Women in Prisons
There are many stats about women incarcerated in jails and prisons that are overlooked. Today, we will dive into the statistics on minority women and how women are treated in confinement.
To give you an overview of how many women are locked up in the United States and where they are held, check out this graph:
Not only are there over 89,000 women in local jails and 99,000 held in state prisons, it is significantly more difficult for women to avoid pre-trial incarceration than it is for men. This is because these incarcerated women have less of an income than incarcerated men, meaning it is much more challenging for women to pay their cash bail.
Also, did you know that 80 percent of incarcerated women are mothers? And local jails make it harder to keep in contact with families than state prisons. Furthermore, over 150,000 women are pregnant while being admitted into the system.
The inadequate healthcare provided for women is astonishing. Even things that are highly suggested by doctors to be routine checkups are ignored. Ladies, just imagine you had a yeast infection or a UTI and you were just expected to ‘tough it out’ instead of seeing your gynecologist. Now think about if you were pregnant and severely lacking in basic health needs for you and your child. This deplorable reality is everyday life for pregnant women in confinement and leads to complicated and high-risk births.
And, if this wasn’t a (sadly) given, mothers are separated from their children immediately after birth. This causes psychological harm for the woman as well as the child, on top of eerily resembling The Handmaid’s Tale.
The very fact that the U.S. government and correctional system neglects women proves that the system is designed by and for men. It is frightening to know and experience what a free woman can experience and be deprived of; it is impossible to imagine the horrors incarcerated women feel every day.
The U.S. correctional system does not even have a healthcare standard for all state and local prisons have to follow. THEY LITERALLY DON’T EVEN LOOK AT OR ACKNOWLEDGE THE ISSUE! This means that every male-dominated staff at every female prison and jail can decide the rules on what the women need and how they are treated. That is disgusting.
Now let’s look at some facts on minority women in jails and prisons.
African American women are more likely than any other race of women to go to prison. Also, “109 out of every 100,000 African American women in the United States were sentenced to state or federal prison.”
The LGBTQ+ community, prisoners who identify as “non-heterosexual” are three times more likely to report (not experience, meaning there are probably thousands more) sexual abuse. Out of the 200,000 youth and adult incarcerated women in general who report sexual abuse every year, transwomen in men’s prisons are 13 times more likely to be sexually abused than their male inmates. Prisons and jails still house transgender inmates according to their biological gender at birth, and there have even been reports of transwomen being punished for trying to express their identity.
The number of Native American women who are incarcerated is 38 percent more than the national average and face the highest rates of rape in the U.S. Federally operated health care prisons are also more likely to make Native American women see another health care provider or even dismiss them entirely.
As for Latin women, they are 38 percent more likely to be imprisoned than their white counterparts. If all of these awful facts weren’t enough, the white-dominated state of Alabama is one of several states that do not count the number of hispanic women and instead they just ‘count them as white.’ These women’s statistics are literally nonexistent in some jails and prisons.
Lastly, differently-abled inmates (visual, mobile, or hearing disabilities) make up 26 percent of state prisoners. Those with physical disabilities are outright denied the services that the law entitles them to. When jails are overcrowded, those with disabilities are often put into solitary confinement to make room. Like, what?? How??
If you are as disturbed by these facts as I am, you can learn more from organizations that help these women, like ACLU. Further, you can see if the legal departments in your county have “Women Projects” and allow women to volunteer. Another organization is The Women’s Prison Book Project that works with female inmates to supply their book requests. See where you can donate books here.