New programs are needed to handle the increasing number of women who commit crimes in South Carolina, the director of the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardons Services says.

Agency director Jim Mcclain last week held the first in a series of forums to get advice from drug abuse counselors, defense attorneys, academics, his officers, people who operate domestic abuse shelters and offenders.

Women made up 13 percent of the state's offender population 10 years ago, McClain said. Today, they make up 17 percent. About 6,000 of the 35,000 offenders his agency supervises are women.

Also, there are about 1,700 women in South Carolina prisons.

Nationally, the number of men under correctional control increased by 45 percent during the past decade, while the number of women increased 83 percent, according to a national study.

Female offenders tend to be nonviolent, but most have substance-abuse problems, Sumter County probation officer Polly Smith said. In addition, most have been the victim of domestic or sexual abuse, she said.

Most female offenders have at least a high school diploma, making them a much better educated group than male offenders on average. Most of the women committed drug, traffic or property offenses.

Sammie Brown, a program coordinator with the Corrections Department, said drug treatment staff for women's prisons has been significantly reduced by budget cuts. Job training opportunities have declined, too, she said.

Kathy Riley with The Women's Shelter in Columbia, told McClain halfway house beds are needed to help women make the transition from prison.

In South Carolina, there are only 16 state-run halfway house beds for women, and only about 200 for men, said Anne Walker, executive director of the Alston Wilkes Society.

McClain said he will ask legislators for about $1 million to reopen a Columbia residential halfway house restitution center. The center was closed because if budget cuts last year. McClain wants the center to serve women exclusively.

Some Chester County students back in class

Last week marked the end of summer vacation for about 550 students in Chester County.

More than a quarter of the 2,000 kindergarten and elementary students at the Chester Park Complex are returned to school, three weeks before their peers.

These students and their parents chose to participate in a year-round school program that spreads instructional time more evenly over a calendar year, instead of having a big chunk of vacation time during the summer.

Even though students on a year-round schedule get the same 180 days of instruction that they get at a regular school, they learn better and have an easier time retaining knowledge, said Robyn Welborn, curriculum coordinator at Chester Park. That's because students are more likely to forget coursework during an 11-week summer vacation than during a five to six-week vacation, which they get on a year-round calendar, she said.

Students who fall behind in their studies can get extra help at school during the three breaks that occur during the school year, instead of cramming in all the catch-up work at summer school. Each break, which is two to three weeks long, allows students to vacation with their families and take recreational or advanced classes at school, if they choose.

All 60 teachers and administrative staff members in the year-round school volunteered to be in the program, and no teachers or students were turned away, Welborn said. Many teachers spent nights and weekends stationed at local Wal-Marts and factories this spring to tell parents about the benefits of year-round school.