Women’s prison opens, but not enough women to fill it

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Vermont corrections officials have rearranged the state’s prison system, turning the correctional facility in St. Albans into a women’s prison.

But while that change has been in the works, new programs designed to keep women out of jail have helped drive down Vermont’s female inmate population by 40 percent.

That means that when the St. Albans prison reopens to admit women in a few weeks it will have 140 empty beds.

State Senator Richard Sears, the Bennington Democrat who chairs the Legislature’s Corrections Oversight Committee, is among those who are surprised at the dramatic reduction in Vermont’s female prison population.

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