The percentage of women in prison, have increased over the years. Trusts such as the Prison Reform Trust, have a strong belief that prison should be used as a last resort. This dissertation will look to examine the main reasons behind the increase of female offenders in prison. It will also look to argue that in most cases, alternative sentences should be considered, rather than enforcing the custodial sentence.
In March 2007, The Corston review, was publishes by Baroness Corston, regarding a review of women with vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system. The Corston review recommended that the custodial sentence should been forced to women, whose crimes are serious, and to those who are unable to serve their sentence in the community. In addition, the time women spend in prison has led to increased expenses for the public and government.
The research of this dissertation will be based on the question, what are the alternatives to the custodial sentence, for women offenders? The question will then go on to examine main reasons to why women offend, and why the number of women in prison has increased over the last decade. The research conducted, will seek to congregate a variety of discussions to find out if alternative sentences could be more appropriate for women. In addition to discussing alternative sentences, a review on the different types of women prisons that are operating, will also be briefly discussed.
In addition, the opinions of media groups, politicians
Both France and England sent colonists to the Americas to profit their homeland, but when France and England colonies fought against each other in the seven years' war most of the native Americans chose to ally with France. But what made the French so popular with the natives? There was a huge difference in how the French colonists treated the natives and how the English treated the natives. The French were nonintrusive and friendly, while the British were more violent.
women has increased significantly, increasing at a rate double to the rate of male incarceration since 1980 (Covington & Bloom, 2006). Braithwaite, Treadwell and Arriola note that incarcerated women have historically been a forgotten population, and despite the rapid growth of the population, their needs have continued to be ignored (2005). In addition to the stigma that comes with being or having been incarcerated,
The prison world is predominately male dominated. As the years go by, female incarceration levels have been rapidly increasing. The prisons in early days didn’t have to worry about dealing with two different types of inmates as there were not that many females incarcerated. While male and female inmates do have some similarities, they also have some distinct differences. The way they conduct themselves in prison are different; as are they way they interact with other inmates. Males typically are in prison for more violent crimes than women, making the maximum security prisons mainly male. Throughout this paper, these differences and a few similarities are discussed.
The reason is that females were considered to be good candidates for rehabilitation. The suggestion is that female offenders were viewed as less dangerous than male offenders. Overtime, gender has led to women being protected and punished. The earlier notion of women-centeredness of women’s prisons no longer exists. There is more emphasis on a criminal being a criminal. At the same time, males still suffer harsher penalties compared to females within the criminal justice system.
Incarceration has been a pending issue amongst western civilization’s history for some time and today continues to raise a wide range of important questions. Incarceration of individuals have become a tremendous tax payer concern along with the incarceration of the drug war, convictions of street gangs, and the rest of the individuals who have broken the law and harmed other innocent individuals. However, the question is always a concern of men incarceration and hardly addressed of women being incarcerated. Not to say that what men can do women can do better, but studies have shown a drastic increase in women becoming incarcerated throughout a range of years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures research on Children Of Incarcerated Parents by Steve Christian, a study by national survey had reported in August 2008, that during that time, the number of children with a mother in prison increased by 131 percent, from 63,900 to 147,400 (Christian, 2009). Society has always drawn its focus on convicts constantly trying to pin a wrong on an individual’s plate of life, but has never become curious to ask why an individual has become incarcerated and whom it has affected. The drastic increase of women becoming incarcerated have come from numerous of backgrounds in which their choices have led to affect their children as well as their children’s development and in addition affected their own development.
Women viewed as "feminine" by the court were sent to reformatories, while women viewed as "masculine" were subject to penal institutions alongside male prisoners. To be exact, the odds of incarceration for female defendants were approximately 42% lower than the odds of incarceration for male defendants (Demuth & Doerner, 2014, pg.4). Another study even found that female defendants were sentenced less harshly than male defendants, and on average 14% less likely to be incarcerated and received prison sentences about 7 months shorter (Demuth & Doerner, 2014, pg.4). These statistics prove that female defendants are viewed differently in our court system and thereby receive more lenient sentences. This can be due to the fact that women are looked at as feminine, caregiving creatures, while men are supposed to be the dominant "manly"
The number of women in the prison system is a becoming an upward trend. In the early 1980’s there was massive increase in incarceration rate for women and researcher are wondering what caused this upward trend who these females are and why they ending up in the prison system (Holsinger, pg 88). The criminal justice system is locking up the female inmates in the very harsh environment and they are being treated like the male inmates and the results are not looking too good. Why are we trying the same research we conducted for male inmates for the female inmates’ considering the difference in sex/gender? Is there a racial and ethnic difference in prison for males and females?
For countless years now, women have been struggling for equal rights in society. I chose to write my essay on the topic of women in prison because they need support but often overlooked by society. These women go through many obstacles like mental health, sexual harassment, and inequality. The number of females in prison is currently rising every day, in spite of the fact that men still the leading numbers in jail. Women are in prison due to different causes many are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes. Simply because they need to survive in a society that is very sexist and racist. It's hard to find a stable job that's why some females support their families by becoming a prostitute, steal or sell drugs. Once incarcerated, women not only have limited access to job coaching programs, education and several other services they are also sexually abused. Basically, inside prison females go through the same discrimination and abuse they go through outside.
There have been many changes in the treatment of offenders by the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales, particularly the treatment of female offenders. The handling of women within the criminal justice system has been closely tied to their social characteristics, and to what might be described as their ‘social construction’. On the other hand, women who compromise more than half of the world’s population, account for only 15% of criminal activity and as a consequence, relatively little attention has been given to them. This essay will explore how this has changed from a historical point of view to modern times, with exploration from cross-culture comparisons and an overview of the treatments of females in prisons.
There have been many studies conducted that examine ways in which the juvenile justice system responds to female offenders. Historically juvenile female offenders have been treated under status offense jurisdiction (Zahn et al., 2010, p. 10). United States Courts would exercise the principle of “parens patriae” to place the female in detention as a form of punishment for misbehavior (Sherman, 2012, pp. 1589-1590). This principle also remains prevalent as it pertains to how the juvenile justice system currently responds to juvenile female offenders.
When one thinks of the juvenile corrections system, they tend to gender this institution, focusing mainly on young boys. Due to this, one often neglects the thought there are also young girls that are in the system. This may be due to the fact that when compared to young boys within the juvenile corrections system, in previous years the girls consisted of a small portion within in this space. However, according to recent studies, girls in the juvenile system has been rapidly increasing over the last 20 years (Levintova, 2015). This is an issue which needs to be acknowledge due to the fact that young women are caught in this system for starkly contrasting reasons when compared to young males. These reasonings are described in the book Girls in Trouble with the Law by Laurie Schaffner which we will further explore.
The number of women incarcerated is growing at a rapid pace. This calls for a reevaluation of our correction institutions to deal with women’s involvement in crime. Increasing numbers of arrests for property crime and public order offenses are outpacing that of men. The “War on Drugs” has a big influence on why our prisons have become overcrowded in the last 25 years. Women are impacted more than ever because they are being convicted equally for drug and other offenses. Female criminal behavior has always been identified as minor compared to Male’s criminal behavior. Over the years women have made up only small part of the offender populations. There is still only a small
Statistics show that the number of female offenders in the legal system has been increasing steadily. The number of female offenders entering the American justice system is growing at a rate faster than males. Statistics from the United States in 2010 show the female offender population to be increasing by 2.7% each year, compared to the male population at a rate of 1.8% each year, with similar statistics being seen in other Western countries (West & Sabol, 2010). The continued increase has made understanding female offenders and their catalysts for committing crime more imperative.
Approximately 40% of criminal convictions in the year 2000 related to incarceration of women were on the basis of illegal drugs relation and 34% were for other non-violent crimes such as burglary, larceny, and fraud. 18% of women in prison have been convicted because of violent conduct, and 7% for public order offenses such as drunk driving, liquor law violations and vagrancy.
Female Criminality consists of several outdated statistics regarding the rise of female offending. However, in viewing the current research on the subject, it appears that the overall theme of this dissertation's discussion is still relevant despite changes in the accompanying statistics as seen in viewing the following topics: the rise in female offending; the continual rise that females are committing more crimes than men; and the types of crimes that women are committing. In viewing Bruce Gross's 2009 article, "Battle of the Sexes: The Nature of Female Delinquency," as well as Elizabeth Cauffman's 2008 article, "Understanding the Female Offender," one can begin to see where current statistics regarding the female criminal lie.