Feminism, the empowerment of women, is inherently one of the most complete terms for the pursuit of justice and the preventing of crimes against women in the criminal justice system. There are many ills of the criminal justice system. Radical changes in crime control and sentencing policies have led to an unprecedented escalation of the female prison population, the rate of recidivism, and questionable treatment in the United States and internationally. The power of implicit gender biases persists; those biases have led to discriminatory decision-making while creating dissonance for females who experience gendered prejudices in the criminal justice system.
Factors on Women and Girls’ Criminal Justice Trajectories
Social and economic marginalization has contributed to pathways to incarceration, especially for females. Women’s and girls’ increased arrests over the last few decades have often been interpreted as a direct reflection of increasing engagement in criminal behaviors. One explanation is that the increase in female arrests is at least partly due to social policy changes rather than solely a reflection of a rise in female antisocial behavior (Javdani, Sadeh, Verona, 2011).
Sentencing disparities are evident. In the early stages of court processing, first- time offenders, female adolescents, and women are treated more leniently than their male counterparts. However, adolescent females and women who had exhibited behavior outside traditional gender norms received harsher punishments when the crime is prostitution or a drug-related offense than males.
A disproportionate number of incarcerated adolescent females and women have experienced childhood adversities and maltreatments, which have impacted both psychosocial and behavioral effects in their lives. These women include those who have suffered neglect, physical, and or sexual abuse as children and were labeled as violent or troublesome as youths. Harmed women who experienced a chaotic home life and began using and abusing drugs and alcohol as a teen, these women showed symptoms of emotional and psychological damage as adults. They demonstrated an inability to cope with stressful situations (Javdani et al. 2011). Ironically females that were employed outside of the home received long, non-empathetic sentences than in-home caretakers. Most females before their incarceration were not only the primary caretaker of their children but the only caretaker.
Drug addiction is an epidemic, especially in the criminal justice system. Drug addiction leads to more arrests, engaging in prostitution, antisocial behavior, and criminal activity for females more than that of males. Females’ relationships with male partners were a connection to illegal drug distribution. However, a recent study exploring the holistic measure of religiosity and substance abuse of approximately three hundred females has offered some promising results.
Domestic violence reflects power, control, and the most significant cause of serious injury to women in the United States. Nevertheless, dual arrest policies have been more disproportionately prevalent in females over that of males. Females were more seriously charged with aggravated assault than males (Javdani et al. 2011).
Care of Pregnant Women in the Criminal Justice System
Many women entering correctional facilities are often in failing health for several reasons, including higher rates of poverty, substance abuse, sexual or physical abuse. Many women were homeless, unemployed, and lacking consistent access to health care bringing with them untreated chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Also, many women are pregnant before being incarcerated, who had inconsistent prenatal care and poor nutrition, basically unmet health care needs (Cardaci, 2013). Pregnant inmates have provided correctional officials with difficulty. Nationwide prison health care services for pregnant women are often inadequate. Studies have found that correctional facilities have neglected the health care of incarcerated women because these facilities were structured to meet the needs of male inmates! Under the antiquated “gender-neutral” policies, non-violent pregnant women offenders were treated the same way as violent male offenders, shackled during any hospitalization, which included labor and delivery (Cardaci, 2013). For women incarcerated in these facilities, the provision of care sometimes occurs within the context of penal harm, whose proponents believe the incarceration experience should inflict pain and make conditions of confinement as harsh as possible. Several states even denied expensive medical care to people in custody because of rising medical costs.
Many facilities even failed to address other issues vital to the well-being of pregnant inmates, such as providing resources to address emergency matters like premature births and miscarriages. However, in 1976, definite improvements in the quality of care provided to pregnant women in correctional facilities began to change. The Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling in Estelle v. Gamble decided that the Eighth and 14th Amendments compel the federal and state governments to pay for any treatment for prisoners deemed necessary by physicians, called the Estelle medical professional judgment standard, MPJ (Cardaci, 2013). The Eighth Amendment prohibited imposing cruel and unusual punishment and upheld the infliction of pain as deliberate indifference and inmates do have the right to specific standards of care. Pregnant inmates’ rights were furthered advanced Nelson v. Correctional Services (2008), in that shackling a woman while in labor, violated her Eighth Amendment rights (Cardaci, 2013). Since then, several states have taken legislative action about the use of restraints on pregnant prisoners, including Nevada! However, the needs of pregnant women have long been apparent to those who incarcerate them. These women remain ignored in some facilities resulting in unnecessary abuse and harm, and occasionally fatal, perhaps even preventable to them and their babies.
The Role of African American Women Involved in the Criminal Justice System
The War on Drugs, “the race to incarcerate,” has affected minority populations, especially African American women (Link and Oser, 2018). African American women occupy a unique space in society, with the intersection of race and gender. The result of the attack on African American women by the criminal justice system is shocking with black women three times as likely as Latinos and five times as likely as white women to be in prison. Black women have suffered discrimination, “gender entrapment,” in the criminal justice system. Many incarcerated African American females were raised in a deficient socio-economic environment yet with a more realistic sense of the social world around them, both public and private. Again, life circumstances affected involvement in sex crimes, drugs, and crime have produced pathways of offending for African American women resulting in incarceration through drug-related offenses of illicit drug distribution and sales, robbery, or burglary (Link and Oser, 2018).
Stressful and traumatic events in their lives contributed to the negative consequences, and thereby, many African American women blamed the system for their socio-economic plight. However, they did not define themselves as criminals. In a social context, African American women are viewed as not as feminine as white women. Therefore, they expected worse treatment from their partners and were less apt to challenge gender traditionalism in their marriages. These women also, because of their race, are perceived inferiority to men. Thereby many African American women who suffer from abuse from their spouse or partner more than likely do not seek help for domestic violence. Criminologists have suggested that black female offenders are more often convicted of violent crimes than white female offenders. Now the broader shift from violent crimes to moral crimes, especially those involving drugs, has been affected by the noticeable increase in longer prison sentences, more extended than ten years. While generally less violent than male prisoners, the experience of female prisoners are, in some ways, more complicated than that of males. Female inmates tend to find some of the rules and regulations of life behind bars more onerous than males. Aside from distress caused by separation from their children, female prisoners also suffer from higher emotional strains than male prisoners and consequently engage more often in rule-breaking and behavior such as self-mutilation. African American female inmates are subjected to more oppression from prison staff than are male inmates, which is the result of distinct gender and race disparity (Link and Oser, 2018). Therefore, women who have acted criminally and are not conforming to their appropriate sex role are more deserving of exploitation than male criminals.
Access to Justice for Disabled Women in the Criminal Justice System
There are considerable disparities in the access and quality of mental health care among women and racial and ethnic minorities with mental disabilities. Individuals with mental disabilities have traditionally been, and continue to be, subjected to rights violations and pervasive discrimination because of their mental disabilities, both domestically and internationally (Wulandari, 2018). Disabled women have been marginalized to an even greater extent than other persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system and institutional treatment. In the criminal justice system of Indonesia, disabled women face many challenges. The integrity of their offered evidence is often questioned, especially since testimony that is essential and necessary in cases is usually deemed biased. These women endure intimidation and challenges from the criminal justice system that often leads to skewed legal decision making. Sounds familiar?
As of 2018, Indonesia’s existing Criminal Code Procedure does not offer females with mental and intellectual disabilities, and other debilitating impairments equal and fair legal treatment. Although, the country of Indonesia touts “equality before the law,” we can see a distinct similarity in the United States today (Wulandari, 2018). Other countries where women with disabilities are often abused are Austria, Germany, Iceland, and England. However, Austria has implemented NAP, National Action Plan offering support and counseling for women with disabilities who were crime victims. Subsequently, Germany, Iceland, and England implemented similar support structures to overcome injustices to women with disabilities in the criminal justice system (Wulandari, 2018). However, we still see the struggle to overcome rights violations of persons who are not of the dominant race or gender, females. Racial minorities and women have been marginalized to an even greater extent than other persons with mental disabilities in matters related to civil commitment and institutional treatment. Mental disorders appear to be associated with a higher proportion of female offending than different types of offending. Male mentally disordered offenders always outnumber females.
Nevertheless, mental health disorders services for both males and females are equally neglected in US prisons. Many female inmates are suffering from drug abuse, alcohol dependence, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Few prisons have adequate assessment or mental health treatment programs. Prison personnel often mischaracterize African American female behavior as more dangerous and often “overmedicate” female inmates. Differences that occur in rates of incarceration associated with mental illness revolve around race and gender (Wulandari, 2018). Race and mental status are now accepted as socially constructed. Regarding the theory of visibility, mentally ill individuals, who are also females and of members of minority groups, are more visible, and therefore deviant behavior is more readily recognized. Religiosity and Substance Use Among Women in the Criminal Justice System
Travis Hirschi published the first major empirical study of religion and deviance/crime
in 1969. Recently a study among approximately 300 females from a St Louis Municipal Drug Court System was assembled to re-examine Hirschi’s social control theory and the link between religiosity and substance abuse (Jones, Webb, Lasopa, Striley, and Cottler, 2018). In addition to the studying of the relationship between religiosity and deviance/crime in society, it was found that self-control may enhance both religiosity and obedience to rules of law or social norms. Sisters Teaching Options for Prevention, STOP, whose aim is to reduce drug use and risky behaviors among females engaged in a therapeutic justice program to rehabilitate instead of incarceration using variables of religiosity, socio-demographics, and past 30-day drug use. Factually, religion in prison has focused on two issues: whether inmates’ level of religiosity affects prison behavior and if religiosity reduces the likelihood of post-release arrest (i.e., recidivism). Three standards measured religiosity: advice sought from a member of a religious community member in the past 12 months, religion/spirituality was significant in their lives, and sometimes or often attend religious services in the past 12 months. The socio-demographics of the females, 70% were African American, a third, 33% were 30 years old or younger, and 46% did not have a high school diploma, 76% have instability in housing, 72% left home before the age of 15 (Jones et al. 2018). Sadly, these were contributing factors to drug-using behaviors. The drugs of choice among the program participants were crack cocaine and marijuana. In this program, religiosity was associated as a functioning likelihood suppressor of recent substance abuse. As other successful on-going programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) that both are reflective of the spiritual theory (Jones et al. 2018).
Conclusion
The criminal justice system is flawed. Visibility is essential for public awareness of our most vulnerable populations, racial, cultural, and gender minorities, which are consistently harmed by marginalization. Legislative changes and sentencing practices have widened the net for women offenders and the rate of recidivism. There is little to nothing about “corrections” in women’s prisons today. US women’s prisons primarily “serve” to house women with drug problems from poverty-stricken backgrounds, while the entire system is highly racialized.
For any woman, incarcerated or not, pregnancy is a painful physical experience. Therefore, the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause that take into consideration the “dignity of man” now includes pregnant women rather than sacrificing them to unnecessarily harsh and inhumane conditions.
The disproportionate number of African American women in prison occurs because of the lack of enough income, education, abusive backgrounds, prejudice, domestic violence, and drugs.
A stark realization in criminal justice systems is to provide adequate judicial access for disabled persons, regardless of gender. There must be suitable training for those who work as law enforcers, including police and correctional officers, to accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities.
Both religiosity and self- control have independent influences on misconduct and deviation from social norms. Nevertheless, precisely what it is about the mechanisms of religiosity that leads to greater conformity indeed remains an open question.
Therefore, although every single minute and aspect of prisoners’ lives are measured, regulated, and controlled, the gap between expectation and reality creates a dissonance for people who experience prejudice; however, not to confront bias can have a suppressive effect on the perception of bias.
References
- Cardaci, R. (2013). Care of Pregnant Women in the Criminal Justice System. AJN,
- American Journal of Nursing, 113(9), 40-48.
- Javdani, S., Sadeh, N., & Verona, E. (2011). Gendered social forces: A Review of the Impact of
- Institutionalized Factors on Women and Girls’ Criminal Justice Trajectories. Psychology,
- Public Policy, and Law, 17(2), 161-211.
- Jones, A., Webb, F., Lasopa, S., Striley, C., & Cottler, L. (2018). The Association Between
- Religiosity and Substance Use Patterns Among Women Involved in the Criminal Justice
- System. Journal of Drug Issues,48(3), 327-336.
- Link, T., & Oser, C. (2018). The Role of Stressful Life Events and Cultural Factors on Criminal
- Thinking Among African American Women Involved in the Criminal Justice
- System. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(1), 8-30.
- Wulandari Cahya. (2018). Access to Justice for the Disability Women as Victims in the Criminal
- Justice System. SHS Web of Conferences, 54, 07012.
