Increase in rural jail population disproportionately female

Hamblen County, Tennessee
(Wikipedia map)

A story in The New York Times reports that the increase in rural jail populations is often driven by incarceration of women, and discusses some of the reasons rural jails are full, using data from The Vera Institute of Justice. The article illustrates the trend with a portrait of the jail in Morristown, Tenn.

"The Hamblen County Jail has been described as a dangerously overcrowded 'cesspool of a dungeon,' with inmates sleeping on mats in the hallways, lawyers forced to meet their clients in a supply closet and the people inside subjected to 'horrible conditions' every day," Richard Oppel Jr. reports for the Times. "Like a lot of Appalachia, Morristown . . . has been devastated by methamphetamine and opioid use. Residents who commit crimes to support their addiction pack the 255-bed jail, which had 439 inmates at the end of October, according to the latest state data. Many cities have invested in treatment options and diversion programs to help drug users. But those alternatives aren’t available in a lot of small towns."