NUMBER OF WOMEN IN PRISON GROWING

There were 389 women in South Dakota's state prison system Wednesday,
an all-time high that forced 43 minimum security prisoners into the
former Department of Criminal Investigations dormitories in Pierre.
And the number is growing.

The state Department of Corrections estimates that the average daily
number of female prisoners will grow by 20 percent this year.

The trend's cause is obvious to many, both in and out of law
enforcement: methamphetamine.

"We punish meth," South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long said
Wednesday. Long wasn't aware of the new corrections statistics, but
said he was not surprised by them. "If you use it or distribute it,
we don't have a sense of humor about that."

According to the DOC, 40 percent of the women entering prison in
South Dakota in 2005 were addicted to amphetamines.

That number was 20 percent in 2002.

Long said that whereas most other addictions - from alcohol to
marijuana to heroin - affect men at a far greater rate than women,
women make up more than half of all meth addicts. That, he said, is
why the rapid increase in the number of female inmates comes as no surprise.

It's not known why meth affects women at a rate so much higher than
other drugs, but many have speculated that the weight loss often
associated with the drug is a primary factor. Then, the addiction takes hold.

South Dakota has some of the most punitive meth laws in the region,
according to a 2004 report by Rice University in Houston, Bowdoin
College in Maine and the Native American Women's Health Education
Resource Center on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.

While other states have less severe penalties for meth possession and
classify meth ingestion as a separate, lesser offense, first-time
offenders in South Dakota can be sentenced for up to 10 years in prison.

Charon Asetoyer, the Yankton center's executive director and one of
the study's authors, said the state law that punishes meth ingestion
as a fourth-degree felony is "terrible."

"You don't go out and put severe sanctions on users. They are the
victims. You put severe sanctions on manufacturing and distribution," she said.

The prison statistics are a symptom of South Dakota's punitive
approach toward meth addiction, she said, when a rehabilitative
approach would be more successful.

"It's a judgment call made by the Legislature, but I think that call
is the right one," Long said of the comparatively harsh penalties for
meth users.

Meth addiction is unusually strong, he said, and typical treatment
programs, which run from a month to six weeks, are ineffective.
Rehabilitation from meth addiction can take a year.

Long said that the nature of the addiction means people will not
agree to rehab unless they are already locked up.

"The only effective way to get treatment is to rattle the jailhouse
door in front of them," Long said. "Sometimes the most humane thing
we can do is lock these people up."

Asetoyer does not agree. South Dakota needs to develop a long-term,
meth-specific treatment program, she said, despite the cost.

South Dakota needs "a whole different approach," she said.

The Minnehaha County Jail houses about 65 female inmates, which is
average for recent years, Warden Tim Devlin said.

The number of women has steadily increased in recent years, though.

"It kind of spikes up and down," he said.

Officials attribute rate to meth use

{SIDEBAR}

The Growth Rate Of Women Inmates In State Prison

Fiscal Year % Growth
1995-96 24
1996-97 10
1997-98 15
1998-99 17
1999-2000 3
2000-01 8
2001-02 7
2002-03 12
2003-04 15
2004-05 6
2005-06 *20

*estimated

S.D. Department of Corrections