Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and more.
A New “Women’s Prison”… or a humane reentry facility?
Chittenden Regional Correction Facility (CRCF) One of the benefits of age is the realization that there are few absolutes and that being “right” is often relative. When I was young,...
The Land of the Free … in Jail
The most expensive service our government provides to its citizens, other than heroic healthcare in Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, is to lock them up. According to the Bureau of...
Jail or College?
Congressman Paul Ryan and his conservative colleagues want to reduce government spending on “entitlement” programs and curb the cost and impact of government in general. But I believe that with...
Freedom of Information, Criminal Records, & Accountability
By way of full disclosure, I’m Chair of the VT Journalism Trust, doing business as VTDigger.org, serve on the Board of the VT ACLU, and am a former Chair of...
Creative Invention: Plan for the future, learn from the past
Many small colleges are struggling with low inquiry, application, and admission rates, including here in the Northeast. Rising tuitions, student loan abuses, and radical change in employment patterns have discouraged...
Common Sense: Criminal Background Checks
I got my first gun when I was eleven. I’d taken the NRA safety course at Camp Timanous in Maine and, as a reward, was given a Winchester .22 rifle...
Death for All Drug Dealers?
While most of the civilized world has abandoned execution for moral as well as practical reasons, President Trump is now proposing an expanded application of the death penalty – traditionally...
Knee-jerk Legislation Makes Bad Law
With the highest incarceration rate in the world, American liberals and conservatives are crossing ideological lines to question why. For every 100,000 citizens, China jails 165, Russia 450, and the...
Criminal Justice: A Broken System
In the criminal justice system, three groups have agency: the victim, the offender, and society at large. Our ability to balance these interests will determine the efficacy of our criminal...
In our name: The Justice Department has killed three men in one week.
Under the aegis of U.S. Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump, three men have been killed and Barr has celebrated the killings in our name even though 60% of...
Before We Build New Prisons, Let’s Fix the System that Fills Them
VT Digger column – Schubart H. 543, a funding bill to study options for building new prisons has both drawn ire and nonsense from those supposed to act on it, the...
Criminal Justice Reform in Vermont: Real Progress
To build or not to build… (a new state prison) that is the question. Under the leadership of Jim Baker, Interim Commissioner of Corrections (DOC), along with a plurality of Vermonters committed...
