Essay Sample on US Incarceration Crisis: Women in Need of Attention

Introduction

America has the highest number of incarcerated individuals in the world. More than 2 million individuals today live within correctional facilities. The majority of these individuals are marginalized people who have poor access to resources and proper representation. The number of women arrests, and women who get put behind bars is slowly rising. Women have a unique issue that needs to be addressed when in correctional facilities that, for far too long, have either been ignored or diminished.

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Women's issues for a long time have been raised by a combination of scholars and activists across the US. Is there a need for women's issues to receive special attention in the penal system? Is it possible that women are suffering in the hands of a broken justice system? This paper discusses some of the main issues surrounding the arrest of women, the problems women in the criminal system face as well as some of the changes that can be affected to help women serving a sentence live a better-quality life. Brings forward an argument for women in the justice system and specifically for black women. She says that race and gender are not to be treated as mutually exclusive but rather should be treated along the same axes of inquiry. She describes the problems that arise with these issues as intersectional and suggests that this matter leads to the erasing of black women from the very matters that affect them. She went ahead to create context by examining how black women are treated by the court when they are plaintiffs. Her study revealed that the problems that women and, in this case, black women face in a criminal justice system begin with the way they are perceived. She suggests that black women's justice issues cannot be taken seriously when even the issues themselves will not be admitted to. Black women end up finding themselves behind bars due to a myriad of circumstantial marginalization that put them in a worse position than their white counterparts.

Women continue to be the biggest victims of what has come to be known as the criminalization of poverty. From lower-income margins to single parenting and social and gender marginalization, women are already earning less than their male counterparts, with some having more responsibilities. Socially speaking, women have always borne the burden of failed relationships, and many women today are primary caregivers to their families. (Moore 2017) suggests that there is indeed a criminalization of poverty where women are given less by welfare than they truly need, and breaking of welfare rules to survive leads to hefty fines and sentences of up to ten years. What begins as a need for survival due to poverty, ends up fueling the very problem they set out to alleviate (Crenshaw 1981). Children who are left behind when single mothers get incarcerated have much higher chances of becoming delinquent due to the lack of a combination of the emotional, psychological, and financial support that they need to thrive.

Stevenson, in his book, describes the dire need for proximity to effect change. He says that there is a rising number of women who are getting incarcerated, but almost no one is talking about it. This underrepresentation of women leads to them having to live in a system that is barely designed to uplift or rehabilitate them for life after prison specifically. And this often means that women who are incarcerated will not enjoy some of the humane treatment based on their gender differences with their male counterparts. For instance, women who are arrested when pregnant will often not get the opportunity to bond with their infants. The majority of prisons do not provide the facilities that women with small children need to ensure their infants get breastfed and get the maternal care they need during infancy.

This article, ("Prisons: Prisons for Women," n.d.), suggests that three-fourths of all incarcerated women are mothers and at least two-thirds of these women are mothers to minors. The justice system will typically take a small percentage of these children into the welfare system, which not only separates them from their families but prevents these mothers from being visited by their children. Children who are separated from their families are at a higher risk of abuse and discrimination, leading them to suffer emotional and psychological issues. The sheer lack of proper ways to streamline the relationships between children and their incarcerated parent who was most likely their primary caregiver has fleeting effects on both the women in prisons and their children. This is yet another growing issue that doesn't seem to be getting the traction it requires since it concerns only women.

In a bid to effect change in the justice system that is mostly faulty, communities like 'Justice Now' have been formed to forward the agenda of reforms in prisons. This organization has the bold mission of dismantling the prison complex due to the inhumane and illogical methods of rehabilitation that are employed. (Justice Now, n.d.) discusses some of the problems faced daily by women in prison. Not only do they face constant sexual harassment, but they also lack proper health care, and even sanitation products like sanitary towels are sometimes difficult to access. These same prison systems enable access to drugs easily and fail to inform prisoners when they get chronic illnesses when incarcerated. These problems are merely a scratch on the surface to the true horror of being a woman incarcerated in the American prison system. Ultimately, the people who end up in prison send up feeling isolated and depressed, making it difficult for them to reform and grow into valuable members of society.

Another growing issue that continues to put the issue of incarcerated women at bay is a microaggression. Microaggression is associated with one's unconscious attitudes towards the differences that are present in gender, sex, and racial matters (Fujii-Doe, 2017). Women who are incarcerated face stigma and microaggression from a lot of members of the community, making it difficult for reform within jails to occur. While committing crimes is not acceptable behavior, understanding the background of matters that lead up to crime makes it easier to understand how it can occur in a broken society. Poverty, lack of education, lack of access to representation, and resources to help one's situation makes crime possible and keeps fueling it. Microaggression towards incarcerated women is resulting in less attention towards the real problems that are occurring in prisons and the need for policy changes that will affect change for the individuals in there and the communities they return to (Crenshaw 1981).

Activist and civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow looks into how the American justice system is a repeat of its segregationist history. She is fighting to end the mass incarceration that has led to America becoming 'home to 25% of the world prisoners' while the entire nation is a measly 5% of the global population (Bill Moyers, 2013). She is among many Americans who find that this number is too high, and there is a need for review and reform in the current dehumanizing system. She goes into detail to show how racism, the war on drugs, and the need for tough measures have all contributed to the problem of mass incarceration, where women are now slowly becoming victimized. It is imperative to realize that the marginalization of women in prisons is far greater in impact than that of free women, and the system that leads to it is a vicious cycle that will keep feeding itself for decades to come.

In a study showing the perception of society on young black girls and boys, it is revealed that there is a deep-rooted racial based 'adultification' that takes away young people's childhoods and puts them at a higher risk of arrest and ultimately incarceration. Due to the socio-cultural differences in the upbringing of these children as well as the differences due to color genetics, sometimes young black girls end up becoming over-policed at a young age, making them aware of the oppressive and hostile microaggression subjected to them. This same problem goes along to affect how black women are represented in legal matters and how they are judged, and the trickle goes all the way to how they are treated when they are inmates. People of color, in general, suffer great injustices than their white counterparts, and since they make the bulk of the inmate population, it is paramount that the underlying issues are addressed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is a need for women representation to increase. It begins with proximity, as suggested by Brayan Stevenson, and that means taking the time to know the stories of the women that live the reality of American prisons every day. A lot needs to be done, and like Michelle Alexander and Kimberlee Crenshaw continue to do, awareness needs to be created so that the legislative changes that can make a difference occurs.

Works Cited

Crenshaw, Kimberle () "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics," University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8. Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8

Fujii-Doe, W. (2017). The Effects of Microaggressions on Probationers' Psychological Well-Being (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Denver.

Justice Now. (n.d.). A World Without Prisons: Improving Prisoners' Lives And Transforming The Justice System Important Things To Tell. Retrieved from https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/leadership/JusticeNow.pdf

Moore, Ryan. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Macat Library, 2017.

Prisons: Prisons for Women. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://law.jrank.org/pages/1805/Prisons-Prisons-Women-Problems-unmet-needs-in-contemporary-women-s-prison.html