New Research and Papers
Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973-2005: Implications for Women's Legal Status and Public Health
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (January 15, 2013). By Lynn M. Paltrow, NAPW Executive Director, and Jeanne Flavin, Professor of Sociology at Fordham University and NAPW Board President. This study makes clear that post-Roe anti-abortion and "pro-life" measures are being used to do more than limit access to abortion; they are providing the basis for arresting women, locking them up, and forcing them to submit to medical interventions, including surgery. The cases documented in our study, as well as recent cases, make clear that, 40 years after Roe v. Wade was decided, far more is at stake than abortion or women's reproductive rights. Pregnant women face attacks on virtually every right associated with constitutional personhood, including the very basic right to physical liberty. http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/conte...1/15/03616878-1966324.full.pdf+html
CASASARD: Intensive Case Management Program for Drug-Addicted Mothers
A new approach to helping drug-addicted women on welfare that treats substance abuse and addiction as a chronic disease promises better outcomes of sobriety and employment than current approaches that focus on employment first, according to new research from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. Researchers found that the case-management group had three times greater rates of treatment initiation, engagement and retention, were almost twice as likely to be abstinent at 12- and 24-month follow-ups, and were more than twice as likely to be employed full-time after two years. The study was published in the February 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. http://www.jointogether.org/resources/pdf/casasard-white-paper.pdf
Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policy on Women and Families
(2005). By the ACLU, Break the Chains: Communities of Color and the War on Drugs, the Brennan Center at NYU School of Law http://www.fairlaws4families.org
The Changing Racial Dynamics of Women’s Incarceration
Marc Mauer. The Sentencing Project. Feb 2013. The report analyzes data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and found that in the year 2000 African American women were incarcerated at six times the rate of white women, by 2009 that disparity had dropped by half, to less than three times the white rate.
Overall, during this period the black women’s rate of incarceration declined by 30.7%, while the rate for white women increased by 47.1% and for Latinas by 23.3%. These figures represent national trends, and are likely to vary considerably by state, depending on such factors as crime rates, sentencing policy, and socioeconomics. http://www.sentencingproject.org/do...ging%20Racial%20Dynamics%202013.pdf
Children of Incarcerated Parents
Barnard Center for Research on Women, Spring 2010. This important issue of the on-line journal addresses the ways in which incarceration unravels entire communities, the way it dismantles and fragments families, and, specifically, the ways in which it devastates the lives of children.
http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/children/
Children on the Outside: Voicing the Pain and Human Costs of Parental Incarceration
Justice Strategies Report. Patricia Allard and Judith Greene, Justice Strategies, January 2011. "Although the pain of losing a parent to prison is tantamount in many respects to losing a parent to death or divorce, the children who remain 'on the outside' appear to suffer a special stigma. Unlike children of the deceased or divorced who tend to benefit from society's familiarity with and acceptance of their loss, children of the incarcerated too often grow up and grieve under a cloud of low expectations and amidst a swirling set of assumptions that they will fail, that they will themselves resort to a life of crime or that they too will succumb to a life of drug addiction." Justice Strategies, a project of the Tides Center, Inc., is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization. Our mission is to provide high quality policy research to advocates and policymakers pursuing more humane and cost-effective approaches to criminal justice and immigration law enforcement.
http://www.justicestrategies.org/si...es/publications/JS-COIP-1-13-11.pdf
Dignity Denied: the Price of Imprisoning Older Women in California
Documents the conditions of confinement for the more than 350 women over the age of 55 in state prisons. Because of the "Three Strikes" law and a reluctance to grant parole, more Californians are growing older in prison than ever before. It is estimated that by 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) will incarcerate about 30,000 elders. Due to health-related expenses, the annual cost of imprisoning an older person, at a conservative estimate, is at least $70,000, twice that of a younger prisoner. The report questions the wisdom of committing such vast economic resources for the continued punishment of older
prisoners, the group with the lowest recidivism rate of any segment of the prison population. http://prisonerswithchildren.org/news/dignity.htm
From Prison to Home: The Effect of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities Incarceration. Reentry, and Social Capital: Social Networks in the Balance
By Dina R. Rose and Todd R. Clear, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/prison2home02/Rose.htm
From Protection to Punishment: Post-Conviction Barriers to Justice for Domestic Violence Survivor-Defendants in New York State
Report by the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and the Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York on the barriers to justice faced by domestic violence survivor-defendants (2011). http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/wo...Protection-to-Punishment-Report.pdf
Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood
By Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Black and Thalia Gonzalez. Center on Poverty and Inequality. Georgetown University. July 2017. The “adultification” of black girls. Why are black girls, by an astounding margin, more likely than white children to end up in the juvenile justice system? One reason suggested by a new study is that black girls, as young as 5, are perceived as older than they are, more knowing about subjects like sex, and less in need of protection from parents, guardians or law enforcement officials. http://www.law.georgetown.edu/acade...ity/upload/girlhood-interrupted.pdf
A Higher Hurdle: Barriers to Employment for Formerly Incarcerated Women
By Morris, Sumner and Borja. The Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. December 2008. The Henderson Center created resumes that were sent in pairs to Bay Area employers who had advertised job openings. For each job listing, one resume in the pair included a period of incarceration, the other did not. Key results included:
When resumes indicated a recent period of incarceration, applicants were 31% less likely to receive a positive response compared to women whose resumes did not indicate a recent period of incarceration. Resumes submitted by African American women received the fewest positive responses.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/A_Higher_Hurdle_December_2008.pdf
Annotated bibliography: The Henderson Center also completed an annotated bibliography, summarizing the findings of more than 50 research studies and other articles. The summaries provide an overview of the challenges faced by formerly incarcerated people as they struggle to reenter the workforce and their communities after being released. http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/December_2008_FIP_Annotated_Bibliography.pdf
Incarcerated Parents and Their Children: Trends, 1991-2007
"Incarcerated Parents and Their Children: Trends, 1991-2007" reviews data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and documents the growing impact of incarceration on children and families. As of 2007, 1.7 million children had a parent in prison, an 82% increase from the figure of 936,000 in 1991. The racial/ethnic variation among this group is quite broad: 1 in 15 African-American children has a parent in prison, as does 1 in 42 Latino children and 1 in 111 white children.
Due to the distance from home in which many parents are incarcerated - 62% of parents in state prisons are more than 100 miles from home - visits from children are declining over time. In 2004, more than half of parents in state prisons and nearly half in federal prisons had never had a visit from their children. The Sentencing Project. February 2009. http://www.sentencingproject.org/Ad...cations/inc_incarceratedparents.pdf
The Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Reentry: Challenges for African-American Women
By Geneva Brown (November 2010). Explores the unique and cumulative difficulties that African-American women face in the reentry process. The brief, published by the American Constitution Society, highlights the impact that the war on drugs and the mass incarceration of African-Americans have had on communities, particularly women of color.
http://www.acslaw.org/files/Brown%20issue%20brief%20-%20Intersectionality.pdf
Invisible Bars: Barriers to Women's Health and Well-Being During and After Incarceration
By Kim Carter, Time for Change Foundation. A new
study of women, health care, and other needs, in the CA
Institution for Women in San Bernardino and the needs
of women after they leave prison. The study was done by
women who have been incarcerated and who others who
advocate for women. http://www.timeforchange.us/news/9_12_06.pdf
Mothers Behind Bars: A state-by-state report card and analysis of federal policies on conditions of confinement for pregnant and parenting women and the effect on their children
National Women's Law Center and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights released the Mothers Behind Bars report, which explores the egregious practice of shackling women during childbirth and other important issues affecting pregnant and parenting women—the vast majority of whom are non-violent, first-time offenders. In the report, each state is graded on whether it has adequate policies—or any policies at all—on prenatal care, shackling, and family-based drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration. Twenty states and the District of Columbia receive overall failing grades. The report also identifies steps that the federal government could take to improve conditions of confinement for women in federal facilities, including prisons and immigration detention.
http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/mothersbehindbars2010.pdf
Mothers, Infants and Imprisonment
Women's Prison Association. "Mothers, Infants and Imprisonment" profiles existing and soon-to-open prison nursery programs in nine states: California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, New York, South Dakota, Washington, and West Virginia, and also looks at community-based residential parenting programs in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Vermont. In addition, residential parenting programs operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and West Virginia are discussed. Many women parenting their infants in prison nurseries could be doing so in the community instead, the report finds. The profile of women in prison nurseries is nearly identical to that of participants in community-based programs. Women in both types of programs are serving relatively short sentences for non-violent offenses, and will continue primary caretaking responsibility for their child(ren) upon release. Further, most women in prison nursery programs present little risk to public safety. Women's Prison Association (May 2009) http://www.wpaonline.org/pdf/Mothers%20Infants%20and%20Imprisonment%202009.pdf
A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project: A Case Study
Prepared by: Jorja Leap, Stephanie Benson, Callie Davidson, Karrah Lompa. (December 2016)
Through in-depth interviews with current ANWOL residents, this case study presents six themes that emerged typifying the women’s experiences prior to entering ANWOL and providing context for their pathway to and recovery from incarceration. These themes include parentification, exposure to substance use within nuclear and extended family, trauma (child sexual abuse, inter-personal violence, childhood exposure to domestic violence), poverty, homelessness and gang-involvement. An additional five themes were identified that exemplified the principles and programmatic components at ANWOL that resonated most strongly with women, contributing to its success as a stand-alone re-entry program. These themes include reaching out for acceptance into the program, the autonomy and freedom afforded participants throughout the program, housing, inspirational leadership and mentorship, and community-based treatment and opportunities to participate in community events. http://www.calendow.org/wp-content/...-Life-Case-Study-Long-Beach-BHC.pdf
Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform
By Elizabeth Swavola, Kristine Riley, and Ram Subramania. Vera Institute for Justice. (August 2016) Women in jail are the fastest growing correctional population in the country—increasing 14-fold between 1970 and 2014. The vast majority (82 percent) of women are in jail for nonviolent offenses. Women often become involved with the justice system as a result of efforts to cope with life challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and significant physical or behavioral health struggles, including those related to past histories of trauma, mental illness, or substance use. https://storage.googleapis.com/vera...ooked-women-in-jails-report-web.pdf
Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children?
By David Murphey and Mae Cooper. October 2015. Child Trends. Children do not often figure in discussions of incarceration, but new research finds more than five million U.S. children have had at least one parent in prison at one time or another—about three times higher than earlier estimates that included only children with a parent currently incarcerated. This report uses the National Survey of Children’s Health to examine both the prevalence of parental incarceration and child outcomes associated with it. http://www.childtrends.org/wp-conte...015/10/2015-42ParentsBehindBars.pdf
People, Places, and Things: The Social Process of Reentry for Female Ex-Offenders
By Andrea M. Leverentz. August 2006. Source:
National Institute of Justice. This study examined the
social lives of female with felony convictions to
determine the features of their relationships after
their release from prison.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/215178.pdf
Policing Families: The Many-Headed Hydra of Surveillance
Mechthild Nagel, American Philosophical Association: Feminism and Philosophy. Volume 17 Number 2.
Abstract: Criminal justice research focuses almost exclusively on the role of police officers and argues that although they do not intend to, police do end up in roles and processes that often result in criminalizing certain communities. There is very little attention given to the surveillance role of Child Protective Services.
Reducing the Incarceration of Women: Community-Based Alternatives
By Andrea Wolf. National Council on Crime and Delinquency. August 2006.
"BACKGROUND: Currently, there are over 10,000 women in
jail, 12,000 women in prison, and 12,000 women on
parole in California. NCCD's report, Reducing the
Incarceration of Women: Community-Based Alternatives,
spells out an effective strategy for reform for over
two-thirds of the women in prison in our state. Recent
research reveals that women could be much more
effectively rehabilitated in their home communities,
close to their children-the best known motivator for
change. Women in community programs that provide
comprehensive services and give them frequent contact
with their children in a healthy environment re-offend
at a rate of just 14 percent -- a sharp contrast with
the typical rate of 46 percent. Assembly Bill 1XX,
introduced by Assemblywoman Lieber, provides community-
based facilities for 4,500 women inmates." My
question is, if 87% of the 12,000 women who are in
prison in CA are there for non-violent convictions, why
is that this proposal wants 4,500 of them to be
incarcerated in secure "community-based"
facilities? http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/WIP_Special_Report_Final.pdf
Reproductive Injustice: The State of Reproductive Health Care for Women in New York State
By Tamar Kraft-Stolar. Women in Prison Project, Correctional Assoc. of NY. Feb. 2015 . Highlights of our key findings in “Reproductive Injustice” about reproductive health care in the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) are: 1) Women are routinely shackled during pregnancy and some still experience the horror of being shackled during childbirth, even though this practice was outlawed in NY in 2009. 2) Pregnant women face poor conditions of confinement, including insufficient food and damaging childbirth experiences.3) Many women receive substandard reproductive health care and face serious delays in accessing GYN services. 4) Women are routinely denied basic reproductive health items, including contraception and sufficient sanitary supplies. 5) Women in solitary confinement face egregious conditions, and pregnant women can be, and are, placed in solitary, a dangerous setting for them and their babies.
http://www.correctionalassociation....stice-FULL-REPORT-FINAL-2-11-15.pdf
Reproductive Rights in Theory and Practice: The Meaning of Roe v. Wade for Women in Prison
By Rachel Roth. January 20, 2006. Center for American Progress. In
1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, there were
about 14,000 women incarcerated in the United States; today, there are over 180,000.
If the ultimate legacy of Roe is that women have the freedom to make decisions
about pregnancy and motherhood, then what does this anniversary mean to women
who are literally not free, those in jails, prisons, and immigration detention
centers? Because prisons are shielded from public scrutiny, and the women in them
are "out of sight and out of mind," their concerns rarely enter the
debate about reproductive rights and health. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1365971
She Doesn’t Deserve to be Treated Like This: Prisons as Sites of Reproductive Injustice
By Rachel Roth. The Center for Women Policy Studies: Reproductive Laws for the 21st Century (August 2012)
"The quotation in the title comes from a Pennsylvania grandmother whose 22 year-old granddaughter was left to give birth all alone, locked in a prison cell. No matter how she tried to convince the prison staff that she needed to go to a hospital, they wouldn’t listen.
This is just one of many chilling stories about the inhumane treatment of pregnant women behind prison walls. The United States imprisons more people than any other country, and this pattern is especially pronounced when it comes to women: fully one-third of all the women and girls in prison worldwide are right here in the U.S."--Rachel Roth http://www.centerwomenpolicy.org/ne.../RothCWPSUpdated13July2012FINAL.pdf
State Standards for Pregnancy-Related Health Care in Prisons
ACLU on-line Guide provides a short summary of minimum national standards for pregnancy care in correctional facilities; an overview of how different state policies measure up; and a state-by-state directory where you can view pregnancy-related correctional policies available online, or find contact information to request policies from state department of corrections.
For additional information about the rights of pregnant women who are incarcerated, and the ACLU's work to secure these rights in prison and jails throughout the country go to http://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights/abortion/index.html.
http://72.3.233.244/reproductiverights/gen/pregnancycareinprison.html
Stop the Expansion of Women's Prisons
From Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), December 2006. 30 pages. Statements and position papers from CURB, academia, the community, legislators and others focusing on organizing to stop the expansion of community-based jails for women in CA. http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/CURB_packet.pdf
An Unsupported Population: The Treatment of Women in Texas' Criminal Justice System
By Lindsey Linder. Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. April 2018. "Texas has one of the top 10 highest female incarceration rates in the country, and the number of incarcerated women has grown significantly over time. In fact, female incarceration in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ, the state’ corrections system) has increased 908% from 1980– 2016, compared to an increase in the male population of 396%. The rise in female incarceration is not exclusive to prisons. The number of women in Texas jails awaiting trial — totaling around 6,300 — has grown 48% since 2011, even as the number of female arrests in Texas has decreased 20% over that time period.
Sadly, there is a significant number of pregnant women in Texas jails, with an average 367 pregnant females booked into Texas county jails each month in 2017." https://www.texascjc.org/sites/default/files/publications/TCJC-Womens-Part-2.pdf
When Free Means Losing Your Mother: The Collision of Child Welfare and the Incarceration of Women in New York State
This report by the Correctional Association of New York
examines the damaging, far-reaching and often
overlooked collateral consequences of maternal
incarceration on children and families. The report
includes interviews with caregivers, foster care
workers, formerly incarcerated mothers and young people
with mothers in prison, and offers practical
recommendations for criminal justice, corrections and
child welfare policy reforms."
"This report by the Correctional Association
of New York examines the damaging, far-reaching and
often overlooked collateral consequences of maternal
incarceration on children and families. The report
includes interviews with caregivers, foster care
workers, formerly incarcerated mothers and young people
with mothers in prison, and offers practical
recommendations for criminal justice, corrections and
child welfare policy reforms." February 2006. http://www.njisj.org/pubdocs/2006/red_031606_mother.pdf
Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families
(The Essie Project). September 2015
A new study released reveals the huge economic impact of incarceration on those left behind, most often women and minorities.
KEY DATA:
• Women: made up more than 80% of family members primarily responsible for covering court related costs and the average family paid over $13,000
• Women: made up almost 90% of family members responsible for call and visitation costs, and more than a third of families went into debt to cover those costs
• Families: had difficulty meeting basic needs as a result of a loved one’s conviction and incarceration
The Essie Project worked with The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, and Research Action Design to produce the study. http://ellabakercenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/who-pays.pdf
Women InJustice: Gender and the Pathway to Jail in New York City
The Women's Foundation, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Prisoner Reentry Institute. March 2017. Our recommendations for gender-responsive targeted interventions are to:
1. Divert offenses common to women with behavioral health needs;
2. Increase the use of non-monetary release mechanisms;
3. Expand pretrial alternatives to individuals charged with certain serious crimes;
4. Increase defender-based pretrial advocacy capacity;
5. Increase alternatives to short jail sentences for misdemeanors;
6. Ensure that gender-responsive services are allocated system-wide; and
7. Facilitate community connections. http://johnjaypri.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/John_Jay_WIJ-Report_FINAL.pdf
Women in the Criminal Justice System
May 2007. The Sentencing Project. The series documents the gender implications of changes that have occurred over the last 20 years within the criminal justice system, including expansive law enforcement, stiffer drug sentencing laws and re-entry barriers. Women in the Criminal Justice System notes that since 1985 the number of women in prison has increased at almost double the rate of incarcerated men - 404 percent vs. 209 percent. Reasons for the increasing rate for women are directly related to the 'war on drugs,' economic disadvantage, and the criminal justice system's failure to carefully consider women's involvement in crimes. The analysis also reports that 30 percent of all females incarcerated are black and 16 percent are Hispanic. Further, the briefing sheets delve into family, socioeconomic and physical and mental health issues that women - and their families - face as a result of being incarcerated. Women in the Criminal Justice System contains five sections: Overview; Involvement in Crime; Mothers in Prison; Inadequacies in Prison Services; and Barriers to Re-entering the Community. http://sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/news/womenincj_total.pdf
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