Across the nation, women are going to jail in record numbers - including right here in Pennsylvania.

At first glance, the statistics might indicate that women's behavior is becoming more criminal, but a deeper look suggests that changes in the criminal justice system have caused the increase. The distinction is important because the escalation of women in prisons portends greater disruptions in our communities and an upward spiral in the cycle of criminality.

Females born in 2001 are six times more likely to wind up in prison at some point in their lives than are women born in 1974. That estimate comes from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, which also has noted that of all the women released from prisons in 1994, 57.6 percent were rearrested and 39.9 percent were reconvicted.

These numbers figure into an alarming trend in increased imprisonment of women that has been developing over the last decade. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics recently reported that state and federal prison populations in the United States increased by 2.1 percent in 2003. Of that, the number of women in prisons jumped by 3.6 percent, while the male population rose just 2 percent.

Since 1995, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported, the annual rate of growth of female inmates averaged 5 percent, compared with 3.3 percent for men. Cumulatively, the number of male prisoners has grown 29 percent since 1995 and the number of females has gone up 48 percent.

The increase in women prisoners in Pennsylvania has been steady through the decade, although at a somewhat slower rate than nationally. In 1995, the state had 1,502 women in its prisons, and by 2003 the number climbed to 1,816, a hike of 20.9 percent.

The subtext in all these statistics is rooted in changes in the criminal justice system, not that women are committing more crimes. The adoption of sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences have curtailed the discretion judges once had to avoid imprisonment and provide community-based sentences for nonviolent crimes such as drug possession. Drug offenses are the largest category of crimes committed by women, accounting for more than twice the number of the second-highest crime - aggravated assault. In fact, drug crimes constitute half of all the nonviolent offenses in Pennsylvania.

Another factor that is not readily apparent in the numbers is mental health. Since the closing of mental hospitals in the early 1960s, prisons have become the largest providers of mental-health services in the country. The Bureau of Justice Statistics says one in five female inmates receive medication for psychological or emotional problems. In Pennsylvania, the Department of Corrections provides psychiatric drugs to one in three women prisoners. Inmates with mental illnesses tend to have behavioral problems that result in their being confined longer than others who win recommendations for parole.

The impact of these trends on communities cannot be ignored. When men go to prison, families are disrupted and children lose role models. When women go to prison, families are destroyed and children's lives are devastated. Two out of three women in prison are mothers, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports. Almost half of all female prisoners lived with their children in single-parent households before their incarceration, according to the Women's Prison Association.

While women clearly have a closer connection with their children before and after going to prison, they tend to have fewer visits while they are incarcerated. This occurs, in part, because the relatively small number of female prisoners, compared with males, means there are far fewer prisons and they tend to be much farther from women's homes. One Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that 54 percent of women reported that they never had a personal visit from their children during their incarceration.

Having children complicates women's attempts to reenter society in numerous ways. For instance, women need to find jobs that will enable them to support not just themselves but also their children. They also need to arrange day care for the kids. Racial prejudices and lack of education can figure into the difficulties of women returning from prisons: 63 percent of incarcerated women are African American or Hispanic and 64 percent failed to complete high school.

Additional obstacles to reentry have been created by legislation that denies housing assistance and other government benefits to individuals convicted of drug crimes.

Public safety is jeopardized by the fallacy of longer sentences and curtailed social-support services. This is camouflage used to mask a political system that is unwilling to commit the time and resources needed to solve deeply rooted social problems.