Women In Jails Research Paper

For the last forty years, women have been steadily increasing the prison populations. The United States has one third of the world’s female prison population. Incarceration rates for females have increased more drastically than for males since the early 1970s. By 2010, the women’s incarceration rate ascended twice as fast as the male prison population. One of the biggest reasons women have become

For the past centuries, women have been fighting for their rights, from their right to vote to equal rights in the workplace. Women resistance is the act of opposing those in power, so women can have a voice in the world. Women in prison are often overlooked. In the 1970s, the women prisoners’ rights movement began, and it is still going on today. The number of incarcerated females is rapidly growing compared to men. According to Victoria Law, a prison rights activist, she stated that the percentage of female prisoners increased 108%. This struggle is significant because women in prison are being silenced; they are the most vulnerable people in our country (Siegal, 1998). Women prisoners have the highest rate of suicide because they are

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

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,

Women have been fighting for equal rights for decades. And, as of a result of this, have gained many equal rights. But are those rights just supposed to disappear when a woman gets incarcerated, and at what price does it cost that woman, to get her rights back, or does she ever get them back? The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and with each year the percentage of women that make up that rate, are growing. According to Statistics on Women Offenders- 2015. (1997), “Since 2010, the female jail population has been the fastest growing correctional population, increasing by an average annual rate of 3.4 percent”. It also states that, in 2013, women made up 17% of the jail population, and 25% of probation population in the U.S. Not only have these numbers been steadily rising, but of those incarcerated, approximately 77% are likely to reoffend (p.1). This has risen quite a concern in society today. Why is there such a high chance that incarcerated women will likely reoffend? At a micro level, is it the fault of the woman? Or, a larger issue at the macro level, with society, laws, policies, and loss of the most basic rights that every citizen should be entitled to? According to Pinto, Rahman, & Williams. (2014), incarcerated women need help meeting individual needs when they are released, such as, reducing drug or alcohol use, finding a job, health issues, as well as help in dealing with the impact of

The system unable to adapt for such a small number in comparison to men, incarcerated women are expected to fit into an institution developed by men for men, resulting in worse conditions, less familial contact due to fewer facilities, and more rules as if the women were children, all direct reflections institutionalized sexism and HM both in and out of the corrections arena. Additionally, due to the Madonna-like factor, women who are convicted have a farther fall from grace within society and do not have the luxury of the “good old boy” connections for defense and protection. While gender roles and expectations are assigned by society, believing women should be equal to men demands the acknowledgement that women can offend like men (Pearson, 1998) and therefore should be incarcerated not ‘like men’ but in an equalized manner. Perhaps, rather than revamping institutions developed to house and rehabilitate women, we first investigate the standards currently in play for the policing, convicting and sentencing of men as the foundation of creating a nonsexist criminal justice

In a country where there are more jails than colleges and a total incarceration population of 2.3 million and eighteen percent being female, it is no surprise that there are roughly 2,000 babies born to female inmates annually. At any given time, between eight and ten percent of the females incarcerated in the United States are pregnant. Currently, only ten states allow a mother to remain with her child after giving birth. For the other mothers, they are to give the baby to a reliable family member within 48 hours otherwise it will be placed in foster care. The current number of women in prison is at an all time high, and while the number for pregnant incarcerated females continues to grow, there is still limited medical treatment for mothers

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

Women are twice as likely as men to avoid incarceration if convicted of a crime. Whether or not this is fair, though, is highly debated. Some politicians argue that women’s prisons be abolished all together, while Men’s Rights Activists push for equal sentencing for comparable crimes. It has been proven that judges tend to give women less time in prison, or no incarceration at all, and the reasons for this support the imbalance in sentencing. Though many view women’s tendency to receive lighter punishments as unfair, it is justified that women receive this treatment because of legal rules that surround the subject, the statistics that show women commit less serious and violent crimes, and how women being incarcerated impacts those around them.

The percent of incarcerated women has risen drastically, over 700%, in the last thirty years. Of those women, one-third populates prisons in the United States. Despite the dramatic increase of women, officials often overlook women’s prisons when making decisions. Everyone can agree that the imprisoned should still have basic support while serving their time. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Corry Booker, however, believe that this support will lead to improved public safety and a more just system.

Substance abuse has made a major impact on the lives of women. In the past, using drugs was normalized and not considered abnormal because it was used to calm mothers and wives from the overbearing workload that was expected by them. Drugs for women was something that was ordinary for them and it was even shown in the media, there were advertisements that promoted the use of drugs and what type of drugs to take. However, when the War on Drugs commenced it took a toll on the women who were abusing these drugs. The War on Drugs targeted mostly women, resulting in a 108% increase of women incarceration rates. Since this war, there are outstanding numbers of addicted incarcerated women. A majority of these incarcerated women

Throughout years in the criminal justice system, women being incarcerated has increased drastically. Since the amount of women offenders increased above male offenders, equality is sought out. There is an expand amount of gender disparities in federal cases. With women seeking equality through justice over the decades, changes should be made within the justice system to provide impartiality, acknowledge the gender difference and it’s importance.

In the past 20 years, women inmates have been one of the fastest growing prison populations in the United States. Women inmates represent a myriad of voices that speak to poverty-stricken lives, histories of abuse, separations of mother and child, struggles with substance abuse, health issues, and economic hardships. Women’s prisons have increasingly become a source of intrigue and controversy, particularly through the broadcasting of a number of television documentaries, such as Orange Is the New Black. This explores all the issues and concerns regarding female inmates. Many times women in prison are overlooked, as the prison problems that receive media attention occur primarily at male institutions.

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.

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.”