Capt. Shane Taylor of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said that when he started as a jail officer in 1995, it was normal to have an average of 15 to 20 women incarcerated at any given time. Thirteen years later, the number of female inmates being held at the Jack T. Bell Detention Center generally hovers between 70 and 80.

While Carroll County’s prison population as a whole has increased substantially since the mid-1990s, the number of female inmates has grown much more quickly than the number of incarcerated men.

Lt. Matt Wilson, who oversees jail operations, said that few of the women jailed in Carroll County are arrested for violent offenses like aggravated assault. Instead, many of the female inmates face drug, fraud or forgery charges, or some combination.

“A lot of them forged prescriptions for painkillers, and a lot of them forged checks,” Wilson said.

Taylor said drugs play a major role in female incarceration.

“It could be the increase in some of the more addictive drugs, like methamphetamine, and the continuing rise in prescription medication abuse,” he said.

The majority of the women who pass through the Jack T. Bell Detention Center are between the ages of 18 and 30, and most are white.

Female inmates are housed in the 120-bed facility that used to serve as the jail for the entire county before the larger, 568-bed facility on Newnan Road was constructed. Taylor said that the male inmate population has increased during his time with the Sheriff’s Office, but that it has not grown nearly as rapidly as the number of female prisoners. The male inmate population has not quite doubled, while the female inmate population has grown to three to four times since the mid-1990s.

Mike Johnson, a criminology professor at the University of West Georgia, said that a number of sociological theories may help to explain the trend. Johnson said that the population in general has grown, which generally leads to a higher number of individuals in jail, and that the number of individuals incarcerated for their crimes has increased in recent years. However, Johnson confirmed that the number of women inmates has grown at a higher rate than men.

“Men are still incarcerated far more often than females,” Johnson said. “In terms of the growth, the male rates have stayed pretty stable recently, but females seem to be growing at a faster rate.”

Johnson said the public view of the uneven growth in inmate populations between males and females may be due, in part, to the fact that the number of females in jail was so much smaller to begin with. Even so, Johnson said data shows that women seem to be committing more crimes, and more serious crimes, today than in the past.

Johnson said some criminologists theorize that the “chivalry effect,” which postulates that the legal system has occasionally pitied women and sentenced them less harshly, has been seen less in recent years.

“It’s another way of expressing equality for men and women. ...” Johnson said.

Whatever the reason for the trend, Wilson said that Carroll County has experienced a clear and stable increase in the number of jailed women during the 11 years he has worked for the Sheriff’s Office.

“I’ve seen a steady increase I guess I would say,” he said.

Wilson said that there is a difference in the cost to house females versus males at the county jail. The jail absorbs the cost of medication for all its inmates. He estimated that 50 percent of male inmates and 70 percent of female inmates take some sort of medication. He also said that females who are pregnant while in jail are more costly to house than other inmates because of the prenatal care the jail is expected to provide.

“Obviously, if we have one that’s pregnant, it does cost them a little more to house because of the check-ups,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that although the female jail population has risen dramatically in recent years, the trend is not limited to Carroll County.

“I think they’re probably increasing everywhere just due to the population growth and the poor economy we have right now,” he said. “You can see an increase in both male and female population.”