MARTHA STEWART'S LIVING

Hundreds of women around the nation emerge from prison sentence each day.
Few face the living Martha Stewart does.

America's most famous convict has done her five-month stint for lying about
her knowledge of a stock tip. She leaves Alderson Federal Prison Camp with
two television shows on tap, one courtesy of her friend Donald Trump. Even
stock in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., has climbed back up from
$8.25 a share a year ago on her conviction to $32.04 on the New York Stock
Exchange.

Other female ex-offenders should be so lucky. The number of women in prison
has climbed to 93,000 in state and federal prisons nationwide, seven times
the number 25 years ago and at double the rate of men incarcerated. Nearly
a quarter of women in state prisons have a history of mental illness. Many
are a casualty of drug addiction which landed them in prison. Quite often,
according to criminal justice figures, they were victims of physical and
sexual abuse before entering prison.

They had few job skills going in and few coming out. For them, there is no
correcting in corrections. The state and federal systems offer few
rehabilitation programs to help women start afresh once they are released.

None of this is Stewart's fault, of course. In fact, she's become an
advocate during her own troubles of reforming the sentencing guidelines for
nonviolent first-time offenders and has written movingly about the plight
of many women in prison.

However, her star power and the notoriety of her imprisonment and release
might make a difference by calling attention to those who aren't as
fortunate. Many felt that Stewart's imprisonment was a waste of talent that
could be put to better use in community service instead of a jail cell.
Others thought the maven of perfection got what she deserved.

That debate won't end, but Stewart's experience should be a useful lesson
for the rest of us. If all prisoners had a job and skills to use once they
got out of prison, how much better off they would be. As Stewart would say,
that's a good thing. There should be more of it.