Why are So Many Women Going to Jail?
by Tahonee Washington
Being a woman of color, it saddens me that African American women account for so much of the prison population. Women imprisonment rates have significantly increased over the past fifteen years. There are many contributing factors to this increase, such as characteristics of female prisoners (i.e., types of offences committed, age and indigenous status) In order to understand why so many women are being imprisoned you must understand the status of women in our society. Mental illness, homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, and illiteracy are often mistaken for crimes, but they are problems that effect many women. Prisons don't make problems disappear, they make people disappear, and affluent communities believe that the imprisonments of people that are less fortunate are solving social problems.
More than two million people are locked up in U.S. prisons or jails. Over seventy percent of the imprisoned populations are people of color. The fastest growing groups of prisoners are women of color, and the increase in the rate of female incarceration is due a change in the age of these women ranging from 19-25. It is known that women tend to commit less serious types of offenses than men, but they are more likely to reoffend. Women are less inclined to commit crime than men.
Other contributing factors to the increase of female incarceration are poverty, frequency of abuse, deinstitutionalization of mental health care, and the increase of drug related offenses prosecuted against women. Women's crimes are often defined as sexual, and are often given a double standard. Most women in correctional facilities say they have children under the age of seventeen. Also a vast majority of these women claim to have had incomes of less than six hundred dollars per month.
One third of all women incarcerated in U.S. prison have not completed high school, and sixty percent of women in state prisons have been abused sexually and or physically; one third of these women were abused during their incarceration. Fifty percent of women in state prisons say that they used drugs daily, and 40 percent of those women said they were under the influence of drugs while committing the offence for which they were imprisoned.
In local jails thirty-six percent were white women, forty-four percent are black women and fifteen are Hispanic women. In state prisons, thirty-three percent are white, forty-eight percent are black, and fifteen percent are Hispanic; in federal prisons, twenty-nine percent are white, thirty-five percent are black, and thirty-two percent are Hispanic.
We as women need to ban together and come up with answers that will help our fellow women be successful. Ask yourself why are so many women going to jail? Is it that these women are committing crimes just because they feel like it, or are they crimes of survival? American women struggle to provide for themselves as well as their families. They struggle physically, emotionally as well as economically. In this day and age, women are still not considered equal to men. We work the same jobs and the same amount of hours, but we are still more likely to live in poverty than men. Why? Because we make lower wages than men.
Due to these economic hardships that we are facing some women are forced to turn to a life of crime. I honestly believe that the justice system is set up for women to fail. Instead of the government assisting needy women and their families with the tools and resources to help them succeed in society, they are permitting the deterioration of public education as well as the cut in jobs and programs that assist families in need.
Prisons aren't here to keep criminals off of the street. They are here because of their potential profit. There is a hidden agenda; punishment is becoming a source of stupendous profits. Although it costs on average 31,502 to house a prisoner, there is a much bigger profit. Now to whom do these potential profits go? Corrections Corporation Of America increased its revenue by more than 58%; in one year the profit went from 293 million to 462 million. Wackenhut Corrections Corporation raised its revenue from 138 million to 210 million in one year. The profits of these private facilities rely on non-union labor. Also on the rise are government contracts to build prisons.
Many corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex. Prison construction bonds are one type of profitable investment, while phone companies are another. Phone carriers charge prisoners and their families outrageous prices for telephone calls that are sometimes the only form of contact prisoners have with the outside world. Many products we use on a daily basis are results of prison labor; Motorola, Compaq, Microsoft, Boeing and even Nordstrom are companies that reap profit using prison labor.
Being a young black woman this is devastating to me. I come from a working class neighborhood and I know all too well the results of going to jail. Children lose mothers and fathers, and a lot of times they grow up without any real guidance. People are losing out on jobs because corporations would rather exploit prisoners than pay regular workers minimum wage. Instead of trying to solve the problems that many of the prisoners are facing, the government is taking advantage of them at their down point. Even when released from prison individuals have a tougher time on the street than they did while in jail. They need help, and it's time that we determine what can be done to get them back on track. I am tired of losing youth to these "dog houses with bars"; we need our strong women and men on the streets to provide guidance to our troubled youth. With all the excess income that comes in from housing these prisoners it seems to me that there would be some type of aid or relief given to them when they are released, but most of the time that isn't the case. Hmmmm... Jail is supposed to be somewhere to reform criminals... What do you think?
Citations
www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/race/
www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/pris-n05.shtml
www.prisonactivist.org/women/