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Gender
and Inequality in the American Prison System
By G.A.N. Member Jasmine Fox
http://www.globalactionnetwork.org/
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In the past quarter century, much legal action has been taken
to insure equal treatment for men and women incarcerated in
jails and prisons in the United States. Historically, because
female inmates were so few in number compared to male inmates,
it had been considered too expensive by the state to provide
them with the same privileges afforded to male inmates. For
instance, although women were incarcerated in a system
designed for male inmates, often wearing men's uniforms and
shoes, they were not afforded the same vocational programs,
educational opportunities, or access to law libraries as males
were. While male inmates had access to minimum, medium or
maximum security prisons according to the severity of their
crime, women, who were again much fewer in number, were all
lumped together under what had to be maximum security
conditions. In addition, while women's health is more costly
even in the general populace due to more complicated female
reproductory systems, health care in women's prisons often
received inadequate funding from the state.
Today, while male inmates still outnumber female inmates by
about 20 to 1, the courts have decided that cost is not an
adequate reason for not insuring equal treatment between male
and female prisoners, and much has been done to eradicate
inequalities. It took years of legal action on the part of
women prisoners to obtain this decision. Some have
hypothesized that female offenders had been treated with less
compassion, if possible, than male offenders because a woman
who breaks the law is seen as going against her very nature as
the fairer sex, while male offenders are seen as exerting
their masculinity.
While female offenders are now privy to most of the same
privileges as male offenders, this push toward equality has
also opened them up to some of the less beneficial aspects of
the justice system endured by men. In the past, judges may
have been less apt to penalize a woman as harshly as a man for
a crime, but today everyone seems to be fair game. Indeed,
women's incarceration in the United States is growing at a
faster rate now than men's incarceration. The number of women
imprisoned in the United States has increased eightfold since
the 1980s, from approximately 12,000 in 1980 to approximately
90,000 in the late nineties.
It is thought that the growing numbers of women in prison is
largely due not to growing criminality among women, but to new
legislation enacting minimum sentencing rules and
three-strikes-you're-out laws in many jurisdictions. Women are
more likely than men to be arrested for non-violent offenses
like drug possession, prostitution, and check forgery than are
men. Under new sentencing laws, these sorts of crimes,
especially drug possession, are being prosecuted at much
greater rates.
Many feminists have argued that this is just as it should be.
In order for the issue of equality to be taken seriously, they
argue, women must accept equal treatment in all domains,
whether favorable or unfavorable. However, significant
differences in male and female prison populations warrant a
closer look.
Firstly, as previously mentioned, men are more often
imprisoned for violent offenses like assault and burglary,
while women are more often imprisoned for non-violent offenses
like drug possession and prostitution. In fact, the percentage
of women serving sentences in state prisons for violent crimes
actually decreased from 48.9 percent in 1979 to 32.2 percent
in 1991. When a woman does commit a violent crime, it is very
likely to be in response to years of domestic violence. Men
are more likely to kill strangers (50.5 percent) than intimate
friends or relatives (35.1 percent), whereas women are more
likely to kill intimate friends or relatives (49 percent) than
strangers (21 percent). Given the non-violent nature of
women's crimes, it can hardly be argued that society would be
at great risk if women were incarcerated at a lesser rate or
were given sentencing alternatives to going to prison.
In addition, once behind bars, women prisoners are less likely
to physically attack prison staff than are men. However, in
most prisons, there is no difference in training for staff who
work in men's or women's facilities. Most prison staff are
given the same training in firearms handling, self-defense,
and riot control for both genders. And militaristic programs
like prison "boot-camps" and chain-gangs are
becoming just as popular in women's facilities as in men's
facilities. In programs like these, which were originally
designed for male offenders, male and female prisoners are
subjected to a military style atmosphere, complete with short
hair, absolute adherence to strict rules of dress and
behavior, and humiliation for any infraction. In many, male
and female prisoners do hard physical labor for hours, often
outdoors in hundred degree temperatures. One wonders what
"equality" for women and men might have meant had
women been the original model for which the prison system was
designed.
Another very important distinction between male and female
inmates is the level and type of health care needed by both.
Female inmates often need a higher level of medical care than
male inmates, not only because of reproductive issues and the
fact that many women are pregnant when they enter prison, but
also because of the fact that female prisoners are more likely
than male prisoners to have a drug dependency, which often
causes other health problems. While female prisoners suffer
more frequent and serious disease, especially sexually
transmitted disease than their male counterparts, correctional
institutions continue to offer less than adequate health care
to female prison populations.
It would also be a good idea to examine the differences in
male and female mental health issues. For instance, female
prisoners are far more likely than male prisoners to have been
sexually abused before entering prison. Researchers estimate
that anywhere from 20 - 40% of female inmates have been
sexually abused previous to incarceration. And as recent
reports in the media discuss, many women are forced to
continue this cycle of abuse with male guards once they become
incarcerated.
In addition, it is estimated that approximately 10 percent of
women are pregnant when they enter prison. There is no
mother-child bonding experience for a woman who gives birth in
prison. In all but a few women's prisons, the child is
immediately removed from the mother and placed outside the
prison with foster or other types of caregivers. In an
emotionally taxing experience like this, special psychological
health services may be warranted for a female inmate, as a
male inmate will have no need for a service like this.
About two-thirds of women inmates also leave behind children
under the age of 18 when they go to prison and over 64 percent
of these mothers were living with their children prior to
incarceration. It is very difficult for a woman to retain
custody of a child afterwards, and to many women, this is the
most disturbing part of incarceration. Much research links
maternal incarceration with higher levels of depression in
both mothers and their children. Again, this is not as salient
an issue for male inmates.
Because female and male prisoners are indeed different in the
ways discussed, would it not be a smart move on the part of
the justice system to address their needs in different ways?
The argument that in order to gain equal access to the
privileges male inmates have enjoyed, women must accept equal
treatment in every aspect of incarceration is inherently
faulty. Under this argument, women are already at a
disadvantage, since male corrections systems are the model to
which women must conform in order to be "equal".
Beyond that, given the essentially non-violent nature of
women's crimes, it might just make good sense for society to
think of some alternatives to incarcerating women at an
astronomically increasing rate. Funds now used on the prison
system could be allocated towards substance abuse programs,
sexual health education, parenting classes, and counseling for
victims of sexual and domestic abuse.
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CHESNEY-LIND, M. [2003] Reinventing Women's Corrections:
Challenges for Contemporary Feminist Criminologists and
Practitioners. In The Incarcerated Woman: Rehabilitative
Programming in Women's Prisons, 2003. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Education Inc.
BLOOM, B. and CHESNEY-LIND, M. [2000] Women in Prison:
Vengeful Equity. In It's a Crime: Women in Justice, 2000.
Upper Saddle River, NY: Prentice Hall, Inc. Ibid.
ANDERSON, T. L. [2003]. Issues in the Availability of Health
Care for Women Prisoners. In The Incarcerated Woman:
Rehabilitative Programming in Women's Prisons, 2003. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
SHARP, S. F. [2002] Mothers in Prison: Issues in Parent-Child
Contact. In The Incarcerated Woman: Rehabilitative Programming
in Women's Prisons, 2003. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education Inc.
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