Incarceration of women
[1][2] The list of countries by incarceration rate includes a main table with a column for the historical and current percentage of prisoners who are female.
[3] Incarcerated women have been and continue to be treated differently by criminal justice systems around the world at every step of the process, from arrest to sentencing, to punitive measures used.
[5] Those imprisoned in China, Russia, and the United States comprise the great majority of incarcerated people, including women, in the world.
As criminal justice systems across the world move towards gender-blind sentencing, this has resulted in a tremendous increase in the rate of female incarceration.
The War on Drugs has accounted for the large population of female low-level offenders, usually imprisoned for narcotic use or possession.
[13] This is in tandem with educational inequalities,[14] pay gaps,[15] pregnancy,[16] and heightened rates of physical and domestic abuses.
[17] Another inequity deemed partially culpable for the rate at which impoverished women, in particular, are incarcerated due to the lack of access to mental health care.
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.
[31] The British services for human rights and the United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners say that no one should be subjected to degrading punishment.
Of any sovereign state or dependency, minus very small countries/microstates, Hong Kong, as of circa 2017, has the highest percentage of women in correctional supervision.
[33] In general, statistical information in regards to the rate of incarceration for women in China has been found difficult to compare to other countries around the world.
These consist of baby unit spaces for new mothers, mental and physical disability assistance, feeding and bonding facilities, cultural hobbies, and special food accommodations for dietary restrictions.
While many of these activities are permission-based and evaluated with a case-by-case approach, these prisons have started offering these options to women who are incarcerated in recent years.
According to a 1991 study published by the Department of Justice, Greg Newbold notes that in comparison to women, men were twice as likely to commit a more serious crime.
The most recent advocated hypothesis regarding why the rise is occurring is that women's crime rates are not increasing, rather the criminal justice system is changing.
[41] Gill McIvor, Professor of Criminology at the University of Stirling, supports this hypothesis with research published in 2010 which confirms that the rise of female incarceration rates in New Zealand is not due to the increasing severity of crimes committed by women.
[43] As of March 1, 2012, the Russian Criminal Justice system housed about 60,500 women, 8.1% of the total number of people incarcerated in the country.
[44] For instance, if a woman is pregnant or has a child under fourteen years old, her sentence has the potential to be postponed, reduced, or cancelled.
Additionally, women in prison with their children are entitled to “improved living conditions, specialised medical services, and more rations and clothing”.
First, women prisoners were imprisoned alongside men in the "general population," where they were subject to sexual attacks and daily forms of degradation.
A 2016 study revealed that shackles create unique safety risks, notably "potential injury or placental abruption caused by falls, delayed progress of labor caused by impaired mobility, and delayed receipts of emergency care when corrections officers must remove shackles to allow for assessment of intervention".
In the podcast Beyond Prison, Maya Schenwar, an American journalist and author, shared the experience of her sister who gave birth while incarcerated.
When the date arrived, despite the fact that she repeatedly asked not to be forced into labor, the guards took her to the hospital where her pregnancy was forcibly induced against her will.
She gave birth alone, surrounded only by the medical staff and a prison guard standing in the room the entire time, looking at her while she was in labor.
This experience, Schenwar explains, is not unique, and she has heard many similar stories over the years she spent studying the conditions of incarcerated women.
[citation needed] In England and Wales, a report showed that female prisoners are being coerced into sex with staff members in return for various favours, such as alcohol and cigarettes.
[59] She alleges she was sexually assaulted by a trans woman prisoner, in possession of a Gender Recognition Certificate, in August 2017 in HMP Bronzefield.
The claimant is supported by the campaigning group Keep Prisons Single Sex, which alleges that the trans woman had been convicted of rape as a man.
In the U.S., compared with male prisoners, women offenders have been more likely to report instances of childhood trauma, abuse, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, interpersonal violence, adolescent conduct disorder, homelessness, as well as chronic physical and mental health problems, and because of such problems, women are more likely to commit criminal activity or have severity to addiction.
Due to this growing demand that gained speed in the 1980s, research in crimes committed by women has surged[39] The number of children with mothers in prison has doubled during the 17 years from 1990 to 2007, according to a 2007 report run by the Bureau of Justice Statistic (BJS).
