New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women

New Hampshire's only women's prison — purpose-built in 2018 on the Concord prison campus, replacing the converted Goffstown facility, with three visiting days a week including evenings and a Family Connections Center on site.

Overview

The New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women opened on April 17, 2018, and the path there explains the building: a 1980s lawsuit by incarcerated women required the state to locate a women’s prison in New Hampshire — first satisfied by a renovated county facility in Goffstown from 1989 — and the Legislature appropriated $38 million in 2013 for a purpose-built 224-bed facility in Concord. The result is the system’s newest prison — purpose-built with a full-service health unit, a large education area, Correctional Industries workspace, and a Family Connections Center.

As the state’s only women’s prison it holds every custody level, minimum through maximum, with named program units: a clinician-managed Wellness Unit — which appears as its own group on the visiting schedule — the six-month Focus residential substance-use program, and the Progressive Pathways reintegration unit. Women’s intake happens on site — the posted visiting schedule includes the facility’s own Reception & Diagnostic unit. Near release, women can step down to the Shea Farm transitional house, also in Concord, which keeps families in the same city through reentry.

What Makes New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women Different

• The only general-population weekend visiting in the system: Saturday is a full visiting day here — with morning, afternoon, and evening blocks — while both men’s prisons run midweek-only general-population schedules.
• Evening visits three days a week, to 8:30 p.m., alongside morning and afternoon blocks.
• The Family Connections Center is heavily used here: in the most recent published year, 80 women in NHDOC custody reported 162 minor children, incarcerated parents system-wide held nearly 2,000 child video visits, and a grandparents’ support group piloted at this facility in 2023. Parents are referred to the FCC at intake.
• A licensed cosmetology school operates inside — a 1,500-hour apprenticeship through the Granite State School of Cosmetology, whose graduates can sit for the state licensing exam.
• Pregnancy is governed by statute: a 2022 New Hampshire law sharply limits restraints on pregnant women in state custody — none during transport for labor, delivery, or postpartum care absent an extraordinary written determination. NHDOC publishes no nursery or residential infant program, so questions about prenatal care and what happens after a birth go to the facility directly.
• New mothers get extra visits: the statewide rule gives a woman who gives birth in custody two additional weekly visits with the newborn for up to eight months after delivery.

Visiting Hours and Procedures

The statewide rules above — the notarized application, dress code, and ID rules — apply here. The posted schedule (effective January 30, 2025) assigns blocks by unit:

Health Service Center residents visit during their unit’s regular time after a medical and security assessment. The schedule memo dates to January 2025 and changes post on NHDOC’s social media, so a phone check before a first visit confirms the current blocks — (603) 271-0200. The full approval process is in Visiting in New Hampshire.

Getting There and Parking

The facility is on Perimeter Road within the prison campus in north Concord, reached from the North State Street side of the campus.

Distances are approximate, based on map routing. NHDOC publishes neither driving directions nor visitor parking details for the facility.

Nearby Services

Downtown Concord, with the state capital’s full range of food, gas, and lodging, starts about two miles south. Concord Hospital at 250 Pleasant Street — (603) 225-2711 — runs the area’s emergency department, a Level II trauma center, about three and a half miles from the campus.

Learn More

For detailed information about visiting and communicating with someone in a New Hampshire state prison:

• Visiting in New Hampshire — the notarized application, dress code, and the Safeguard chaperone program
• Mail & Packages — addressing mail to 42 Perimeter Road
• Phone & Video Calls — the ViaPath system and FCC child video visits
• Sending Money — deposits to a resident account
• Medical & Mental Health — healthcare in NHDOC custody
• Transfers — intake, classification, and Shea Farm