CHICOPEE, MA - When the construction of the all-female jail in Chicopee, Massachusetts is complete, more than 130 women will be bused in from the Hampden County Corrections Center (HCCC) where they are currently imprisoned with 1,220 male inmates.

After more than ten years of mixed-sex incarceration, officials in Hampden County say the new jail will offer female prisoners a facility of their own, and a chance to have appropriate programming and a more stable environment.

But with the construction of the all-female facility already underway, critics of the jail are still protesting that the "space of their own" rhetoric is simply a guise to build another multi-million-dollar facility.

Critics also say building a jail for female prisoners – the majority, like their male counterparts, are non-violent offenders – does not recognize the real social ails behind the rising jail population, and fails to offer a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation.

Every month, Holly Richardson, one of the main organizers of the Massachusetts Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHaRC), joins other members of the coalition to demonstrate across the street from the emerging jail.

SHaRC is made up of 29 community and prisoner-rights advocacy groups. Each protest brings a new theme – "Education, Not Jails," "Healthcare, Not Jails" – but the message is always the same: women prisoners would be best served through community treatment programs, rather than imprisonment.

"When people say, 'What should happen to the women that are in this men's jail?' we say that women could be 'de-carcerated' from that jail now," Richardson said. "Women could serve different sentences in their homes and in their communities."

Richardson said women who commit drug- and alcohol-related and non-violent crimes should receive help, not punishment. A study of the inmate population at HCCC funded by the National Institute of Corrections and published in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly found that 49.9 percent of the female population could qualify for "intermediate sanctions" rather than imprisonment because their crimes were non-violent; the same was found for the male population, at 43.1 percent.

Although Kate DeCou, assistant deputy superintendent at HCCC, said she welcomes community treatments for prisoners, she said they simply do not exist. In the meantime, she will continue advocating for gender-responsive facilities.

DeCou told The NewStandard that the county wants the new jail because the environment at HCCC is extremely uncomfortable for women, who live in close proximity to men.

"We've got 1,500 men looking at them closely out their windows every time they move," DeCou said. "That's just one tiny piece of it: the dignity."

DeCou said a legacy of sexual abuse – 88 percent of female inmates at HCCC reported they were sexually abused as a child; 55 percent as an adult – makes the environment inconducive to rehabilitation.

Richardson and her group, however, are skeptical of the county's sudden concern for the women prisoners. They lambasted the county for taking more than ten years to protect women from mistreatment.

Not only is there a safety issue for the women at HCCC, but DeCou said that the resources for women's programming are usually usurped for the larger male population. "It's hard to stretch those resources," DeCou said. But having an all-female facility, she added, would allow the county to "meet the needs" of the women.

But SHaRC maintains that the needs of the women will only be met through responsive community programming, rather than new facilities for imprisonment. The coalition is calling for 70 percent of the state's Department of Corrections budget to be reinvested in programs to treat drug- and alcohol-addicted people, create jobs for released prisoners and provide funds for education and healthcare.

"If we really wanted to solve the problem of 'criminals,' we'd look at the root and invest money into the communities that are most hurting," Richardson said.