Women’s Prison Services Get Attention

Missouri is getting enough women prisoners that it might be time for someone in the corrections department to deal only with women’s needs. The state senate has adopted a proposal to create the position of assistant corrections director, whose responsiblity would be solely focused on female prisoners. Missouri now has more than 19-hundred women in prison. Senator Betty Sims of Ladue says women inmates need to be treated differently from men. She says women also need different visitation facilities from the kind provided for men. She says women inmates are more likely to acknowledge that they have family. The Senate has approved her idea and has sent it to the House.