Norfolk County sheriff to create deinstitutionalized housing for incarcerated women

Norfolk Sheriff Jerry McDermott is retrofitting a facility at the county correctional center’s Dedham campus to create a deinstitutionalized housing environment for incarcerated women, but victims’ advocates said resources should be invested in preventing women from ending up in prison in the first place.

That’s something McDermott and his staff say is the ultimate goal. But beginning early next year, up to eight, low-risk women who have been sentenced to jail time will be housed in a facility that will have pastel-colored walls and wood furniture, where those who have children will be able to visit them.

“So many females involved in the justice system have been victims themselves,” the sheriff said Wednesday as he led Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and reporters on a tour of the facility that he aims to open in January. “Understanding the intensive needs of successful female rehabilitation, we’re designing a deinstitutionalized, custodial setting that will prioritize gender-specific and trauma-informed programming and care for our women.”

Community-based agencies, including mental-health providers and New England Wildlife Centers, will partner with the sheriff’s office to provide emotional support and job-training to prepare women to re-enter the community after they’ve been released.

Hema Sarang-Sieminski, policy director at Jane Doe, Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, said that 86 percent of women in prison have experienced sexual or domestic violence, and the things women due to survive, such as substance abuse, can be criminalized by the justice system.

“What you’re seeing is the punishing of trauma,” Sarang-Sieminski said. “Really what survivors need is to talk about the trauma they’ve experienced. Often times, without that support, some find themselves in prison. And that is not where they can find healing.”

The retrofitted facility at the Norfolk County Correctional Center “does not feel like the best use of resources,” she said. “It takes away attention from the conversations we need to be having about how our commonwealth can be doing a better job at preventing women from ending up in prison in the first place. We need to be taking a much larger view that includes that and whether there are alternatives to prison for women.”

Much of the Norfolk program design will be modeled on Suffolk County’s Community Re-entry for Women program, McDermott said, adding that Suffolk Sheriff Steve Tompkins provided guidance and input to ensure fair and equitable treatment for Norfolk County women.

 

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2TxWnnb