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House committee reviews H.B. 550 and DOCpractices on gender identity, housing and health care
Summary
At a Feb. 18 House Corrections and Institutions Committee briefing on H.B. 550, Department of Corrections officials and contracted medical staff described a decade of policy evolution on gender identity, training, individualized housing plans and responses to out-of-state placement concerns, while committee members pressed on safety, enforcement and federal PREA audit changes.
The House Corrections and Institutions Committee on Feb. 18 received a briefing on H.B. 550 and the Vermont Department of Corrections(DOC) approach to housing and health care for transgender, intersex and gender-diverse incarcerated people.
DOC officials said the department began addressing gender-identity issues about a decade ago and issued an early policy in 2015 that recognized pronouns and allowed housing consideration based on gender identity rather than assigned sex at birth. "This is our first real look see and discussion on gender equity, within our DOC facility," the committee chair said as the hearing opened.
Facilities staff described a programmatic evolution that includes mandatory staff training, an "identities" unit in the academy curriculum and a facility-level and central review process for individual housing plans. "Identity is what you say your identity is ... We're going with that," said the DOC facilities deputy director, describing how intake preferences and pronouns are recorded and communicated to staff through the offender-management system (OMS).
DOC explained the operational process: the local multidisciplinary team (custody, casework, medical, mental-health, programming) develops a housing plan, the site PREA compliance manager…
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