The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The other women's facility, built in 1877 and the oldest in the country, is a prison in Framingham. Women in western Massachusetts serving sentences of less than two-and-a-half years are now jailed with men at the correctional center at Stony Brook in Ludlow, where men outnumber women by 11 to 1.

Although they don't live or eat together they often attend programs in the same space, according to Richard McCarthy, spokesman for Hampden County Sheriff Michael J. Ashe Jr. ''It's anything but desirable,'' he said. ''You won't find many correctional facilities that have women and men within the same fences. It's not appropriate for the dignity of the women.''

The new jail, which is being called the Western Massachusetts County Regional Women's Correctional Facility, is being built to improve the conditions of women's confinement, not because there is an increase in the number of women incarcerated, McCarthy said.

Originally, a women's facility was going to be built along with the men's center when it was built in 1992 in Ludlow. But part of the proposed site infringed on the habitat of the blue spotted salamander, so plans had to be scaled down and developers couldn't build separate facilities for women, according to McCarthy.

Construction on the new jail is expected to begin in the spring and it should be completed in two years, said Larry Lajoie, the assistant deputy superintendent of construction.

Kevin Flanigan, spokesman for the state's Division of Capital Asset Management, which is evaluating the two bids recently submitted for the project, said that his agency hopes to award a contract sometime next month. No bid figures have been released.

The Center Street jail will total 110,000 square feet and the campus will occupy 20 acres. It is expected to create 55 to 60 new jobs, McCarthy said.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@gazettenet.com.