Women's Incarceration

Gendered pathways perspective is the life disadvantages and social circumstances that put women at risk of ongoing criminal involvement.  This idea emerged due to the neglect for women’s specific experiences in theories of crime.  Little to no research has been done related back to women involved in crime and how they are incarcerated.  

Women can enter the system in many different ways and have various forms of root causes of crime.  Women face higher rates of childhood abuse/neglect.  This victimization is due to their increased sexualization.  Mental illness and substance abuse can occur as a response to this abuse.  Substance abuse can be used as self-medication to cope with negative life experiences or mental illness.  Women place more value and importance into their intimate relationships than men.  Though these relationships, they are more likely to be introduce to criminal behavior like drugs.  Unhealthy partnerships can lead to mental illness or trauma/abuse.  Women also face lack of self-efficacy which means that women exist in larger social structures that place them at social and economic disadvantages.  Women have been shown to have lower paying jobs than men.  Are more likely to be single mothers.  From these situations they can be lead to commit non-violent property crimes to offset their low income.

Women can be viewed in two different lights when it comes to sentencing outcomes.  They can be given leniency or a more harsher punishment.  Women can be viewed as a person who is needed for her family and someone who needs to stay out of the corrections system.  This idea is stemmed from gendered norms.  While the other viewpoint is that women who commit crime are evil because women typically do not commit crime.  Though women are grouped together in these theories, race and ethnicity can also play a big role when dealing with the judicial system.  Where a white woman can receive leniency, a women of color will receive less or possible none.

There are many factors as to way women's incarceration has increased.  One of them being the "Get Tough on Crime" movement which this also can tie in the "War on Drugs" movement as well.  These are the movements that made stricter laws and set out tighter enforcement for drug crimes and crimes in general.  This is where the three strike rule came into play, so now nonviolent drug offenders are being sentenced to life.  Also this is where mandatory minimums came into play, so for committing a nonviolent crime there is a minimum of years an offender has to be in prison before being considered for parole.  With these in place, the incarceration rate has increased for both men and women but for women especially.  This is due to women committing more nonviolent crimes like drug and property offenses.

The consequences of women being incarcerated is a lot bigger than men being incarcerated.  Women are more likely to be the ones watching and caring for the children so when they are taken away from their families, their children end up in foster homes or with other relatives.  Women who are incarcerated have children who are two times more likely to be incarcerated in their own future.

Women respond different to the prison system and need differenct kinds of rehabiliation.  The prison system is set up uniformly across all genders but this has shown to not benefit women.  Research has been mainly done on men who have been incarcerated because they are the majority of offenders.  Women have been shown to have experienced various forms of trauma before being incarcerated.  Studies have also shown that women could benefit from community probation.