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April 3, 2023
Sentencing Project releases new fact sheet on "Incarcerated Women and Girls"
The Sentencing Project this morning released this new six-page fact sheet titled simply "Incarcerated Women and Girls." The document is full of data and graphics highlighting aspects of the reality that "the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980." I recommend the full document, and here is some of its text:
Between 1980 and 2021, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 525%, rising from a total of 26,326 in 1980 to 168,449 in 2021. While 2020 saw a substantial downsizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend reversed with a 10% increase in 2021.
Though many more men are in prison than women, the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980. There are approximately 976,000 women under the supervision of the criminal justice system....
In 2021, the imprisonment rate for Black women (62 per 100,000) was 1.6 times the rate of imprisonment for white women (38 per 100,000). Latinx women were imprisoned at 1.3 times the rate of white women (49 vs. 38 per 100,000).... Between 2000 and 2021, the rate of imprisonment in state and federal prisons declined by 70% for Black women, while the rate of imprisonment for white women rose by 12%....
The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, 47 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2021. The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Idaho (127) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of women is Massachusetts (6).
Women in state prisons are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug or property offense. Twenty-five percent of women in prison have been convicted of a drug offense, compared to 12% of men in prison; 19% of incarcerated women have been convicted of a property crime, compared to 13% among incarcerated men. The proportion of imprisoned women convicted of a drug offense has increased from 12% in 1986 to 25% in 2020.
April 3, 2023 at 12:50 PM | Permalink
Comments
I support the work of the Sentencing Project and enjoy reading its annual report on incarcerated women and girls. The racial disparities amongst incarcerated women have declined, but more work must be done to reduce the number of female juveniles being locked up.
Posted by: Anon | Apr 3, 2023 5:17:47 PM
