Gender Issues in Corrections

1. Gender Issues in Corrections Chapter Twelve

2. Women’s Prisons in the United States • Historically, women were confined in separate quarters within men’s prisons

3. The Early Years • 1880’s both men and women confined in the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia

4. Separate Quarters • Mid-18th Century saw increasing rates of women offenders which prompted a move to provide them with prison quarters of their own.

5. Women’s Reformatories • Reformatory movement began in 1870

6. Women’s Reformatories (continued) • Indiana Women’s Prison was the first separate prison for women.

7. Racial Disparities • Not all women received the benefits of the reformatory model with its emphasis on rehabilitation.

8. Racial Disparities (continued) • African American women were routinely sentenced to custodial prisons, including the atrocious custodial plantation prisons of the South while white girls who committed the same offences were sent to reformatories.

9. Racial Disparities (continued) • It is clear that racism continued to influence prisoner populations in the U.S. after the Civil War. • The proportions of African American women in prisons of the Northeast & Midwest continuously swelled grossly disproportionate to their representation in the general population.

10. Women Offenders • Since 1990 the women offender population has doubled.

11. Women Offenders (continued) • When demographics are taken into account, black and white offenders accounted for nearly equal proportions of women committing robbery and aggravated assaults.

12. Women’s Special Needs as Inmates

13. Women Correctional Officers • Research is clear that the experience of women who have entered into male dominant occupations, almost unanimously, face discrimination in hiring, promotions, assignment policies, opposition and sexual harassment from male co-workers, and inadequacies in job training and socialization.

14. Women Correctional Officers (continued) • Women correctional officers have historically suffered from discrimination in their attempt to forge an entry into the correctional field.

15. Women Correctional Officers (continued) • Problems that women correctional officers have faced:

16. Women Correctional OfficersSelected Advantages • Women correctional officers add a degree of normalcy to an unreal environment for incarcerated males.

17. Women Correctional OfficersSelected Advantages (continued) • Male inmates seem to appreciate education more and work harder to achieve under a female teacher

18. Progress of Women in the Correctional Field • Several legal decisions have assisted women in forging an entry into the corrections profession:

19. The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards & Goals Recommendations • Change in correctional policies to eliminate discrimination against women for correctional work

20. What Correctional Administrators Must Do • Recruiting, hiring, and retaining female correctional officers is vital to a balanced and effective organization

21. What Correctional Administrators Must Do (continued) • Market the correctional agency to potential recruits as an open institution that values the concept of cultural diversity and inclusiveness