Incarcerating Women In Prison Essay

The number of women incarcerated is growing at a rapid pace. This calls for a reevaluation of our correction institutions to deal with women’s involvement in crime. Increasing numbers of arrests for property crime and public order offenses are outpacing that of men. The “War on Drugs” has a big influence on why our prisons have become overcrowded in the last 25 years. Women are impacted more than ever because they are being convicted equally for drug and other offenses. Female criminal behavior has always been identified as minor compared to Male’s criminal behavior. Over the years women have made up only small part of the offender populations. There is still only a small

Approximately 80% of incarcerated women are mothers (Mapson, 2013). On average, the adult female offender is between the ages of 25 and 29. Historically, incarcerated women live with their children prior to incarceration and are the sole financial support for those children. When a mother is incarcerated over 80% live with relatives (mostly maternal grandparents) and about 20% live in foster care. Due to mothers being placed far from populated centers, more than half of mothers will not see their children while they are imprisoned. Women rarely see their children due to the child being in foster care or with family members that do not have the financial resources to travel for visits.

In the past thirty years, the incarceration of women has risen exponentially. Poverty, lack of access to education, abuse, addiction, mental health and parenting issues all impact women’s criminality and health before, during and after they are incarcerated (Hannaher, K., 2007). By 2010 there were nearly 206,000 women currently serving time in the criminal justice system. As the years go by, the numbers are constantly increasing (Women Behind Bars, 2015). The number of pregnant women incarcerated has also been on the rise. Most incarcerated women do not receive proper prenatal care before entering the criminal justice system. Because these women are from mostly poverty neighborhoods, they are more likely to endure domestic violence, poor

Mothers are more than happy to be sent to a rehabilitation centre then prison as this would be seen as a easy escape from prison but also being able to still stay at home whilst attending rehabilitation centres, with community work offered to convicted offenders too it is proved that women finish community work more than males and are able to cope with the work as they see a means of not going to prison. Women are a target to pressure and over half of women within the criminal justice system have suffered from ‘domestic violence, compared with a quarter of men’ and with a quarter of having ‘experienced sexual abuse in comparison to just under a tenth of male prisoners’. (Corston, 2007). Mothers feel more pain of imprisonment then fathers/males this is because the role as a mother can be as primary carers. Worry

The rate of women being incarcerated in prisons has dramatically risen over the last decade. While these women are being locked up for crimes ranging from drug possession to murder, they often come into the prison system with children or pregnant. Nationwide, nearly 2 million children have parents in prison. The number of those with incarcerated mothers is growing rapidly. A recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the number of minors with mothers in prison increased by more than 100 percent in the last 15 years [ (Schwartzapfel, 2008) ]. While some women must give up their children before or after they enter prison, a handful of women get to keep their children. These women serve their sentences at one of nine

Incarceration has been a pending issue amongst western civilization’s history for some time and today continues to raise a wide range of important questions. Incarceration of individuals have become a tremendous tax payer concern along with the incarceration of the drug war, convictions of street gangs, and the rest of the individuals who have broken the law and harmed other innocent individuals. However, the question is always a concern of men incarceration and hardly addressed of women being incarcerated. Not to say that what men can do women can do better, but studies have shown a drastic increase in women becoming incarcerated throughout a range of years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures research on Children Of Incarcerated Parents by Steve Christian, a study by national survey had reported in August 2008, that during that time, the number of children with a mother in prison increased by 131 percent, from 63,900 to 147,400 (Christian, 2009). Society has always drawn its focus on convicts constantly trying to pin a wrong on an individual’s plate of life, but has never become curious to ask why an individual has become incarcerated and whom it has affected. The drastic increase of women becoming incarcerated have come from numerous of backgrounds in which their choices have led to affect their children as well as their children’s development and in addition affected their own development.

In many countries, the female prison population has increased dramatically over the last years. This has generated widespread awareness in our society, leading people to question why the percentage multiplied exponentially. In the past, female offenders have not only been compared to their male counterparts, but to society’s view of the role of women; this role categorized them as housewives and mothers. But how did these housewives and mothers go from the home to the prisons? In most countries, women represent a minority of the prison population: normally between 2% and 8%. There are now more than 600,000 women behind bars and more than one million on probation and parole, (Bastick and Townhead 2008) most of these women are sentenced to prison for non-violent crimes. Many of these women in prison struggle with substance abuse, mental illness, and histories of physical and sexual abuse. According to the researchers Bastick and Townhead, all over the world women in prison suffer from intersecting

While most expectant mothers are planning for baby showers, shopping for maternity clothes and preparing the baby’s nursery, the incarcerated mother-to-be has to remain in a constant state of alertness and preparedness for situations that can put her and her unborn baby at risk, in an environment that is both intimidating and routinely violent. (Hutchinson et. al., 2008)

In Dallaire’s (2007) study she states incarcerated mothers of adult children report that their adult children were 2.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than adult children of incarcerated fathers. This pattern is detrimental to society as prison because a family lifestyle, the prospect of having a generation not see the inside of a jail cell diminishes. This study also shows incarcerated mothers of minor children were significantly more likely than incarcerated fathers of minor children to report that their children were in nonfamilial care situations such as foster care or orphanages (Dallaire 2007). This is important to note for the rehabilitation of incarcerated mothers. Since, incarcerated fathers do not bear responsibility of taking care of their children like the mothers do, there needs to be programs in which the partners of incarcerated mothers can be helped to keep their children from entering the system.

Children whose parents have been detained and imprisoned confront a variety of difficulties. The behavioral consequences can be severe, absent of decisive intervention, emotional withdrawal, failure in school, delinquency and risk of intergenerational incarceration. However, these children appear to become misplaced and unrecognized by the criminal justice system (Dallaire, Zeman, & Thrash, 2015). Even though a significant number of children are present at the time of their mother’s arrest, law enforcement usually does not ask upon arrest whether a woman offender has children nor do sentencing judiciaries or correctional agencies ever inquire about the matter. Since agencies do not gather information regarding the children, it is vague just how many children are affected when sentencing these women (Dallaire, Zeman, & Thrash, 2015).

Hence, the rise of women in the US correctional systems, addressing the issue of pregnancy and child birth among incarcerated women is paramount to promote safety and health of women and newborns (Sutherland ,2013). That is why this Mothering Unit includes its own special medical health center, nursery, play ground, and cells big enough for the mother and

Joby Gardner, in an April 2010 study of incarcerated young men published in Youth and Society, stated that working – class Brown and Black young men face very difficult transitions, as they are overrepresented in the justice system, in poverty statistics, in foster care, special education; and, among victims of violence . In spite of the scarcity of documented research or other information concerning mothers of incarcerated children, perhaps the design for a plan of support for mothers should draw on information and research presented in examining the challenges mothers and children experience from the incarceration of mothers or fathers. Any design to support and meet the needs of a mother who is experiencing the incarceration of a child should definitely seek to meet the needs of not only the mother, but also the incarcerated child as well as the other siblings; and, the father if he is present.

At any point in time, a criminal can be arrested and incarcerated without regard to his or her health condition. There have been many instances at the Wyoming Department of Correction (WDOC) where it has to find proper housings for individuals who come into the system already pregnant.

Meanwhile, “the number of incarcerated adult women has jumped by a shocking 757% since 1977, at nearly twice the rate of male prisoners” (Harrison & Beck, 2006). “The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a milestone,” explains Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing project in Washington, DC. One of the main reasons why women are being locked up at an alarming rate is a result of a policy of mass incarceration. “Mass incarceration is a rate of incarceration so high that it affects not only the individual offender, but also whole social groups.” (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2011) Pursuing further, another main reason of the increase of incarceration of women are the sentencing policies brought about by the “war on drugs.”

The criminal justice system is reluctant to imprison mothers with young children, basically because they have assumptions about the female role and that