Former detainees and witnesses tell committee commissary, phone and property rules create hardship for people leaving custody

Public witnesses told the House Corrections and Institutions Committee on Thursday that policies and practices governing commissary profits, phone accounts and property returns create practical obstacles for people released from Vermont correctional facilities.

Jason Brosh, a resident who testified about his incarceration, told the committee the canteen — or commissary — generates profits that are supposed to flow to a recreation fund but that, in his account, much of the money is used to pay staff and a cable bill rather than organized family or prosocial programming. “The canteen, the profits off of the canteen, there's a kickback, right, to the state of Vermont,” Brosh said, and he described the rec fund being used in part to pay a rec coordinator’s salary.

Costs for telephone and video visits were repeatedly raised. Witnesses said families must deposit money into…