THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200343
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The State Department of Corrections, under a federal judge's order to provide a boot camp for women felons, has recommended shipping women prisoners to a camp out of state instead of building a camp for them in Virginia.
Corrections officials have proposed sending women offenders to a program operated in Michigan that is comparable to the state's boot camp for men in Southampton County.
It would cost about $60,000 to send the estimated half-dozen women felons to boot camp in Michigan, officials said. By contrast, it would cost at least $300,000 for the first year of an in-state program and about $200,000 each year thereafter.
The state attorney general's office is hammering out an agreement with a lawyer representing a woman inmate who filed a lawsuit charging that the state should provide a boot camp for female as well as male felons.
In March, U.S. Magistrate Judge Glen E. Conrad agreed, ruling in Roanoke that Virginia's military-style boot camp for young felons is unconstitutional because women are not allowed to participate. He ordered the state to provide a boot camp for women by October.
``The court finds that the defendants acted unconstitutionally in providing a favorable sentencing option for male prisoners, where none was available for female prisoners,'' he wrote.
The department's proposal is still subject to Conrad's approval.
Jennifer Hill West, a 23-year-old Charlottesville waitress, filed the lawsuit after spending nearly a year at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women on a drug conviction. She has since been paroled.
A judge had sentenced her to nine years in prison with three years suspended, plus an additional six years' probation. Had she been sent to the boot camp, she could have been out in as little as three months.
Since West filed her lawsuit, two other women joined the suit. Melissa Lang, 19, and Tamara Clark, 22, were both charged with possession of cocaine and wanted the option of attending boot camp.
About 30 states have boot camps. Of those, about 14 have female programs.
In court papers, West's lawyer had provided an example of the disparity in the case of a couple charged at the same time with the same offense, under the same prosecutor. Because there was no boot camp for women, the judge sentenced the woman to 20 years in the Community Diversion Incentive Program. Her boyfriend was sentenced by the same judge to boot camp. Once he successfully finished the program and a year of probation, he would have completed his sentence 18 years earlier than his girlfriend.
Deborah C. Wyatt, representing the three women in the lawsuit, said she can understand the state not wanting to start its own program.
``If you only have one or two applicants, I can't quibble that it makes sense to use the Michigan program,'' she said. ``We're not trying to cost the government money, we're just trying to get equal treatment.''
Wyatt says she thinks the judge's ruling could be applied to other state programs that seem to discriminate on the basis of gender.
``I would have hoped it wouldn't have been needed in 1994,'' she said. ``I would have hoped we would have come of age. But if the government is starting projects that are to benefit men and not women, then precedent is needed. It's just not constitutional.''
KEYWORDS: WOMEN PRISONERS by CNB