BILLERICA – In an effort to help incarcerated women nearing release prepare for re-entry into their communities, Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian announced earlier this week that his office established a new pre-release center at the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction in Billerica.
The center opened on Monday after 11 women were transferred from the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) to the custody of the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office, marking the first time in over 50 years that the MSO had assumed responsibility for direct supervision of imprisoned women.
Under an agreement signed in February, women serving a sentence with the DOC are eligible to be transferred to the care of the MSO following a classification review, according to Koutoujian.
“It’s an exciting day,” Koutoujian said in an interview with The Sun. “I’ve been getting calls from people that had served in our facility for many years who were really excited about this news, saying, ‘I never thought I would see the day when we would take back our women.’ It was a point of pride for them quite honestly.”
Koutoujian said the minimum-security center will provide the women greater access to the MSO’s programming, including its Medication Assisted Treatment And Directed Opioid Recovery (MATADOR) program, educational programs and re-entry planning, including enrollment in MassHealth, housing assistance and voter registration.
The women who will typically be selected for the site will be near the end of their sentences, will have already undertaken all the available programming to them and have records of good behavior.
According to Koutoujian, the center was created from a standalone building at the prison — which has a community room for face-to-face meetings with family members — and was made feasible due to the declining number of men being imprisoned.
“This is basically a house that we’ve decorated in a way to feel more like a home, it won’t feel like a place of incarceration,” he said. “Our hope is to create a family driven atmosphere.”
Koutoujian added that family reunification, which encompasses programs such as parenting and anger management training, will be the center’s primary focus. Once the coronavirus no longer poses a threat, he said they hope to host special events with families as well.
“Family reunification is more important for incarcerated women,” Koutoujian said. “They are five times more likely to be primary caregivers of their children than incarcerated men. And for many of these women, the greatest punishment for them is the fact that they cannot care for their own families.”
Koutoujian said that constructing this type of center has been a goal of his for years, but he had been unable to do so because female prisoners had not been in his custody.
In addition to Middlesex County, incarcerated women from Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk counties may be considered for transfer, based on availability of programs and proximity to family.
“I am pleased to embark on this partnership with Sheriff Koutoujian,” DOC Commissioner Carol Mici said in a statement. “After personally touring the house where our minimum and pre-release women will live, it accelerated my enthusiasm for the program that he and his staff have created. I am further encouraged knowing that the program fully meets the Department of Correction mission to provide care and programming in preparation for successful reentry into the community.”
