Beyond Bars:
Reimagining Justice and Healing in Vermont
You are invited to feel the weight of community struggle; to question how we understand harm and healing; and to remember our responsibility to one another.
Why we made this film?
We are 4 Vermonters who spent a year talking with folks on the frontlines of the struggle we are witnessing on our streets, in patches of woods and in our vestibules. We wanted to understand the roots of this struggle, rather than just emotionally react to what we are seeing and hearing.
This film is first and foremost about how we might see each other as neighbors and not as “problems to be solved”.
Granted, how we put this caring ethic into policy is more complex. How we balance and negotiate accountability, punishment and healing and the ways that this materializes when crime has occurred requires deliberate, nuanced and compassionate dialogue with all of us.
These questions are crystallized in an ask byVermont’s Department of Corrections’ for over 90 million dollars to build a new facility for the 100-125 women who are incarcerated in Vermont.
Is this the best allocation of our collective monies in order to make our communities safer?
Local Organizations who are actively addressing the carcertal system:
FreeHerVT and ACLU and Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform
There are 17 Community Justice Centers around Vermont that all have concrete ways the public can be involved in meaningful work with directly impacted folks.
Restorative Justice Centers – Each county in Vermont has a Community Justice Center that coordinates many different programs. COSAs and Restorative/Reparative Panels are a great way to connect and learn from and with those folks who have committed crimes, and the services that are offered directly related to crime.
- Folks and Organizations, part of the social safety net
- Recovery Vermont
- Turning Point Centers – Peer Support for recovery
- Mutual Aid – entirely volunteer groups who come together to provide food and other basic needs for folks
- Agencies for Social Services – each county has an umbrella non-profit organization who administers mental health support…
- Community Food Shelves
- Shelters and Housing Support
Film Showings:
We hope to share this film and conversation all over Vermont throughout 2025-2026.
PLEASE reach out if you have a group of folks who would be interested in hosting the film and conversation.
Richmond LIbrary – March, 2025
The Savoy, Montpelier – April, 2025
Latchis Theater, Brattleboro – May, 2025
Middlebury Marquis, Middlebury – June, 2025
City Hall Park, Burlington – July, 2025
Middlebury College – October, 2025
University of Vermont – November, 2025
How to Get Involved:
- Reach out to our legislators and show you care about this issue and the related decisions – here is how to identify and contact your representatives. This really matters, at least in Vermont.
The proposal to build a new facility is starting at $100 million.
Clean and healthy facilities matter, but what happens INSIDE these facilities is just as, possibly more important.
The annual budget for the VT D.O.C. is $240 million for the next upcoming fiscal year. The trend has been for their budget to increase 40 million each year for the past 5 years.
We are asking that we consider allocating much of the D.O.C’s annual budget for prevention and re-entry services provided by community providers, that are not managed by the D.O.C. and not included in their budget.
- “Just check in on your neighbors” was offered by an audience member at our Middlebury showing.
- Reach out to see how to help create a stronger, more compassionate community, especially for folks who are in the throes of struggle. There are many caring folks who work and volunteer for human service organizations and grassroots groups offering mutual aid support all over Vemront.
Local Organizations who are actively addressing the carceral system:
Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform
There are 17 Community and Restorative Justice Centers around Vermont.
These municipal organizations all have concrete ways the public can be involved in meaningful work with directly impacted folks, including COSAs and Restorative/Reparative Panels.