Vermont and New Hampshire See Increase of Number of Women Behind Bars

Women now account for over 25 percent of those entering Vermont’s corrections system for the first time.

Ten years ago that number was 15 percent.

Experts point to increased drug use as the reason.

Bill Soule – We have approximately 112 women here. 90 percent of them have substance abuse issues.

That’s Bill Soule, Superintendent of Vermont’s Southeast Correctional Facility in Windsor.

We have very few violent offenders compared to the men. 15 percent I believe is the state average compared to 70 percent of the men are convicted of violent crimes.

The Southeast Correctional Facility used to house only men, but two years ago, it became an all-female jail to accommodate growing numbers.

While the statewide system houses less than 200 women at any given time, it cycles as many as 1,000 through its doors in a year.

Many of the inmates tell the same story. …one that usually ends in a jail cell.

The typical incarcerated female in Vermont's jails was abused as a young woman.

She often turns to drugs to hide the emotional pain of being victimized.

Addiction follows.

Crime helps to support the addiction.

Jill Bissette, a 36-year-old inmate at the Windsor facility, has had 27 run-ins with the system.

She was raped at age 15, then turned to drugs.

Jill Bissette: I graduated high school but I was using like a half-ounce of coke a day and I was shoplifting in order to supply my habit.

Mandatory sentencing and other tough-on-crime strategies have created a justice system designed not to give breaks to non-violent drug offenders.

But State Senator John Campbell, a former cop, has his own theory about the increase in female prisoners.

Campbell believes that without adequate legal help women are quicker to plead guilty when they might have bargained for a shorter sentence.

Campbell - And without the specific knowledge of how the system works, these women were just going ahead and accepting that because of the fact they were afraid that they would be exposed to a longer sentence and of course then be separated from their children for a longer period of time.

Not everyone agrees with that theory however.

Robert Sand, State’s Attorney for VT's Windsor County, is one of them.

Sand: In my experience, I think the criminal justice system does treat women differently but tends to treat them more favorably.

Sand says that his county doesn’t seem to follow the statewide trend.

Sand: We have seen an increase of the number of women coming into court, either for drug charges or who are addicted to drugs. That doesn’t necessarily translate into an increase in the female prison population.

Sands says that female drug offenders in his county are usually not jailed unless they pose a threat to society.

Regardless of how they get there, about 80% of the women behind bars in Vermont have children.

And nearly 40% of those children become wards of the state while their moms are in prison.

So for many female inmates, their children are an incentive to get out.

But according to inmate Jill Bissette, some of the women she knows find life in jail more stable than their chaotic existence on the outside.

Jill Bissette: …... They find a new knit of friends some of them call family. Their outside family is sending them in money, clothes, mail, they buy their commissary, they have everything they want. So after a period of time of being here, they get comfortable. Some of them get scared to go back out.

New Hampshire has experienced a similar increase.

A group at the forefront of the problem is the New Hampshire Task Force on Women in addiction.

Spokesperson Niki Miller:

Miller: According to the Commission on the Status of Women, there have been a 700 percent increase in the female prison population in the NH State Prison. This is for the period of 1983 to 2003.

She did not have figures for the state’s county jails, but said the increase in those facilities is higher.

Like Vermont, New Hampshire’s female inmate population is tiny compared to the males. This makes it harder for corrections officials to justify spending a large amount of their budget on the women.

But Niki Miller says the increase in this population suggests a breakdown of intervention methods for troubled women.

And she adds the failures come at many points along the path to prison.

Miller: The points would be in the domestic violence area, in the area of mental health services, in the area of substance treatment and often the intergenerational poverty that goes with that configuration

Corrections officials are also learning that programs that have worked for men do not necessarily work for women.

For example, Miller points out that confrontational approaches used to control men in prison have the opposite effect on women who often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Miller - And that really tends to aggravate their symptoms and make them more difficult to control.

But while the female prison population continue to rise, experts on both sides of the fence, prosecutors and advocates, seem to agree these women would be best helped outside of a jail cell.

Windsor County Prosecutor Robert Sand:

Sand: I think the time has come for a reevaluation and a reprioiritization away from an enforcement model and more toward a public health approach.

And Southeast Corrections Superintendent Soule says community-based programs can get the job done at a fraction of the annual $25,000 per-inmate housing cost.

They will also satisfy the public's demand that the criminal be punished for her crimes.

Soule - They want to ensure that the community is safe, and clearly, when you look at the crimes of the women that are incarcerated, they’re not in for violent crimes; they want to make sure the women, the inmates are held accountable they repair their damages and are getting treatment. And I think that’s the primary focus and when you look at that, a lot of that stuff can be done in the community at a much cheaper rate.

Niki Miller of the NH Task Force on Women and Addiction says a comprehensive approach that addresses many issues at the same time makes the best sense.

Miller: It certainly is more efficient than having these people run from system to system to system, to welfare, to the emergency room, to the homeless shelter and finally, to prison. Because that is not cost effective.

While the task of keeping women out of jail seems enormous, Miller believes a collective effort will eventually reverse the recent trends of sending more and more women to jail.

For NHPR news, this is Kevin Forrest