For Women, a Cheaper, Better Alternative to Prison

Article here. Excerpt:

'As a country, we’ve chosen the expensive option: rather than treat addicts, we incarcerate them. When they reoffend, we incarcerate them again — and again and again and again.

Luckily, the inexpensive solution is also the humane solution. When we talk about female drug addicts, more often than not, we’re talking about women who were molested or beaten in childhood and self-medicated the only way they knew how. The path for them to get clean is to address the traumas that drive their addictions.

In Tulsa, Okla., I visited a female-only drug treatment center called Women in Recovery. Of their patients, 65 percent had been victims of childhood sexual abuse.
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Across the country, more than 215,000 women are incarcerated, and women are the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population — due in large part to the war on drugs. Diversion programs like Women in Recovery have sprung up in order to address the issues at the root of drug-related crimes.

Smith says that unlike prison, the best diversion programs are gender-specific, address trauma and aim to keep families intact. “Generally speaking, these programs are amazingly effective,” she said.

Most diversion programs cost less than prison, according to Smith, and provide further savings because they lower recidivism rates and decrease the chances that children will become criminals, too. In other words, everybody benefits.'