Women in prison...

[albacore]

I was reading Louise Erdrich's newest novel - "The Sentence" - last night and stumbled onto this phrase.... "More women are in prison in the state of Minnesota than in all of Canada."

I checked, and it's true!! In fact, virtually every state in the US has more women in prison than in all of Canada.

Minnesota isn't # 1 in female incarceration. That dubious honor goes to Idaho.
All of Canada (39 million citizens) has 693 women in prison. Idaho (1.9 million) has 991 in prison at last report.

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and our female incarceration rate is higher now than ever in the past.

Between 1980 and 2020, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 475%. Only 5% of the world's female population lives in the U.S., but the U.S. accounts for nearly 30% of the world's incarcerated women.

WTF is going on???

[LuckyLib]

1. So many women are tied in with sketchy bad boys

who drag them along the crime trail.

[luv2fly]

7. I tried to find some research to support this

And I couldn't. It might be out there so do you have a link? Or is this just your opinion?

[albacore]

13. I had to look up the stats.

Google all the way. number of women in prison in Canada, population figures, number of women in prison in Minn, state with the largest number of women in prison...etc
Then...
https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/incarcerated-women-and-girls/
And...
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/women/2018.html

The graph has the source on it... at the bottom.

[luv2fly]

15. Thank you

I don't doubt the OP at all, I was more interested in the statement that so many women are in prison because of their ties to "sketchy men." The first link includes a link to a story about one woman who was forced into crime because of her relationship, but that's all I'm seeing.

Anyways, thank you.

[albacore]

18. Yes.... sketchy bad boys have brought women down for millennia, but the numbers spike ...

around 1980, and are still going up.
Do we have more sketchy bad boys now?
I dunno.

[rubbersole]

2. Could be the red states think women are just too "uppity".

[Scrivener7]

3. AND there's money to be made in pouring people into prisons.

Can't be leaving out a whole profit area.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Nah, it's generally just another facet of the war on drugs.

[70sEraVet]

16. That's what I'm thinking.

[Thomas Hurt]

4. Private prison industry

[rurallib]

5. I think you are on to something

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. This is what it "tOuGh On CrImE" looks like. Lots of money to be made in incarceration, whether

the institution is public or private.

Really looking forward to seeing what those numbers look like in a post-Dobbs America when we get those 100,000 new cops coming down the pipe in the "Safer American Plan"!!!!!

[Chainfire]

9. Without going to look, I bet that most of the women are serving sentences for non-violent crimes.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. That is true of the incarcerated population as a whole.

[sarcasmo]

10. Prison is a growth industry. $$$$

[Solly Mack]

12. ...

FACTS ABOUT THE OVER-INCARCERATION OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The above link is to the ACLU, and they get many of their facts from The Sentencing Project (in the link below).

Incarcerated Women and Girls from the Sentencing Project

Research on female incarceration is critical to understanding the full consequences of mass incarceration and to unraveling the policies and practices that lead to their criminalization. The number of incarcerated women was nearly five times higher in 2020 than in 1980.

There is, of course, more information out there.

Just in case anyone was curious.

[Mysterian]

14. The sham "war" on some drugs turned the USA into a quasi-police state,

destroyed our Fourth Amendment rights, and gave us the highest prison population of any society in the history of Earth.

[IbogaProject]

17. two ideas

Many women get setup in some way or just accused by someone trying to lower their own trouble.
The other is punitive 'get to work' policies which unintentionally encourage criminality when women are stuck with kids they can't easily support.

[albacore]

19. Lots of good comments..

Thanks.

One observation not mentioned. The numbers started spiking around 1980.
It's that fucking Reagan!
Almost any graph you look at shows 1980 to be a revolutionary year.
The decline of the middle class.
Wages vs. corporate profits.
Global warming.

That confused old fucker may have done us in... even decades after he died.