Gender
Disparities relating to gender
- Only twelve jurisdictions have residential programs allowing people to live with their newborns while incarcerated (Created: 2025)
- One-fifth of states do not provide necessary supports to incarcerated people postpartum (Created: 2025)
- Four states do not offer incarcerated people depression screenings during pregnancy or in the postpartum period (Created: 2025)
- Too many state prison systems fail to provide necessary accommodations during pregnancy (Created: 2025)
- The racial and ethnic composition of pregnant people in prison is different from the women's prison population overall (Created: 2025)
- Fewer women in prison report being pregnant at admission (Created: 2025)
- Six states do not offer pregnancy-related training for staff, despite collectively locking up thousands of women each year (Created: 2025)
- Indian country jail growth is accelerated among women and older adults (Created: 2024)
- People in state prisons with higher medical copays are less likely to receive the healthcare they need (Created: 2024)
- 53,000 women on parole or post-release supervision live in states with abortion bans and parole conditions that restrict interstate travel (Created: 2024)
- Currently, 41 states have some kind of abortion ban in place, forcing women to cross state borders for care (Created: 2024)
- 582,000 women on probation live in states with abortion bans and probation conditions that restrict interstate travel (Created: 2024)
- Policy map: Where parole and probation travel restrictions make abortion bans even more oppressive for women on supervision (Created: 2024)
- Racial disparities in men's prison incarceration rates, 2022 (Created: 2024)
- Racial disparities in women's prison incarceration rates, 2022 (Created: 2024)
- How many women are locked up in the United States? (2024) (Created: 2024)
- States incarcerate women in prisons and jails at very different rates (Created: 2023)
- Women under any form of correctional control are especially likely to be on probation or parole (Created: 2023)
- Nearly 10% of confined girls are held for status offenses such as "running away, truancy, and incorrigibility" (Created: 2023)
- Correctional control of women extends far beyond prisons and jails (Created: 2023)
- Nearly half of incarcerated women are held in jails (Created: 2023)
- How many women are locked up in the United States? (2023) (Created: 2023)
- Women experiencing police use of force rose dramatically between 1999 and 2020 (Created: 2022)
- Women in state prisons are more likely to be disciplined compared to men in prison (Created: 2022)
- Women in state prisons are more likely to be separated from their children upon incarceration (Created: 2022)
- Women in state prisons report being diagnosed with mental health problems at much higher rates than men (Created: 2022)
- In state prisons, women of all races and ethnicities are more likely than men to have any mental health diagnosis (Created: 2022)
- About four percent of women in state prisons were pregnant when admitted, but not all of them have received the basic care you'd expect (Created: 2022)
- State policy drives women's incarceration growth - raw numbers (Created: 2022)
- State policy drives women's incarceration growth - rates (Created: 2022)
- State abortion policies range from hostile to supportive, which can affect abortion access in prisons and jails (Created: 2021)
- What does it really mean when a jail allows abortion? (Created: 2021)
- What does it really mean when a state prison allows abortion? (Created: 2021)
- Racial disparities in incarceration rates by sex, 2010 (Created: 2021)
- Many prisons and jails offer pregnant women medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), but narrow policies restrict who receives it (Created: 2021)
- Why are so few incarcerated postpartum women expressing breast milk, even in prisons and jails that allow it? (Created: 2021)
- Women's jail incarceration rates are highest in rural and other smaller counties, lowest in urban counties (Created: 2021)
- Prisons and jails will separate millions of mothers from their children in 2021 (Created: 2021)
- Women's drug arrests have continued to grow even as men's returned to early 1990s levels (Created: 2020)
- Most people in prison are poor, and the poorest are women and people of color (Created: 2020)
- People detained pretrial because they can’t pay bail are much poorer than their peers - and the income gaps are widest for Black people (Created: 2020)
- Racial disparities in prison incarceration rates, by sex, 2018 (Created: 2020)
- 81,000 women are released from state prisons each year (Created: 2020)
- Women in prisons and jails in 2017 who were pregnant when admitted (Created: 2019)
- 81,000 women are released from state prisons each year (Created: 2019)
- Women experiencing police use of force rose dramatically between 1999 and 2015 (Created: 2019)
- Searches during traffic stops have declined among men, but not among women (Created: 2019)
- Women make up a growing portion of arrests (Created: 2019)
- Women's share of all police-initiated contacts is even higher than their share of arrests (Created: 2019)
- Correctional control of women (detail) (Created: 2018)
- Formerly incarcerated people of color face the greatest educational disadvantages (Created: 2018)
- Parents caught in the trap of unaffordable money bail (Created: 2018)
- When they can find work, formerly incarcerated women of color are often relegated to part-time jobs (Created: 2018)
- Race and gender disparities in unemployment and job type among formerly incarcerated people active in the labor market (Created: 2018)
- U.S. incarceration rate for women compared to that of other founding NATO members (Created: 2018)
- Comparing the women's incarceration rates of U.S. states to other, similar, countries (Created: 2018)
- World Women's Incarceration Rates If Every U.S. State Were A Country (Created: 2018)
- Changes in female homicide rates by race 1980-2015 (Created: 2018)
- Changes in male homicide rates by race 1980-2015 (Created: 2018)
- Women's prison incarceration rate: select states and all 50 states (Created: 2018)
- Women's state prison populations have grown faster than men's (Created: 2018)
- Women's and men's incarceration numbers and rates by state, 1978-2015 (Created: 2018)
- Incarcerated women more likely than men to have history of mental health problems (Created: 2017)
- Women much more likely than men to experience "serious psychological distress" while incarcerated (Created: 2017)
- Relationship between high incarceration rate of Black men and rate of HIV infections among Black women (Created: 2017)
- Most suicides in jail occur within the first week (Created: 2016)
- People in jail are poor, unable to meet bail (Created: 2016)
- Distribution of monthly incomes for men in local jails and non-incarcerated men (Created: 2016)
- Distribution of monthly incomes for men unable to meet bail and non-incarcerated men (Created: 2016)
- Distribution of monthly incomes for women in local jails and non-incarcerated women (Created: 2016)
- Distribution of monthly incomes for women unable to meet bail and non-incarcerated women (Created: 2016)
- Gender disparities in prisons and jails (Created: 2016)
- Women's Incarceration Rate: United States 1910-2014 (Created: 2015)
- Incarcerated people earn substantially less prior to their incarceration than their non-incarcerated counterparts (Created: 2015)
- Young males incarcerated at very high rates (Created: 2012)
- Incarceration rates by gender (Created: 2012)
- Incarcerated males by race (Created: 2012)
- Males are overrepresented in prisons and jails (Created: 2004)
- Number of prisoners and jail inmates by gender, 2001 (Created: 2003)
- Incarceration rates by race and gender, 2000 (Created: 2003)
- Lifetime chance of incarceration, by race (Created: 2003)
- Murder rates by race and gender, 1998 (Created: 2003)
Events
- June 19-22, 2025:
Wanda Bertram, the Prison Policy Initiative’s Communications Strategist, will be at the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference in New Orleans. To connect with Wanda at the conference, reporters can email her directly at wbertram@prisonpolicy.org.
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