BANGOR – The Women’s Re-entry Center looks more like a college dorm than a prison block.

There are no locks on the doors to most rooms and no bars on the windows. The inmates wear their own clothes rather than the identical garb issued by the Maine Department of Corrections.

They cook their own meals and do their own laundry and other chores. The inmates also must participate in job-readiness sessions, empowerment programs and other classes.

The 10 women who are the first to live in the center that eventually will house up to 38 agreed they feel “almost human” since moving onto the third floor of a red brick building at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center on Nov. 13. They also believe the transitional program housed at the former Bangor Mental Health Institute will help them move back into the community and enable them to stay out of jail.

“A critical element of the Women’s Re-entry Center is giving these women a step-down opportunity for a more normal life similar to what they will face after release,” Becky Hayes Boober, director of women’s services and executive director of the Maine Re-entry Network for the Department of Corrections, said last week during a tour of the facility.

Earlier this year, the Legislature approved the $1 million renovation in Building F3 on the Dix campus bordered by State Street, Hogan Road and Mount Hope Avenue in Bangor. The Department of Corrections has contracted with Volunteers of America Northern New England to handle the day-to-day operations at the facility. Once it’s fully operational, it is expected to cost between $750,000 and $900,000 annually to run the center, according to Boober.

Although it may look like a college dorm, the floor is secure and it is staffed 24-7, Boober said. There also are security measures in place that may not be visible to visitors.

To qualify for the transitional program, inmates must have served 120 days of their sentences but have less than a year left to serve. The women also must have completed a substance abuse treatment program if they have alcohol or drug problems. They also must be nonviolent offenders that the Department of Corrections has found not to be a threat to the community.

“It makes you feel normal again,” Lisa Montreuil, 36, of Portland said Tuesday of her first week at the center. “The past week has been overwhelming but joyful.”

Montreuil’s been on her own since she was 14. She’s been in and out of jail for the past 20 years and is now serving 20 months for drug trafficking. Montreuil expects to be released next year.

The mother of three has been through drug rehab more than once but always returned to her old ways and, eventually, another cell. Because of the programs offered at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, where until now women inmates have been housed, and the re-entry center in Bangor, Montreuil said she feels she has the skills to stay off drugs, be a productive member of society and, most importantly, a good mother.

“I didn’t get anything out of the other programs,” Montreuil said. “They didn’t explain to me how not to relapse, what my triggers that lead me to drugs are, or what the things that got me into that situation are, so I did relapse.”

Another woman at the center, a 39-year-old who asked not to identified, grew up in northern Maine. Her parents didn’t drink or do drugs, she said. She and her husband both worked for the state.

The woman described herself as “a PTA mom focused on family and work” until she became addicted to painkillers after surgery about seven years ago. When she couldn’t get pills from her doctor, she bought them on the street, then began selling drugs to support her own habit.

She was arrested for drug trafficking but was allowed to participate in a drug court. More than halfway through the program, she was sentenced to three years in prison after relapsing. The woman, who plans to take welding next semester at Eastern Maine Community College, has six months left to serve. Once she’s released, the mother of two plans to relocate and start over, but she recognizes that society may not welcome her with open arms.

“I think people need to understand that [substance abuse] is a disease,” she said. “Just like cancer, it can be put into remission. We’re not bad people – we’ve just made mistakes.”

For the vast majority of women incarcerated in Maine, drug and alcohol abuse led them to commit their crimes, according to Boober. Treatment is an essential part of their rehabilitation, she said, but the demand at the Windham facility far outstripped the system’s ability to meet that need.

It was important to get the re-entry center up and running this year to relieve overcrowding at the women’s unit in Windham. Designed to house 70 inmates, it has held between 120 and 140 for the past several years, according to Boober. More than 30 of those female inmates had less than a year to serve on their sentences, which made them candidates for the transitional program.

The state also operates a pre-release center for men in Hallowell and similar programs at Charleston, Downeast in Machiasport, and Bolduc in Warren, according to Boober.

The Women’s Re-entry Center is part of a broader picture that illustrates how over the past five years the Department of Corrections has changed the way it deals with women offenders, Boober said. Maine is one of the first states in the nation to implement a program called the Gender-Responsive Strategies Project that was initiated by the National Institute of Corrections, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The first step in implementing those strategies is acknowledging that the reasons women break the law and the challenges they face going back into the community are vastly different from those of men. The final step is helping them move back to their families and communities from a transitional facility such as the one in Bangor rather than from a prison cell.

“Both facilities are designed to give women the tools and support they need to not re-offend,” Boober said. “Reducing recidivism will lead to less pressure in the long run for additional beds since nearly half of all state facility admissions are due to probation violations, revocations or other recidivisms.”

About 67 percent of men and women will re-offend during the first three years of their release, according to national statistics kept by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, D.C. The vast majority of those will commit new crimes within the first year of their release.

By staying in touch with women who go through the transitional programs for six months after their release, Boober said, the recidivism rate is expected to drop to less than 20 percent.

Most of the women in the criminal justice system are victims of domestic and sexual violence, according to research prepared by the National Institute of Corrections. They suffer from psychological trauma, are substance abusers, are unmarried women with children under 18, or are a combination of those factors.

Not so long ago, men and women were released from prison with some new clothes and $50 in cash. They had been punished for their crimes but most had not been rehabilitated. They were not taught the skills that would keep them from slipping into criminal behavior again or were not given job training that would allow them to support themselves and their families.

“The center is designed to create thriving outcomes for the women, such as placing them in high-growth, high-demand careers where employers are experiencing a shortage of workers,” Boober said in an e-mail. “We also emphasize placement in adequate and safe housing, positive family reunification, developing pro-social supportive networks (friends not involved in criminal behavior, for example), and treatment needs for any physical or mental health issues and substance abuse.”

By the end of the year, many of the women pioneering the program will be working or attending school in the community during the day and returning to the center at night. Before they are released, they will have jobs, places to live, contact information on health care providers that can meet their particular needs, and will be participating in Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, according to Boober. Program staff will help them transition back into society mentally, physically and emotionally.

“Start a new beginning. Climb the stairs and spread your wings” is the vision statement the facility has chosen for the first group of women to use.

The programs offered at the Women’s Re-entry Center are designed to help them soar, Boober said.

Some characteristics of women offenders

A national profile of women offenders reveals they are:

. Most likely to have been convicted of a drug-related offense.

. In their early- to mid-30s.

. Individuals with fragmented family histories, and they may have other family members involved with the criminal justice system.

. Survivors of physical and-or sexual abuse as children and adults.

. Individuals with significant substance abuse problems.

. Individuals with multiple physical and mental health problems.

. Unmarried mothers of minor children.

. Individuals with a high school degree or GED but with limited vocational training and sporadic work histories.

. Disproportionately women of color.

Source: Research, Practice and Guiding Principals for Women Offenders.