DRUG ABUSE FUELS BOOST OF WOMEN BEHIND BARS

York Prison Population Mirrors National Trend

They are mothers, daughters and sisters. More and more, women are
finding themselves locked up behind prison cell doors, and the
national trend isn't leaving York County behind.

While women historically accounted for about 10 percent of admissions
to the York County Prison, that figure has gradually increased over
the last several years. Now it's hovering around 16 percent,
according to Warden Tom Hogan.

Almost 1,900 of the 11,777 people committed to the jail were women,
according to year-end figures.

"It's the fastest growing inmate population," Hogan said.

Mirrors national trend: What's happening at the county jail is a
small anecdote in the national script.

Between 1995 and 2004, the number of women serving time in federal
and state prison systems increased by an average of 5 percent each
year, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Justice
figures. Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated men rose by an average
of 3.3 percent annually.

Part of the reason more women are ending up in jail is that they're
being held more accountable for their crimes, according to District
Attorney Stan Rebert.

In the past, women weren't prosecuted as toughly as men. That meant
they received lesser sentences, such as probation, when committing
crimes that sent men to jail, he said.

Drug use on rise: But the increase is also attributed to more drug
use among women, according to Henry Massa, program director of the
county prison-based Freedom Program. He said most of the female
inmates at the county prison are sent to jail on drug or drug-related offenses.

The Freedom Program offers women group therapy four times a week for
three months and some individual counseling.

He said heroin use is on the rise, and so too is prescription drug abuse.

One woman's story: One of the women he worked with in prison is Dani
Traylor-Kushla, who spent about a year there after she pleaded guilty
to possession with intent to deliver drugs after a 1997 arrest,
according to court records.

Traylor-Kushla has turned her life around. Now she manages two
recovery homes for females addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The homes, part of the Madison House program, support people who had
drug and alcohol programs as they continue treatment and get jobs.

It took three months for Traylor-Kushla to go from drug-free to
drug-addicted after she began to date, then moved in with, a man who
sold cocaine and provided it to her free of charge, she remembered.

With five children, she found that the drug helped her work and take
care of her young ones. But she said it wasn't fun when she couldn't
keep feeding her habit.

"I could clean the house, go to work, take care of the kids, no
problem," she said. "There was times I went looking for him at 2 in
the morning on his job because I ran out."

The drug bust: Nor was it amusing after she was busted.

"I had never been in trouble," Traylor-Kushla said. "I was petrified."

Now 44, the North Codorus Township resident said many of her fellow
inmates had drug addictions, too.

But beneath addictions are underlying issues that helped create the
problem: unhealthy relationships, a lack of education and emotional
and financial instability, she said.

She says the drug problem among women is growing.

"The drugs are there. They're more prevalent," she said. "It's
spreading outside of the city and it's going to the little towns.
Nobody likes it, but it's in our back yard."