A female inmate sits on the bed in a cell Thursday at the Lawrence County Jail in Bedford. Staff photo by Rich Janzaruk
More women are breaking the law, getting caught and getting arrested, leading to an increase in the female jail population around Indiana.
During 2015, his first year in office, Lawrence County Sheriff Mike Branham was surprised when the number of women behind bars at his jail climbed to 48.
“Last summer, it reached an all-time high,” Branham said. Finding room to house that many women separate from the male inmate population presented quite a challenge. The 25-year-old jail was not built to accommodate that many women.
“Twenty years ago when I started out in law enforcement, you might have had five or 10 females in the jail, for crimes like check deception, public intoxication, theft, the occasional OWI. Rarely were there high-level felony charges,” the sheriff said. “And now, we have women charged with manufacturing meth, dealing heroin, things like that. They are getting wrapped up in more serious charges.”
Data from the Sentencing Project, a national organization that advocates for justice reform, says the number of women in U.S. prisons is increasing at almost double the rate for men.
One-third of incarcerated women are in jail for drug offenses, data show, and many have been victims of physical or sexual abuse in the past.
The report reveals a startling statistic: The number of women in prison in the U.S. increased 646 percent from 1980 to 2010. And it continues to go up.
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