The incarceration of women has increased significantly since 1980, resulting in a negative impact on families and society as a whole. Increasing at a rate of nearly double the amount of men, women who are convicted of crimes have been filling prisons steadily in recent years and there seems to be no end in sight (Antle 1). Though no increase in women’s criminality has been noted, the “war on drugs” and other tough stances on crime in the eighties and nineties are thought to blame for this high number of incarceration. A large number of women in prison are there due to nonviolent offenses, namely drug offenses and drug-related crime. This high increase of imprisonment has a negative impact on the families of those convicted and hurts the children left behind. These children suffer from having little to no contact with their mothers. Reducing the amount of women incarcerated and allowing better access to their children and families is beneficial to all of society. …show more content…
Communities that offer safety, housing, education, job training, positive female role models, and offer an overall support of its female members will also help bring these numbers down. Most of the females imprisoned are from impoverished areas and lack the support or resources to better themselves and help keep them out of trouble. Prevention strategies need to be put into place at a young age for the girls who are from these areas and have a high risk of getting into trouble. Teaching parenting skills, providing job training and access to better education are just a few of the areas in which attention needs to be given to combat the risk factors. Drug abuse and trauma treatment centers are also important in order to meet these issues head on and deal with them instead of ignoring them and waiting for the enevitable
The numbers of women in jails or prisons have increased greatly over the years. Female prisoner population has more than doubled since 1990. Right now there are over 150,000 women in U.S. prisons and jails. (Sokoloff, Violent Female Offenders in NYS: Myths and Facts, Crime and Justice in NY, A. Karmon, 2000-2001) With this being said 75% of these women are mothers most of them have children under the age of 18 and 25% of them have given birth in prison or to the year prior to there arrest. 9% of women in jail are pregnant and that would be about 12,500 women are currently pregnant. Are there adequate facilities for these women? Consult: http://www.aetn.org/mip/jtml/statistics.html
The U.S is only 5% of the world’s population and houses a quarter of its prison inmates; well over 2 million people. In the past decade the war on drugs has filled many state and federal prisons with a numerous amount of inmates. Building new prisons is not the answer to tackling the prison overcrowding dilemma. The U.S doesn’t have the money due to economic strains, and it will not solve this issue head on as needed. “California may be forced to release up to 33,000 prisoners by 2013” (Shapiro & Wizner, 2011, p.1.). Some women and men do not belong in prison, and should be given other opportunities to sought help. Prison overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S today. There are many different alternatives to end prison overcrowding versus releasing them into the community. For example by launching a parole support group or treatment or rehabilitation programs for inmates as well as ex-offenders, house arrest or probation are other routes to explore.
Not only is prison ineffective in preventing reoffending in women and is expensive, it can be extremely damaging to the female’s well-being and their families. The effect that a custodial sentence has on women is arguably far worse than for men. Women are often not prepared or equipped for their life following their prison sentence; due to the fact that women are more likely to be lone parents before prison (Social Exclusion Unit, 2002), are more likely to leave prison homeless and unemployed (Wedderburn, 2000), and are more likely to lose access of their children whilst serving their sentence (Corston, 2007). Statistics from 2010 showed that around 17,000 children become separated from their mother by imprisonment (Wilks-Wiffen, 2011). This can be absolutely devastating to not only the female offender, but to their innocent children too. Moreover, due to the small number of women’s prisons, the average distance that women are sent away from their homes is around 60 miles (Women in Prison, 2013). Therefore, even if the women are lucky enough to keep in contact with their children, it can be tremendously hard to organise visitation and uphold
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001. In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc...
Aside from children, women stand as a special population of interest for organizations engaged in social work because of their being identified as a vulnerable group. One particular subpopulation of this group, which are women who are in prison, can quire understandably raise concerns because they can be left overlooked accidentally or even purposefully because of the stigma associated with criminal liability. In relation to this, the following sections will be providing a discussion on the history and context of sexual abuse of women in prison as well as the background and outcomes of a chosen project. The concluding portion of the paper will be providing a summary of the significant points made in the initial sections of the paper along
Within society, more men than women are imprisoned. However, women’s incarceration rates have significantly increased since the 1980s. International Centre for Prison Studies found that more than 200,000 US women are confined in the prison population in 2013. Despite the figure, most women were serving sentences for nonviolent offenses. Women were usually incarcerated primarily for property crimes, drug offenses and victims of domestic violence. Statistic found that only one-third of imprisoned women were sentenced for violent crimes. While 56 percent of imprisoned women were sentenced for non-violence crimes. This essay will critically discuss the different experiences of female prisoners. This essay will also highlight the issues faced by
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
According to a factsheet by The Sentencing Project (2012), more than 200,000 women are incarcerated, including those in local jails. In addition, out of these 200,000 women “1 in 25 women in state prisons and 1 in 33 in federal prisons are pregnant when admitted to prison.” Due to their sentencing, many of these women are forced to give birth while incarcerated. Then days later, they are separated from their newborn to finish their sentencing. More mothers end up in jails than fathers, and men do not have to worry about bringing their future child into a jail cell like many women do.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, notions of freedom for Black slaves and White women were distinctively different than they are now. Slavery was a form of exploitation of black slaves, whom through enslavement, lost their humanity and freedom, and were subjected to dehumanizing conditions. African women and men were often mistreated through similar ways, especially when induced to labor, they would eventually become a genderless individual in the sight of the master. Despite being considered “genderless” for labor, female slaves suddenly became women who endured sexual violence. Although a white woman was superior to the slaves, she had little power over the household, and was restricted to perform additional actions without the consent of their husbands. The enslaved women’s notion to conceive freedom was different, yet similar to the way enslaved men and white women conceived freedom. Black women during slavery fought to resist oppression in order to gain their freedom by running away, rebel against the slaveholders, or by slowing down work. Although that didn’t guarantee them absolute freedom from slavery, it helped them preserve the autonomy and a bare minimum of their human rights that otherwise, would’ve been taken away from them. Black
Women in Prison. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics Varnam, Steve. Our prisons are a crime (reforming the prison system). Editorial. Christianity Today 21 June 1993
This time together in prison aids with the early mother-child bonding which is paramount for the lifelong success of the child. It helps the mother be more maturing while reducing their recidivism rate, and because the mothers can raise their children in a safer environment compared to the streets with no assistance. The mother-child bond is a uniquely powerful bond that must be established for the ultimate well-being of the child. Through these means, allowing mothers to serve time with their babies in prison is a beneficial alternative than raising them on the cold, dangerous, and rough streets. In the end, what is best for the child must be the primary goal, and mothers know
My train of thought is that they lost the privilege of privacy when they broke the law. However, reading this article and seeing how the program is run, I think it is excessive. The article mentions how these woman have to go through pre-screening and are checked for history of certain abuses. Also, when simply just looking at the logic, one has to wonder if being in the program is more detrimental in terms of mental health. At least in prison, the woman do not have their children present and observing how their parents basically have to be reprimanded and monitored. I think, that being in the program and having your children so close to you, makes it hurt more when these mothers realize that they cannot actually
Parental incarceration can affect many aspects of a child’s life, including emotional and behavioral well-being, family stability and financial circumstances. The growing number of children with an incarcerated parent represents one of the most significant collateral consequences of the record prison population in the U.S. Children who have an incarcerated parent require support from local, state, and federal systems to serve their needs. Kids pay both the apparent and hidden costs while their loved one serves out sentences in jail or prison.
Prisons serve the same reason for women and men, they are also tools of social control. The imprisonment of women in the U.S. has always been a different experience then what men go through. The proportion of women in prison has always differed from that of men by a large amount. Women have traditionally been sent to prison for different reasons, and once in prison they endure different conditions of incarceration. Women incarcerated tend to need different needs for physical and mental health issues. When a mother is incarcerated it tends to play an impact on the children also. Over time the prison system has created different gender responsive programs to help with the different needs of female offenders. After being released from prison
Women are doubly punished for their crime and for their gender “Women offenders have been doubly punished by penal regimes; firstly for the social offence of their criminal acts and secondly, for the transgressions against the home-centred submissiveness and passitivity that the dominant gender order has required of respectable femininity.” It is evident that women in prison are more victims than criminals due to their situation outside of prison, however they appear to be doubly punished, once for the crime they have committed and secondly for being a woman, as it does not fulfil the common attributes associated with the gender, thus meaning a harsher treatment usually follows. Women are understood to be more victims of situation than