NCJ Number
105283
Journal
Journal of the National Prison Project Issue: 11 Dated: (Spring 1987) Pages: 1-5
Date Published
1987
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The imprisonment of women should be reduced, because it is a waste of human and fiscal resources.
Abstract
The rate of imprisonment of women is increasing, despite the lack of an increase in female criminality. However, the growing problem of jail and prison overcrowding has prompted policymakers to reassess their penal policies and to consider who should be imprisoned. The available data show that women pose little or no public safety risk whether they are diverted from imprisonment or released from confinement after serving a penal sentence. In addition, female prisoners have often been abused and have committed their crimes against their abusers. Awareness of these findings has helped generate an emerging consensus supporting the use of alternatives to incarceration for the large proportion of offenders who are not a risk to community safety. Despite this consensus and the lack of clear objectives for incarceration policies, women are routinely and inappropriately imprisoned. Challenges to the incarceration of women are growing, but they are unlikely to succeed unless (1) money is made available for relevant community programming and (2) policymakers make reducing female incarceration a constant concern. However, the issue of women's imprisonment may be the most appropriate one on which to focus challenges to the principle of incarceration. 18 footnotes.