Women, Crime, and Justice: Balancing the Scales Chapter 3: Women convicted of crime and their punishments Purpose of Chapter 3 • Explore the purposes of sanctions for men and women: • Differences in sentencing for women • Intersection of race and sexual orientation in criminal sentencing. • Historical overview of corrections for women offenders: • Current statistics of women who are incarcerated • Explore the life of incarcerated women, including those on death row. • Discuss gender-responsive programming needs for incarcerated women. • Women serving sentences in the community: • Conflicts experienced when trying to successfully reenter society. • Review legal issues specific to women: • Struggles to reunite with their children • Restorative justice practices. • Correctional programming for women. Women in Institutional Custody: 
 History of Corrections for Women Offenders • Prior to the mid-1800s, the use of prisons and jails in England and the United States for sentencing women was rare, but increased after the mid-1800s. • During this time period, women were severely neglected and frequently abused, both physically and sexually, and it was not uncommon for women to become pregnant while incarcerated. • 1825: Elizabeth Fry wrote about the plight of incarcerated women and inspired reform in the United States and England. • Reformatory movement. • Breakthroughs for incarcerated women in the United States: • 1828: A separate building for women is erected at the Sing Sing prison in New York. • 1873: The Indiana Women’s Prison is the first female-only institution. • Over the next 100 years, prisons opened for women develop into two distinct categories: • Reformatory: Held women, predominately Caucasian, who had committed public order offenses • Custodial: Held women, predominately African-American, who had committed felony violent and property crimes. Bureau of Justice: 
 Statistics on Incarcerated Women • There are currently over 2 million incarcerated in jails and prisons and approximately 1.6 million individuals incarcerated in state and federal prisons alone. • Both male and female offenders are more likely to be incarcerated between the ages of 25 and 34. • Males: A higher percentage of African-American and Hispanic-American inmates than Caucasian inmates • Females: A higher percentage of Hispanic-American and Caucasian inmates than African-American inmates. • Females in state prisons are more likely to be incarcerated for nonviolent offenses (e.g., property crimes or drug offenses). • In the federal system, males and females are more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses as well as weapons and immigration offenses. • Incarcerated persons have approximately 1.7 million minor children representing about 2.3% of the total US population. • 147,000 minor children belong to incarcerated mothers. • Since 1991, the number of children under age 18 with a mother in prison has more than doubled. .

1. Women, Crime, and Justice:
Balancing the Scales
Chapter 3: Women convicted of crime and their punishments
Purpose of Chapter 3
• Explore the purposes of sanctions for men and women:
• Differences in sentencing for women
• Intersection of race and sexual orientation in criminal
sentencing.
• Historical overview of corrections for women offenders:
• Current statistics of women who are incarcerated
• Explore the life of incarcerated women, including those on
death row.
• Discuss gender-responsive programming needs for
incarcerated women.
• Women serving sentences in the community:
• Conflicts experienced when trying to successfully reenter
society.
• Review legal issues specific to women:
• Struggles to reunite with their children
• Restorative justice practices.
• Correctional programming for women.

2. Women in Institutional Custody:
History of Corrections for Women Offenders
• Prior to the mid-1800s, the use of prisons and jails in England
and the United States for sentencing women was
rare, but increased after the mid-1800s.
• During this time period, women were severely neglected and
frequently abused, both physically and sexually,
and it was not uncommon for women to become pregnant while
incarcerated.
• 1825: Elizabeth Fry wrote about the plight of incarcerated
women and inspired reform in the United States and
England.
• Reformatory movement.
• Breakthroughs for incarcerated women in the United States:
• 1828: A separate building for women is erected at the Sing
Sing prison in New York.
• 1873: The Indiana Women’s Prison is the first female-only
institution.
• Over the next 100 years, prisons opened for women develop
into two distinct categories:
• Reformatory: Held women, predominately Caucasian, who had
committed public order offenses
• Custodial: Held women, predominately African-American,
who had committed felony violent and property
crimes.

3. Bureau of Justice:
Statistics on Incarcerated Women
• There are currently over 2 million incarcerated in jails and
prisons and approximately 1.6 million individuals
incarcerated in state and federal prisons alone.
• Both male and female offenders are more likely to be
incarcerated between the ages of 25 and 34.
• Males: A higher percentage of African-American and
Hispanic-American inmates than Caucasian inmates
• Females: A higher percentage of Hispanic-American and
Caucasian inmates than African-American inmates.
• Females in state prisons are more likely to be incarcerated for
nonviolent offenses (e.g., property crimes or
drug offenses).
• In the federal system, males and females are more likely to be
incarcerated for drug offenses as well as weapons
and immigration offenses.
• Incarcerated persons have approximately 1.7 million minor
children representing about 2.3% of the total US
population.
• 147,000 minor children belong to incarcerated mothers.
• Since 1991, the number of children under age 18 with a
mother in prison has more than doubled.
Women’s Prisons
• Since the 1970s, a greater emphasis has been placed on
housing offenders in prison rather than offering rehabilitation.

4. • Prisons today tend to operate under the custodial interrogation
model.
• Prisons for women follow the common classification of
minimum, medium, and maximum.
• Minimum and medium: Considered “campus” style where
inmates are housed in a traditional cellblock or
together in cottages, which house anywhere from 35 to 50
women.
• Maximum: Inmates are typically held and receive services all
within the same building.
• In prison, women must adjust to formal and informal culture.
• Failure to follow the inmate code could result in violence.
• Cliques are created based on sexual preferences, religious,
ethnicity, personal interests, and the offense the women are
incarcerated for.
• Unlike male gangs found in prison, female gangs tend to be
less violent, but if violence occurs, it is due to personal
issues with another inmate, not to exhibit an allegiance to their
gang.
• Female cliques formed in female correctional institutions have
been referred to as pseudo-families.
• Membership in a female clique is consensual, adopt rules such
as the mother figure or sister figure, provide
protection from other inmates, and can provide emotional
support.
Co-Correctional Facilities

5. • Co-correctional facilities refer to institutions that house
women and men together in one facility,
but do not mirror earlier co-correctional facilities in the
nineteenth century.
• The shift from sex-segregated prison to co-correctional
facilities began in 1971 when the first co-
correctional facility for federal inmates opened in Fort Worth.
• 2011: there were 46 adult state co-correctional facilities and 9
adult federal co-correctional
facilities in operation.
• Perceived benefits:
• - Potential solution to alleviate problems such as prison
overcrowding, provide more comprehensive
services to women prisoners, and viable solution to level the
playing field
• - Cost effective
• - Creation of co-correctional facilities was supported by
feminists.
• Research has been limited, but is currently not optimistic
about their success in assisting women
and not all co-correctional facilities are segregated.
Conditions Specific to
Imprisoned Women
• A small handful of women enter prison pregnant and
subsequently give birth while incarcerated.

6. • In 2004, an average of 7% of women who entered state and
federal prisons in that year were pregnant.
• Many states require that women be shackled while giving
birth, while others, such as California, have implemented bans
on this
practice.
• Bedford Hills, New York, and Washington State provide
opportunities for women inmates to experience humane
childbirth
and early motherhood.
• In many cases, incarcerated women are forced to give up their
babies immediately or within 48 hours and continue serving.
• Only 15 correctional facilities in the United States allow
incarcerated mothers to keep their child with them in prison for
up to two
years.
• Both male and female inmates bring a multitude of health
problems into the prison setting, requiring specific and
aggressive
treatment (e.g., HIV, STD’s, tuberculosis, and hepatitis):
• Inmates found to be HIV positive are not able to obtain access
to cutting-edge drugs to help them.
• While in prison, specialized health care and access to routine
yearly female health screenings is often limited.
Programming Needs of Women

7. • Gender-responsive programming refers to programming that
meets the specific needs of women.
• Adequate rehabilitation programming for women has often
fallen short.
• Counseling programs offered to women inmates were often
designed and tested only on male inmates.
• Women are more likely to suffer from depression and low self-
esteem, and are much more likely than men to have
suffered prior sexual abuse.
• Many incarcerated women have addiction as well as physical
and mental health problems.
• Estimates of the proportion of women in prison with mental
illness range from 19% to 60%.
• For women, suffering from drug and alcohol abuse often stems
from early childhood victimization.
• Failure to address substance abuse problems while women are
incarcerated, a more significant predictor compared
to their counterparts, has been linked to recidivism upon
release.
• Relatively few incarcerated women have access to specialized
programs designed to enhance their parenting skills and
bonds with their children.
• Job training: Programming in women’s prisons has been
gender stereotypic and focuses on what can be characterized as
predominately “women’s jobs.”
Transgender Inmates
• The US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) examines the case of each

8. transgender inmate entering their facilities and
decides where to assign the inmate.
• BOP also reassess placement of the transgender inmate bi-
annually to determine if the inmate has
experienced any safety issues as a result of their status.
• BOP requires that transgender inmates have separate shower
facilities, but not separate housing units.
• Inmates are assigned to prison based on their biological sex,
regardless of whether they were in the midst of a
sex change (i.e., they had begun hormone therapies).
• However, if the inmate had undergone a full sex change, then
the inmate is assigned to a prison based
on their new sex.
• Compared to non-transgender inmates, both male and female
transgender inmates were more likely to report
being sexually assaulted.
• Transgender inmates are rarely supported medically in regards
to sustaining their gender identity.
• The decision to grant the continuation of hormone therapy for
a transgender inmate is left up to the
Medical Director of the facility.
Women and the Death Penalty
• Historically, women are rarely sentenced to death for
committing a homicide and are also less likely than

9. men to be sentenced to death.
• According to the Bureau of Justice, out of 3,082 prisoners
sentenced to death in 2011, only 62 were
female.
• Apart from a gender bias, there are also racial disparities of
those women actually sentenced to death.
Currently, there are 40 Caucasians and 14 African-Americans
on death row.
• Female offenders who are sentenced to capital punishment are
more likely to have committed murders
intra-racially.
• Female offenders on death row are also more likely to murder
significant others such as family members
or close intimates compared to their male counterparts.
• - Some researchers have stated that the murdering of close
intimates by females is sometimes due to battered
women syndrome.
• Researchers have reported that approximately half of women
on death row committed the crime with
another person, typically a male, and the co-defendant received
a sentence other than death.
Community Corrections and Reentry
• Ex-offenders’ ability to reintegrate successfully is hindered by
numerous obstacles:
• Obtaining employment

10. • Acquiring housing
• Being admitted to higher education
• Obtaining treatment for mental health issues, and drug and
alcohol addiction
• Obtaining adequate health care and finding support for serious
social and medical problems.
• Securing housing is an especially stressful endeavor for
female ex-offenders due to the fact they are not only
trying to obtain housing for themselves, but also for their
children.
• Most subsidized housing programs do not allow children.
• Ex-offenders may find that the only place they can find
housing is in impoverished neighborhoods,
decreasing the opportunity to find employment.
• Status as a convicted drug offender often results in denial of
federally assisted housing, impacting
thousands of female ex-offenders.
• After long-term imprisonment, many ex-offenders find they
lack the skills to search for employment, do not have
pro-social contacts, and many employers are reluctant to hire
them.
Legal Issues and Reunification
• In 1996, a new welfare program was established by the federal
government:
• Ex-offenders with drug-related felony convictions are now
banned, for a lifetime, from receiving any

11. form of welfare benefits, including food stamps.
• This has greatly impacted female offenders, especially women
of color, since they are more likely to be
incarcerated for drug convictions.
• In 2002, it was reported the new law had impacted
approximately 92,000 women. Over time, the
number is expected to increase.
• When released from prison, females are often very motivated
to regain custody of their child(ren), but
legally regaining custody can be an uphill battle.
• The Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997.
• Upon release, mothers face a host of stressors in the role as a
parent:
• For example, being reunited with children they may have lost
custody of, fear of losing custody, concern
for the emotional welfare of their child, and finding housing for
the family.
Correctional Programming for
Women
• Altering the “in-prison experience” will assist women with
struggles faced while incarcerated and upon
reentry into society (Petersilia, 2003):
• The following few months post-release from prison is the
critical time period that ex-offenders are most
at risk for relapse and recidivism (Visher, Yahner, and La
Vigne, 2010).

12. • To lower rates of drug relapse and criminal recidivism,
therapeutic community programs need to be
offered within prison and in the community upon release.
• Reentry programs need to be designed with women
specifically in mind:
• Coming to terms with prior abuse (sexual, physical, and/or
mental) is critical both within prison and the
community for all races and ethnicities.
• Restorative justice:
• Victim–offender mediation or reconciliation programming.
• One-size-fits-all approach to reforming ex-offenders is not
likely to provide the opportunity for all
offenders to succeed, but rather just a select few:
• Treatment programs must be sensitive to cultural, class, and
sex differences.
Summary
• Gender disparity is still an issue in sentencing today.
• Gender disparity in sentencing was first identified by scholars
in the 1970s.
• Considered to be more influential than other extra-legal
factors, such as race/ethnicity.
• Women are less likely to be sentenced to prison and are more
likely to receive shorter sentences
than men.
• Women who are incarcerated are often disproportionately
women of color.

13. • Both chivalry thesis and Focal Concerns Theory offer
perspectives on this subject.
• Female offenders face numerous challenges both in prison and
upon release.
• Rehabilitation programming must address the needs specific to
women.
• Mental and physical health of women who are in prison,
especially those pregnant, need to be taken
seriously.
• Laws that inhibit the ability of women to successfully
reintegrate into society need to be changed.