MORE VT WOMEN ARE DOING TIME

MONTPELIER -- The increasing number of women in Vermont's prisons mirrors
national trends, experts say, fueled in large measure by more intensive
substance abuse problems such as heroin and prescription drugs.

While there are no definitive studies to indicate why Vermont's female
prison population is growing at such a rapid rate, Vermont Corrections
Department officials, judges, and experts in the field say anecdotal
evidence suggests that drugs -- especially heroin -- are playing a large role.

"This is not based on any scientific assessment but on repeated
conversations with women offenders," said Corrections Commissioner Steven
Gold. "The issue of heroin and the context of substance abuse plays a large
role in the world of women offenders."

Last June there were 80 women in Vermont's prison system. This year that
number has mushroomed to 140. From 1992, when the state averaged about 28
women in prison at any one time, to 2002, when the state averaged 92, the
number has risen fairly steadily.

The administration of Gov. James Douglas is responding to the increase with
a plan to convert the currently all-male Windsor prison's 100 beds to all
women, giving the state its first true women's prison. Female prisoners are
currently held at the co-ed facility in South Burlington, as well as an
all-female Dale wing of the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury.

Officials say an all-female prison will help create a better environment to
provide treatment for substance abuse and other problems along with
education and rehabilitation programs.

The growth in the number of Vermont women in prison follows a national
pattern, according to Paige Harrison, a statistician with the Bureau of
Justice Statistics in the U.S. Department of Justice.

According to a recently released BJS report, Vermont had 132 women in state
or federal prisons last year. That was an increase of 39 percent from last
year but still the third lowest in the country behind only Maine and North
Dakota. A total of 97,491 women were incarcerated last year, with Texas'
13,051 far away the leader.

But Vermont has averaged an annual increase of 17 percent in the number of
female prisoners since 1995, behind only North Dakota and Montana. And its
incarceration rate -- the number of women imprisoned per 100,000 female
residents -- has risen from six in 1995 to 26 in 2002. Nationally, the rate
rose from 47 per 100,000 in 1995 to 60 last year.

Harrison cautioned against reading too much into the numbers, though.

"They are based on respective population," she said. "You are talking about
a very small population, so fluctuations in that population are going to
make a big difference in those rates, as well as the percentage growth."

And women are still far behind men, Harrison noted, though they are
catching up.

"(The women's population) increased at a percentage at a faster rate even
though the number of men outpaces women," Harrison said. "… Men are about
15 times more likely than women to be incarcerated in prison (nationally)."

There's also some indication that more women are going to prison for
violent offenses, Harrison said. She speculated that this may be in part
due to some women accumulating longer criminal records and thus facing jail
time for offenses that might have only earned probation before.

That's not the case in Vermont, according to state and federal officials.

Maureen Buell is a correctional program specialist with the National
Institute of Corrections at the Department of Justice who worked in the
Vermont Department of Corrections for nearly 30 years until 2001. She said
drug-related offenses and theft or other crimes related to drugs were still
the primary cause, as they are nationally.

She said Vermont's female inmates are much like those nationally, other
than the fact they tend to be more likely to have a high school diploma.
Otherwise they are likely to have children (80 percent); have multiple
convictions (4.3 average); have an alcohol problem (48 percent) and/or a
drug problem (38 percent); have been sexually abused as a child (40
percent); and physically abused as an adult (72 percent).

They're also lower risks to the community and can be treated outside a
prison, Buell said, something she complimented Vermont officials for doing.
And while she praised the move to create an all-women's prison, she said
that more needed to be done to provide gender-specific treatment in the
community.

"But it's a long haul," Buell said. "It's something that doesn't happen
overnight."

She said the problem is too many women who are failing in treatment and
ending up in prison.

"Women are coming back into the system at high rates for minor offenses;
they're not coming in for new offenses. They need to be held accountable
for their behaviors but there's also some systems issues here in terms of
the availability of appropriate treatment … and other resources short of a
jail bed," Buell said. "Make no mistake about it, there are some women who
need to go back because they're out of control, but not at the numbers
we're incarcerating nationally."

That's borne out by anecdotal evidence, according to Judge David Suntag,
who's currently in Bennington District Court. Female offenders frequently
come into court for minor drug or property offenses and don't go to jail
but end up back in court.

"Maybe you start with a probationary term, trying to get them treatment,
then something happens and they get arrested again," he said. "They come in
on maybe not the most serious offenses. They get released on conditions and
they end up violating those or they don't show up, and they get arrested
and come in that way."

Eventually, some have to be put in prison to protect the community or to
protect them from themselves, Suntag said.

"I think everybody, the state, the court, the defense is looking for a way
to get this person into some form of treatment to solve their problem for
the future, not just holding them for punishment," he said.