Drug war harming women, report says

Drug war harming women, report says

They are getting convicted often, unfairly, experts say

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thursday, March 17, 2005




NEW YORK

America's war on drugs is inflicting deep and disproportionate harm on women - most of them mothers - who are filling pri-sons in ever-rising numbers despite their typically minor roles in drug rings, the Ame-rican Civil Liberties Union and two other groups say in a new report.

The report, "Caught in the Net," is being released today as the focus of a two-day national conference in New York, bringing together criminal-justice officials, sentence-reform activists and other experts to consider its package of proposed legislative and policy changes.

The report recommends expansion of treatment programs geared toward women, says that prison should be a last re-sort, and urges more vigorous efforts to maintain ties between imprisoned mothers and their children.

"Drug convictions have caused the number of women behind bars to explode, leaving in the rubble displaced children and overburdened families," the report says.

The number of imprisoned women is increasing at a much faster rate than the number of men, mostly because of tougher drug laws. There were 101,000 women in state and federal prisons in 2003, an eight-fold increase since 1980; about one-third were drug offenders, compared with about one-fifth of male inmates.

"Many of the drug-conspiracy and accomplice laws were created to go after the kingpins," said Lenora Lapidus, the director for the wo-men's-rights project for the ACLU and a lead author of the report.

"But wo-men who may simply be a girlfriend or wife are getting caught in the web as well, and sent to prison for very long times when all they may have done is answer the telephone," Lapidus said.


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