New lockup likely as population soars; many inmates denied training,
rehab
By Laura Crimaldi
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The state’s major prison for women is overflowing with inmates, and correction officials are scrambling to find beds, cover soaring medical costs and provide training and detox for cons before they are set loose.
MCI-Framingham is “bursting at the seams,” said Mary Beth Heffernan, undersecretary for Criminal Justice at the Executive Office of Public Safety, which runs prisons. “They don’t get the programming that these women need.”
The number of inmates has risen by 11 percent since 2003, from 970 to 1080, and a top public safety official says a costly new facility for women is all but inevitable.
In the same four-year period, the budget for Framingham - the state’s principal prison for women - rose by 17 percent, from $26.9 million in 2003 to $31.4 million in 2007. Longer prison terms and crowded county jails account for the high capacity - nearly double what the site is intended for.
During a recent tour, female inmates were seen living six to a room in modular units, sharing tiny bathrooms. In another modular unit, about 68 women live in a large room furnished with bunk beds. Quarters there are so tight that arguments erupt over such trivial issues as personal hygiene, snoring and gossip, DOC officials said.
“If the county prisoners returned to the counties, the inmate population would be 215,” said Superintendent Lynn Bissonnette, who started her career at MCI-Framingham as a correction officer. If that were to happen, “we could do wonderful things” toward rehabilitation, she said.
In the first three months of 2007, there was an average daily population of 231 inmates awaiting trial, which is 361 percent of the design capacity for pretrial prisoners of 64 beds, according to a quarterly DOC overcrowding report.
The inmate population at the 452-capacity prison has swelled so dramatically because it is the repository for pretrial and sentenced female offenders from Worcester, Middlesex, Essex, Plymouth and Norfolk counties, where there are no facilities for women.
Last month, 67 percent of the 699 women at the prison were either serving a county sentence or awaiting trial, the DOC said.
Inmates also are showing up with severe medical and mental health problems and more serious detox needs, prison officials said. Costs related to housing pretrial detainees, medical and pharmaceutical services and utilities are the top reasons for budget increases, a DOC spokeswoman said.
Given the overcrowding, programs offered by the prison to prepare women for release carry long waiting lists.
“I think we could have a major impact on our women’s lives if we had them longer,” said Bissonnette. “But we don’t want to incarcerate people just so they can get programming.”
There are 42 women who want to enroll in a new cosmetology training course, which has slots for 12 inmates, she said. There are 109 women on the wait list for First Step, a 35-day substance-abuse program. The Correctional Recovery Academy, an eight-month substance-abuse and recidivism program, has a wait list of 53.
Last week the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance launched its search for a consulting firm with correction expertise to get a $1.5 million contract to conduct a master plan with the DOC and sheriffs, said DCAMM deputy director Kevin Flanigan.
The team is expected to be named by December. The process, which will take a year, will consider the maintenance and capacity needs, operational and capital costs and plans for demolition and new construction at county and state facilities, Flanigan said.
“I am hoping and the governor and this administration is hoping that conducting a master plan for correctional facilities will yield a result that we need an eastern Massachusetts women’s facility,” said Mary Beth Heffernan.
The opening of the 210-bed Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee last month has no impact on overcrowding in Framingham because the $26.1 million facility is housing women from an existing site in Ludlow.
Leslie Walker, executive director of the Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, opposes building more prisons and jails.
“We can’t build our way out of this. It’s too expensive and the recidivism rate is too high,” she said. “If prisons worked there’d be a better argument. They do not. They warehouse people for a few years except for those lucky enough to receive training and education. The rest are delivered back to society in much worse shape than when they come in.”
Of the 738 female inmates released by the DOC in 2002, 42 percent were reincarcerated within three years, according to DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.
“They just become tinderboxes. There is such a high level of mental illness at Framingham compared to other facilities it’s a whole other dimension. It’s a very needy population of inmates. There’s just not enough help to get it done,” said Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union. “They need to build more female prisons in Massachusetts.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1036493
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