McGrath provides services for women leaving prison
Goal is to keep participants from ending up in jail again
By 
A LITTLE OVER A YEAR after it closed, a new and improved McGrath House is up and running as the only exclusively female residential reentry program in Massachusetts.
McGrath serves women who are completing their sentences at state or county facilities, and women who are on probation or parole. Corrections officials say there is a need for exclusively female residential programs because woman often face different hurdles than men. Nationally, more than half of all women in state and federal prisons have children younger than 18, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Most incarcerated women have been victims of domestic violence, including 79 percent having reported a history of physical abuse.
While the population of women in prison is much smaller than men, the numbers are still significant. Over 1,400 women were released into communities across Massachusetts from 2016 to 2018, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Correction.
“I can tell you that this type of programming fills an important need for women returning to the community,” said Ed Dolan, commissioner of the Massachusetts Probation Service.
When McGrath House closed in April 2018, Massachusetts was spending less than $100,000 on male and female community-based residential reentry programs ($90,000 for a co-ed program in Worcester), a far cry from the $66 million in Ohio and $13 million in Michigan spent on male and female reentry services. The state appropriated $5 million in fiscal 2019, which ended June 30, and the pending budget for fiscal 2020 includes another $4.5 million. The program has strong support from House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Sen. Cynthia Creem of Newton.
Opened in 1975, McGrath first received referrals from the state and federal Departments of Correction and the state parole board. Now one master contract – covering parole, probation, and the state Department of Correction – means there are no designated beds for specific populations, making referrals a lot easier. Federal referrals now go to a co-ed reentry program run separately by Community Resources for Justice.
The 33-bed McGrath accepts women from county and state prisons all over the Commonwealth. Most come from Norfolk, Suffolk, or Essex counties. “We rarely say no to people – only if there’s a significant safety issue,” said Lisa Chute, the program director.
Participants reside at the program for three to six months, and receive individualized assistance securing housing, finding jobs, accessing mental health and substance abuse counseling, and getting help reconnecting with families.
The goal is to keep participants from ending up behind bars again. For some people incarcerated for long periods, basic everyday things such as using Google for a job search and learning to use public transportation can be obstacles to overcome. Receiving help in overcoming those hurdles has been shown to reduce recidivism by up to 25 percent.
On the job front, McGrath connects women to nonprofits such as Project Place to help them take skills classes, land internships, and find job opportunities. A 2015 study by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Department of Corrections found that 25 percent of women inmates were working six months after their release compared to 57 percent of men.
One woman who benefited significantly from the program is Rosa Baez Colon, who participated in the program in 2017 after serving a four-year sentence in federal prison for tax fraud.
The first week at McGrath, Colon said she was despondent. That’s when Shute helped her to find her children, now in their late teens and early twenties, on Facebook. Once she met her children her perspective changed dramatically. “It was huge. Her whole mindset changed after that meeting,” Chute said.
Participants have to abide by many rules. They create itineraries, complete with travel times and addresses, for wherever they go. Smart phones aren’t allowed, so they have to look up routes on computers in advance. They have to open a savings account, learn bus routes, and check in regularly using pay phones. Colon got clothes for interviews at a program called Dress for Success and she received therapy treatment at the South End Community Health Center for domestic abuse trauma.
Colon said she would be out the door at 6:30 a.m. for classes at Project Place, a social services agency that helped with job training. She ended up with a paid internship working for a local fudge shop, while also working in the kitchen of Project Place cooking for a homeless population of 50 to 70 people once a day.
“I’d get back here [McGrath] at around 10 at night, study, take a shower, sleep, and go back out again. I was determined. I didn’t want to let anyone down,” Colon said.
She eventually acquired transitional housing through a nonprofit and later got her own one-bedroom apartment. After completing two years of coursework in one year at Quincy College, Colon is excited to continue her pursuit of a bachelors degree at Suffolk University. Her hope is to work at a nonprofit to help women reentering society post-incarceration.
“I’d like to help give other women an opportunity. They just need a push and to understand life won’t be easy. If I can help just one person, I’ll be satisfied. But I want to help many,” she said.
It made sense for Colon, who lived in the Greater Boston area, to go to McGrath. But the location is less convenient for women outside the Greater Boston area.
“Women are going back to 351 cities and towns in other areas of the Commonwealth,” said Dolan. “How do we deliver that kind of service like McGrath House in Pittsfield or Falmouth?”
Creem said it makes sense to provide services for people leaving jail in the communities they are coming from and to which they are returning. “There should be McGrath Houses all over the state,” she said.