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Female offenders in prison
Female offenders in prison
Gender disparities in todays prisons
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As sad as it is, it seems that race plays a role in whether or not an inmate receives mental health and treatment. Ac¬cording to 2006 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “62 percent of white inmates, 55 percent of black inmates, and 46 percent of Hispanic in¬mates had suffered a mental health problem in the past.” “ Some have argued that behavior that actually reflects severe mental illness in minorities, particularly African Americans, are often ignored and considered to be criminal behavior rather than mental illness (Kutchins & Kirk, 1997:225), Consequently, “because African American behavior tends to be interpreted as criminal rather than of mental illness (Kutchins & Kirk, 1997; Thomas et al., 1999), there is likely to be less access to mental health treatment for African Americans, both in the community and within the criminal justice system.” (Thompson) It has been noted that “African Americans are less likely to receive psychiatric medication or counsel¬ing in prison compared to any other race.”
The years beginning just after the Civil War and continuing through the first decade of the twentieth century witnessed a marked change in the social role of white, middle- class American women. This change was characterized by a movement away from a relatively restricted and clearly defined role, toward a much more ambiguous role associated with an expanded sphere of activity. A review of the relevant literature, including both primary and secondary sources, indicates that evidence of women's role change over this period may be grouped into the following general categories: higher education for women; organizational activities of women, including women's clubs, settlement work, and the suffrage movement; women's advancement in the professions;
The shift is attributed to the unexpected clinical needs of this new outpatient population, the inability of community mental health centers to meet these needs, and the changes in mental health laws (Pollack & Feldman, 2003). Thousands of mentally ill people flowing in and out of the nation 's jails and prisons. In many cases, it has placed the mentally ill right back where they started locked up in facilities, but these jail and prison facilities are ill-equipped to properly treat and help them. In 2006 the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that there were; 705,600 mentally ill inmates in state prisons, 78,000 in federal prisons, and
African American women make up eight percent of the United States population, the women in this minority group deal with negative and positive stereotypes on a daily basis. These stereotypes are apparent within mainstream media. With today’s children having more access to media. now more than ever, they are subjected to these stereotypes at a young age (Adams-Bass, Bentley-Edwards, & Stevenson, 2014, n.p.). When blacks have more Afrocentric features like thick lips, bigger noses, or a darker skin tone, they are more likely to have a negative stereotype towards them (Conrad, Dixon, & Zhang, 2009, n.p.).
Did you know that there are roughly 165,824,620 women currently alive in the United States as of this year, women make up about 50.6% of the population? But did you also know that there are 219,000 women locked up in our current Criminal Justice System? Where nationally, we lock up 8 times the amount of woman than we do men. That’s a lot of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts locked up. Many of these woman that are currently incarcerated have at some point in their lives experienced some sort of mental, physical, and sexual abuse.
Like all form of disparities, mental health disparities is a serious challenge for minorities’ communities across America. Individuals with mental health illness how do not receive adequate health care due to variations can be affected in many ways. When their mental illness progress without any diagnosis they can easily be perceived as a threat to society. In cases where crimes are committed, and they cannot prove they are mentally challenged they can be charge and send to prison without being diagnosed which could affect their condition due to the lack of treatment. Without eradicating or implementing policies to deal with mental health disparities the probability of legally or morally assuming that people with mental health challenges are
There are many explanations for someones success and there are also reason for unsuccessfulness. Some of the reasons for success may be due to family legacies and long time goals flourishing. In other cases success may not come to some people, for reasons such as lack of motivation or situations outside of their control. The focus topic of this paper is the influential forces, which motivate young African American men to succeed in life in the Atlanta, GA area.
Conversations about criminal justice reform have to include the issue of incarcerating the mentally ill if the United States is serious about reducing mass incarceration and recidivism.
History helps us learn who we are, but when we don’t know our history, our power and dreams are immediately diminished. In regards to the previous month of February and the present, March, a special celebration of the impact African American women have had on American history is very important. African American women and their accomplishments and bravery are often overlooked in mainstream history. In the months of March and especially February, Black women are often times left out of the conversation of innovation and history. During the civil rights movement many important leaders such as Dr. King and current congressman John Lewis were recognized, but not the women who actually started the bus boycotts in Montgomery and organizations located in the historical West End neighborhood that focused on denouncing the negative African American stigmas in society.
Women are known as the forgotten offender. Within the educational and vocational programs there is definitely a lack between male programs and programs for female offenders. Women typically have traditional educational and vocational programs such as classes on home economics and parenting classes versus men who have programs that lead to skills that can be related to jobs. Another forgotten thing is mini correctional facilities policies do not understand the importance of the bond between mother and child. For this there is a fear that most women who give birth in jail believe that the long separation period the mother and the child may not be able to reconnect with each other.
Society has always forced women and men into gender roles that dictate what types of behaviors are acceptable, desirable, and appropriate for them despite their actual or perceived sex. Gender is a socially constructed form of identity but it is also racially constructed as well. Gender can be displayed through intersectional perspectives, you can discover many ways to display gender specifically in the culture of African Americans and how they differ from the dominate white culture. I am a Haitian American female and I found that through the pictures I captured of my friends, family members and I were of us inexplicably participating in gender and displaying femininity.
Many millions of European immigrants could become citizens, and they could vote and enjoy the other guarantees of citizenship. These guarantees included security in the ownership and transfer of property, if they were fortunate enough to have any. Native Americans and, after Emancipation following the Civil War, African Americans were hardly ever secure in their citizenship. All of these non-white people might suffer severe discrimination in earning a livelihood, even a poorly paid
Women of color are the most targeted, prosecuted, and imprisoned women in the country and rapidly increasing their population within the prison systems. According to Nicholas Freudenberg, 11 out of every 1000 women will end up incarcerated in their lifetime, the average age being 35, while only five of them are white, 15 are Latinas, and 36 are black. These two groups alone make up 70 percent of women in prison, an astonishing rate compared to the low percentage comprise of within the entire female population in the country (1895). Most of their offenses are non-violent, but drug related, and often these women come from oppressive and violent backgrounds, where many of their struggles occurred directly within the home and from their own family.
In most of the reading up till now, in our course on African Literature, we have read poems, novels and stories written by men. For example, the Sub-Saharan Africa’s Literary History in a Nutshell, by A.S. Gerad only mentions scholarly articles, novels and stories by men. Which leads one to believe, that according to A.S Gerad only male authors have cultivated African Literature. This belief exemplifies the dominance of men in African Society.
There are many indicators of the huge impact in disparities in sentencing women as compared to men and more so when it revolves around minorities ( race and class). Though there are lower crime rates among women as compared to men, there are significant disparities which tend to show favouritism to women. Research has shown that men get 63 per cent longer custodial sentences than women. In addition, it is twice more likely to have women get non custodial sentences even after conviction. However, as mentioned the disparities are more profound when issues of race and class are intertwined in the sentencing.