Although incarceration and violence are mostly associated with males, the current statistics show that the situation has changed. The number of females who have been sentenced to imprisonment or is on probation has grown considerably. The wars on drugs, substance abuse, mental illness, and abuse of physical, emotional, or sexual character are the main reasons that make women get into prison. One can regard the growth of female prisoners as the reverse of the coin that accompanied the growth of females’ rights in all spheres. However, gender differentiation between prisoners is not only the issue of moral or stereotypic views. This problem deserves particular attention because of females’ gender-specific needs on all levels, which make their experiences in the criminal justice system even more devastating than those of men. Moreover, female incarceration has a huge negative effect on social welfare as their significance for the family is crucial. Hence, women in the criminal justice system form a specific population that faces intolerable challenges and need special treatment predetermined by their physical and emotional peculiarities. The aim of this paper is to focus on the main factors that point out that protection of health and safety of females in prison should facilitate their reentry into the community that was common for them previously.
The number of women who get into prison grew considerably during the last century. It has become twice more than the number of males and “800 percent more” in contrast to the statistics of the end of the 20th century. Non-violent offenses and crimes related to drugs were marked out by Ajinkya (2012) as the most common ones. Moreover, women of color are referred to these statistics much more often than white females. Their number exceeds the latter in three times. Racial minorities with underprivileged background form the group that risks getting into prison. Regarding the statistics of the reasons that proceed with crimes, the PRA (2005) distinguished between several regularities. Firstly, about half of the incarcerated women suffered from drugs or alcohol abuse at the period when offense or crime was committed.
Approximately 44% of females who were incarcerated reported sexual assaults during their lives. Women in prison were mostly brought up in single-parent families and lived in poor conditions. Such life obviously had a strong impact on their personality development and a high level of aggressiveness. According to the same research, full-time employment also had a positive impact on crimes prevention. However, all of the incarcerated women. regardless of the color of their skin, get under the great risk of sexual abuse and medical neglect. Women of different age are often marked out by “the disturbing history of…abuse” in the emotional, sexual, and physical spheres. Such violence is widely spread and in 70 % of occurrences is predetermined by monitoring of women in bathrooms, showers, and all other places by male guards. However, if rape, sexual assault, or extortion are considered as brutal crimes out of prison, the same actions during body searches are very often ignored. The ability to condemn prison workers for such behavior is not likely to be crowned with success. Stopping the visits of children, which can be impelled by the prison authorities, is also the violation of female prisoners’ rights that has a strong negative influence on their emotional state. Therefore, one can see that the psychological and physiological peculiarities of different genders are always the central issues in all cases that deal with this population sample. Humiliation and dehumanizing treatment of women in prisons are more influential for them than for men. Drug addictions, spouse abuse, loss of children are the events that make women need counseling and support. In many cases, rehabilit