CCJ launches new nonpartisan national panel titled "Women’s Justice Commission"

I received a press release early this morning informing me that the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) today was launching a new "initiative to document and raise awareness of the distinctive needs of women in the criminal justice system and build consensus for evidence-based reforms that enhance safety, health, and justice."  Here is more from the press release (with links from the original): 

The nonpartisan national panel, the Women’s Justice Commission, is chaired by Loretta Lynch, who championed women’s justice issues as U.S. Attorney General, and includes 15 other ideologically diverse leaders representing law enforcement, legislative offices, courts, corrections, medicine, research, advocacy, and directly impacted individuals. Oklahoma First Lady Sarah Stitt, a longtime advocate for breaking generational trauma among women due to substance abuse and mental health issues, is serving as Senior Adviser. The Commission is scheduled to hold its first formal meeting today in New York City, including a visit to Brooklyn program for justice-involved women....

In conjunction with today’s meeting, the Commission released two comprehensive reports — Women's Justice: A Preliminary Assessment of Women in the Criminal Justice System and Women’s Justice: By the Numbers — that paint a statistical portrait of justice-involved women and establish a foundation for the panel’s work.  Among other findings, the reports show that: 

• Females report that they make up a larger share of violent crime victims: 51% of all violent victimizations in 2022 compared to 41% of all victimizations in 1993, the start of the data series. (This figure is drawn from the National Crime Victimization Survey; it excludes homicides and includes simple assaults.) 

• Growth in arrest rates for women (41% higher in 2019 than in 1980) is due in part to a rise in arrest rates for violent crimes (317% higher in 2019 than 1980) and drug crimes (63% higher in 2019 than 1980). 

• The incarceration rate for women in U.S. prisons and jails increased dramatically (+431%) from 1982 through 2007, and then flattened as the number of incarcerated men began to fall.  Between 2010 and 2019, the year before the COVID pandemic jolted the criminal justice system, the female jail incarceration rate went up by 12%, while the male rate fell by 10%.  As overall incarcerated populations rebounded in 2021 and 2022 after COVID-related reductions, the increase of the female populations outpaced those of men. 

• More than half of the women in state and federal prisons are parents to minor children, and an estimated three of four women in local jails are mothers.  Prior to incarceration, mothers were more than twice as likely as fathers to be the sole or primary caretaker of their children. 

• Most justice-involved women come from backgrounds of poverty and trauma, and they are more likely than justice-involved men to be victims of physical and sexual abuse, suffer severe substance use and mental health issues, and to have experienced homelessness in the year prior to incarceration. 

The production and publication of these initial documents from the CCJ are already a terrific contribution, and I will eager to see what this august new commission produces in the months and years ahead.