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LEAD-IN BY HOST: Texas is a law and order state. Judges are expected to be tough on crime. Texans normally associate crime with men. But in the 90's we saw a change in the makeup of the prison population. And in this decade we may continue to see more of the same. Robert Cardenas looks at the female prison population and the unique problem they face.
STORY: In 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that Texas enjoyed the unique distinction of not only having the second-highest per-capita incarceration rate in the nation, but also the second-largest prison population, roughly 160,000, or enough to fill up the Houston Astrodome three times over. Women inmates comprised only 7 percent of the TDC population. However, TDC's female inmate population grew by 2000 women between 1995 and 2000, reflecting the national trend that saw the number of female inmates in the nation swell by over 100 percent between 1990 and 2000. "Some people do deserve to be there, but hey you know what, not everybody deserves to be treated like an animal. Because when you are locked up that's exactly how you're treated - like an animal." That was Mrs. Trinadad Gonnera, a 39-year old TDC parolee in the Houston area. Both female and male ex-felons share some of the same problems. The female inmate is different in a couple of ways. Assistant professor Jannet Mullings at Sam Houston State University criminal justice department has studied the female inmate population in Texas closely and found the following from her latest study: "Only 8 percent reported a violent offense. The majority are coming in for property, drugs, or some kind of a violation, a parole violation." Unlike men, women disproportionally go to prison for property and drug offenses. Women also differ in another way. Once again, professor Mullings : "We do know that most of the women who come into prison who have children have them with them at the time of arrest or expect to have them upon release, whereas you know that's not as common for male prisoners." Incarceration also breaks up families by having a mother often being incarcerated hundreds of miles away from her children. Someone doing something about this problem, and who knows first hand about life in TDC, is Mrs. Joyce Brown of Dallas. "There are women in prison who's mother or grandmother or aunt or sister or whoever can't afford to take their children back and forth to prison to keep that bond. Because sometimes when women come home and they've been gone for 6, 7, maybe 8 years and they come in and they come in and talking to their young girl, or young man - son that they left behind 6 or 7 years ago, there's some animosity there. They don't want them to come in and tell them what to do, or take control." Mrs. Brown spent close to nine years in prison for a crime she did not commit. She now runs MFASS Inc, or Males and or Females in Favor of Social Systems, Inc. a Dallas-based organization serving the needs of offenders and parolees in the Dallas area. The war on drugs is claiming innocent victims, and the children of these offenders can be thought of as collateral damage. According to Mrs. Gonnera, the mother of seven, it's families who suffer in this equation. "Family is very, very important - a unity - I think that's the most crucial thing for a woman. For a woman to be away from her children, it's like cutting out her heart." And how can we change this situation? Mrs. Joyce Brown has a suggestion: "We have lots of mothers in prison doing lots of time for petty crime. I think that we as a society should stand up and speak out and try to change some of these laws that are taking these mothers from these babies, and giving them - 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years -- for drugs." Although the number of female inmates has been accounted for, no one seems to be counting the number of children that are affected by these incarcerations. Robert Cardenas, KPFT News, Houston
E-mail Robert Cardenas at robertc@amerion.com .
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