World: there are more women in prison than ever before

The substances are different: in Thailand, it’s meth. In Ohio, opioids. In Mexico, women help their husbands, boyfriends and fathers run their drug businesses peddling pills, crack, heroin.

But all over the world, countries are imprisoning women at higher rates than ever before. The reason? Mostly, it’s drugs.

In Thailand, women’s prisons are at triple and quadruple capacity and 80 percent of those inside are there for simple drug possession. In Ohio, officials have had to reorganize the prison because there isn’t enough room for the women coming through the doors because of addiction-related crimes.

The American-style “war on drugs” — emulated in Thailand, where some authorities are beginning to question its effectiveness — has served to fill jails and prisons and rip apart families. But when women go to prison, they face different problems than men.

Some give birth behind bars. In some places, those babies are taken away immediately. In others, they’re allowed to stay with their incarcerated mothers until the age of 3. Some single mothers leave behind children dependent on them.

But everywhere you look, the numbers are rising.

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