TRI-STATE (WFIE) -
Tri-State jails are seeing more female inmates than ever before.
Jail officials tell 14 News this is a nationwide trend that has been growing in the last five years causing problems with jails that were built to house maybe 5% female inmates, not close to 30%.
"We are housing 33 and for us that is a high number because right now, we only have 98 males," said Gibson County Sheriff George Ballard.
"We have days now where our female arrests out pace that of the males," Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams said.
With drug and theft charges, or even murder for hire.
"We are right at capacity everyday, and with this continuing female explosion of inmates, its causing us more and more grief as far as finding places to put people," Ballard said.
A problem most counties in the Tri-State are dealing with. Just this week, Gibson County turned one of their male cells onto a female one.
"Now we have taken over a whole wing. There are there cell blocks now that have females in them, but it helps us as far as working at the jail because it separates the trouble makers, the ones that just don't get along with other people, We can separate them out and have a little more control over them," Ballard said.
Gibson County has the highest percentage of female inmates. Besides overcrowding, Sheriff Ballard says women bring about other challenges.
"Every sheriff I've ever known would rather deal with a whole cell block full of males. They get along a bit better for some reason. They don't have near as many arguments," Ballard said.
Although Gibson County has the highest percentage, Henderson County, which houses ... federal, state and county criminals, has the highest number of females with 107.
Vanderburgh County's Jail was built in 2006, equipped to house 64 females in one unit, but Sheriff Williams says they averaged more than a 100 each day this summer.
"The female population has way outpaced anything we would have expected it to do, especially when we designed this facility," Williams said.
Because of the way the Vanderburgh County Jail is designed and Indiana law, the least amount females could be classified is by a unit of 64.
"Because there is nothing to separate them sight and sound," Williams said.
Sheriff Williams says if their population keeps growing they might need to swap inmates with another county. Although, he says it would be difficult to find someone to take females.
In Gibson County, Sheriff Ballard says if they get another three or four female inmates, they may need to put some inmates in their Work Release Community Corrections Center.
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