The women and crime ratio has steadily been increasing. It says that women prison population is nearly eight times higher than its population count in 1980. It says that the direct result of this is expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. Besides post conviction barriers to reentry, I do not know how expansive law enforcement efforts and stiffer drug sentencing laws affect women anymore than men. The race of women also plays a big factor in female incarceration. The rate of black women incarceration to more than two times the rate of imprisonment of white women. Hispanic women incarcerate at 1.2 times the rate of white women. Although black females have the highest incarceration rate out of any women, it has been decreasing since 2000. White female incarceration rate on the other hand has increased since 2000. Female Hispanic incarceration rates have stayed steady. It does not surprise me that females that are black have the highest incarceration rate, because on the overall spectrum African Americans are more likely to be incarcerated than any other race. It also says that Oklahoma has the highest women prison population in the United States. This also does not surprise me because Oklahoma also has one of the highest incarceration rates overall compared to other states. The most common reason for incarceration of women are for violent crime, which actually surprises me because you would not think of women as the violent type, or to do something violent to solve a problem. The next most common is property offenses, which doesn’t surprise me because in my eyes anyone will commit a property offense if they need to. Not far behind that are drug crimes which also does not surprise me. Honestly, I can see this happening a lot because I would not see sex as a factor in a drug crime. One last fact that I found sad that was over 60% of incarcerated women has a child under the age of 18. This is unfortunate for not only the mom, but the kid because that kid may not have anyone else there. -lilbaby001
I found it surprising that 60% of women that are incarcerated have a child that is under the age of 18. This is very sad. I think it is more unfortunate for the child in my opinion. The child has to grow up without a mother and as you said the child might not have anyone else in their life and if they do they might not be able to care for the child and all of their needs adequately. I found it surprising too that women's most common crime is violent because they can get aggressive if it's their husband or boyfriend is cheating they might use violence. -Legion001
There has been an increase in women represented in the Criminal Justice system lately. The total number of women incarcerated between the years 1980 to 2014 rose 700%. That is a crazy amount for anything to rise that much. The number of women incarcerated in 1980 was 26,378 women. The number of women incarcerated in 2014 was 222,061. The number of women being put in prison between 1980 and 2014 outpaced men getting locked up by 50%. In 2014 the number of women placed on probation outdid any other form of incarceration. The number of women on probation was 966,029. The number of women put in prison in 2014 was 112,961 women. The number of women put in jail was slightly less than that at 109,100 women. This is surprising to me because jails are used for pretrial detention and other misdemeanors, but the number of women on probation would level out the number of women in jails because probation had by far the highest number of women on it in 2014. The number of women on parole in 2014 was 102,825. In 2014 the number of African American women incarcerated was more than twice the rate of white women. Hispanic women were incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white women. Another interesting thing is that since 2000 the rate of African American women has been declining while the rate of white women being incarcerated has been increasing. It is also crazy that half of the states have more women incarcerated than the national average. I also found it surprising that more women are incarcerated for drug offenses than men were in 2014. Women had 24% for drug offenses while men only had 15% of drug offenses. This surprises me because I never really hear about women being locked up for drugs. I only ever hear about men being locked up for drug offenses. -Legion001
I agree that it is weird to not have any knowledge of any of the statistics because of how high the numbers have been rising in the last 30 years. The numbers that we always hear about is the total population or the males population, rather than focusing in on the fact the females rate has changed so drastically and the reasons as to why. We have the transparency but if no one asks the questions then no one tells anyone the numbers, or openly reports on it which is surprising because of how hot of a discussion topic this is. We are working toward dropping our prison and jail populations but with numbers like this, it is hard to comprehend. -Blues001
The rate of imprisonment for women exploded between the early 1980s and 2014 with a huge increase of 700%. With a total of 1.2 million women in the criminal justice system a large majority of them are on probation and a similar amount are spread between prison jails and parole. Only a small number of those who are incarcerated populate federal prisons with most of them being in state prisons and jails. Between 2000 and 2014 the rate of imprisonment fell by 47% for black women but rose 56% for white women. Hispanic women are being incarcerated at a rate of 1.2 times higher than white women. 37% of women commit violent crimes as opposed to 54% of men committing violent crimes. Women are more likely to commit property or drug crimes and they are to commit violent crimes. Many women who are arrested for drug crimes are usually accessories to crimes men commit. Young girls are more likely to commit status offenses like skipping school as opposed to boys are. I was honestly kind of surprised to see that Illinois is one of the states that incarcerates less women. I'm not really sure why but I was just expecting it to be higher. Illinois incarcerated 44 women per 100,000 in the state while the national average is 58 women per 100,000. The highest rates of incarceration in the nation belong to Oklahoma with 142 women incarcerated per 100,000. The lowest rates of incarceration for women in the nation belong to Rhode island with only 12 women per 100,000, so while Illinois isn't the lowest it is below the state average. -Waterboy001
This article brought to my attention many interesting facts about women incarcerations. I found it strange looking at the statistics of the percentage of women who were incarcerated for property and drug offenses. The statistics show that women are more likely than men to be incarcerated for drug or property offenses. I also found it interesting the know that women incarceration rates have been climbing exponentially. Men's rates have been declining for years while women's have been multiplying since 1980. I honestly believe this to be due to the fact we are beginning to look at women through a different set of eyes compared to in 1980. I also found the fact that black women in prisons have been steadily dropping while other ethnicity have been climbing for years. The media would seem to have the public think the opposite. I wonder what evidence there is to support why that rate of incarceration has been dropping for black women? Women being incarcerated have a special case especially if they are pregnant or have young children. This article touched on that with the fact that 60% of women in prison have a child under the age of 18. This brings a more social and humanistic view to me. How do we treat mothers like this? How is it fair to the children? I understand the aspect do the crime do the time and all but it is interesting to think about subjects like this through different viewpoints. One other interesting fact was that girls are more likely to commit a status offense than boys. I believe this has to do with society attempting to protect young girls from the world. Jackrabbit001
I also found it interesting that women are more likely to commit a drug or property offence than men. When you think of women, you would think they would commit a violent crime rather than a property offense. With the drug offenses, this does not surprise me. For me it seems like every day I see or hear about women and drugs. You do bring up a good point about the women in prison with a child under 18. Locking these women up bring up the question of cruel and unusual punishment not only to the women, but to the child of the women offender. You could really cause an issue by arguing if it is inhumane to lock these women up with a child under 18, especially if that child has no other guardian. -lilbaby001
Something very interesting that this report shows is by how much women are incarcerated more than men at 50% from 1980 to 2014. This is a very large growth especially considering that it is usually said that men have dominated that population rate for a long time. Something else that is very interesting is the graph showing female race incarceration and while African american women have a higher incarceration rate, the rate has been dropping steadily. While that rate dominates the other races, the rate of incarcerated white females has been steadily climbing since 2000 unlike the others shown on the chart. In just 30 years for the incarceration of women to increase by 700% is just an unreal number to see but the report then shows what they are incarcerated for. A chart shows that the leading cause for incarceration of women is violent crime which accounts for 37% of the rate. Violent crimes increasing in women is interesting and I would really like to know why this is the case because drug charges are at a lower percentage. Incarcerated girls on the other hand of this spectrum seem to have much smaller numbers in the juvenile system and they were not very shocking numbers. The numbers are all very stunning when looking at the total number of women who are incarcerated which the total number is 1.2 million. The rise of the incarceration of women has obviously grown very rapidly and is quite surprising on many aspects considering you usually only hear about the incarceration of males. But the fact that the majority of the crimes are violent is quite disturbing to think that that number may continue to rise. I would like to learn a lot more about this and why these rates have grown so much over the past 30 years although we never hear about it anywhere. -Blues001
Women are being incarcerated at a much higher rate than men. There is no doubt that more men in prison, but the rate in which women are being incarcerated is growing at a rapid rate. In fact, women have outpaced men by 50%. The article mentions that this is because of expansive law enforcement efforts, stricter drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers. I found it interesting that the rate of African American women being incarcerated it growing faster than that of Hispanics and whites. Having said that, it looks as if the rate of African American women is going down while white women is going up. White women are up by 56%, African American women are down by 47% and Hispanic women are up by 7%. It seems that the numbers fluctuate quite a bit. I wonder if social justice awareness has any role to play in the decrease of African American women. Studies have shown that women are more likely to be in prison for drug related offenses, or they are incarcerated for a property offense. The rate for girls has gone down quite a bit as well. More so for white girls that African American girls. White girls have gone down by 8% while African American girls have only gone down by 3%. The majority of crimes committed by these girls are status offenses or technical violations. This means had they done this when they were adults it wouldn’t be considered illegal. I’m curious to see what will happen with these numbers in the future. Especially now that it looks like the girl’s rate is steadily decreasing. Sexy_in_bikini001
Reading this article gave me some insight on how much more women and girls are becoming incarcerated lately. Between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%, rising from a total of 26,378 in 1980 to 222,061 in 2014. That is crazy! 700% is outrageous. Though many more men are in prison than women, the rate of growth for female imprisonment has outpaced men by more than 50% between 1980 and 2014. There are 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. These numbers are so high and it's unbelievable to think that women and girls have caused this much over the last 34 years. In 2014 there are 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. 1.2 million WOMEN is crazy to think about. In 2014, the imprisonment rate for African American women (109 per 100,000) was more than twice the rate of imprisonment for white women (53 per 100,000). Crazy to think the system is still kind of like this still to this day. Hispanic women were incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white women (64 vs. 53 per 100,000). Even hispanic women were incarcerated more than white women, why? The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, 65 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2014.5 The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Oklahoma (142) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of females is Rhode Island (12). Crazy to think Oklahoma, such an odd state, had the highest rate of female imprisonment. Illinois only had 44 per 100,000 which is nothing compared to some states. This article was very helpful with understanding female population in prison as the years have gone by. Crazy to think in only 34 years it raised by 700%. -freckles001
What is so very interesting to me still is the fact that even though female incarceration has exponentially increased (700%) there are still more incarcerated men. The statistic on Illinois is kind of interesting to me too. I couldn't tell you why, maybe just because Illinois is so awful in most aspects,but I kinda figured our number of incarcerated women would be further up there towards Oklahoma. -psych001
This article is really sad to read because it makes me think about the kids involved. A statistic that really jumped out at me is that more than 60% of the women in prison have a kid under the age of 18. That means that thousands of kids are growing up without a mother in their life to nurture and be there for them. I would be willing to bet that there is a high percentage of those kids that end up in prison as well because of the lack of parent supervision and guidance. Another statistic that jumped out at me is that Hispanic women are incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white woman. This just shows that there is still a racial bias in the world today. There is no reason that a small percent of the population should account for more crime than the bigger part of the population unless that percentage is aggravated or is treated incorrectly. I think that in the years to come these numbers will start to go away and we will start to see a more even sentencing among races. Another statistic is that twenty four percent of female prisoners have been convicted of a drug offense compared to the 15 percent of male prisoners. This just shows that guys aren’t the only ones doing drugs because woman actually get arrested at a higher percentage for that. I think that this also has to deal with the fact that men get arrested more frequently for violent offenses which can make this number seem different. That being said, only 14.3 percent of the total youth incarcerated are girls. Juvenile boys are committing far more offenses than juvenile girls, or they are just committing more serious ones that get them put in these facilities.-Celtics001
I as well found it surprising the rate of imprisonment for both African Americans and Hispanic women compared to White women because stats also show how there are more white women in jail than others. As to what you mentioned about the drug offenses women tend to have higher than men, I think it’s because of the victimization that they are in and are given drug then addiction is another problem they have.taco001
As we have talked about in class multiple times, this article is focusing on the fact the female incarceration rates have steadily increased. Many more women are being incarcerated now because of more intense drug laws and, "post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women." A fact that shocks many people is that 60 percent of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18. Speaking of children under 18, let's discuss the incarceration of girls. 14.3 percent of the 54,148 children incarcerated are girls. The article says that a large proportion of those locked up for technical violations and status offenses, things that would not be considered illegal as an adult, are girls. These violations include things like running away, or skipping school. Though white and black girls have had a decline in youth placement, the numbers dropped more for white girls. From the year 1997 to 2013 the percentage of black girls confined went from 34% to 31% while white girls went from 49% to 41%. Girls are confined a lot less now than they were 20 years ago. In 2001, a peak year, 15,104 girls were locked up in settings of residential placement. 12 years later, in 2013, that number went down by 50% and only 7,727 girls were confined. Though female incarceration has gone up, men tend to be the more violent offenders. Women are much more likely to get locked up for something like drugs or a property offense. 24% of incarcerated women, compared to 15% of incarcerated men, have been convicted of a drug offense. Similarly, 28% of incarcerated women versus 19% of incarcerated men have been convicted of a property crime. In general, there are still many more men incarcerated than women, but if the numbers keep going up the way they have been the last few years then we may close that gap sooner than later. -psych001
This article stated facts about women and girls being incarcerated and for what crimes they committed. As I read in other article about data being collected, it states that one person gets one offense and data is collected from that. For example, if a woman committed multiple offenses in a crime, the most serious would be given to her when looking at data. The prison population for women has been steadily increasing since in the 80’s. Which increased 8x higher, from 26,378 in 1986 to 222,061 in 2014. That doesn’t include the women that are under the criminal justice supervision like probation or parole, which is significantly higher than the prison population coming out to around 1.2 million total. I found interesting that in 2014 the rate of imprisonment was higher than White and Hispanic women. Yet, from other articles I read there are more White females in prison compared to other ethnicities. But when looking at a federal level, since 2000 the African American women rate of imprisonment has been declining, unlike White women are increasing. Which ties in that most women are in prison because of the likelihood of committing drug and property offence compared to men. As I learned in class most women are arrested for nonviolent crimes. Usually women are victims of violence which is something that correlates with how girls are in confinement. Most of girls are taken in for low levels, statuts crime and technical violations that are only offences for juveniles and not adults. I mentioned that a lot of girls are victims of violent crimes, which is a result of them running away or affecting their personal life like at school or with other people. Running away would be a status a offence that would include her into the system and then becomes labelled by society. taco001
I found it very interesting the way that women's incarceration rate has increased so gradually. Never in the back of my mind would I have thought that women are being incarcerated at exceeding rates. The article mentions that since 1980, the population has jumped eight times the normal amount. I can believe the fact that women exceed men on drug related incarceration rates because it is a growing problem, and women could have better access then some males. The article even mentions that most of the women incarcerated is related to low-level crimes that involve status offences or technical violations. For young girls this being crimes that would not be a crime when committed by an adult. - Lobster001
The women and crime ratio has steadily been increasing. It says that women prison population is nearly eight times higher than its population count in 1980. It says that the direct result of this is expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. Besides post conviction barriers to reentry, I do not know how expansive law enforcement efforts and stiffer drug sentencing laws affect women anymore than men. The race of women also plays a big factor in female incarceration. The rate of black women incarceration to more than two times the rate of imprisonment of white women. Hispanic women incarcerate at 1.2 times the rate of white women. Although black females have the highest incarceration rate out of any women, it has been decreasing since 2000. White female incarceration rate on the other hand has increased since 2000. Female Hispanic incarceration rates have stayed steady. It does not surprise me that females that are black have the highest incarceration rate, because on the overall spectrum African Americans are more likely to be incarcerated than any other race. It also says that Oklahoma has the highest women prison population in the United States. This also does not surprise me because Oklahoma also has one of the highest incarceration rates overall compared to other states. The most common reason for incarceration of women are for violent crime, which actually surprises me because you would not think of women as the violent type, or to do something violent to solve a problem. The next most common is property offenses, which doesn’t surprise me because in my eyes anyone will commit a property offense if they need to. Not far behind that are drug crimes which also does not surprise me. Honestly, I can see this happening a lot because I would not see sex as a factor in a drug crime. One last fact that I found sad that was over 60% of incarcerated women has a child under the age of 18. This is unfortunate for not only the mom, but the kid because that kid may not have anyone else there. -lilbaby001
ReplyDeleteI found it surprising that 60% of women that are incarcerated have a child that is under the age of 18. This is very sad. I think it is more unfortunate for the child in my opinion. The child has to grow up without a mother and as you said the child might not have anyone else in their life and if they do they might not be able to care for the child and all of their needs adequately. I found it surprising too that women's most common crime is violent because they can get aggressive if it's their husband or boyfriend is cheating they might use violence. -Legion001
DeleteThere has been an increase in women represented in the Criminal Justice system lately. The total number of women incarcerated between the years 1980 to 2014 rose 700%. That is a crazy amount for anything to rise that much. The number of women incarcerated in 1980 was 26,378 women. The number of women incarcerated in 2014 was 222,061. The number of women being put in prison between 1980 and 2014 outpaced men getting locked up by 50%. In 2014 the number of women placed on probation outdid any other form of incarceration. The number of women on probation was 966,029. The number of women put in prison in 2014 was 112,961 women. The number of women put in jail was slightly less than that at 109,100 women. This is surprising to me because jails are used for pretrial detention and other misdemeanors, but the number of women on probation would level out the number of women in jails because probation had by far the highest number of women on it in 2014. The number of women on parole in 2014 was 102,825. In 2014 the number of African American women incarcerated was more than twice the rate of white women. Hispanic women were incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white women. Another interesting thing is that since 2000 the rate of African American women has been declining while the rate of white women being incarcerated has been increasing. It is also crazy that half of the states have more women incarcerated than the national average. I also found it surprising that more women are incarcerated for drug offenses than men were in 2014. Women had 24% for drug offenses while men only had 15% of drug offenses. This surprises me because I never really hear about women being locked up for drugs. I only ever hear about men being locked up for drug offenses. -Legion001
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is weird to not have any knowledge of any of the statistics because of how high the numbers have been rising in the last 30 years. The numbers that we always hear about is the total population or the males population, rather than focusing in on the fact the females rate has changed so drastically and the reasons as to why. We have the transparency but if no one asks the questions then no one tells anyone the numbers, or openly reports on it which is surprising because of how hot of a discussion topic this is. We are working toward dropping our prison and jail populations but with numbers like this, it is hard to comprehend. -Blues001
DeleteThe rate of imprisonment for women exploded between the early 1980s and 2014 with a huge increase of 700%. With a total of 1.2 million women in the criminal justice system a large majority of them are on probation and a similar amount are spread between prison jails and parole. Only a small number of those who are incarcerated populate federal prisons with most of them being in state prisons and jails. Between 2000 and 2014 the rate of imprisonment fell by 47% for black women but rose 56% for white women. Hispanic women are being incarcerated at a rate of 1.2 times higher than white women. 37% of women commit violent crimes as opposed to 54% of men committing violent crimes. Women are more likely to commit property or drug crimes and they are to commit violent crimes. Many women who are arrested for drug crimes are usually accessories to crimes men commit. Young girls are more likely to commit status offenses like skipping school as opposed to boys are. I was honestly kind of surprised to see that Illinois is one of the states that incarcerates less women. I'm not really sure why but I was just expecting it to be higher. Illinois incarcerated 44 women per 100,000 in the state while the national average is 58 women per 100,000. The highest rates of incarceration in the nation belong to Oklahoma with 142 women incarcerated per 100,000. The lowest rates of incarceration for women in the nation belong to Rhode island with only 12 women per 100,000, so while Illinois isn't the lowest it is below the state average. -Waterboy001
ReplyDeleteThis article brought to my attention many interesting facts about women incarcerations. I found it strange looking at the statistics of the percentage of women who were incarcerated for property and drug offenses. The statistics show that women are more likely than men to be incarcerated for drug or property offenses. I also found it interesting the know that women incarceration rates have been climbing exponentially. Men's rates have been declining for years while women's have been multiplying since 1980. I honestly believe this to be due to the fact we are beginning to look at women through a different set of eyes compared to in 1980. I also found the fact that black women in prisons have been steadily dropping while other ethnicity have been climbing for years. The media would seem to have the public think the opposite. I wonder what evidence there is to support why that rate of incarceration has been dropping for black women? Women being incarcerated have a special case especially if they are pregnant or have young children. This article touched on that with the fact that 60% of women in prison have a child under the age of 18. This brings a more social and humanistic view to me. How do we treat mothers like this? How is it fair to the children? I understand the aspect do the crime do the time and all but it is interesting to think about subjects like this through different viewpoints. One other interesting fact was that girls are more likely to commit a status offense than boys. I believe this has to do with society attempting to protect young girls from the world. Jackrabbit001
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting that women are more likely to commit a drug or property offence than men. When you think of women, you would think they would commit a violent crime rather than a property offense. With the drug offenses, this does not surprise me. For me it seems like every day I see or hear about women and drugs. You do bring up a good point about the women in prison with a child under 18. Locking these women up bring up the question of cruel and unusual punishment not only to the women, but to the child of the women offender. You could really cause an issue by arguing if it is inhumane to lock these women up with a child under 18, especially if that child has no other guardian. -lilbaby001
DeleteSomething very interesting that this report shows is by how much women are incarcerated more than men at 50% from 1980 to 2014. This is a very large growth especially considering that it is usually said that men have dominated that population rate for a long time. Something else that is very interesting is the graph showing female race incarceration and while African american women have a higher incarceration rate, the rate has been dropping steadily. While that rate dominates the other races, the rate of incarcerated white females has been steadily climbing since 2000 unlike the others shown on the chart. In just 30 years for the incarceration of women to increase by 700% is just an unreal number to see but the report then shows what they are incarcerated for. A chart shows that the leading cause for incarceration of women is violent crime which accounts for 37% of the rate. Violent crimes increasing in women is interesting and I would really like to know why this is the case because drug charges are at a lower percentage. Incarcerated girls on the other hand of this spectrum seem to have much smaller numbers in the juvenile system and they were not very shocking numbers. The numbers are all very stunning when looking at the total number of women who are incarcerated which the total number is 1.2 million. The rise of the incarceration of women has obviously grown very rapidly and is quite surprising on many aspects considering you usually only hear about the incarceration of males. But the fact that the majority of the crimes are violent is quite disturbing to think that that number may continue to rise. I would like to learn a lot more about this and why these rates have grown so much over the past 30 years although we never hear about it anywhere. -Blues001
ReplyDeleteWomen are being incarcerated at a much higher rate than men. There is no doubt that more men in prison, but the rate in which women are being incarcerated is growing at a rapid rate. In fact, women have outpaced men by 50%. The article mentions that this is because of expansive law enforcement efforts, stricter drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers. I found it interesting that the rate of African American women being incarcerated it growing faster than that of Hispanics and whites. Having said that, it looks as if the rate of African American women is going down while white women is going up. White women are up by 56%, African American women are down by 47% and Hispanic women are up by 7%. It seems that the numbers fluctuate quite a bit. I wonder if social justice awareness has any role to play in the decrease of African American women. Studies have shown that women are more likely to be in prison for drug related offenses, or they are incarcerated for a property offense. The rate for girls has gone down quite a bit as well. More so for white girls that African American girls. White girls have gone down by 8% while African American girls have only gone down by 3%. The majority of crimes committed by these girls are status offenses or technical violations. This means had they done this when they were adults it wouldn’t be considered illegal. I’m curious to see what will happen with these numbers in the future. Especially now that it looks like the girl’s rate is steadily decreasing. Sexy_in_bikini001
ReplyDeleteReading this article gave me some insight on how much more women and girls are becoming incarcerated lately. Between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%, rising from a total of 26,378 in 1980 to 222,061 in 2014. That is crazy! 700% is outrageous. Though many more men are in prison than women, the rate of growth for female imprisonment has outpaced men by more than 50% between 1980 and 2014. There are 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. These numbers are so high and it's unbelievable to think that women and girls have caused this much over the last 34 years. In 2014 there are 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. 1.2 million WOMEN is crazy to think about. In 2014, the imprisonment rate for African American women (109 per 100,000) was more than twice the rate of imprisonment for white women (53 per 100,000). Crazy to think the system is still kind of like this still to this day. Hispanic women were incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white women (64 vs. 53 per 100,000). Even hispanic women were incarcerated more than white women, why? The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, 65 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2014.5 The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Oklahoma (142) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of females is Rhode Island (12). Crazy to think Oklahoma, such an odd state, had the highest rate of female imprisonment. Illinois only had 44 per 100,000 which is nothing compared to some states. This article was very helpful with understanding female population in prison as the years have gone by. Crazy to think in only 34 years it raised by 700%. -freckles001
ReplyDeleteWhat is so very interesting to me still is the fact that even though female incarceration has exponentially increased (700%) there are still more incarcerated men. The statistic on Illinois is kind of interesting to me too. I couldn't tell you why, maybe just because Illinois is so awful in most aspects,but I kinda figured our number of incarcerated women would be further up there towards Oklahoma. -psych001
DeleteThis article is really sad to read because it makes me think about the kids involved. A statistic that really jumped out at me is that more than 60% of the women in prison have a kid under the age of 18. That means that thousands of kids are growing up without a mother in their life to nurture and be there for them. I would be willing to bet that there is a high percentage of those kids that end up in prison as well because of the lack of parent supervision and guidance. Another statistic that jumped out at me is that Hispanic women are incarcerated at 1.2 times the rate of white woman. This just shows that there is still a racial bias in the world today. There is no reason that a small percent of the population should account for more crime than the bigger part of the population unless that percentage is aggravated or is treated incorrectly. I think that in the years to come these numbers will start to go away and we will start to see a more even sentencing among races. Another statistic is that twenty four percent of female prisoners have been convicted of a drug offense compared to the 15 percent of male prisoners. This just shows that guys aren’t the only ones doing drugs because woman actually get arrested at a higher percentage for that. I think that this also has to deal with the fact that men get arrested more frequently for violent offenses which can make this number seem different. That being said, only 14.3 percent of the total youth incarcerated are girls. Juvenile boys are committing far more offenses than juvenile girls, or they are just committing more serious ones that get them put in these facilities.-Celtics001
ReplyDeleteI as well found it surprising the rate of imprisonment for both African Americans and Hispanic women compared to White women because stats also show how there are more white women in jail than others. As to what you mentioned about the drug offenses women tend to have higher than men, I think it’s because of the victimization that they are in and are given drug then addiction is another problem they have.taco001
DeleteAs we have talked about in class multiple times, this article is focusing on the fact the female incarceration rates have steadily increased. Many more women are being incarcerated now because of more intense drug laws and, "post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women." A fact that shocks many people is that 60 percent of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18. Speaking of children under 18, let's discuss the incarceration of girls. 14.3 percent of the 54,148 children incarcerated are girls. The article says that a large proportion of those locked up for technical violations and status offenses, things that would not be considered illegal as an adult, are girls. These violations include things like running away, or skipping school. Though white and black girls have had a decline in youth placement, the numbers dropped more for white girls. From the year 1997 to 2013 the percentage of black girls confined went from 34% to 31% while white girls went from 49% to 41%. Girls are confined a lot less now than they were 20 years ago. In 2001, a peak year, 15,104 girls were locked up in settings of residential placement. 12 years later, in 2013, that number went down by 50% and only 7,727 girls were confined. Though female incarceration has gone up, men tend to be the more violent offenders. Women are much more likely to get locked up for something like drugs or a property offense. 24% of incarcerated women, compared to 15% of incarcerated men, have been convicted of a drug offense. Similarly, 28% of incarcerated women versus 19% of incarcerated men have been convicted of a property crime. In general, there are still many more men incarcerated than women, but if the numbers keep going up the way they have been the last few years then we may close that gap sooner than later. -psych001
ReplyDeleteThis article stated facts about women and girls being incarcerated and for what crimes they committed. As I read in other article about data being collected, it states that one person gets one offense and data is collected from that. For example, if a woman committed multiple offenses in a crime, the most serious would be given to her when looking at data. The prison population for women has been steadily increasing since in the 80’s. Which increased 8x higher, from 26,378 in 1986 to 222,061 in 2014. That doesn’t include the women that are under the criminal justice supervision like probation or parole, which is significantly higher than the prison population coming out to around 1.2 million total. I found interesting that in 2014 the rate of imprisonment was higher than White and Hispanic women. Yet, from other articles I read there are more White females in prison compared to other ethnicities. But when looking at a federal level, since 2000 the African American women rate of imprisonment has been declining, unlike White women are increasing. Which ties in that most women are in prison because of the likelihood of committing drug and property offence compared to men. As I learned in class most women are arrested for nonviolent crimes. Usually women are victims of violence which is something that correlates with how girls are in confinement. Most of girls are taken in for low levels, statuts crime and technical violations that are only offences for juveniles and not adults. I mentioned that a lot of girls are victims of violent crimes, which is a result of them running away or affecting their personal life like at school or with other people. Running away would be a status a offence that would include her into the system and then becomes labelled by society. taco001
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting the way that women's incarceration rate has increased so gradually. Never in the back of my mind would I have thought that women are being incarcerated at exceeding rates. The article mentions that since 1980, the population has jumped eight times the normal amount. I can believe the fact that women exceed men on drug related incarceration rates because it is a growing problem, and women could have better access then some males. The article even mentions that most of the women incarcerated is related to low-level crimes that involve status offences or technical violations. For young girls this being crimes that would not be a crime when committed by an adult.
ReplyDelete- Lobster001