There are currently more than one million women in state and local corrections facilities across the United States, and their realities are nothing like "Orange Is the New Black." Unlike the actresses in the Netflix series, life for incarcerated women cannot be fast-forwarded or rewound, but instead it plays out minute by minute, day by day. Seemingly, females in prison face a multitude of unique challenges while locked away, from giving birth in shackles to not receiving quality healthcare. Below, 17 eye-opening facts about women in the American prison system.
The first women’s prison in the United States, Indiana Women’s Prison, was built in 1868 and received its first inmates four years later. However, the first federal prison for women, the Federal Industrial Institution for Women, did not open until decades later in 1927.
Instead of being locked in tiny cells for 23 hours a day, the women in both of these facilities were put to work with clerical, cooking, and farming duties. It’s important to note that, at the time, most female prisoners were not murderers, but rather guilty of disobeying the laws set during the Prohibition Era.
The fastest-growing number of prisoners in the United States are women: The population jumped nearly 800% between 1977 and 2004, and has increased every year since at roughly double the rate of men.
As aforementioned, there are currently over one million women in the criminal justice system, and minorities comprise two-thirds of this population.
Up to 90% of women convicted of murdering a man were also the victim of abuse by said man.
Although various health organizations have condemned the law, 30 U.S. states allow female prisoners to be shackled down while giving birth.
Some states offer programs to moms serving short sentences, which allow them to take care of their infants while in prison.
The federal Adoption and Safe Families Act requires states to terminate parental rights to children that spent at least 15 of 22 consecutive months in the foster care system; afterward, children are placed for adoption.
The median minimum sentence for incarcerated women is 36 months, meaning that if the children can’t be placed with relatives, they are often displaced from their mothers forever.
Less than 2% of those on death row are women. The most infamous female death row inmate is Aileen Wuornos, a Florida sex worker who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990; she was executed in 2002 by lethal injection.
Unfortunately, regular gynecological care and mammograms are typically unavailable to female prisoners. This lack of healthcare results in women succumbing to diseases and conditions that are often successfully treated if detected early, like cervical cancer.
In comparison to men, incarcerated women are more likely to struggle with substance abuse problems and communicable diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C.
And due to often being the victims of lifelong abuse, females in prison also suffer from more mental health issues than incarcerated men.
Around 40% of guards in American women’s prisons are male, leading to abuses like beatings and rape.
An investigation of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama, for example, revealed that over one-third of its employees had had sexual relations with inmates. These acts are committed in exchange for basic commodities like cigarettes and toiletries.
Although conditions in women’s prisons in the U.S. aren’t even close to ideal, the situation is much worse in other countries. For instance, South Africa’s prisons have been described as “shockingly inhumane,” piling dozens of women into a cell with just one shower, sink, and toilet.
Meanwhile, in Greece, the Thiva Women’s Prison has made headlines for its demeaning vaginal canal searches. If a prisoner refuses to go through with it, they are placed into solitary confinement and plied with laxatives until it is determined that they aren’t hiding anything.