WISCONSIN IMPRISONING WOMEN FASTER THAN MEN

MADISON, Wis. -- The number of women in Wisconsin prisons has grown at a
rate faster than the rate for men during the 1990s, partly because of drug
crimes, according to a U.S. Justice Department report.

The female prison population has grown by about 8.5 percent annually since
1990, the report said; for male inmates, the rate is 6.6 percent.

At the end of last year, there were 1,169 female inmates in Wisconsin, an
increase of 18.4 percent from 1997.

"Drug-law violations and the prosecution of them has had a disparate impact
on women," said Allen Beck, who wrote the report.

The state plans to take steps to house the extra female inmates. Officials
have proposed spending $5.4 million to expand the Taycheedah women's prison
at Fond du Lac.

Overall last year, state correctional facilities operated at 136 percent of
capacity and the state's prison population grew by more than 13 percent.
That was the third-highest growth rate in the nation, the report said.

The number of state inmates rose from 16,277 at the end of 1997 to 18,451
at the end of 1998, a 13.4 percent increase, the report said.

The state had 19,398 inmates in its custody on Aug. 13, Corrections
Department spokesman Bill Clausius said. There will be 21,937 inmates by
June 30 and 25,193 by the following summer, he estimated.

Three state prisons under construction "are going to help that, but they're
not going to solve the problem," Clausius said.

Beck said that despite the increases, "Wisconsin still has relatively lower
incarceration rates compared to other states."

By the end of 1998, 334 Wisconsin inmates sentenced to more than one year
in prison per 100,000 residents, the report found. The national average was
423 per 100,000 residents.

The number of Wisconsin's "sentenced inmates"--those serving more than a
year--continued to grow last year, although slower than in 1997, the report
said.

There were 17,477 sentenced inmates last year, up 11.8 percent from 1997
and the fifth-highest growth rate in the nation. The state's 19 percent
increase in the number of sentenced inmates in 1997 ranked first in the nation.