Men's Hands Off Women In Prison Research Paper

When the criminal justice system was established, the main objective was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being look down upon because of their sex. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can be strong and courageous just like men. Society stereotypes women and the criminal justice system is no different.

Female police officers have been saddled with a stigma ever since they were finally allowed to join their fellow male officers on the force in the 1970’s. It is said that when a female officer is being harsh, she is often called anything other than firm. However, when a male officer is harsh, he is considered firm and just being a man. Female police officers are dubbed incapable of being able to perform their duties equivalent or superior to a male officer simply because she is

The issue of sexual assault in correctional facilities is very complex and the implications reach far beyond the walls of the institution. Congress found that “prison rape endangers the public’s safety by making brutalized inmates more likely to commit crimes when they are released.”

Punctuated by centuries of discrimination, oppression, and the outright mishandling of justice, the rights of women in prisons has been historically mauled by an unprecedented legal negligence. Without the equality and prioritization that was granted to their male counterparts, it took decades of malpractice before women had any form of safety or security in prisons at all.

Male prisoners also continue to make up the majority of the prison population. However, women prisoner rates have been on the rise and have exceeded that of male growth rates since 1995. In fact, due to the increase of the women prison population, various issues have arisen which require women to be treated differently from men. Such issues correctional facility’s face because of this increase include program delivery, housing conditions, medical care, staffing, and security (American Corrections, 2016). These problems are in part due to the different social and economic differences women are faced with in prison and while preparing for their release back to society.

Gender equality within the criminal justice system. If the factor of chivalry is a dominating answer to this issue we need more females in

Robertson-James and Nunez (2012) suggests that the needs of incarcerated women have traditionally been ignored due to the tremendous percentages of incarcerated persons being men. While this may be true, women and men have issues that differ from one another and should be treated as separate issues. The physical and mental health needs, as Robertson-James and Nunez (2012) puts it, may be inferior than those of incarcerated men or women in the overall population. It is almost as if the problems of incarcerated women are undetectable or are seen as less important in the criminal justice

Like employment discrimination, sexual discrimination is something both male and female officers’ face in the workforce, internally and externally. However, it is the female officer that is the more common victim to this rather than their male counterpart. An example of internal sexual discrimination would be a male officer telling there counterpart that “women have no right being in part of an organization that strongly relies on men to get the job done.” This may also be known as a form of sexual harassment toward a co-worker which is unacceptable in any job. An example of external sexual discrimination would be when a female officer arrives to the scene of a crime and the victim refuses to cooperate with them because of the fact that they were expecting assistance from someone of more masculinity, like a male officer. Ethically, if any of these scenarios were to happen to either gender of law enforcement, the best thing to do once more is set aside all emotions for the time being.

Within the chapter “How Gender Structures the prison system” the issue of sexual assault behind prison walls is brought to light. Female prisoners were being sexually violated and humiliated. Davis states throughout this passage that woman experience sexualy assault, before and after they enter the prison system. Personally, after reading this chapter and reading external sources, I feel that women became the targets for sexual abuse by an authority figure. Whomever commits these heinous acts are using their role of authority as a coverup to inflict pain on these individuals. In the prison writings of Kate Richards O’Hare, we see her share a view similar to Davis. O’Hare states, “I found that under the guise of punishment for crime, and in

This research paper consists of brief history of how female correctional officers came to be in the system and the court cases that hindered and helped their process. It also consists of the stereotypes and struggles the officers are faced with in this line of work; such as weaknesses and home life association. Sexual harassment and discrimination is a problematic topic that is unavoidable. Statistics will also be mentioned and explained throughout the paper. Being a female correctional officer is extremely difficult and is not encouraged, but it is possible.

The reality is that there should be some differential treatment according to gender when it comes to the criminal justice

In prison, women are considered to be less violent than male inmate. This difference is not taken into account upon constructing prisons for female offenders. In fact, construction is based on the correctional model about men being violent. Each gender interacts within prisons differently as well. For instance, males form gangs within prisons. They act territorially and fight to maintain power. In addition, men are more likely to congregate by race. On the other hand, females look to form small families that are not racially specific. Women will fight due to jealousy. However, they are more likely to vent their hostility upon themselves through self mutilation. The way the prison is set up also creates a difference. Prisons for males dived prisoners via classification based on the dangerousness of the crime. In contrast women’s prisons generally allow incarcerated women to mix freely (Stuart von Wormer & Bartollas, 2011).

For centuries the general public have perceived that the deep horrors of the prison system only existed within the majority of incarcerated male inmates. However now due to recent investigations researchers are finding that this is not the case. For a lengthened period of time the female prison system have been given low attention in comparison to male inmates

When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.

More and more women-mothers, grandmothers, wives, daughters, and sisters are doing hard prison time all across the United States. Many of them are facing the prospect of years, decades, even lifetimes behind bars. Oddly, there’s been little public discussion about the dramatic increase of women in the prison system. What exactly is happening here, and why?