WOMEN JAM U.S. PRISONS

101,179 Behind Bars Last Year Is An All-Time High

The number of women in American state and federal prisons is at an
all-time high and growing fast. The incarceration rate for females is
nearly twice that of men, the U.S. government reported yesterday.

There were 101,179 women in prisons last year, 3.6% more than in 2002,
the justice department said. It's the first time the women's prison
population has topped 100,000.

But no matter how rapid the growth, women have a long way to go before
catching up to incarcerated men.

At the close of 2003, U.S. prisons held 1,368,866 men, the Bureau of
Justice Statistics reported. The total was 2% more than in 2002.

1 IN 1,613

Expressed in terms of the population at large, that means that in
2003, one in every 109 U.S. men was in prison. For women the figure
was one in every 1,613.

Longer sentences, especially for drug crimes, and fewer prisoners
granted parole or probation are main reasons for the expanding U.S.
prison population, said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the
Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to long prison terms
for some crimes.

The increase began three decades ago, and continues.

The number of women in prison has grown 48% since 1995, when the
figure was 68,468, the report said. The male prison population has
grown 29% over that time, from 1,057,406.

Year by year, the number of women incarcerated grew an average of 5%,
compared to an average annual increase of 3.3% for men.

"It coincides exactly with the inception of the war on drugs," in the
1980s and continuing into the 1990s, Mauer said. "It represents a sort
of vicious cycle of women engaged in drug abuse and often connected
with financial or psychological dependence with a boyfriend" involved
in drug crime, Mauer said.

LOCAL JAILS

The prison figures do not fully reflect the number of people behind
bars. About 80,000 women were in local jails last year, along with
more than 600,000 men.

The federal prison system held a large share of female prisoners, with
a population of 11,635 at the close of 2003. One state -- Texas --
held even more, with a population of 13,487. California, the nation's
largest prison system, held 10,656 women. North Dakota had fewer women
in prison than any other state -- 113.

Among other findings:

- - More than 44% of male inmates were black.

- - Among the more than 1.4 million inmates, an estimated 403,165 were
black men between 20 and 39.

- - 9.3 % of black men 25 to 29 were in prison, compared with 2.6% of
Hispanic men and 1.1% of white men in the same age group.