This Wednesday, March 12 at 6pm, Richmond Free Library is hosting the premiere screening of a new documentary about the justice system in Vermont, Beyond Bars: Reimagining Justice and Healing in Vermont. The documentary ties in with the Library’s current art exhibit, featuring art made by imprisoned Vermonters, which will come down following the screening.
Beyond Bars: Reimagining Justice and Healing In Vermont is a film UVM students created with Mary Beth Simons over the past year and holds out hope to bring Vermonters into conversation around how we are making sense of the very visible struggle on our streets and in our communities. The students spent a year speaking with Vermonters on the frontlines of our human service, social safety net – both working in our non-profits and mutual aid organizations and also from folks with direct experience. Concurrently, they learned of the proposal to build a new women’s prison facility in Chittenden County, with a starting budget of $90,000,000. The (dis)connection between this proposal and what they were seeing and also hearing from folks seemed too obvious to not dig further.
This begged deeper questions for all of us: As we know, how we spend our collective tax dollars shows our priorities and values. We wondered if building a new prison is the best investment we can make to help build safer, stronger and healthier communities. Does a new prison address the underlying issues that are causing crime and harm?
How are we providing resources to effect lasting and positive change for individuals in this struggle, and ultimately for our entire community? How are we each implicated in these crises? How does our individual reaction to what we are seeing on our streets and in our communities feed into the types of policy responses we eventually legislate?
Join us at the Richmond Library on March 12th at 6pm
Film is 76 minutes
Conversation to follow film with folks from Williston Community Justice Center
