From Inquest:
Statistics illustrating the rise and institutionalization of mass incarceration in the United States are startling. One particular subset of this data has caught the attention of many: the number of women who were incarcerated increased dramatically between 1980 and 2022, and at double the rate of men.
As Michelle Alexander and others have demonstrated, incarceration rates do not accurately reflect behavioral differences between demographic groups; rather, they reveal patterns in the discretionary decisions of those empowered to enforce criminal law. Still, many reform-minded people have been moved by this data to formulate ways that governments can punish women differently than men. In other words, they have called to make punishment practices “gender responsive,” positing that traditional punishment practices were “designed for men” and should be changed to attend to the purportedly “unique needs” of women.
As a result of gender-responsive punishment practices, people identified as women by the system may spend less time incarcerated or even avoid incarceration altogether, while people who are identically situated but of a different gender will not. We see such practices at work in recidivism risk assessment instruments, used across jurisdictions to guide determinations about the length and location of a person’s sentence. For example, the Federal Bureau of Prisons uses separate “male” and “female” risk assessment instruments to determine a person’s eligibility for early release under the First Step Act. Meanwhile, the Hawaii legislature recently authorized a three-year pilot program for Women’s Court, a specialized authorized a three-year pilot program for Women’s Court, a specialized criminal court that allows some women to complete treatment and programming instead of being incarcerated. In other jurisdictions, women who are not diverted from incarceration may be detained in special women’s facilities, often featuring cottage-style housing on campuses modeled after higher education institutions and offering increased visits with family, access to outdoor and communal spaces, and programs and services not regularly available elsewhere. Continue reading >>>
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