 Welcome folks we're back has corrections and institutions committee in this afternoon we're going to be dealing with the department of corrections. And we've got some areas that we're going to be looking at a lot of this is background information so that we can start understanding the layout of corrections we can understand start understanding the facilities the capacities of each of the facilities the operating costs for each facility so that is a dovetail so what we talked about this morning. In terms of deferred maintenance and maintenance needs within each of our facilities so it kind of brings it all together for us. And then we're going to transition into the incarcerated population in terms of the average population and then inmate population report which does a deeper dive into folks who are incarcerated and why they are incarcerated what they've been convicted So I'm going to turn it over to Al Cormier to get us started and then and we will start with the facilities, individual facilities and their capacities, and we do have that on our web page that document to bring up. All right, thank you Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Al Cormier, Chief of Operations for the Department of Corrections. Just King Moore is our lead research analyst for the department who has put this information together. And my apologies I know you've gotten a couple different documents around the capacity and we spent some time with with the coven. Quarantine and isolation units and trying to figure out where it's a never evolving model for us as to where we're housing people and, as you know, Madam Chair, the way our facilities are set up it's often a challenge finding adequate space so what you have in front of you is the most current up to date accurate data that that we do have. So what what this shows is facility capacity by our bed type pre coven and also post coven so pre coven. You'll look at the general population the special housing beds and then the segregation beds of each of our facilities special housing can include infirmary beds intake and booking beds are medical unit. And the state facility you'll see the highest in the state. That is our mental health population, or aged and infirm population. Again, the infirmary itself. Northwest has has quite a high number because of the sex vendor programming that that goes on there. And then pre coven correctional facility in St. Johnsburg shows a high number, because the work camp has historically been considered special housing special population because of the criteria to get into either the work camp or the north unit population, which is our be one pending release. So, let me stop you there before you. This is pre coven pre coven. So for this includes all of our facilities, including the work camp. We have a total beds within our system of 1579 of the of the 1579 we have 412 beds that are restricted in their use. So maybe you could talk about what it really means for general general population beds how those are different than you're restricted you're restricted or special housing or said units that are not open to general population can you sort of explain what that general population mixes. Absolutely so general population would consist of any living unit where there is not a requirement for programming a mental health need a classification designation that will would require housing in a special unit. Again that goes to like our sex offender programming, therapeutic beds mental health beds. The segregation units would be anywhere where we would house those individuals that would be difficult to manage those that are either behavioral issues. Designate a close custody in a facility that does not have a close custody unit protective custody. If you have beds available that are not being used in special housing, we're in the seg units. Can you put general population folks in there. We would not mix that population. No. Could we do a yes but it operationally it's it just it's not good business. Because of those segregation units just do not have the access to a television access to the wreck yard without utilizing special movement protocols in place. The way those are set up they're set up for single cells in a very restricted environment. So it's the way that that particular units been built. Correct. So the segregation units would be again those those residing within the correctional facilities that don't have a designation for either requiring segregation or or special housing programming. So much more ability to enter a wreck yard that is that is outside. But to library education, a higher population in one unit. So with our supervision stand direct supervision. You know that's one officer to anywhere from 30 to 50 individuals at one time we're in a special housing unit, the numbers are reduced for more focus on one on one interaction. So questions from the committee at all. And the difference there in the housing and the ability so that at any point in time we do have empty beds in our facilities but those empty beds and mostly special housing and said units correct. Correct. So we have folks who are out of state. A little bit over 100 150 or so and that varies. So we do have empty beds. How many 184 today. So we do have empty beds in our system at any point in time but the issue is the folks from out of state could not come in and take one of those beds because they're more restrictive beds. Is that fair to say that is fair to say the other piece of that. Okay, Madam. Madam chair is the historically with our population numbers as high as they have been past year, year and a half. St. Johnsbury and marble Valley often had inmates on the floor. So even with free beds in segregation we would often have our general population beds while there may be 149 available in St. Johnsbury, there could at times be 170 inmates on our population count with inmates sleeping in sled beds on the floor, two people in a one man cell or three in a three person cell. So it's off, you know, so while we have a cap, it's often deceiving as to what our actual number is because you could say, Okay, here's your capacity, but you have 200 more inmates than what your capacity is and it would be inmates residing on the floors and ourselves. Committee members got that. Okay, questions. Okay, let's go to the next page which deals with post COVID. We're going to see some changes overall population is going to be a difference of about 80 beds 90 beds from our general population numbers total. And what you'll see is our segregation units have now been eliminated per se, and have been taken over by a quarantine and isolation bed. So due to the protocols that we put in place for covert mitigation across all of our facilities, the majority of our segregation units are now in intake quarantine or intake isolation, depending on the facility. So any inmate that is lodged at our facilities comes in and is tested for COVID is placed on a 14 day quarantine tested again at day seven and tested again at day 12. So you'll see the change in that those housing numbers based on the changes we've made to each of our facilities and the roles of our facilities to adapt to our COVID protocols. And, and our mitigation. So your population has gone down by about 100. Yes, total. Your general population has. Yeah, your general, your general population has gone down by about 200. We had 1167 general population pre COVID and now there's 996. So I'm assuming those are actual folks, actual people. Is that correct. Where's it population. Yeah, population. January of 20 was around I think it was around 1485. Today we're at the population counts for today. Would that population count include the out of state folks. It would find the breakdown on that right now. All right. No, that's fine. We can wait for his population is 1285. 1285. And that's so you take 184 off of that so 1100 1100 in state right now. So the biggest shift is those seg beds went into quarantine. And an isolation. Your special housing decreased a little bit. One of the biggest decreases there is with St. Johnsbury. And the, as you know, the work camp has special criteria to get in as well as we've changed the, we've reduced the work camp population and then we have to be one population in there. And we've been Can you explain what the B1 is because I think for some folks that to new terminology. So B1 is a classification designation for those that are solely incarcerated because of lack of housing. The only thing preventing them from being released to the community is that they don't have adequate housing available to them. So this is a minimum custody population that is currently housed in North unit in St. Johnsbury. Because of the special designation for work camp eligibility and the eligibility to get into North unit. So we've utilized the term special housing for that but it's a for it can be a little deceiving saying because we can put general population inmates in there. And not that we have at this point but it is an option for us as we look at our covert mitigation again and how we house and should we have a surge in our population so we have changed that and adjust to those numbers. And made those beds, general population beds. And that's one of the questions of the committee. We've got Michelle and then Karen. Yeah, I was just wondering, do you have a number like how many people are at that one be one status right now. Right now there's there's 2026 inmates in St. John's very on that status 19 inmates sorry, currently 19 inmates in St. John's very on that on that be one status. We know the statewide total representative. There are more but we've kind of left because of the open dorm environment in that facility it's not cells. It's more like an army barracks. And as we've come to learn through our work with with COVID that an open environment is not conducive to mitigating social distancing and reducing the spread of the virus so we're trying to minimize the number of people in that unit. That's what's right now. And Karen. Yes, thank you madam chair. I'll thank you for these numbers I appreciate it kind of seeing the differences in them. I'm curious, because I think we're going to see that it's the seg beds that have had the biggest difference. I'm curious what that impact has been with the seg beds going down. The seg beds can be seen as controversial because they're, you know, people are isolated. They're used for disciplinary or safety measures. So curious what the impact has been of having reduced number of seg beds available. That's a great question so while we haven't reduced our need for I mean we have reduced our need for segregation. There are still some we must use it for behavioral issues, self protection. So those, those beds are available to us through the special housing piece right now. So those are, we haven't broken them down in our post covert numbers. So most of the segregation units are restricted housing units have been turned into isolation and quarantine units. We do still have a number of segregation beds available to us for those that may require it based on behavioral issues, or a need for protective But I've got to say overall, I've been very happy with the response of the inmate population and how our staff have handled this modified lockdown status throughout our battle with COVID. Because we have seen pretty significant reduction in the number of disciplinary issues through through the population even given the restrictions and the stress placed on on our population as a result of that. Great. Thank you for I think it's part of what we're seeing as you know some of the silver lining and going through all these challenges. What are some of the ways we can learn and see how we can adapt going forward so I appreciate that insight. Any other questions. So, as we move forward and figuring out how to replace our correctional facilities, because that's going to be whether it's going to be there, if not this year it's it's there in our future. We really have to think how, how do we go forward and in a model of really having more flexible use of those beds, because right now. I mean you're always going to have infirmary but beds are not open for the for the general public you're going to have booking beds they're not open for the general public. Do you do special housing if we get into we've got an incarcerated population that's aging, and we've got a lot of medical issues we got medical issues we've got dementia. We've got mobility issues. So do we build beds specifically for a geriatric population if we do that then those beds are offline for the general population. Do we continue doing will have to continue at some point doing something for said you can't have a facility in some ways without some, and I don't want to say you're going to be in segregation but you may have to. Sometimes for an inmate's own safety, they request to be taken out of general population, and to be placed in a safer environment so what does that look like. Those are the questions that we will be asking in terms of how to make the decision in terms of how we go forward with do we do standalone facilities that are not connected to each other do we do something more like a campus style. You have your administrative buildings connected and then you have all the living units separated out over the property. Those are decisions we're going to have to make and in the context of how much it's going to cost and over how long a period of time because you don't put up a correctional facility regardless of it's a transitional unit or transitional facility or regular incarcerated facility, they don't get up in a couple of months. This is a long term process that by starting now, you're not going to see a door opening for at least four or five years. So, more time you put off not making a decision, you're saying to the inmates you're staying where you're staying. A new door is not going to open up to them in a few months or a year or two. It's a long process. So, so does this help in giving a little bit of background in terms of what our facilities, their capacity. So when folks sit see that we've got all these beds and why can't we bring people back from out of state. You've got of the currently right now with post coven. You've got 1490 beds in the system, but almost 500 of those are restricted. So you only have 900 plus. That's available. So that's how you have to look at it. So anything else on this app. Just I know set representative coffee I know you have your hand up but one thing that we have to, we have to take into account is planned maintenance as well and one of the things we're looking at is the door product door control project. So that's going to be completed in Newport is scheduled for this summer in Springfield. And what that does is that that's going to take down one unit, a 50 bed unit for approximately six months. You know, so we're going to be down 50 beds at that point. So that's good here that we had so in Newport we have to open up the gym, the house 50 inmates I think what we're at right now is, we can house those inmates throughout our public throughout our facilities, without having to open a gym, but that is going to be 50 beds that will be down. So we have to take that into account too as we think about, why can't we bring back the out of state population. Again, construction projects are going to hinder our ability to have that that free bed space. So if we didn't have that capacity currently, we'd have 50 inmates shipped down to Mississippi for that and potentially yes. So Sarah I didn't have the participant list up I'm sorry. Okay, it's a quick question I the documents that you were working off of out. I didn't see them on. On our website. On our web page, maybe you have to refresh that because they're going to be super useful as we move forward so thanks. And is it possible to get a breakdown of the B ones. At some point. Get that. Thank you. Okay, anything else before we move to the operations cost piece. So, is that new Matt, or is that you now. Okay, so we have a document for that. And, oh, before we go there hang on we have a question Michelle. Yeah, so one more question kind of like the earlier when I asked I'm wondering if you happen to know the number of people that you have currently that are incarcerated because they can't make their bail. I don't have that information currently in front of me but I that's something else we can get as well. Okay, thank you. Okay, so