Substance Abuse Proves to be a Growing Factor in Women’s Incarceration, Notes Narconon Spokesperson

America’s War on Drugs has resulted in a disproportionately large number of women being incarcerated for drug-related offenses.

The war on drugs looked like good idea at the time but no one foresaw its harsh effects on women in America.

In the early 1980s, laws intended to fight the increase of drug trafficking into the U.S. and the spread of cocaine addiction changed the way drug offenders were sentenced. But one of the unexpected results of this change was that the number of women being incarcerated for drug-related offenses shot up dramatically.

Over a thirteen-year period starting in 1986, the ratio of women serving time for a drug-related offense rose from 1 in 8 women to 1 in 3 women. Nationwide, the total number of women incarcerated for drug offenses increased an incredible 888 percent over this time. At the same time, the number of women incarcerated for other offenses rose only 129 percent.

As women are most often the primary caregivers for the next generation, it becomes particularly important that they find a solution to a substance abuse problem or addiction that could end up sending them to jail or prison. It’s well known that the only outcomes of addiction are sobriety, prison or death. The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program offers drug recovery programs to both women and men in more than one hundred locations around the world.

By 2008, about half of women confined in state prisons reported that they had been using alcohol, drugs or both at the time of the crime for which they were arrested. And about half of these women admitted that they were daily users of drugs or alcohol. About a third of these women committed the crime that sent them to prison so they could get money for drugs or alcohol.

When women find their way to one of the Narconon drug treatment facilities, they find a program that enables them to learn new life skills to replace the ones that addiction may have destroyed. Improved communication skills, a restoration of personal integrity and values, and a retraining in morals feature in this long-term drug treatment program. As a result, women and men alike are able to stay clean and sober in seven out of ten cases, after graduation from the Narconon drug program.

When we can return women to their homes and their children, ready for sober, productive lives, the entire society wins.

For more information about Narconon, visit www.narconon.org