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Women in Prison in Oregon

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Women in Prison in Oregon WOMEN IN PRISON IN OREGON DATA, PATHWAYS INTO INCARCERATION, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN PRISONERS. BEN SCISSORS AND ALICE LUNDELL ABOUT OREGON JUSTICE RESOURCE CENTER OJRC is a Portland, Oregon, 501(c)3 nonprofit founded in 2011. We work to promote civil rights and improve legal representation for communities that have often been underserved in the past: people living in poverty and people of color among them. Our clients are currently and formerly incarcerated Oregonians. We work in partnership with other, like-minded organizations to maximize our reach to serve underrepresented populations, train public interest lawyers, and educate our community on civil rights and civil liberties concerns. We are a client-centered organization that uses integrative advocacy to achieve our goals. This strategy includes focused direct legal services, public awareness campaigns, strategic partnerships, and coordinating our legal and advocacy area to positively impact outcomes in favor of criminal justice reforms. WOMEN IN PRISON PROJECT The Women in Prison Project is a program of OJRC. We created the Project as the first and only program in Oregon to exclusively address the needs of women who are intersecting with the criminal justice system. Our goals are to ensure the criminal justice system treats women fairly, protects their health and safety, and makes it possible for them to successfully rejoin their communities when they are released. We do this through integrative advocacy: combining litigation, legislative and other reforms, and other policy and communications initiatives. For more information, contact Project Director and Attorney, Julia Yoshimoto, at [email protected]. www.ojrc.org “Women’s engagement in crime ... differs from men’s in the type of crime (less violent), in risk factors (the importance of relationships, which can override ... self- preservation), in societal roles (caring for children while balancing competing priorities), in the need for different types of services (counseling for trauma), and in less overall involvement in crime in terms of frequency, prevalence, and seriousness.”1 Flower, M. Shawn. Employment and Female Offenders: an Update of the Empirical Research. INTRODUCTION Mass incarceration has at last National data indicate that Oregon’s prisons. moved to the top of the agenda “[i]ncarcerated women are not only for those working within disproportionately women It is also important to understand the justice system but also for of color...from low-income what this report is not. We have many people outside it. Those communities who have been confined ourselves to gathering caught up in the system would subjected to a disproportionately and presenting information on no doubt say this increased high rate of violence.”3 women imprisoned in Oregon, awareness has been a long time but not those serving time in jail coming but it is still welcome. This report seeks to provide or in community or alternative What we have seen less of, the necessary national context sentencing programs. Also, we however, is attentiveness to the for understanding Oregon’s have not sought to put forward mass incarceration of women. incarceration of women. It solutions to rapid growth in the Indeed it is arguable that women numbers of women imprisoned have been greater victims of the “Incarcerated women are in Oregon within this document. trend toward incarcerating a disproportionately women We want this report to provide larger number of Americans since of color ... from low- context to the solutions we their prison numbers have seen are proposing to the over- faster growth than men’s.2 income communities who incarceration of women and we have been subjected to a want it to remain relevant and Oregon is no exception to this disproportionately high rate of useful for as long as possible. trend. Facing Oregon’s female violence.”3 We believe this will be easier prison system is a number of to achieve by confining this troubling issues, including: facility will also synthesize the various document to highlighting the and housing deficiencies for both available data, news and academic data we have - and the missing women and girls, increasingly reports on Oregon trends in the data we need - about Oregon’s untenable costs due to housing incarceration and treatment of incarcerated women. and health care issues, a lack of women in prison. The goal is to programming, potential human provide a one-stop destination rights violations, and significant for anyone seeking up-to-date racial and ethnic disparities. information on the women in 1 THE NATIONAL PICTURE WHO ARE OUR WOMEN IN PRISON? Nationally, our female prison partner abuse, and often begins in the primary carers of children, population is made up childhood.8 9 which comes with a greater disproportionately of women financial burden on mothers. of color. In 2014, black women Incarcerated women have greater From 1991 to 2008, the “number were incarcerated at a rate more degrees of morbidity than men of children under age 18 with a than twice that of white women.4 and non-incarcerated women, mother in prison ... [has] more The ACLU highlights that 30% including higher rates of “HIV, than doubled.”14 The Bureau of of incarcerated women are black, cardiovascular disease, and Justice Statistics reported in 2000 though they are only 13% of certain types of cancer.”10 11 A that roughly two thirds of women the general female population.5 majority of incarcerated women in state prisons have a child under Over the past 15 years or so, also have a mental health issue. the age of eighteen.15 racial disproportionality in For example, a Bureau of Justice rates of incarceration has seen Statistics report found that 73% of promising shrinkage. But a incarcerated women surveyed in significant portion of that decline state prisons have a mental health is due to rapidly increasing rates issue.12 of incarceration among white women.6 Many of these women have been unable to access the Women in prison are resources they need because of overwhelmingly characterized by poverty. Research has found that histories of abuse, mental illness, incarcerated women on average drug addiction, poverty, low have median annual incomes that education attainment, or some are 42% lower than those of non- combination of these factors, incarcerated women.13 many of which are interrelated.7 The majority of women in prison Lastly, family and relationships also have a history of abuse or provide further complicating trauma, which may include individual risk factors. Most physical, sexual, or intimate notably, women are more often 2 DATA ON FEMALE UNIQUE PATHWAYS OF INCARCERATION WOMEN INTO PRISON Women intersect with the criminal justice system in ways that are different from men. Although women are being incarcerated at unprecedented rates, they pose a relatively low public safety risk.20 This is underscored by the type of crimes women generally commit: “women in state prisons are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug or property offense” and less likely to be incarcerated 16 Rise in women’s incarceration, 1980-2014 for a violent crime.21 Even within prison, the likelihood of women committing acts of Between 1980 and 2014, the number of women “violence and aggression ... [is] extremely low.”22 incarcerated in the US increased by more than 700%, much faster than the growth in the number More so than men, women’s “criminal behavior is of men.17 often related to their relationships, connections, and disconnections with others.”23 “Women in state prisons are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug or property offense” and less likely to be incarcerated for a violent crime.”21 5% 30% Furthermore, histories of abuse and trauma are intimately tied to mental health issues and drug Percentage of the world’s Percentage of the world’s use, both of which are major factors in women female population resident in female prison population following pathways to prison. the US. incarcerated in the US.18 In a survey of 491 randomly selected women from rural and urban jails in 2013, the researchers found that “women with [serious mental illness] reported significantly more victimization and more extensive offending 8x histories than women who did not.”24 Research higher indicates that many women are incarcerated for behaviors resulting from poverty, mental illness, The current rate of incarceration in the US is “more and a history of abuse or trauma, and women’s than eight times higher than it was throughout relationships with others play a central role in most of the twentieth century.”19 Our levels of offending. female incarceration are at historic highs and they are rapidly growing. 3 OREGON INTRODUCTION The available research shows up-to-date, and provides many and crime types, characteristics that Oregon’s women in prison useful statistics used in this of Oregon’s incarcerated women, are similar in many respects to report that are gender-specific. and an overview of Oregon’s sole incarcerated women nationally. ODOC data provides a snapshot women’s prison, Coffee Creek There is a significant amount of Oregon’s most current Correctional Facility (CCCF). of research on Oregon’s incarcerated female population. incarceration practices and Other data from various sources populations, but relatively little provide more analysis of Oregon’s that deals with women specifically. incarcerated women. However, This is perhaps not surprising there is significant need for more given that men comprise the current research and academic majority of Oregon’s incarcerated commentary on the various population.25 The Oregon pathways to – and policies within Department of Corrections – women’s intersection with the (ODOC) provides data on the criminal justice system in Oregon. incarcerated population in This section will summarize the Oregon. Depending on the type of available information on Oregon’s data, the information is updated women in prison, including a at varying intervals, is relatively review of incarceration trends “A lot of the pathways that lead to prison are connected ..
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