Women In Prison

Women have been seen as less powerful and given less status in society that has traveled with them into prisons. Due to a low number of women in prisons; they have acquired the characteristic of being “less worthy.” Women have been placed in correctional systems that are designed for men, which has developed their needs as less valued. The war on drugs is dramatically increasing incarceration rates, which has allowed women to become more important and prominent. Before the “get-tough” movement, women were generally averted from prison, receiving probation or other alternatives. They were also given shorter sentences than males, which I find to be extremely interesting. I had always thought that everyone received the same time period of a sentence no matter what the gender. I was shocked after reading that prison staff would rather work in male prisons than female prisons because women were “too mouthy.” Are the women “mouthy” in the sense of complaining or are they talking back and being disrespectful? I did not know that in the past, women were housed with men in the same

These women eventually adapt to the environment of the prison and cope with the situation they are facing. The programs women have access to are male orientated and even use male pronouns that are less successful. Even though women have smaller numbers in prisons, are there recidivism rates higher than male recidivism rates because of the programs? Males and females have different hormones and their brains are different and respond to different things better than one another, so obviously the programs and treatment has to be different. The approach for women has to be different and prisons need to be gender orientated. “Furthermore, the policies and procedures and the specific ways in which women are treated in the prison would need to be reexamined and