User:Bonniedog11/Incarceration in the united states

Article Draft
- add statistic about women's violence

- add information about violence toward black women

- add information about black women's incarceration

Gender[edit]
See also: Incarceration of women in the United States

In 2013, there were 102,400 adult females in local jails in the United States, and 111,300 adult females in state and federal prisons. Within the US, the rate of female incarceration increased fivefold in a two decade span ending in 2001; the increase occurred because of increased prosecutions and convictions of offenses related to recreational drugs, increases in the severities of offenses, and a lack of community sanctions and treatment for women who violate laws. In the United States, authorities began housing women in correctional facilities separate from men in the 1870s. According to the ACLU, “More than half of the women in prisons and jails (56%) are incarcerated for drug or property offenses, and Black women are two times as likely to be incarcerated as white women.” Black women tend to receive longer sentences and harsher punishments than white women for committing the same crimes. According to Angela Davis (2003), in many situations, white women are put in mental institutions, whereas black women are sent to prison for the same crime.

However, since the early 2000s, the incarceration rates for African American and Hispanic American women have declined, while incarceration rates have increased for white women. Between 2000 and 2017, the incarceration rate for white women increased by 44%, while at the same time declining by 55% for African American women. The Sentencing Project reports that by 2021, incarceration rates had declined by 70% for African American women, while rising by 7% for white women. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that white women's incarceration rate was growing faster than ever before, as the rate for black women declined. The incarceration rate of African American males is also falling sharply, even faster that white men's incarceration rate, contrary to the popular opinion that black males are increasingly incarcerated.

In 2011, it was reported that 85 to 90% of women incarcerated were victims of sexual and domestic violence, which is significantly higher than the national average of 22.3% of women in the United States '''. Women who face sexual or domestic violence are more likely to commit crimes themselves and become incarcerated. The history of black women experiencing higher rates of abuse than white women provides one of many explanations for why African American women have faced higher rates of incarceration than white women.'''

In 2013, there were 628,900 adult males in local jails in the United States, and 1,463,500 adult males in state and federal prisons. In a study of sentencing in the United States in 1984, David B. Mustard found that males received 12 percent longer prison terms than females after "controlling for the offense level, criminal history, district, and offense type," and noted that "females receive even shorter sentences relative to men than whites relative to blacks." A later study by Sonja B. Starr found sentences for men to be up to 60% higher when controlling for more variables. Several explanations for this disparity have been offered, including that women have more to lose from incarceration, and that men are the targets of discrimination in sentencing.