Vermont is pursuing two potential locations for a new women’s prison in Essex, Vt.

For years, state Department of Corrections officials have stressed the need to replace Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, calling conditions at the aging women’s prison “an embarrassment.”

After evaluating both state and privately owned land for a new prison, the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services and the corrections department have settled on two state-owned parcels in Essex.

The news was announced at a meeting with stakeholders on Thursday and later confirmed by Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the corrections department.

The sites would require a zoning change, Sommer noted, a process that BGS is “currently initiating,” with communication with the Town of Essex already underway. State officials intend to present their plans to the Essex Planning Commission next week, she said. 

One location is adjacent to Susie Wilson Bypass, Gardenside Lane and the Essex Town Park and Ride on Landfill Lane. The other is off River Road near its intersection with N. Williston Road. 

The latest plans for a new prison recommend a 158-bed facility with a separate 30-bed reentry facility, Sommer said, acknowledging that those numbers could change. The project was estimated to cost upwards of $70 million in 2023, but that too remains fluid. The state has so far set aside $15 million in capital funds for a new facility. 

Advocacy groups in Vermont including the ACLU have pushed back against plans for a new prison, calling them “out of line” with Vermont’s values, and a perpetuation of “mass incarceration.”

Investigations by Seven Days and VtDigger have documented unsafe conditions at the women’s prison. The condition of the 1970s-build facility with about 177 beds has been rated as “poor.” 

Corrections leaders have said the state needs a new facility in order to provide healthy and rehabilitative accommodations for incarcerated women. 

“As long as the sentencing structures that currently exist in Vermont continue to exist,” Sommer said, “it is our responsibility to make sure that (women) have a dignified living environment, and that they are prepared to transition back to their communities. Chittenden just really does not provide that space.”

Vermont officials have sought to model a new prison on the Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center, a minimum security facility that boasts comfortable furniture, natural lighting and job training. 

In an interview Thursday, Jayna Ahsaf, Vermont campaign director for the organization Free Her, said there’s no such thing as a “safe prison for women.”

She argued that at a lower price tag, Vermont could invest in bail reform, substance use disorder treatment and services for survivors of domestic violence, which could keep people out of prison and remediate the need for a new facility. Ahsaf also noted that some people remain incarcerated due to a lack of housing, and suggested that money for the prison could instead build apartments. 

“Prison construction is a much longer and expensive Band-Aid solution,” she said.

Ahsaf criticized the disclosure of the Essex locations at Thursday’s stakeholder meeting as “a little shrouded in secrecy.”

Though the state intends to discuss the plans at an upcoming municipal meeting in Essex, she noted “a planning meeting isn’t accessible to everybody.”

As of August 1, Chittenden Regional housed 107 people — 44 detainees, 59 sentenced, and 4 both sentenced and detained, according to corrections department data. 

The Essex Planning Commission will hear from state staff regarding the new prison project on Thursday, August 8, according to the department of corrections.