NUMBER OF FEMALE INMATES SOARS

The war on drugs has sent an increasing number of women to prison,
according to a recent study. It also says two-thirds of incarcerated women
have children under age 18.

The drug war has had a "dramatic and disproportionate impact on women,"
said the report by The Sentencing Project, a private group devoted to
finding alternatives to imprisonment.

The number of women in state prisons for drug offenses rose from 2,400 in
1986 to 23,700 in 1996, nearly 10 times as many, the study said. For
non-drug crimes, the number of imprisoned women more than doubled, rising
from 17,200 to 39,400. In other words, drug crimes accounted for half of
the overall increase of women in state prisons.

The figures for women imprisoned for drug crimes start from a "relatively
low base, but it's still an enormous growth," said professor Alfred
Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The numbers for women still are far below the numbers of men in prison.

In 1986, there were 34,400 men in state prisons for drug crimes, a number
that rose to 213,900 in 1996, more than six times as many. For non-drug
offenses, 391,400 men were imprisoned in 1986, compared with 767,500,
almost twice as many, a decade later. Drug crimes made up one-third of the
total increase.