Women In Prison

Women have become the hidden victims of the state's zeal for incarceration, as the number of California prisoners surged past the 100,000 mark in April of 1991.

California now has the uncertain distinction of having the most women prisoners in the nation, as well as the world's largest women's prison.

Since 1980, the number of women imprisoned in the us has tripled. Now, on any given day, over 90,000 women are incarcerated in us jails and prisons.

In 1992, there were 50,493 women incarcerated in federal and state prisons. Amazingly, the rate of women's imprisonment grew from 6 per 100,000 in 1925 to 37 per 100,000 in 1992. The rate of imprisonment in California is approximately 45 per 100,000.

It is important to add that the above data includes only time served for women who have been released; therefore, the numbers mentioned above may give the false impression that overall, women are serving shorter sentences. In reality, that isnot the case.

When it comes down to it, this policy direction will not be beneficial to families, nor will it keep families intact.

According to the May 1994 issue report of Women's Economic Agenda Project

Eleven things you should know about women in prison in the us:

1. There are over 90,000 women in prison in the us today. The majority are in prison for economic crimes. The most typical convictions resulting in imprisonment for women are property crimes, such as check forgery and illegal credit card use. 80% of women in prison report incomes of less than $2,000 per year in the year before their arrest, and 92% report incomes under $10,000.
2. Of the women convicted of violent crimes, the vast majority were convicted for defending themselves or their children from abuse. In California alone there are 600 women in prison for killing their abusers in self-defense. Average prison terms are twice as long for killing husbands as for killing wives.
3. 54% of women in prison are women of color.
4. Ninety percent of women in prison are single mothers. They lose contact with their children, sometimes forever. There are 167,000 children in the us whose mothers are incarcerated.
5. The average age of women in prison is 29, and 58% have not finished high school.
6. Racism and economic discrimination are inextricably linked to sexism in our culture, creating severe inequalities in the court system and the prison system. For example, Black women are twice as likely to be convicted of killing their abusive husbands than are white women. Black women, on average, receive longer jail time and higher fines than do white women for the same crimes.
7. 25% of political prisoners in the us are women.
8. The number of women in prison has increased 138% in the last ten years. This is partly due to the worsening of economic conditions for women, and also due to the increase in arrest rates due to the "war on crime" and "war on drugs".
9. Women prisoners spend on average 17 hours a day in their cells, with one hour outside for exercise. Compare to men prisoners, who spend, on average, 15 hours a day in their cells, with 1.5 hours outside.
10. The Women's High Security Unit at Lexington, KY, was closed in 1988 because of a national and international human rights campaign. The prison kept the women in years of isolation in subterranean cells, conducted daily strip searches, allowed extreme sleep deprivation practices, and as policy, condoned a compete denial of privacy, including male guards watching the showers, and an intense campaign of sexual abuse.
11. The late Senator Hart estimated that the annual cost of corporate crime was between $174-231 billion dollars, while the economic cost of "street crimes" (e.g. burglary and robbery) was $3-4 billion. We must look at why the state focuses on enforcing laws which penalize the types of actions take by poor and working class men and women while systematically ignoring the more destructive white-collar crimes.

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