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Vermont Humanities, Writers for Recovery tell Senate Judiciary how prison writing and lullaby programs aid rehabilitation
Summary
Presenters described statewide humanities grants and a decade-old Writers for Recovery program that runs 10-week writing workshops, a Lullaby Project and publishes anthologies; Department of Corrections provides core funding but presenters said programs remain underfunded.
Montpelier — On Feb. 12 the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee heard from Christopher Papenelstrup, executive director of Vermont Humanities, and Bess O’Brien, founder of Writers for Recovery and documentary filmmaker, about humanities programming in correctional facilities across the state and how the arts are being used to support people in custody.
Papenelstrup told the committee that Vermont Humanities is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress and that the legislature’s annual appropriation to arts and humanities organizations makes up a meaningful portion of their operating budgets. “The contribution that is made in the budget is about 17% of our budget,” he said, and added that Vermont Humanities’ largest work is community grant‑making across all 14 counties.
Why it matters: presenters said arts programming can give people in custody tools to process trauma, build social connection and develop habits that support reentry. The discussion centered on Vermont Reads selections placed in correctional facilities, a long-running Writers for Recovery writing curriculum…
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