WOMEN HARDEST HIT BY MANDATORY TERMS

Pressing her face to the barred window, the woman in prison orange waves as
her two teary-eyed children climb into a van after a brief visit to the
Essex County Jail in Caldwell.

Nearly hysterical, Vanessa Coleman - a 35-year-old cocaine user awaiting
trial on charges of pointing a gun at her ex-boyfriend - immediately gets
on the phone and begs one of her other children to visit. Angry and
ashamed, her 11-year-old son only berates her for ending up back behind bars.

A few minutes later as she returns to the cell block, the futility of
trying to be a parent in prison hits her.

"My daughter turns 18 soon, and I know things can happen," she said, a pair
of plastic crosses swinging at her neck. "There's a possibility she could
end up in here, too."

It's one scene in a bleak, ongoing drama as New Jersey's get-tough crime
laws drive a run-up of prison populations. Hardest hit are the women. More
are going to prison than ever, creating a burgeoning population of absentee
mothers. So many that the state admits it is not quite sure of the best way
to house and rehabilitate them all.

The reasons for the increase, according to crime experts, are basicMore
women are dealing drugs, and under mandatory sentencing laws, more of them
are ending up behind bars. Nearly 1,900 women are now in state custody, up
1,400, or 267 percent, since 1986. Nationally, 84,427 women were in federal
or state prisons in 1998, the latest figures available, almost four times
the 1985 population of 23,148.

In New Jersey, women make up less than 6 percent of the prison population,
but the consequences of jailing women are more serious, criminal justice
experts say. About three-quarters of female prisoners in New Jersey are
mothers, most with children under 18.

New Jersey corrections officials say they are unprepared to treat the
growing number of jailed women with drug problems. The state has only 160
halfway-house slots and 50 drug treatment beds for women.

Corrections Commissioner Jack Terhune said the department is still learning
how to help incarcerated women, who tend to arrive in jail with different
histories than male inmates and different problems.

Women inmates are more likely than men to have suffered abuse. And many
women need parenting classes.

"Admittedly, I think we're behind in terms of providing programming,"
Terhune said. "We're behind the learning curve with this."

California and North Carolina have prison-mom drug treatment centers, where
a mother can serve time in a group home with her kids. New Jersey has not
gone that far, but the state and at least one county are making limited
efforts to help mothers stay close to their children.

At the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, Hunterdon
County, a few inmates see their daughters once a month for a program called
"Girl Scouting Behind Bars." And in Essex County, the Newark-based Offender
Aid and Restoration tries to bus in children once a week.

Many children never see their mothers in prison, experts say, because of
family disagreement, the prison is too far away or kids have no way of
getting there. Only a handful of the mothers in Essex County and at Edna
Mahan see their kids with any frequency - even with the busing programs.

On a recent Monday evening, four mothers, including Coleman, got a chance
to see their kids at the Essex County Jail. They all gathered in a visiting
room outfitted with toys, children's books and kid-sized chairs.

In one corner, Kimberly Petty read "Snow White" with her son.

Petty, 34, has been in and out of jail for the past 11 years, most recently
for a probation violation smoking marijuana. Last month, Tyler, her
6-year-old, told a teacher he wanted to run into traffic and kill himself,
she said.

"Children want stability," she said as Tyler vied for her attention.

Asked how he feels about visiting his mother in jail, he shrugged.

"Tyler, how does it feel?" his mother asked again.

"Sad," he answered shyly.

There is no hard evidence that having a mother in jail is more traumatic
than having an incarcerated father. But it seems logical, experts say,
because so many women in prison are single parents.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics and studies in London, Minneapolis and
Sacramento, Calif., show that half of youths in prison have a parent who
has also been locked up.

But does a mother's incarceration send a child on the path to trouble? It's
not that simple, said Denise Johnstone, director of the Los Angeles-based
Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents.

"The majority of these kids led very chaotic lives before the incarceration
of their parents," Johnstone said. Maybe they lived in a dangerous
neighborhood, saw a parent do drugs or witnessed their father beating their
mother.

"Mom and dad are high, they're in never-never land, and the children are on
their own," said Charlotte Blackwell, superintendent at Edna Mahan.

Tameika Brown of Newark, now an inmate in Edna Mahan, says that sums up her
eight years of parenting.

She is serving three years for stabbing her boyfriend to death at a
party. She said he was abusive, but she was on drugs. She often was on
drugs, but at the time, she didn't consider herself a bad parent.

Then she went to jail, and her four kids went with her grandmother.

"It took a real toll on them," Brown said. "When I was first locked up, two
of them had to go to a psychologist. They couldn't understand."

Strained and broken relationships will be one legacy of today's mandatory
sentencing laws, criminal justice experts say.

New Jersey requires mandatory minimum prison sentences for repeat dealers,
dealers 'selling more than 5 ounces of certain hard-core drugs and dealers
working within 1,000 feet of a school.

Add it all up, and where prosecutors and judges once had discretion in
sentencing women and mothers, they now have mandates.

Today, nearly half of the state's female inmates are in for drug offenses.
Just 17 percent had been convicted of drug crimes in 1986.

Slowing the trend means keeping women from repeating, and Terhune pins his
hopes on getting more female inmates into drug treatment. So the state is
adding 150 beds for drug-addicted female inmates at Ancora Psychiatric
Hospital and more halfway houses for women.

What they did Inmates by offense type and gender

Violent

1986 Male 61 % Female 48 %

1996 Male 43 % Female 32 %

1999 Male 40% Female

Nonviolent

1986 Male 24 % Female 27 %

1996 Male 22 % Female 23 %

1999 Male 22 % Female 21 %

Drugs

1986 Male 11 % Female 17 %

1996 Male 33 % Female 40 %

1999 Male 35 % Female 45 %

Other

1986 Male 4% Female 8 %

1996 Male 2 % Female 5 %

1999 Male 3% Female 6 %

THE STAR-LEDGER SOURCEDepartment of Corrections

David Kinney covers state government. He may be reached at
dkinney@starledger.com or (609) 989-0273.