This blog is very dear to me, as I had a very close friend die in prison due to inadequate health care. I want to bring to light the conditions that women in prison are exposed to, as they are rarely talked about.
With 600,000+ teenaged girls and adult women in detention centers, jails, and prisons across America, this blog will shed light on some unbelievable situations and matters when it comes to incarcerated women. It’s a sad but true reality that women are the fastest growing portion of the prison population.
With the rise in meth and opiate use, more and more woman are being arrested and sent to prison. While the male prison population in America is comprised mostly of black and Hispanic men, the female prison population has a larger proportion of white women. Incarceration for women usually occurs due to drug addiction, prostitution, being victims of physical and sexual abuse, mental illness, and depression. The majority of women in jails and prisons throughout the United States are incarcerated due to drug use and non-violent crimes. Two-thirds of female offenders are mothers with minor children, thus resulting in more than three million children in America with a mother under some sort of correctional supervision. One of the most overlooked factors when examining the characteristics of women in prison is prior sexual victimization. In a California study, it was determined that close to 85% of all female inmates in that state’s correctional system admitted to being battered and abused in their lifetime. As a mentor who works with at-risk females, I have learned firsthand that delinquent behavior exhibited by teenaged girls is typically less habitual, and less serious than teenaged males of the same age. Teenaged women are more likely to run away, to be more sexually active, and more easily swayed into criminal behavior. Did you know that incarcerated women have it three times harder than incarcerated males? I say that because in a lot of state female prisons, inmates can only receive money on their accounts from people on their visitors’ lists. That’s sad, because most so-called boyfriends, partners, or husbands abandon female inmates after they become incarcerated.
Many female inmates are denied medical resources and treatment, especially during pregnancies, and when dealing with chronic degenerative diseases. Female inmates suffering from treatable diseases such as asthma, diabetics, sickle-cell anemia, cancer, late-term miscarriages, and seizures are often billed for medical attention on the logic that charging for health care services will deter female inmates from seeking medical attention. Sadly, the prison system knows most female inmates don’t have good financial support. Did you know that most pregnant female inmates are still shackled during child birth, which can cause serious, if not deadly harm, such as hemorrhaging or decreased fetal heart rate. If a C-section is needed, a delay of even five minutes may result in permanent brain damage to an innocent baby.
I hope these facts make you want to get involved in helping change the inadequate levels of care provided in women’s jails and prisons across America!
Advocate / Mentor
Leonard E. Love