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A Look at the Rising Incarceration Rate of Women

Prison Policy Initiative Nov 17, 2020
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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A Look at the Rising Incarceration Rate of Women Giving Compass
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Giving Compass' Take:

• Here, the Prison Policy Institute explores if drug enforcement plays a role in higher rates of female incarceration.

• How can policy reforms take women’s needs into account as the female inmates’ population continues to rise?

• Read why we need to help the women being released from jail. 


After skyrocketing for decades, overall incarceration rates have finally been on a slow decline since 2008. But a closer look at the data reveals a major exception: women. From 2009 to 2018, the number of women in city and county jails increased by 23% — a rise that effectively cancelled out more than 40% of the simultaneous 7.5% decrease in the men’s jail population. Meanwhile, reductions in state and federal prison populations have mostly affected men.

Women make up about 10% of people in jails and prisons. This means that patterns unique to women’s incarceration are easily obscured when we focus exclusively on the larger, overall incarcerated population. And when we overlook incarcerated women as a unique group, we also fail to address the additional challenges they face — including different health care needs and a greater likelihood of being a primary caretaker of young children — that make their growing numbers all the more alarming.

Since public health research shows that women are also affected in unique ways by the opioid crisis, we decided to see whether drug enforcement trends and substance abuse could be contributing to the rising number of women behind bars.

Over the past 35 years, total arrests have risen 25% for women, while decreasing 33% for men. The increase among women is largely driven by drugs: During that period, drug related arrests increased nearly 216% for women, compared to 48% for men.

Changes in policing in the 1990s contributed to this rise. The shift toward “broken windows” policing — or arresting people for minor offenses to supposedly prevent major crime — resulted in increased arrests for both men and women. But these policies particularly affected women, who are more likely to be involved in relatively minor drug crimes like simple possession than higher-level drug offenses.

More than a quarter of women in jail are held for drug crimes, which holds true for both convicted and unconvicted women. (Another 32 percent are held for property offenses, which are often linked to drug dependence and abuse.) In state prisons as well, the share of women incarcerated for drug and property crimes is greater than for their male counterparts.

Read the full article about the rising incarceration rate of women by Tiana Herring at the Prison Policy Initiative.

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If you are looking for more articles and resources for Women and Girls, take a look at these Giving Compass selections related to impact giving and Women and Girls.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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    What Asia is Doing to Empower Women in the Economy

    Giving Compass' Take: • Writing for Eco-Business, Zafirah Zein describes efforts in parts of Asia designed to better serve women in business leadership. • Are these efforts doing enough to support women in the workplace? How can you work to ensure greater financial support for gender inclusion?  • Read more about increasing gender equality in different economies. Today, as more companies seek to limit harm against women and generate social and environmental impact, gender lens investing (GLI), has become one of the most rapidly growing segments of impact or sustainable investing. In a 2015 impact investor survey by J.P. Morgan, an investment bank, about one-third of the survey’s participants explicitly targeted gender equality or women’s empowerment as a key theme for driving gender equality and increasing financial returns, while a study by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and advisory firm Intellecap revealed in 2018 that GLI is on the rise in Southeast Asia, where low financial inclusion is a major obstacle to women’s economic empowerment. GLI integrates gender-based factors into investment decisions, which translates to investing in women-owned or women-led businesses, enterprises that advance gender equity in the workplace and those that offer products and services that provide value for women. It also includes investment in businesses that help fight social issues that disproportionately affect women and girls, such as access to education, sexual harassment and violence. “It’s very well known that not a lot of capital goes to female-led ventures, and there is a population out there that is underserved because of that,” said Amra Naidoo, co-founder of Singapore-based venture capital fund and startup accelerator Accelerating Asia (AA). In her company, Naidoo is introducing a Gender Advisory Group in a bid to advance gender equality in the start-up ecosystem in Asia. Besides focusing on a gender lens approach to investing, Naidoo hopes that the group can create a platform for mentoring and women’s leadership, as well as precipitate a safe ecosystem for women in the start-up space. Read the full article about empowering women in Asia by Zafirah Zein at Eco-Business.


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