The Difference in a Woman's Path towards Incarceration to that of a Man's

Some of the children become dependent on the government sustenance. Incarcerated women often find that their actions hurt their family “especially of women, destroys the family network. When the men got to prison, potential role models are lost. When women go to prison, families most often fall apart” (Hotelling) while in an institution they might never see their children. As statistics continuously provides that children lived with and cared for by their

When a nation leads the world in the population incarcerated, women incarcerated and recidivism rate a question of what policies are causing these high statistics. Commonalities such as lack of supportive programing, conditions and over sentencing seem to appear in all these statistics. Although the controversial American prison system is often overlooked it is a grave social issue that no longer focuses on the rehabilitation of inmates.

The number of incarcerated women has grown significantly, increasing at a rate double to the rate of male incarceration since 1980 (Covington & Bloom, 2006). Braithwaite, Treadwell & Arriola note that incarcerated women have historically been a forgotten population, and despite the rapid growth of the population, their needs have continued to be ignored (2005). In addition to the stigma that comes with being or having been incarcerated, Braithwaite,

women has increased significantly, increasing at a rate double to the rate of male incarceration since 1980 (Covington & Bloom, 2006). Braithwaite, Treadwell and Arriola note that incarcerated women have historically been a forgotten population, and despite the rapid growth of the population, their needs have continued to be ignored (2005). In addition to the stigma that comes with being or having been incarcerated,

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.

It is no secret that the United States’ criminal justice system is majorly flawed in more ways than one. We hear of all of the injustice that many civilians face on a day to day basis, which mostly surrounds the problems related to men, but what about women? Why don’t we hear about the tribulations and sufferings that our women undergo on a day to day basis within our criminal justice system? As mentioned in an article from the American Jail Association, investigation in fields ranging from subjects of general and mental health, substance abuse and addiction relating to drugs and prescriptions, and physical violence against women combined with examination and practice in the criminal justice field, have discovered that women offenders experience challenges that are not only different from their male counterparts, but also greatly influence their involvement in criminal justice systems, including jails and prisons (Ney, 2014). This information alone provides a basis to why imprisoned women should be more of a topic. This literature review will examine the several ways in which women who are incarcerated experience emotional trauma; and in some ways, abuse. My hypothesis is that most of the trauma encountered by incarcerated women majorly branches from preceding events and occurrences that happened prior to becoming imprisoned, and that they worsen as a result of improper treatment and resources within

After visiting www.womenandprison.org a website created by incarcerated women, I learn the ins and outs of what are some of the leading factors for women and prisons now. Most of the women interviewed have a brutal past with drug addiction, prostitution or abuse. These are the main reasons women today still are being incarcerated. However gender experience in prison expressed by women is very painful. Unlike men women suffer from the state of mind where they are home sick. Those who tend to have made families back home it begins to be tougher for women to be separate from her child. Also it is said to be all mind games a lot of women loose a sense of social control where they are no longer accepting to the reasoning which has brought them to

The number of women in prison has substantially increased over the last several decades, with a 60 percent rise worldwide. This phenomena is especially apparent in the United States of America, with some states recording rises up to 400 percent over the last thirty years. Despite women only representing 7 percent of the prison population, their incarceration has a major impact on society. With the majority of women in prison being mothers, over one million U.S children are said to be directly affected by these statistics. It is widely recognized that incarcerated mothers and their children represent a high-risk group. Many incarcerated women have or still are experiencing a number of difficulties that may directly or indirectly impact their

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

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.

Incarceration is a method used by the United States criminal justice system as a repercussion for certain unlawful actions. Criminal punishment varies upon circumstance of crime. The United States consists of approximately 125 federal prisons with approx. 200,000 inmates. According to statistics, women represent 6.7% of inmates in federal prison. When thinking of women in prison, one 's first thought may be, “What about the children?” In the United States, the numbers of incarcerated women are increasing, as well as the impact on the children.

Assessing the consequences of our country’s soaring imprison rates has less to do with the question of guilt versus innocence than it does with the question of who among us truly deserves to go to prison and face the restrictive and sometimes brutally repressive conditions found there. We are adding more than one thousand prisoners to our prison and jail systems every single week. The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a sad new milestone. As women become entangled with the war on drugs, the number in prison has increased if not double the rate of incarceration for men. The impact of their incarceration devastates thousands of children, who lose their primary caregiver when Mom goes to prison.

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.

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

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