By CRAIG FREILICH

Women in St. Lawrence County have increasingly become involved in crime over the past several decades, according to local experts.

Reflecting a nationwide trend, they are more likely to be arrested today for things like harassment, assault, coercion and theft than their mothers were.

And more women are in prison, on probation or on parole than a generation ago.

“We are arresting more women than we did when I started here 27 years ago,” said County Sheriff Kevin Wells.

“There is a higher percentage of women in jail than there used to be,” he said. “Many are repeat offenders. And a lot of them are jailed the first time for something major right from the beginning,” more so than in the past.

Sue Buckley, chair of the SUNY Canton Criminal Justice Department and a retired New York Bureau of Criminal Investigation Senior Investigator, agrees.

“Statistics show more women on probation, in jail, or on parole” over the last few decades, Buckley said. Nationwide, the FBI Uniform Crime Report indicates arrests for property crimes, such as vandalism, shoplifting, arson and theft, has gone up 33.2 percent for women in the past decade, while the rate for men dropped 3.9 percent. For burglary and larceny, the number of women arrested increased 40.8 percent, while the number of men went up 17.5 percent.

Also, the number of women charged with driving under the influence increased 31.5 percent between 2000 and 2009, but the rate for men dropped 11.4 percent.

“The numbers of arrests have increased, but the number of women under correctional supervision has really increased dramatically over the last 30 years,” she said.

“Most are drug-related or property-related,” Buckley said. “There has also been a large increase in the number of women arrested for simple assaults and harassment.”

New Jail Design

The St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility, built in 2008, was planned with women as well as men in mind. “When we designed the new jail, more room for women was planned,” Wells said.

There are 24 beds for women, and if necessary, they can double up in a quarter of those cells.

As of May 31, there were 21 females in the jail, a level that did not vary much all month.

“Five are from other counties,” the sheriff said. Wells explained that the new county jail has enough capacity to take female prisoners from Franklin and Jefferson counties “to make more room for males there.”

Design capacity of the jail is 164 inmates, and up to 186 can be held if “double-celling” is used in the sections where that contingency was planned for.

“Thirty years ago, we did not need to plan for women to the same extent.”

Domestic Violence Change

Buckley said one reason for the increase in women’s crime might be changes in how domestic violence cases are handled.

“Changes in domestic violence law provide for mandatory arrests in some cases, and policy changes within some agencies reflect a realization that women can be as capable of assault or harassment as anybody and are equals in potential culpability,” as opposed to the old norm of tending to protect the woman, Buckley said.

“There is more objectivity and that means more women are being arrested. And males are more likely to report incidents of domestic violence,” she said.

Wells says many arrests of women are drug-related.

Added “They might have a habit they support with crime. Some end up in drug court,” he said.

“There is more female involvement in the same activities males have been involved in,” Wells said, “including increased drug use. There is a variety of activities that, over the years, there’s no line anymore” dividing the behavior of women and men.

Change Not That Extreme?

As far as the nationwide figures are concerned, “the increase in criminal activity is probably not as extreme as indicated by the statistics,” said Buckley.

In the past, law enforcement officials may have concentrated on male offenders and were somewhat dismissive of the roles played by women in committing similar crimes, sometimes referred to as the “chivalry hypothesis,” she said.

So today, “perhaps as a result of gender equality, more women are getting arrested and find themselves involved with some aspect of corrections – probation, incarceration, etc.,” she said.

Buckley also noted “since the poor in the country is increasingly made up of single mothers, there is a theory that the economy is playing a role in the criminality of women in that some of the women are committing their crimes due to need.”

She also noted that various studies indicate 35 to 66 percent of incarcerated women were sexually abused as children, with about a third of women experiencing both physical and sexual abuse as children.