Tag: prison

A Day in the Life of a Female Inmate

by Hope Racine, From Bustle.com

Despite what television might lead us to believe, a day in the life of a woman in prison isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In the best-case scenario, it’s boring. But in the worst case, a female inmate can be subject to abuse, negligence, and harassment. If you’ve watched Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, you probably thought at one point that prison doesn’t seem too bad. Structure! Free food! Built-in friends! But the reality is far from ideal.

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The Marshall Project: What is Prison Like for Women and Girls?

The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

Fast facts:

  • Nearly one-third of all the female prisoners in the entire world are in the U.S (more than 200,000).
  • Prisoners who maintain close contact with family do better once they are released and have lower rates of returning to prison.
  • About 60 percent of women in state prisons have children under 18.
  • Females are the victims of one-third of all sexual abuse cases committed by prison staff, despite making up just 7 percent of the prison population.
  • “Sarah Zarba was addicted to heroin when she was sent to jail, which did not help her with withdrawal symptoms. Getting off heroin can be dangerous. The number of people who have died from this is not tracked, but media reports show there have been at least 20 lawsuits filed between 2014 and 2016 that claim a prisoner died due to complications from opioid withdrawal.”

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Cap Times: Women’s prisons are overcrowded

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“(Capacity) is sort of like the speed limit. If you stay under the speed limit you shouldn’t have to worry about anything extraordinary, assuming it’s not raining. The more you go over the speed limit … things could start happening a whole lot faster.”

  • Taycheedah Correctional Institute, the only medium-security and maximum-security prison for women in Wisconsin, is overcrowded and needs facility improvements
  • The number of inmates in Taycheedah was around 700 in 2010, which already “felt crowded.” Now it is around 950. The building capacity is supposed to be 653.
  • Female inmates make up the minority of Wisconsin corrections, with under 2,000 inmates compared to over 22,000 men.
  • Maximum-security prisons “at capacity”: one inmate per cell
  • Medium-security prisons “at capacity”: 20 to 50 percent of the cells to hold two inmates
  • Two former prisoners allege that they saw or have heard that cells meant for two people have housed three or four inmates
  • The dining facility was designed to accommodate about 400 inmates, the budget request says, but “unfortunately our current population is over 800.”
  • Overcrowding makes it harder to get into prison programs that can help women shorten their sentences and reintegrate into society after their release

“I think it’s hard to actually portray it unless you’re there. It’s not even something that’s easy to describe … (The) oppressive nature of it all, it’s inhumane as it is, aside from them trying to cram you in like sardines.”