Meth Use Causing Rise in Kansas' Female Prison Population August 12, 2003
News Summary
Kansas law-enforcement authorities say an increase in methamphetamine use is the reason for a rise in the number of women in prisons throughout the state, the Associated Press reported Aug. 11."There's no doubt the increase is tied to meth here," said Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson.
According to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the state ranked fifth in the nation in meth labs in 2002. The rise in female incarcerations began in 1996.
"I don't think there's any doubt you can say that in 1996 the war on drugs began to pick up in Kansas," said Dick Koerner, warden at the Topeka Women's Correctional Facility. "There's the same kind of spike in male drug arrests about that time."
According to state officials, the Topeka prison had 411 female inmates in 1995 and 615 in 2000. So far this year, the number of female inmates is 558.
Koerner said "between 60 and 70 percent" of the female inmates are serving drug-related sentences.
Reno County saw similar growth in its female prison population. In 1999, 100 women were imprisoned, compared to 547 in August 2000.
"Since I took over as sheriff, 95 percent of the women we've brought in here have been for drugs," Henderson said.
Also contributing to the increase are the tighter sentencing guidelines passed by the Kansas legislature in 1993.
"For a long time, I thought judges had more discretion in sentencing women to prison," Koerner said. "They did what they could to keep the woman out of the prison system. But with the advent of those guidelines, some judges felt they lost that discretion. If the guidelines were intended to foster uniformity and consistency, they needed to be applied to women the same as men. That's a factor in the state numbers, too."
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