Vermont Public Docs Vermont Public

More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the state judiciary is still struggling with an enormous backlog of criminal cases and competing public pressures around how justice should be pursued. To better understand how the system is working, Seven Days and Vermont Public embedded two reporters at the Burlington criminal courthouse for one week. Read the accompanying print story on Vermont Public (vermontpublic.org) or Seven Days (sevendaysvt.com).

Two Abenaki First Nations are continuing to call for Vermont institutions not to work with state-recognized tribes, and to reconsider the process that led to the state recognizing those groups as Abenaki tribes.
Those nations — Odanak and Wôlinak — are receiving a mixed response.

John Harrison traveled Vermont as a preacher in the 1880s. A racist name in town records preserved his memory. Note: This story contains sensitive material, including racial slurs. Please listen with care.

Ashley Messier is the co-chair of the Corrections Monitoring Committee in the Vermont Legislature, and she’s the reentry services program manager for Vermont Works for Women. She grew up in Essex with an abusive father and with little money, and she found herself repeating the cycle in early adulthood. This is a story about multigenerational poverty and abuse, and the temporary relief of opiates.
"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all sorts of backgrounds about money and class and privilege.

Many people don’t want to talk about class, because class differences are the source of cultural division and tension. In this story, Erica talks with old friend Susan Randall, a private investigator based in Vergennes, about the luxuries of growing up upper middle class.
"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all sorts of backgrounds about money and class and privilege.

In 2023, around 70% of the total wealth in this country was owned by the top 10% of earners. The lowest 50% of earners only owned 2.5% of the total wealth. In this story, Vermont writer and poet Garrett Keizer, who has written extensively on the history of labor unions, talks about what happens when we address gender and race equity, but we ignore income inequality. Here's Garret Keizer.
"What class are you?" is an occasional series from Vermont Public reporter Erica Heilman. In it, she talks with people from all sorts of backgrounds about money and class and privilege.