Arrests of Women on Rise in O.C.

By JACK LEONARD

Nov. 8, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

While the number of men taken into police custody tumbles across Orange County, arrests of women have risen to record levels in a trend that experts said will have lasting implications for the criminal justice system.

A Times analysis of state crime data found that the number of women detained by police for serious crimes jumped by a third over the last decade, fueled by hundreds of arrests for robberies, car thefts, assaults and drug offenses. Orange County’s increase far outpaces rises in female arrests seen throughout the nation, even though the county’s total crime rate has plunged to record lows.

In Los Angeles County, arrests of women actually dropped 12% during the same decade; they rose 7% throughout California.

Local police said the upswing can be seen throughout the county, from female gang members who commit violent assaults to women who rob to feed their drug addictions.

In a sign of the times, Orange police last month arrested three women suspected of helping plan a drive-by shooting of rival gang members. At the same time, Anaheim police arrested two teenage girls accused of encouraging a friend to carjack a vehicle for a ride home from a party. The girls then egged on the boy, police said, as he led officers on a high-speed chase until they crashed eight miles away in Santa Ana.

The numbers underscore what law enforcement officials have suspected for years: that women are increasingly committing the types of serious crimes once thought to be exclusive to men.

“It used to be unheard of to have women involved in aggravated assaults,” said Santa Ana police Sgt. Raul Luna. “It’s like day and night.”

Experts attribute the upswing to a variety of factors, from the rising power of women in street gangs to inadequate jail drug-treatment programs that fail to halt repeat offenses by female addicts.

Men still commit the vast majority of crimes both locally and nationally. But the Times analysis found that the gap between the sexes is shrinking.

Women now account for 15% of all adult arrests for violent incidents in Orange County, compared to 8% a decade ago. Total arrests of women jumped from about 3,500 in 1989 to 4,800 last year. By contrast, the number of men taken into custody dropped 11%.

Some experts worry that the surge is creating a “vicious circle” for the children they frequently leave behind as they head to prison. It’s placing mounting pressures on overburdened social services agencies that must arrange foster care for many of those children, they said.

A recent national study found that teenage girls with parents in jail are more likely to find themselves in juvenile detention centers. Some experts warn that the phenomenon--coupled with soaring numbers of women behind bars--could trigger a spiral in female offenses as girls follow in their mothers’ footsteps.

“For many children, it’s a very traumatic experience for them when their mothers are sent to prison,” said Leslie Acoca, director of the women’s institute at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. “We’re placing successive generations at risk and not counting the cost.”

It’s unknown how many children of women inmates end up in the social services system, although the issue is gaining national attention. As part of an effort to stop children being shuttled for years between foster families, federal legislation passed two years ago prevents women from winning back children who have spent more than 14 months in the care of social services. For some women prisoners, the law means they may never be reunited with their children, even when their crimes did not endanger them.

The reason for the upswing has divided criminal justice experts.

Transformation in Attitudes Seen

A number of criminologists argue that the women’s movement transformed women’s attitudes toward crime and bears some responsibility for the rise in female arrests.

Having won greater freedoms, these experts argue, women have used their newfound opportunities to break into criminal as well as legitimate careers once dominated by men.

“It is a darker side of advancement,” said Freda Adler, professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University. “True equality means equal pay for equal work, and it means that for some who would rather earn money in a faster way, that equality will mean a more lucrative form of crime.”

Adler and other researchers contend that an increasing number of women are turning to crime for gratification that has long drawn men. Take Garden Grove resident Jamie Guile, for example, who at 31 has spent more than a quarter of her life behind bars.

“I was just an adrenaline junkie,” Guile said at a halfway house for parolees, recalling how she has sampled every type of illegal drug except heroin. Even now, as she tries to turn her life around at Fletcher House, Guile said she feels no remorse about the drug dealers and petty criminals she held up, many of whom she robbed between prison terms.

“When you get out of prison, and you’ve got nothing, the first thing I reach for is a gun,” she said. “And when I have a gun in my hand, I feel like God.”

Greater career opportunities also have propelled more women into the ranks of police officers, prosecutors and judges. And, Adler and her supporters argue, many of these new law enforcement officials are less inclined to treat women offenders with chivalrous leniency.

Other experts, however, disagree that women are becoming more crime-prone. Rather, they believe the jump in arrests has more to do with disadvantages faced by women.

Most women who commit crimes are poor, single mothers with a history of sexual and physical abuse--the very people passed over by the job opportunities unleashed for women since the 1960s, they argue.

“It tends to be marginalization and lousy things that happen to you that propel you into crime, rather than doing better,” said Meda Chesney-Lind, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Hawaii.

Many Are Held for Drug Offenses

She and others point out that women have been disproportionately snared by tougher drug laws. Nearly half of the state’s female prisoners are incarcerated solely for possessing, peddling or manufacturing drugs, compared to 27% of male inmates, according to the Department of Corrections. In Orange County, about a third of all felony arrests of women are for drug offenses.

One of those women was Sandra Harris, who has served three prison terms, two for peddling methamphetamine and one for failing to register as a drug offender, a parole violation.

Living in Placentia nearly 20 years ago, Harris, 45, began snorting cocaine as a way to escape the harsh realities of an unhappy marriage and then, after her divorce, of raising her three young girls, she said.

“It was like I was bringing them up alone,” she recalled. Soon, she began selling the drugs she was addicted to. “You want to make ends meet, so what do you do? You sell drugs.”

Harris said she is determined to beat her drug problem. But she faults a lack of drug rehabilitation opportunities in jails and prisons for the failure of many female offenders to stay out of trouble.

“When you’re inside, they don’t teach you anything that will help you on the outside,” Harris said. “In fact, you become a better criminal.”

The number of drug arrests rose 25% in Orange County over the last decade, roughly the same increase as robbery, car theft and forgery. Felony assault arrests for women jumped twofold during the same period, while arrests for other crimes such as homicide and theft declined. Arrests reached a record in 1997 but declined slightly last year.

Law enforcement officials believe that many women offenders are driven to steal and rob to feed drug addictions. But a growing number are also turning to violent crime to win respect within their street gangs.

“Women [gang members] are now playing more of an active role, rather than just staying behind and partying with the guys,” said Rita Santaella, an Orange County probation officer whose caseload includes dozens of women. “They’ll be in the car and go out on the shooting. . . . They’ll be holding the guns, hiding them out for their boyfriends.”

Police crackdowns have resulted in the jailing of many gang leaders, and some experts believe this has opened doors for women to join leadership ranks.

At the county’s women’s jail in Santa Ana, deputies whose job 10 years was to watch over shoplifters and other nonviolent criminals now must keep a careful eye on more sophisticated offenders, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Linda Solorza.

“Ten years ago, you would see a lot of petty theft, and [driving] under the influence,” said Solorza, a supervisor at the county’s main women’s jail. “Now we see much more of the assaults on police officers, assaults with deadly weapons, robberies, and burglaries.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Crimes by Women

While arrest of men in Orange County is declining along with the crime rate, arrests of women is rising.

Orange County Male felony arrests

1989

21,981

1998

19,573

down 11%

Orange County Female felony arrests

1989

3,562