The problem of women in prison is directly tied to current US drug policy. For the last ten years, researchers have argued that the war on drugs has become a war on women (Belknap, 2002; Bloom & Chesney-Lind, 2000; Owen, 2000 & 1998, Cheney-Lind, 1997). In examining the increase in female prisoners, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that about 1 in 3 women were likely serving time for a drug offense as compared to 1 in 8 in 1986 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). The Bureau of Prisons reports that almost 80% of their female population is incarcerated for drug-related offenses. This compares to only 26% of the 1981 female federal prison population that was held for drug offenses. In 1994, Bloom, Chesney-Lind, and Owen discussed this fact by saying:

The increasing incarceration rate for women in the State of California, then, is a direct result of short-sighted legislative responses to the problems of drugs and crime--responses shaped by the assumption that the criminals they were sending to prison were brutal males. Instead of a policy of last resort, imprisonment has become the first order response for a wide range of women offenders that have been disproportionately swept up in this trend. This politically motivated legislative response often ignores the fiscal or social costs of imprisonment. Thus, the legislature has missed opportunities to prevent women's crime by cutting vitally needed social service and educational programs to fund ever-increasing correctional budgets. (p.2)

Seven years later, little has changed as the impact of these policies continues to drive female prison populations. While men too have suffered as the United States continues its imprisonment binge (Austin & Irwin, 2001), there has been a measurable gender-based difference in the rates of this increase. This difference is most apparent among women of color (Bush-Baskette, 1998). Others have examined the substantial impact of policy on the involvement of women in the criminal justice system. A study by the Sentencing Project (Mauer, Potler & Wolf, 1999) found that, between 1986 and 1995, drug offenses account for about one-third of the rise in male prison population but fully half of the increase in the female prison population . During this period, the number of women incarcerated for drug offenses rose an amazing 888 per cent; those incarcerated for other crimes rose 129 per cent. This difference is particularly marked in states with serious penalties for drug offenses. In New York, they argue, the notorious Rockefeller drug laws account for 91 per cent of the women's prison population increase; in California, drug offenses account for 55 per cent; and in Minnesota, a state committed to limiting incarceration to very serious offenses, only 26 per cent. Compared to white women, women of color are also more likely to be arrested, convicted and incarcerated at rates higher than their representation in the free world population.

Research on women in prison has reveled that women's criminality must be understood in terms of the context of women's lives (Pollock, 2002; Belknap, 2001; Chensey-Lind, 1997). This context is informed by the three central issues shape the lives of women prior to imprisonment: multiplicity of abuse in their pre-prison lives; disrupted family and personal relationships, particularly those relating to male partners and children; and drug use (Owen, 1998). Given this background, spiraling marginality and subsequent criminality is a common result. Combined with a public policy that criminalizes drug-using behavior, the outcome is ever-increasing rates of imprisonment for women.

Understanding the status of women in US society is another component of the American imprisonment binge. In its various shapes and sizes, female criminality is based on the need for women, excluded from conventional institutions, to survive under conditions not of their own making (Chesney-Lind, 1997, Owen, 1998). In this view, the criminality of women reflects the conditions of their lives and their attempts to struggle with survival. Often marginalized outside of conventional institutions, many women conduct this struggle outside legitimate enterprises. The story of women in prison reflects their status in society--a status that reflects ingrained racism and sexism, the subtle de-valuation of women and girls and the open toleration of sexual and domestic abuse in a male-dominated society. Women's prison, perhaps even more than its male counterpart, is a place, by and large for people that have no place in conventional worlds, a place for someone who no one wants, or a place for women for whom there is no place else to go.

The problems that lead women to prison-abuse and battering, economic disadvantage, substance abuse, unsupported parenting responsibilities-have become more criminalized as contemporary society ignores the context of these women's lives. Because many of these women are poor, from minority communities and behave in ways outside middle-class sensibilities, prison has become the uniform response to problems created by inequality and gender discrimination. These issues are best addressed outside the punitive custodial environment but the upward spiral in the number of women in prison represents a serious failure of conventional society and public policy (Immagereon & Chesney-Lind, 1992). Women in prison have been damaged by the oppression of patriarchy, economic marginalization and the far-reaching effects of such short-sighted and detrimental policies as the war on drugs and the over-reliance on incarceration (Owen, 2000)

Under current policy, these complex problems are laid at the feet of the prison by a society unwilling or unable to confront the problems of women on the margin. Women confined in US prisons are enmeshed in a criminal justice system that is ill-equipped and confused about handling their problems-the problems that brought them to prison and the problems they confront during their incarceration. The prison, with its emphasis on security and population management and its de-emphasis on treatment and programs, is unable to respond to the real needs of women victimized by criminal justice and drug policy (Wellisch et al, 1994). Women in prison represent a very specific failure of conventional society-- and public policy-to recognize the damage done to women through the oppression of patriarchy, economic marginalization and the wider reaching effects of such short-sighted and detrimental policies as the war on drugs and the over-reliance on incarceration as social control. The story of the women in prison, however, is not hopeless. Many women have survived circumstances far more damaging than a prison term and most will continue to survive in the face of insurmountable odds (Owen, 1998).

-- Barbara Owen
   Department of Criminology
   California State University Fresno

References

Austin, James and John Irwin. 2001. It's About Time: America's Imprisonment Binge. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.

Belknap, Joanne. 2001. The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime and Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.

Bush-Baskette, Stephanie. 1998. "The War on Drugs as a War on Black Women." In Crime Control and Women, Susan Miller, (ed.), Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, pp. 113-129.

Bloom, Barbara, Meda Chesney-Lind and Barbara Owen. 1994. Women in California Prisons: Hidden Victims of the War on Drugs. San Francisco, CA: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.

Bloom, Barbara and Meda Chesney-Lind. 2000. "Women in Prison; Vengeful Equity." In It's a Crime: Women and Criminal Justice. Roslyn Muraskin, (ed.), 2nd Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, pp. 183-204.

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1999. Women Offenders. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1994. Special Report: Women in Prison. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.

Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1997. The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Immarigeon, Russ and Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1992. Women's Prisons: Overcrowded and Overused. San Francisco CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Mauer, Marc, Cathy Potler and Richard Wolf. 1999. Gender and Justice: Women Drugs and Sentencing Policy. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project.

Owen, Barbara. 2000 "Women and Imprisonment in the United States: The Gendered Consequences of the US Imprisonment Binge" in Harsh Punishments: International Experiences of Women's Imprisonment. Cook and Davies (eds) Northeastern Press (2000) pp. 81-98

Owen, Barbara. 1998. "In the Mix": Struggle and Survival in a Women's Prison. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Pollock, Joy 2002. Women, Crime and Prison Belmont CA: Wadsworth

Steffensmeier, Darrell and Emilie Allan. 1998 "The Nature of Female Offending : Patterns and Explanations." In Female Offenders: Critical Perspectives and Interventions. Ruth Zupan (ed)., Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishing, pp. 5-30.

Wellisch, Jean, M. Douglas Anglin and Michael Prendergast. 1994. "Treatment Strategies for Drug-Abusing Women Offenders." In Drug Treatment and the Criminal Justice System, James Inciardi, (ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 5-25.