Our Sisters Behind Bars: An Overview

Article by Julia Lutsky and Brigette Sarabi

Women Under Correctional Control: Who are they?

In 1998, over 950,000 women were under the control of federal or state correctional agencies. They were and are the mothers of 1.3 million minor children. Unlike their male counterparts, the majority (85 percent) of them were on probation or parole. But there were over 84,000 women in prisons and over 60,000 in jails, representing 6 percent of the nation’s total prison population and 11 percent of the total jail population. In our region, several states are well above the national average in incarcerating women. Idaho leads in the percent of its prison population that is female: 10.2%. In Washington, Wyoming and Nevada, women make up between 8 and 8.5% of the state prison population.

Nearly two-thirds of women on probation are white. By way of contrast, two-thirds of the women serving time in prison are women of color. Nationally, the rate at which Black women are incarcerated is 8 times that of their white counterparts; the rate for Latino women, four times. In parts of our region, there is also a markedly disproportionate number of Native American women incarcerated. In Montana, which has a statewide Native American population of 6.2%, over 26% of the population of the state’s women’s prison are Native American. Indian activists put this figure much higher (40% or above), and say that many prisoners keep their identity as Native Americans to themselves in fear of anti-Indian treatment.

Nearly a quarter of incarcerated women are 45 or older and nearly half of them have never been married.

A 1996 survey of incarcerated women found that at least half of all female prisoners had experienced some form of sexual abuse before their imprisonment. A study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics confirmed this finding, and also found a higher rate of substance abuse among incarcerated women who had been abused. Nearly 70% of incarcerated women who had been abused reported using illegal drugs during the month before their current offense, compared with 54% of the women who had not been abused.

Since 1980, the total number of incarcerated people in the U.S. has quadrupled from half a million to 2 million. In the decade between 1989 and 1999, the rate at which women were incarcerated surpassed (and continues to surpass) the rate for men. In 2002, Oregon’s women prisoner population increased by a stunning 26%. In legislative hearings, Department of Corrections Officials attributed the huge increase to a spike in non-violent offenses (primarily drug offenses and identity theft). The number of women convicted of violent crimes in the U.S., however, declined from nearly half to somewhat over a quarter of women convicted between 1979 and 1997. Only 50 of the over 3,500 prisoners on death row at the end of 1999 were women. Their violent crimes are much more likely to have been committed against those known to them (e.g. intimate partners) than are violent crimes committed by men.

Sources for Statistics and More Information on Women:

Amnesty International USA, Rights for All, Not Part of My Sentence, March 1999 [ai nps]

US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics:
Women Offenders, NCJ175688, December 1998, revised 10/00) [bjs wo];

Women in Prison, NCJ145321, March 1994

Federal Drug Offenders, 1999

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2000

Report by Dr. Charles Bliss of the Cornerstone Behavioral Health detailing aspects of methamphetamine in Wyoming.

Research on Women & Girls in the Justice System, Exploring the Link Between Violence Against Women and Women’s Involvement in Illegal Activity, Beth E. Richie, National Institute of Justice, 2000

Human Rights Watch report, All too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. prisons, December 1996.

Bonnie Kerness, Associate Director, American Friends Service Committee Criminal Justice Program: draft for speech given for Ms. Kerness June 2003. [bk afsc]

U.S. Government Accounting Office report made to Eleanor Holmes Norton, (non-voting) Representative for the District of Colombia, Women in Prison: Sexual Misconduct by Correctional Staff, June, 1999.

www.drugwarfacts.org

Women, Girls & Criminal Justice, December/January 2000, Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and Its Impact on Prisoner Mothers and their Children, Gail T. Smith, Esq.

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Justice Matters.