TULSA, OK -- A new federal report says Louisiana has more men and women in prison, per capita, than any other state. Oklahoma has more incarcerated women and the fourth-highest overall rate of incarceration of men and women.

Associated Press

File Photo.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, Louisiana had 797 inmates for every 100,000 residents at the end of 2005 -- 62 percent above the national average.

The report released Thursday said Oklahoma had 2,455 women in prison at the end of 2005. The state's incarceration rate for women is 129 per 100,000, almost double the national rate of 65.

K.C. Moon, the executive director of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Resource Center, told the Tulsa World's Washington bureau that Oklahoma continues to send females to prison at a higher rate than other states.

He said one reason is the number of drug cases and child neglect cases involving women. Other states have treatment programs that help keep their female incarceration rates down, and Oklahoma also spends less on probation services, he said.

Oklahoma's overall incarceration rate of 652 per 100,000 residents works out to 23,245 inmates. The national rate is 491 per 100,000. Oklahoma trails Louisiana (797), Texas (691) and Mississippi (660).

Seven other states also exceeded the national average.

Moon noted the location of the states with the highest incarceration rates.

"It is the southern states in the Bible Belt," he said, noting that such states have criminal codes that tend to enforce moral standards.

"The states that have high incarceration rates are the states that tend to demand moral behavior from their citizens," he said.

He said the growth of Oklahoma's prison population began in the 1970s and is connected to drug use.

"It started when we decided if we just made the punishment severe enough, we could get people to stop using drugs," Moon said. "We are 40 years into it now."

------

Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)