clipped from: www.alternet.org   

Drug War Traps Increasing Numbers of Women

The "war on drugs" has led to an explosion in the female incarceration rate.

Oklahoman Tina Thomas has been caught up in the American war on drugs.

Thomas is part of an alarming statistical trend and a modern-day American phenomenon. For starters, she is one of half a million people (roughly one-fourth of the total prison population) locked up on drug-related charges. Thomas is also an inmate in a state that locks up women at one of the highest per capita rates -- 129 per 100,000 residents, a figure that is right behind Texas, the federal system and California. Oklahoma’s imprisonment of women rose a stunning 1,237 percent from 1997 to 2004.