More women are being incarcerated than ever before in modern times. While there is still a lack of information to fully explain the reasons for that, there are some strong indicators as to why female imprisonment is increasing. Read on to find out more.
Staying in Touch with a Female Friend or Family Member in Jail in Colorado or Elsewhere
If you have a female friend or family member in jail, one of the best ways of supporting your loved one is to simply stay in touch. Without the ability to email, text, or call your friend or family member, writing letters is the best way of communicating. An inmate will naturally feel alone when in jail, so receiving letters from the outside world really helps to give her a ray of hope in a challenging situation. Try to write once a week, so your loved one knows you are continually thinking about her.
Before you can write to your female friend or family member, you need to locate the details of the facility in which she is housed. It is simple to do that by using an online inmate search engine. For example, if your loved one is situated in Englewood’s Federal Correctional Institution in Colorado, you can use the inmate locator on the official BOP website by inputting the person’s BOP register number or her full name, age, gender, and race. Other correctional facilities in other states have similar inmate locators available online.
The Rise of Female Incarceration
According to The Sentencing Project, the female incarcerated population in the United States is seven times higher than it was in 1980. Although there are still a lot more men than women in prison in the United States, the rate of female incarceration has been twice as high as that of men between 1980 and 2019. As of 2019, there were 1.2 million women in the States under the supervision of the criminal justice system. The reasons for the increasing number of imprisoned women are thought to be due to things like tougher drug sentencing laws, expansive law enforcement efforts, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect females.
Reasons for the Increase in Women Being Incarcerated
While the above reasons partially account for why women are being incarcerated more, there is still a lack of knowledge to understand precisely why female incarcerations are occurring more frequently. According to Prison Policy Initiative, a whopping quarter of women behind bars have not yet had a trial, and 60% of females in jails under local control have not been convicted and are awaiting trial. So, that is one reason why jails are becoming fuller with women. After all, not every woman in jail will be found guilty after her trial comes around. Furthermore, it was found that between 2016 and 2017, the number of females in jail on a given day increased by more than 5%, even though the overall jail population declined in the same period.
Another problem highlighted by Prison Policy Initiative is the fact that state and federal agencies pay local jails to house 12,500 women. For instance, US Marshals and ICE have fewer dedicated facilities for detainees, so they contract with local jails to hold women.
Final Thoughts
To fully understand why more women are being incarcerated in the United States, there needs to be a lot more available data. While things like an increase in arrests, pretrial detention, and case processing times can explain why some women are being imprisoned more, there are still many unanswered questions as to why the increase is happening. Ultimately, more information is needed to fully explain the recent growth in women’s jail populations.
