Rainey's Blog: Criminal Justice - Incarcerated Women

The Equal Justice Initiative makes claims that today’s mass incarceration population has ties or connections to slavery and historical white supremacy. After thorough research over the last week or so, I have found information and studies that support the claim. The EJI’s claim and the records show that african americans are incarcerated more than whites are. After researching the overall effects of this I found that this is present not only in men but in women too. Today’s mass incarceration most definitely involves racial disparity in women in state and federal prisons and does not seem to end because of the continuous cycle it follows involving their history,sentencing and the society of incarcerated women they’ve formed. (EJI)

The United States is the the country with the largest amount of incarceration. From the years 1980 to 2015 the amount of people that were incarcerated made a jump from 500,000 to 2.2 million people. We as a country have 21% of the world’s prisoners. The U.S criminal justice system for decades has had a huge racial inequality In 2014 african americans made up about 34% of the population in the correctional system. African Americans in the nations become imprisoned 5 times more than whites are, it has become normal and partially accepted. But in the last 15 years the racial differences in the system has been declining, from the years 2000-2015 black mens’ incarceration rate decreased by 24% and the whites’ increased. The rate of imprisonment for african american women is twice the rate of white women. But also for women from 2000-2015 the rate black women dropped around 50%, but the white womens’ went up 53%. The ratio of black and white women was 6 to 1, now it is 2 to 1. These racial trends and differences are not just seen in the federal prisons but also the local jails too.

(The Washington Post) (NAACP)

This pattern is continuous and goes into children too. African american children are 34% of the minors that are arrested, 42% of the ones who are detained and 52% of the minors whose cases are sent to criminal court. (NAACP)

As I began looking into women incarceration and its racial disparities, I found more than I thought I would. Right now there are 111,000 women in prison and that amount of women has been increasing with a rate that is 50% higher than the mens rate. (since 1980) There has been larger amount of interaction of women and the correction or criminal justice system. Today there is 1.2 million women involved with the criminal justice system. From this increase the was the birth of additional law enforcement, more strict of sentencing for drugs and laws of post conviction that are directly at women. The prison populations for womens 8 times what it was in 1980. The in these state prisons over half have a child under 18 years old. In each of these women there is either sexual abuse history, high rates of HIV or substance abuse. (The Sentencing Project)

The women also have a trend with their offenses. In state prisons they are most likely brought in for drug or property offenses. The other main offense would be killing their husband or lover. Of the incarcerated women 25% were for drug offenses and 27% were for property offenses. (The Sentencing Project)

I sadly found out through my research that the pattern of unfair racial incarceration is also in young girls. 15% of the incarcerated youth in this country are girls. In 2001 the amount of girls in correctional arrangements was 15,104, by the year 2015 this number went down by half. African American girls are more likely to be arrested and convicted than white. Just the imprisonment rate for all girls (12-17) is 47 per 100,000,for black girls the rate is 110 per 100,000 and white girls it is 32 per 100,000. This makes the african american girls 3.5 times more likely to become incarcerated than white girls. (The Sentencing Project)

This cycle is continuous because the adults that are being incarcerated is a parent to a kid. That kid is going to live the same life because most of them do not know any better and then they are put through the system too. 1 in 10 black children have a parent that is incarcerated where as the for white kids it is 1-60. (The Washington Post)

The Equal Justice Initiative is right in their claims about the U.S.’s mass incarceration and its racial inequality, but what I found tells me that it not only has a connection to the past of the african american injustice but future or maybe end of it.

African American women prsoners - the marshall project

rise in women incarceration - the sentencing project

from the years 1980-2016 the amount of women incarcerated at least 700% and went from 26,378 (1980) to 213,722 (2016)

female inpriosnment rate - the sentencing project

from the years 2000-2016 the imprisonment rate at the state and federal prison levels decreased by 53% for black women and increased 44% for white women