Lawmakers are looking at whether there is a disparity between how long women and men spend behind bars.
The Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee, which meets while the Legislature is not in session, took up the issue Friday at its first meeting of the year.
Commissioner of Corrections Lisa Menard told the panel that the department has done only some preliminary research.
“Initial review showed me that that was certainly possible,” Menard said.
A section in a bill on home detention that the Legislature passed this year directed the panel to look into disparities in sentencing and detention between women and men, as well as to look into how other factors, such as substance abuse or lack of housing, vary between genders.
Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, said there are some worries that women are incarcerated more readily on certain charges than men.
“The concern is there seems to be different situations that a women is taking up (a prison) bed versus a man,” Emmons said.
Menard, who has spent more than 30 years working in the Vermont correctional system, said it’s a “population ripe for study.”
Based anecdotally on her experience, Menard said, she expects that “instead of bias we’re going to find barriers.”
Women who are incarcerated often struggle to find stable housing once they leave prison if they lack supportive networks in the community, and they may be challenged in finding work, she said.
Currently, 131 women are in the custody of the DOC.
The executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, John Campbell, who is also the Senate president pro tem, told the panel it likely will be difficult to analyze data around the myriad prosecutorial and sentencing decisions that factor into women’s cases.
“I don’t think that you’re going to find an out-and-out gender bias,” he said.
Prosecutors may make charging decisions and sentencing recommendations for women based on awareness of their circumstances, taking into account, for example, whether they have children or were coerced into any action through an abusive relationship.
Oftentimes, he said, women sent to prison have had brushes with the criminal justice system before and have been “provided opportunities to alter certain behavior” before a prosecutor pushes for a sentence behind bars.
Campbell said he is interested in further examining any discrepancies, in part because it shows the “wisdom and necessity of prosecutorial discretion,” he said.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, the chairman of the committee, said the panel will look into research and data from other states on the issue of gender discrepancy in the criminal justice system.