Pubdate: Mon, 26 Nov 2001
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Helen Rumbelow
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/women.htm (Women)

DRUGS AT ROOT OF BIG INCREASE IN WOMEN JAILED

BRITAIN is now locking up women in numbers not seen since Victorian times. 
Whereas gin was once blamed for their path to jail, experts today blame 
cocaine and heroin for the past decade's rise in female crime -- the 
biggest this century. Since 1990 the number of women in British prisons has 
tripled to 4,045.

The number jailed for drug offences has also tripled, to about two in five 
of all female prisoners, with drugs being the most common cause of 
imprisonment. The next most common crime is theft, often linked to drug 
addiction.

By contrast, only one in 14 male prisoners is there for drugs offences. The 
most common offence among men is violent crime, such as murder and grievous 
bodily harm.

"Drugs are the reason why women's prisons are filling up", said Chris 
Tchaikovsky, the head of the lobby group Women in Prison, and a former 
prisoner. "If the Government thinks you can punish people out of using 
drugs, I can tell you from experience you can't. Prison makes you feel bad, 
drugs make you feel good, ergo the drugs problem gets worse. "Prisons are 
barbaric relics of the Victorian age which don't work apart from containing 
the violent -- they are certainly no substitute for drug rehabilitation."

Dorothy Wedderburn, who wrote an extensive report on the subject for the 
Prison Reform Trust, found that violent crime among women had doubled, but 
the numbers of women jailed for such crimes were still in the low hundreds.

"It is the drugs offences which have increased enormously among women, and 
so any debate on the subject has to discuss lightening the penalty for 
that," Professor Wedderburn said. "We are undoubtedly more penal in our 
approach to the use of drugs than the rest of Europe."

Women in prison have much greater mental health problems than men. Half 
have been sexually abused, half of them say that they harm themselves, and 
a third are in debt.

Most urgently, at least half of the women in prison are mothers, and two 
thirds of those have children under ten years old. "Judges don't take this 
into account and need to be able to justify a specific sentence in terms of 
the effects on the woman's children," Professor Wedderburn said.

"A high proportion of the women will have grown up in care. If their 
children get taken into care, we have some evidence that this makes the 
second generation more likely to offend. It's a vicious circle."

Another difference between male and female prisoners is that many more 
women are imprisoned on remand, but are released after trial. A quarter of 
all women in prison are there on remand, but two thirds of them do not 
receive jail terms when sentenced.

"Courts rarely see women criminals because of their relatively low numbers, 
and they don't know what to do with them," Silvia Casale, a criminologist 
and adviser to Holloway Prison, said. "Sending them to prison is a gesture 
of despair in a way. It looks like a safe place, but it really isn't."

Worst Offenders

England and Wales are on course to become the EU's prison capital. Only 
Portugal locks up more per head of its population, but Prison Service 
statistics show that the gap has narrowed. In 2000 Portugal jailed 127 per 
100,000 people followed by 124 for England and Wales, 115 Scotland, 114 
Spain, 97 Germany, 94 Italy, 90 Luxembourg, 89 France, 87 The Netherlands, 
84 Austria, 83 Belgium, 80 Ireland.

Worldwide, the United States came top with 702 prisoners per 100,000 
people, followed by 465 Russia, 385 South Africa, 330 Estonia, 208 Czech 
Republic, 170 Poland.
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