Prison Abolition Movement - Women and Prison

Women and Prison

According to The Sentencing Project, as of 2007, the number of women incarcerated in prisons has more than doubled the rate of their male counterparts since 1985 Many prison abolitionist view women's entry and exit from prison as a reflection of women's status in the general populations’ society, This view is further highlighted with statistics offered by The Sentencing Project on women's incarceration. As of 2007, the most statistically significant results discussed by The Sentencing Project include:

• 59 % of women who are incarcerated in prison were convicted of a property or drug crime, while only 40% of men incarcerated in prison were convicted a property or drug crime.
• 35 % of women incarcerated in prisons were convicted of violent offenses, while 53% of men were convicted
• Women are twice as likely as men to victimize someone they know.
• Between the years 1986 and 1996 drug offenses counted for 49% of the women in prisons.
• While the rate women used drugs declined in the years from 1986 to 1996 the number of women in prison for drug offenses increased by 888%, while the other non-drug offenses only rose 129% during the same time period.
• 33% of women, in 1998, stated they committed the crime they were in jail for in order to obtain money to buy drugs.
• 40% of women in prison for the year of 1998 reported using drugs at the time they were put in prison, while only 32% of men claimed this.
• In the year 2005, 73.1% of women in prison had a mental health problem, 55% of their male counterparts had a mental health problem.
• 57% of women who were in prison claimed to have experienced physical abuse or sexual abuse prior to their incarceration.
• 68% of prison physicians stated that women prisoners in their prison had access to elective abortions.

The above list is just a fraction of the gender disparities, noted in anti-prison literature, seen between male and female inmates who are in prison. Some of the disparities are attributed to the high percentage of males in charge of the justice and correctional systems and sexism. As seen in the statistics presented above sexism is an argument many prison abolitionist take on as a reason to abolish prisons. Prisons for women, according to the statistics and prison abolition movement, are sexist and therefore inherently violate their rights to due process. This argument is seen often in the claims for women who are in prison for killing an abusive partner The disparities seen in mental health and drug convictions also follow this trend and are also important arguments used by the prison abolition movement.