditions have been allowed to fester until they became chronic. We want to see what is causing some of the problems and if the state is getting its money's worth." The audit will focus on about $50 million in Correction Department contracts for out-of-state prisoner housing, and medical, mental health and substance abuse services at the state's prisons for medical care, mental health and substance abuse and sex offender and Sen. Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans, chairman of the Senate Institutions Committee, requested an audit in December. He said the deaths "suggest a breakdown in services, policies, or both." Corrections Commissioner Steve Gold said that he welcomes the audit and predicted it would find the department's practices to be sound. However, he added that budget cuts imposed by the Legislature in the past several years had forced his agency to reduce the number of staff assigned to monitor quality assurance. Six deaths occurred over an 18-month period, including two suicides. The most recent suicide was in October, when inmate James Quigley hanged himself at the St. Albans prison. Quigley, who was serving a life sentence for murder, had been in solitary confinement for 118 days after being transferred to St. Albans from the Newport jail. An independent examination by a disabilities rights group found that systematic failures at two prisons led to the suicide of Lawrence Bessette Jr. in May 2003. Montpelier lawyer Michael Marks and former New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin, who are conducting the investigation of conditions in the state prison system at the request of Gov. James Douglas, have said they are paying considerable attention to physical and mental health treatment and the way prisoners' complaints are handled. They said they expect to complete their investigation by March 15. |
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