In a report to be released on Sunday by the New York Women’s Prison Association, there has been a massive increase in the imprisonment of women over the last thirty years which many analysts attribute largely to the War on Drugs.
Mississippi, Oklahoma and the mountain states lead the charge, but overall the numbers of women serving terms of over e year in length has increased by a staggering 757 percent between 1977 and 2004 according to the study. That would set the increase at almost twice the rate of men being incarcerated.
The Northeastern states bucked the trend with women’s incarceration rates actually declining.
According to the study, the rapid rise in the rate of women being incarcerated is largely for crimes associated with drugs, while the porportion of women involved in voilent crime has actually dropped.
As part of the proposed solution, Ann Jacobs, executive director of the Women’s Prison Association, has suggested mandatory drug treatment for those convicted of drug related crimes.
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