The number of women incarcerated in the US, particularly in local county jails, has increased 14-fold since 1970. That’s according to a new report by the Vera Institute of Justice and the Safety and Justice Challenge. One reason for this increase has to do with the “broken windows” theory of policing which places a swift focus on minor crimes; the majority of women incarcerated are there for low-level, nonviolent offenses:
Women tend to be arrested for minor transgressions as opposed to violent crimes—between 1960 and 2009, the proportion of women arrested grew from 11% to 26% of total arrests in the US.
Once arrested, women often end up being disadvantaged in negotiation due to the way low-level offenses are prosecuted, according to the report. Women tend to be peripheral, or even unknowing participants in certain crimes, particularly those involving drugs. They can simply be a passenger in a car involved in a crime, a messenger, or deliverer, but the law doesn’t really distinguish between minor and important accomplices.
And the less these peripheral actors know about their accomplices or the criminal activity, the less of a bargaining chip they have with prosecutors, and the worse deals they get. Paradoxically, the smaller their involvement in a crime, the more vulnerable they may end up being.
Also covered in the report: what kind of woman ends up in jail?
Women who end up in jail are usually not hardened criminals. Their transgressions are predominantly property crimes, such as shoplifting, drug offenses, and public order offenses. One in three are mentally ill—a rate double that of men in jail. According to one study from the Department of Justice, 86% of them have experienced sexual abuse. Nearly 80% are mothers, typically single parents.
More to the point,
Poor women are affected the most, according to the study. Approximately two-thirds of women in jail are of color: 44 percent are Black, 15 percent are Hispanic, and five percent are of other racial/ethnic backgrounds. Thirty-six percent of women in jail identify as White.
Generally speaking, “women enter the system poorer than men, and part of their inability to avoid jail by posting cash bail, for instance, stems from systemic economic inequality, the report argues.”
The report, including a fact sheet, is available here.