Critical Analysis of Women Behind Bars Essay

More and much than women-mothers, grandmothers, wives, daughters, and sisters be insideng hard prison house house time all across the United States. Many of them atomic minute 18 approach the prospect of years, decades, even lifetimes screwing bars. Oddly, at that places been little public discussion to the in high spiritsest degree the striking increase of women in the prison system. What exactly is happening here, and why? This paper exit be a critical analysis of the book, Women empennage Bars The Crisis of Women in the U.S. prison ho spend System. This paper bequeathIntroduction diarist Silja Talvis Women Behind Bars The Crisis of Women in The U.S Prison System is an everywhereview of issues affecting incarcerated women. The goal of the book Women Behind Bars is to increase the aw beness virtually the ontogenesis population of women pris iodinrs. Women Behind Bars presents a outlet of important issues regarding women pris wizardrs. Incarcerated womens storie s represent a distillation of the larger forces that affect free women like racism, sexism and scotch pressure.For these reasons, Silja Talvi explains, incarcerated women should non be forgotten, despite the stigma of their venomous convictions and their physical removal from the community (Talvi, 2007). Additionally, though incarcerated women whitethorn be locked up, they should not be overlooked. Women Behind Bars succinctly illustrates close to of the important connections involving the War on Drugs, racial disparity, wellness check neglect physically and psychologically, and the in high spirits rate of substance squall and physical and internal abuse among incarcerated women. Silja Talvis aim is to shed light on what has contributed to this historic phenomenon of the mass incarceration of women in the United States (Talvi, 2007).This paper will give background on how Silja J.A. Talvi researched the increase of female incarceration. This paper will similarly give insight surrounding the paradoxs of the women, who Silja J.A. Talvi interviewed, faced magical spell incarcerated. Additionally, outside resources pertaining to the issue of women in prison will be mentioned throughout this paper.Finally, an informed opinion based on the collection of outside breeding and whatwas filmed from the book will be presented. Silja J.A. Talvi bases her account on interviews with women prisoners. Silja J.A. Talvi had in-person and phone interviews with roughly one hundred women prisoners over a two year span. She as well as received letters from approximately collar hundred women rear bars. In addition, she interviewed more than a dozen women who has been releases form jail or prison. Silja J.A. Talvi stayed in regular contact with fifty women locked up in state and federal prisons in seventeen states.In addition, Silja Talvi visited he womens county jails in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the Seattle/King County detention facility for juveniles. Silja Talvi also spent a fair amount of time confabulationing with and learning from low-income women on Seattle streets who were willing to talk about their encounters with law enforcement and incarceration. Internationally, Silja Talvi was also granted permission to visit three womens prisons, including the European sodalitys biggest womens prison, Holloway, in London, England the sole female prison on Hameenlinna, Finland and a provincial Canadian prison in British Columbia.Silja Talvi focuses on these women because she desires that incarcerated females are the most misunders in any cased population in the gigantic U.S. incarceration system (Talvi, 2007). These accounts from the women interviewed will further the insight on the realities of female incarceration. Further on this motif of incarceration, the author, Silja J.A. Talvi has stated that the United States has more peck in prison than any other nation. By mid-2006, the aggregate number of women and men in prison r ose to over 2.24 million, representing a significant increase from in the beginning year (Harrison & Beck, 2006).Relatively speaking, more than one thousand prisoners are added to the prison and jail system each single week (Harrison & Beck, 2006). Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated adult women has jumped by a shocking 757% since 1977, at most double the rate of male prisoners (Harrison & Beck, 2006). The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a milestone, explains Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing project in Washington, DC. i of the main reasons why women are being locked up at an alarming rate is a import of a policy of mass incarceration. Mass incarceration is a rate of incarceration so high that it affects not only the individual offender, but also whole social groups. (the Statesn Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2011) move further, another main reason ofthe increase of incarceration of women are the sentencing policies brought about by the war o n doses. At the Federal level, prisoners incarcerated on a drug charge comprise half of the prison population, while the number of drug offenders in state prisons has change magnitude thirteen-fold since 1980.Most of these people are not upper-level actors in the drug trade, and most have no prior criminal record for a unwarranted offense. (sentencingpolicy.org) fit to an excerpt in the Journal of Criminology, women are more likely to serve time for drug-related offenses and are less likely to serve time for violent offenses. (Lalonde & Cho, 2008) In addition, with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, women began to be arrested and supercharged with impunity, and were threatened increasingly with conspiracy charges if they didnt snitch on their husbands, boyfriends, family member and acquaintances. Women were interrogated and threatened if they did not encourage and these women would face sobering repercussions.(Talvi, 2007) Many of the women that in state or federal pris ons are first-time, non violent offenders sentenced on drug conspiracy charges. These women are serving far longer sentences than most first-time offender rapists, child molesters, or even murdered convicted of second degree murder or aggravated manslaughter. Furthermore, to a far greater degree than men, women come into the system with histories of sexual, physical abuse, domestic violence, rape, and mental illness.In this sense it is believed that our country is in crisis. Undoubtedly, because there are so many women locked up, there are a plethora of problems that incarcerated women face on a daily basis while in prison. Some of these problems include sexual assault and misconduct, medical neglect, deficient mental wellness callment, and also discrimination based on gender, race and sexual orientation.Experiences of original violence and sexual abuse in womens prisons are far worsened and far overly common than most Americans realize. In the United States, sexual assault by guards in womens prisons is so notorious and widespread that it has been described as an institutionalized component of punishment behind prison walls (Davis, 1998). Today it is estimated that at least 40% of guards in womens prisons are men. In some female prisons, the majority of employees are men.(Talvi, 2007) In these kinds of settings, there are violations of womens privacy, as well as visual and verbal abuse by the male guards. Today, one in four women reports having been sexually treat while being injail or prison (Talvi, 2007). In addition to reports of violent bulwark and punishment resulting in abrasions, cuts, bruises and even broken bones, women stated that they were subjected to humiliating strip searches and verbal harassment. Talvi explains that most of the women she interviewed in these prisons are in fear to even say anything about their abuse because of the likeliness to face the ire of prison guards.The prison guards will cut visitation and phone privileges, ta ke away prized possessions, and threaten these women and their families with incarnate harm. On another note, According to Kim Shayo Buchanan, in an article called, Beyond Modesty Privacy in Prison and The Risk Of Sexual Abuse basically explains, if women are being victimized by male guards in prison, it does them no harm to expose the problem by saying so. It is pointed out that b deficiency women are a good deal discouraged from speaking out about sexual abuse because of concerns that, by speaking out about sexual harassment by black men, black women will reinforce negative racial stereotypes about Blacks in general and about Black men in sliceicular.(Buchanan, 2005) Furthermore, ineffective formal procedures, legislation and reporting capacity within the United States prison system account for much of the ongoing sexual abuse of women. In several instances, guards who were disciplined for the abuse of women were reprimanded to the minimum degree. The frequency of sexual haras sment and abuse in a prison environment is a constant reminder of how little power the women have over their lives once they are sentenced to do time.The sexually intrusive or offensive nature of these experiences in prison has a de bulkyating impact on a womens likelihood of achieving a repairthy and lucky reentry in rules of order.When women leave jail or prison, with even more traumatic experiences heaped upon their life experiences, these women might rifle low self-esteem issues, shame and rage. Within the book, Silja Talvi explains, that these women who do re-enter into society, manifest any number of serious problems continuing mental and/or physical illness the likelihood of an interruption of their treatment and medicines loss of cargo area of their children limited education or career opportunities a lack of safe or stable admit and the temptations to indulge in drug use or criminal activity. If these factors are in place, it is believed that these women will husking themselves back in the prison system intertwined in a vicious cycle.Secondly, a problem that is also plaguing womens prisons is medical neglect and carelessness. While medical care for all prisoners is poor, the situation is far worse for women prisoners. Because prison health care systems were created for men, routine gynecological care, such as pap smears, breast exams and mammograms, is exceedingly rare in prisons. (Talvi, 2007) Care is frequently only administered once the situation becomes an emergency. In addition, women are denied internal medical resources and treatments, especially during times of pregnancy and/or chronic and degenerative diseases.There is also mishap to refer seriously ill inmates for treatment and delays in treatment, cutbacks in budgets, lack of qualified personnel, inadequate supplies, and use of non-medical staff, charges for medical attendance, inadequate reproductive health care, and lack of treatment for substance abuse. In the same sense, a fa ctor that magnifies the severity of physical illnesses and disease is a nutrient poor, high fat diet. Fruits and vegetables are nearly non-existent in prisons. Relatively speaking, the extensive overcrowding in some of these prisons lends itself to a concentration of mental and medical health problems that the prison system was never designed to handle (Talvi, 2007).Thirdly, deficient mental health treatment is a serious issue when dealing with the incarceration of females. 48-88% of women inmates experienced sexual or physical abuse in advance coming to prison, and suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. Very few prison systems provide counseling. Women attempting to access mental health services are routinely given medication without opportunity to undergo psychotherapeutic treatment. (Amnesty International, 2011)The overuse of jails and prisons to treat mental illness in society is problematic itself. Many of these women would be better served by intensifier treatment course of studys and community based care rather than being thrown in prisons. The environment of prison can impinge on an inmates mental health worse, not better. Most prison systems lack treatment settings and programs for these prisoners.For instance, most state prisons, refused admittance to a psychiatrical inpatient unit if inmates have a record of violent episodes writes Kupers in Prison Madness. they tend to wind up in super uttermost confinement, where the harsh conditions and forced idleness worsen their mental disorders, followed by more disruptive behaviors on their part andeven longer terms in lockup. (Kupers, 1999) A majority of the corrections employees are not dexterous in any consummation in psychology or social work, and are most loosely uneducated about the common symptoms of various psychiatric disorders and states of emotional distress. In these prisons that Talvi had visited she felt that there is high level of ignorance and outright hostility toward the mentally il l.The separation between mental health and disciplinary is absent in many of the prisons. In a book called Prison Madness, Terry Kupers, an expert in psychiatric issues in prison criticizes this issue of mental illness treatment within prisons. When behaviors on the part of mentally disordered prisoners-including suicide attempts, self-mutilation, rule breaking, and even some minor violent incidents-are secondary to their mental disorder, they should not be handled entirely as disciplinary infractions requiring punishment.Too often, disruptive acts are merely punished and the possibility that they reflect an imminent psychotic episode or a lack for immediate psychiatric attention is never even considered. (Kupers, 1999) In light of the issue surrounding the treatment of the mentally ill prisoners, suicide rates within in these prisons are at an increase. An investigator appointed by U.S. District articulate practice of lawrence Karlton took a look into the mental healthcare in the state prison system, and to find out a reason behind the increase in suicides.It was found that prisoners in overcrowded and understaffed Administrative Segregation units are killing themselves in unprecedented numbers. Confining a suicidal inmate to their cell for twenty-four hours a day only enhances isolation and anti- therapeutic. (Talvi, 2007) In addition to insufficient substance abuse and mental health services, educational and vocational programs are also in short supply. Several studies (Pollock-Byrne, Morash, Haarr, and Rucker) found that female prisons laissez passered fewer vocational and education program opportunities when compared to those offered in male institutions.Educational program opportunities could help successful meld these incarcerated women back into the community. Lastly, discrimination based on gender, race and sexual orientation is a significant guinea pig of contention in womens prisons. The growth in incarceration has had its greatest impact o n minorities, especially African Americans. Over a five-year period, the incarceration rate of African American women increased by 828%. (NAACP LDF adapted Justice, 1998.) Also, according to Amnesty U.S.A,the racial disparity revealed by the crack v. powder cocaine sentences insures that more African American women will land in prison. Although 2/3 of crack users are white or Hispanic, defendants convicted of crack cocaine possession were 84.5% African American.Crack is the only drug that carries a mandatory prison sentence for first time possession in the federal system. (prisonpolicy.org) Women are most vulnerable to different forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment or abuse. Women that do not fit the norm, such as lesbians, face increased risk of torture and abuse. Many of the prisoners Silja Talvi had interviewed expressed their grief about always getting taunted because of their sexual orientation.The issues face lesbians and bisexuals in the criminal justice sy stem arent just limited to what goes on behind bars. ace study conducted by Victor Streib, a professor of law at Cleveland State University points to the possibility that lesbians, or women who do not appear to appear womanly, may be victims of harsher sentencing. In addition, lesbian or non feminine women who had entered the prison system may very well have less if a shot at an early release. (Streib, 2002)Human Rights Watch has documented categories of women who are likely targets for sexual abuse. Perceived or essential sexual orientation is one of four categories that string a female prisoner a more likely target for sexual abuse, as well as a target for retaliation when she reports that abuse. (HRW, 2010) These issues face up these women in the criminal justice system are not just limited to what goes on behind bars. In conclusion, based on the entropy provided from Women Behind Bars and many outside resources, the incarceration of women is at an all time high. Most likely , the number of incarcerated women will increase in the upcoming years unless the problem of mass incarceration is solved permanently.I finger as that as a result of drug laws, women are now a fast growing segment of the U.S. prison population. It is my belief that women are in particular vulnerable to such policies as mandatory minimums, because they are more likely than men to be incarcerated for drug-related or petty, non-violent property crimes. It is these arrests that are driving their high rates of incarceration.The problem of women in prison is directly buttoned 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 my opinion, one of severalalarming statistics is, The federal agency of Prisons reports that almost 80% of their female population is incarcerated for drug-related offenses. Relatively speaking, I think factor s of poverty, psychosocial problems, mental illness, histories of trauma and abuse, and involvement in abusive relationships can lead up to a life of criminal behavior in women.Furthermore, based on information, statistics, and stories provided from the book Women Behind Bars and also from outside resources, it is my conclusion to say that many things could be modify within the prison system. First of all, I believe there are simply far too many women in prison for enough people to be drawn to the difficult job of guarding and rehabilitating these women and addressing their ask. With the information that has been researched, womens prisons are poorly equipped to deal with the range of issues and needs of an ever-increasing female population. One of the things that in love me when reading the book is the degree to which jails and prisons have become Americas new mental health facilities.Also in regards of the issue of incarcerated mentally ill, I believe that basic education could be provided to correctional staff. Furthermore, guards could be taught to calm and talk the dangerous mentally ill women down from fits of paranoia, anxiety, or distress. Also, many of these women would be better served by intensive treatment programs and community-based transitional care, instead of just being thrown into the prison system. Furthermore, I feel that the extreme abuse of women in prison is a serious problem.I believe this action also harms society because it decreases the legitimacy of the justice system. If society cannot trust those responsible for guarding our prisons to behave properly, there is little hope for the reformation of women in prison. Personally, I feel the prison has a place, but it is not in the persecution of non-violent females. I think there can be a lot more rehabilitation for these women. Many of these women in prison have emotional and psychological issues and because of the abuse, discrimination, and medical neglect, it is only going to mak e matters far worse. An excerpt from Silja Talvis Women Behind Bars that I found captivating that summed up a lot of what the book was about is, Imprisoned girls and women deserve a chance to heal from past abuse, and to learn from their life experiences and the nature of their crimes.Before women and released, they must be given the tools to ensure that their reintegrationinto society is not pregnant with immediate economic and social struggle, and to help increase the odds that they will be released into families or communities that will actually support their reintegration. Former prisoners must be given the productive tools to become productive members of society that is, if they werent productive already, and if they even needed to be locked up in the first place.In general, women in prison arent given one iota of the emotional, social and vocational skills they need to overcome the vast hurdles awaiting them beyond the gates that have confine them for years or decades on end. (Talvi, 2007) In closing, I never realized to a great extent of the problem of women in prison. This book, Women behind Bars and also many outside resources has enlightened me on the growing issue of female incarceration. Women in prison is a problem in itself, then steer to all of the other problems these women face while in prison. I believe the struggles that women go through, go unnoticed, and more people should be aware of the increasing problem.Finally, I feel that Silja J.A. Talvis book Women Behind Bars can help focus attention on this growing population of women prisoners, and mayhap one day something can be done about this increasing issue.According to the text, women represent the fastest growing segment of the criminal justice system increasing 757% between 1977 and 2004, a rate nearly 2 times the percent increase in the male offender population. The number of women involved in the US criminal justice system doubled during the 1990s (Beck, 2000). An estimated 68 in ever y 100,000 U.S. women are serving time in a state or federal prison with increased rates to one in every 100 among black women in their late 30s.Women soon represent about 7% of the overall state and federal prison population and 24% of individuals on community supervision. Substance use and abuse have been consistently reported as major change factors in the increasing population of women offenders. Some have argued that increased attention to substance users during the late eighties and 1990s during the war on drugs had particular adverse consequences for women. A majority of women offenders have a record of drug use and drug-related offenses. ConclusionIn closing, the source never realized to a great extent of the problem ofwomen in prison. This book, Women behind Bars and also many outside resources has enlightened on the writer of the growing issue of female incarceration. Women in prison is a problem in itself, then leading to all of the other problems these women face whil e in prison. The struggles that women go through, go unnoticed, and more people should be aware of the increasing problem. Finally, this book, can help focus attention on this growing population of women prisoners, and maybe one day something can be done about this increasing issue.The writer believes that alcoholism and colony is a disease. Because it is a disease, communities should address it as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue. Imprisonment only removes a symptom, but does not cure the problem. The number of women incarcerated is steadily lift at frightening rates. When you incarcerate a woman, most often, you are also incarcerating a mother. The state not only pays to house the offender, but often pays for the care of the children of the offender as well.Women offenders have special needs many of which revolve around their children. Corrections should be perceived as a positive and help connection, not a punitive one. In our present system, unfortunately, the women must often first fail in the first place they are given the level of treatment they needed in the beginning. A new approach to corrections, one that offers a highly structured environment and stresses accountability, as well as, addressing the individual needs of each offender will not only save money, but also more importantly, it will save lives. In addition, communities should take responsibility and become involved in getting and giving education, reaching out to their communities to offer assistance helping addicts find hope through programs that take a holistic approach to their disease.Addicts need programs that heal body, mind and, most importantly, their crushed spirit. If needs are responded to on a personal level, in a way that engenders trust and confidence, women offenders can begin to hope again and the lives of families can be rebuilt.If people do not have hope, there is nothing to strive for, no reason to change. Instead of incarceration, I believe it would be more cost-effective to put women offenders in a community based program similar to the work release program that is used for prisoners after incarceration. These programs would allow the individual tomaintain a job, yet they would be held accountable for all their time. They would receive counseling on an individual basis pitch toward each ones individual needs. The best programs combine supervision and services to address the vary needs of female offenders in highly structured, safe environments where accountability is stressed.In conclusion, I believe that if communities would make an effort to educate themselves and their communities about the disease of alcoholism and addiction, they would begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. Although there are no easy solutions, one must accept the responsibility of educating our children, offer new and innovative programs that heal holistically, and most importantly, accept responsibility that as citizens one must reach out to help those in our communities who are struggling, offering them hope, support and encouragement.ReferencesAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences. (2011) Retrieved fromhttp//www.amacad.org/projects/incarceration.aspxAustin, J., Irwin, J. (2001). Its About Time Americas Imprisonment Binge. Belmont, CA Wadsworth Publishing Co Belknap, J. (2001). The Invisible Woman. 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