"The prisoner grievance process needs an overhaul," State Auditor Doug Hoffer concluded in the report.

Corrections Commissioner Nicholas Deml is pledging to do so. In response to the auditor's report, the department on Monday announced plans to replace the paper-based system early next year with an electronic, tablet-based one in an effort to "lead the nation on this issue,” Deml said in a press release.



Prisoners rely on the grievance system to resolve all kinds of concerns, from cold food to mistreatment. State law protects their right to file grievances and requires that the department have procedures to review them.

The system itself is a perennial subject of complaints. In a University of Vermont-led survey conducted last year at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, 80 percent of prisoners reported that the grievance system was not a "useful tool" for addressing their concerns. Vermont incarcerates more than 1,300 people on any given day, and those prisoners collectively file thousands of grievances each year.

The State Auditor's Office sought to assess how well the department responds to prisoner grievances, including how long it takes. But answering even that straightforward question was not possible, Hoffer's office concluded, because the system lacks consistent electronic records.

The records that do exist sometimes say little about how a grievance was addressed. Employees lack training, and no one at the Department of Corrections has been policing the system, the report found.

The auditor's findings reflect what public defenders say they've observed anecdotally. "Nothing in it is surprising," said Emily Tredeau, supervising attorney for the state's Prisoners’ Rights Office.

"I hope that DOC undertakes all of the auditor’s suggestions for improvement," Tredeau added.

The current grievance system involves paper forms that employees upload to a computer database known as the Offender Management System. The OMS records appear to be woefully inconsistent — the result of computer glitches, user error, design limitations and other issues.

Auditors found thousands of grievance cases in the OMS that were still marked as open more than six months after they were filed, despite a department rule that requires them to be resolved within 40 business days. It was unclear how many of the cases were actually unresolved or just hadn't been marked as closed.

Overall, the data contained in the OMS was "not reliable or useful," the auditor's office found.

"The system serves as little more than an electronic filing cabinet for scanned handwritten documents," the report states.

Auditors also found that in some cases, electronic records were deleted or paper copies were destroyed without being scanned into the computer system.

The available records pointed to potential problems in how grievances are handled. In one, filed in 2021, a prisoner claimed he had not been paid for nine days of prison labor even after notifying his supervisor and providing time sheets three times. The only notated response from the department was to tell the complainant to submit a fourth request.



In some instances, according to the report, there was no evidence that department officials ever responded to grievance paperwork. Those cases included a prisoner who complained of ill-fitting clothes and another who said his remaining sentence had been incorrectly calculated.

The most serious complaints have been handled with similar inconsistencies, according to the report.

Allegations of serious staff misconduct are required to be forwarded to a DOC executive and the state's Department of Human Resources. Corrections officials decide whether to send a grievance to the human resources department — and often decide not to, the report found.

Moreover, cases alleging staff misconduct are tracked outside the electronic system — in some facilities, by hand — and complainants are not told the outcome. In four of 18 such grievances that the auditor's office reviewed, corrections officials had no evidence that an investigation was ever conducted.

Prisoners can appeal the outcome of their grievance to the department's central office, but the auditor's report found that the department does not track its handling of appeals. At least 22 appeals related to staff misconduct grievances between January 2021 and June 2022 never got a response from department leadership, the report states.

In a written response to the report, Deml did not dispute the auditor's findings and acknowledged that the system needs "modernization and investment." The department has been planning a broader tech upgrade but will "expedite" a switch to a fully electronic grievance system early next year. The new system will allow prisoners to file grievances through prison tablets that they already use to purchase movies or email credits.

The department already made some changes to its grievance procedures in the fall and plans to give employees more training. 

It is also forming a "Corrections Investigative Unit," which lawmakers established by law in 2021. The unit will examine alleged sexual misconduct by employees as well as deaths in custody and the prevalence of "contraband" in prisons. Deml, in Monday's press release, said the unit will also oversee the grievance process.

The department has not identified any misconduct by employees related to the handling of grievances, a spokesperson told Seven Days. Previously filed complaints alleging staff misconduct will be reviewed as part of the system overhaul, the spokesperson said.

Read the report here: