27th Women in Criminal Justice Conference held in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The Hampden County Sheriff’s Office hosted the 27th Women in Criminal Justice Conference Friday.

This year’s theme was “Paving the Way for Women in Criminal Justice: Lasting Impressions.” The conference brought together people from most of the law enforcement agencies around the Commonwealth, as well as representatives from Connecticut and Virginia.

22News spoke with Colleen Stocks, Assistant Superintendent of the Women’s Correctional Facility in Chicopee, about some of the challenges that women still face in the field, “We’ve come a long way, still in our combined space of law enforcement, the judiciary, the trial court, parole, probation, when you bring the entire criminal justice field together, women still only represent five percent of that workforce.”

The keynote address was delivered by Linda Melconian, a former Massachusetts State Senator and current Assistant Professor of Practice in Public Service and Healthcare Administration at Suffolk University in Boston.

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