Women's prisons

This article discusses the incarceration of women in correctional facilities. According to a study reported in September 2014 by the International Center for Prison Studies, as of August 2014, across the world, 625,000 women and children are being held in penal institutions with the female prison population growing on all five continents.

Early facilities were considered inhumane with little regard for health and safety. Men and women were housed in a large room where the strong preyed on the weak. As of 2007, in most of the Western world, the guards in female prisons are exclusively female. As of that year there are males who work as guards in women's prisons in the United States. However, some states have laws requiring female officers as well as a female superintendent. While most states have only one or two institutions for women, some facilities are considered "unisex" and house both male and female inmates in separate areas.

As of 1980^[update] to 2015, the incarceration rates of women have seen a dramatic increase. According to scholars who have analyzed these trends, this rise is not due to the rise of crimes committed by women, but rather the changing of the criminal justice system in sentencing the crimes already committed. This change in the criminal justice system is prevalent in the correction of minor offences, such as burglary, which are mostly committed by women.

From the 1980’s to 2016, the number of women in correctional facilities in America grew by almost eight times what it previously was. Overall, in the United States, the increase of women incarcerated was more than 700%, expanding from 26,378 in 1980 to 215,332 in 2014. The offenses that have caused women to be incarcerated are mostly considered to be minor infractions. The two biggest offences are crimes against property and drug offenses. In their research report, Marc Mauer, Cathy Potler, and Richard Wolf claimed that the “war on drugs” is a key factor in the increase of women’s prison populations over the recent years (1991-1999).

Before the 1980’s, there was a lack of female representation in criminology around the world, making research in this area very difficult. This low level of representation was due to the fact that gender was not a large topic of debate. When studies would come up regarding the subject of criminology, most theories regarding crime were largely male modeled due to the significant portion of crime attributed to males. However, due to the feminist movement in the 1960’s, demand for information concerning female incarceration arose. Due to this growing demand that gained speed in the 1980’s, research in crimes committed by women has surged.

...
Wikipedia