The League of Women Voters NH began our study of the issues facing women incarcerated in NH in 2009. We visited the county houses of correction, the women’s prison in Goffstown, the women’s “halfway house” at Shea Farm, drug courts. We had interviews with state and county corrections officials and with inmates, presentations by court officials and others involved in alternative sentencing including several visits to the Grafton county drug court, parole and probation state officials, and extensive reading of current publications about women offenders, both in NH and throughout the country.

Along with several other organizations we fought the proposal for a privatized women’s prison and won, then advocated for a new prison with improved education and rehabilitative services on a par with those at the men’s prisons in NH.

Finally the new New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women is open in Concord. The women moved in on April 17, 2018. The old Goffstown facility was turned back to Hillsborough county and has been dismantled.