Post: #1

I searched the forum and didn't see this linked or any results talking about this explicitly. I have seen some articles written by feminists in the UK about this in the past, but again not on the forum.

Here is the link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/the-c...ts/#disqus

The article:

Quote:t sounds like a radical idea. Stop incarcerating women, and close down women’s prisons. But in the UK, there is a growing movement, sponsored by a peer in the House of Lords, to do just that.

The argument is actually quite straightforward: there are many fewer women in prison than men to start with – women make up just 7% of the total prison population. This means that these women are disproportionately affected by a system designed for men.

But could women’s prisons actually be eliminated in the US, where women’s incarceration rate has risen by 646% in the past 30 years? The context is different, but many of the arguments stay the same.





Essentially, the case for closing women’s prisons is the same as the case for imprisoning fewer men. It is the case against the prison industrial complex and for community-based treatment where it works better than incarceration. But there is evidence that prison harms women more than men, so why not start there?

Any examination of the women who are in prison in the US reveals that the majority are nonviolent offenders with poor education, little employment experience and multiple histories of abuse from childhood through adulthood. Women are also more likely than men to have children who rely on them for support – 147,000 American children have mothers in prison.

Prison nation

The US is a prison nation. More than 1.5m people are incarcerated in America. And this obsession with punishment is expensive. Cumulatively, states spend more than US$52 billion a year on their prison systems. The federal government also spends tens of billions to police, prosecute, and imprison people, though research demonstrates that incarceration harms individual well-being and does not improve public safety.

What purpose is served by subjecting the most disempowered, abused, and nonviolent women to the perpetually negative environment of prisons?

Efforts to make prison “work” for women have only perpetuated the growth of the prison industrial complex. These putative reforms have helped some individuals, and possibly brought the nature of mass warehousing of poor, black and brown bodies more into focus, but still the number of incarcerated people continues to rise.

Community interventions work

So what is the alternative to jailing women at the rate we do? In the UK, advocates propose community sentences for nonviolent offenders, and housing violent offenders in small custodial centers near their families.

There is evidence these approaches can work in the US. Opportunities to test alternatives to prison are increasing across the states and some have demonstrated beneficial results for the women who participated.

For example, state-funded Project Redeploy in Illinois has built upon the evidence that non-violent offenders are more effectively treated in their communities by diverting 1,376 non-violent offenders from prison since their program began in January 2011 through the end of 2013.

The state of Oklahoma is currently ranked number one for female incarceration per capita in the U.S. Nearly 80% of Oklahoma’s incarcerated women are non-violent offenders, their presence in prison largely attributed to drug abuse, distribution of controlled substances, prostitution and property crimes.

A program that began five years ago, Women in Recovery, provides an alternative to prison for women who are sentenced for felony crimes linked to alcohol or drug addiction. The program includes comprehensive set of treatment and services including employment services, housing assistance and family reunification. Women with small children are given the highest priority for admission to the program. Women who complete the program, averaging about 18 months, have a high degree of success after release with no further criminal justice involvement.

The program coordinator for Women in Recovery has told me that 68% of the women who completed the program since they started in 2009 had no further involvement with the criminal justice system.

Starting with women

Even as we learn about promising diversion programs for women, are we really ready to shut down them down? If we think of abolition as a citizens’ effort and believe that women should be allowed to jump the queue for transport along the path of recovery and healing, there are steps that must be taken from a feminist perspective.





We need to understand the harm embedded in the current prison system and exploring what alternative responses already exist. For example, Susan Burton, the founder of A New Way of Life, a group of transition homes for women exiting prison in Los Angeles indicates that an abolitionist perspective transforms the lives of former prisoners. Direct assistance from this program reconnects women to their families, communities, and citizenship. Circle processes used by indigenous communities in the US, Canada and New Zealand provide models for these practices.

The systemic production of mass incarceration cannot be solved simply by assisting troubled and troubling individual women. Another step to abolition requires taking the discussion beyond the individuals and communities who have been most directly harmed, controlled, and erased by the prison industrial complex to the public sphere that has passively accepted it. Put simply, we need to stop seeing prisons as an inevitable part of life.

Another way

If we can’t close down women’s prisons, we can at least slow down their expansion. Efforts to isolate women from their communities must be identified and opposed.

In Denver, for example, the Fail the Jail campaign helped defeat the addition of new jail beds. Instead, the director of the state’s community reentry project told me that alternatives have proven to help individual women and change community attitudes.

The case for closing women’s prisons is built on the experiences of formerly incarcerated women and activists who recognize that women who are mothers and community builders can find their way forward when they respected and supported. It is possible to imagine a future without women’s prisons; whether it’s achievable will require a bigger shift in thinking.

The Conversation

By Patricia O’Brien, University of Illinois at Chicago

Patricia O’Brien does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

There is a lot to unpack here. For one, it seems really fucked up that the main focus, from my reading, of why this would be a good idea is because so many women prisoners are mothers and have children that rely on them. Never mind that these women, I would guess by a long shot, are not likely to be in prison fro failure to pay child support like so many men. In fact, I have known a number of female junkies who had kids, quite a few from one crappy HS I went to, and they not only don't pay their required CS....but nothing, absolutely nothing, happens to them.

On the other hand, I have known quite a few guys who end up in jail and prison for failure to pay or for being caught selling drugs or working under the table so they can be able to pay...and judges do nothing to enforce visitation in their situations.

Now, feminists want to allow female prisoners to basically be pardoned so they can spend time with their children and perform their "community building"...WTF is that, I don't even know???...

It really is crazy how these feminists, and to a lesser degree tradcon white knights, want to destroy society. Woman commits crime and instead of losing freedoms, and many if not most should lose parenting rights...even if they are in prison for non-violent drug related crimes in my opinion..., feminists want to give them a pass. Women already get off due to the battered woman syndrome for outright killing their boyfriends and husbands.

Anecdote time: At 17 I was arrested for felony possession of marijuana. Being smart I was able to get the charges thrown out and avoid longer penalties by making a deal with the DA and doing a few things like enlisting in a GED program, getting a job, and going into an outpatient rehab program.

Looking back on it I learned a lot in outpatient. I had to go to NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous (same basic thing as AA), and there were a number of different types. I noticed that the all-male meetings had a completely different vibe than the mixed meetings.

Anywho, there was a regular woman I would run into. She was a real beast and cunt of a bitch. She looked kinda like HoneyBooBoos mother but uglier...it is possible.

This bitch would hog the entire meeting and would just talk and talk about herself and all her problems. These meeting only typically lasted for about an hour and honestly every time she showed up she would spend 20 min talking about herself. I got to hear a lot about her life. She claimed to be a really mean drunk and addict. She talked about fucking people over just for the fun of it. Destroying relationships, causing physical harm for no reason, abusing her children and loved ones and so on.

It was like staring into the abyss and a traffic accident at the same time. I don't know how to explain it exactly. She would couch her language and stories in a way to displace her guilty actions onto others all while blaming it on the drugs. She was a sociopath.

So, one day she has to tell the group why she is there. It turns out that she shot her husband three times in the face with a shotgun while he was asleep on the couch. It was because he was coming down and wanted to sleep and she wanted more drugs. She literally killed him and didn't spend one day in prison. I have friends that have spent more time in prison than this woman, and there are many others like her who don't make national news, for getting caught with weed and being over 18.

So, there's my story relating to this. I gotta start putting in more work to leave this shit hole.

Post: #2

With Mohamed been the most popular baby boy name in England, if i were them i would'nt be concerned about closing prisons but more about been stoned to death.

Post: #3

Maybe I should post this in the unpopular opinions thread, but every once in a while I think prison itself is a waste of time and perhaps our ancestors were onto something.

I wonder what society would look like if we:

1. Legalized drugs.
2. Used the death penalty for things like first-degree murder, child rape (as in actual rape of a prepubescent child), kidnapping, armed robbery, and severe violent crimes that contributed to someone's permanent maiming or death.
3. Handled everything else via forced restitution, indentured servitude if they can't pay the fines, community service, or scourging.

A friend of mine's cousin is an Oxy junkie who broke into an acquaintance's house when he wasn't home and stole a couple hundred dollars worth of electronics to sell to a fence for drugs. He got a year in jail for that and is back in because he couldn't pay his probation fine, yet he can't really work because no one will hire him. Would you hire a thief? Who does this benefit? He's costing residents of my state several thousand dollars in precious taxpayer money and there's a chance he might be an even worse criminal by the time he gets out.

20 lashes and an order to pay the victim damages would've made more sense to me and been way more economical. It would've also made things right with the victim.

I don't understand why people think that sort of punishment is barbaric when compared to forcing someone to give up years of their life in an environment full of predatory homos and gangs.

Post: #4

Maybe it's just me, but starting with criminal justice reform and reviewing the cases of non-violent offenders is a better start.


This article and the House of Lords are clearly just pandering.

Post: #5

(11-06-2014 02:33 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  Maybe I should post this in the unpopular opinions thread, but every once in a while I think prison itself is a waste of time and perhaps our ancestors were onto something.

I wonder what society would look like if we:

1. Legalized drugs.
2. Used the death penalty for things like first-degree murder, child rape (as in actual rape of a prepubescent child), kidnapping, armed robbery, and severe violent crimes that contributed to someone's permanent maiming or death.
3. Handled everything else via forced restitution, indentured servitude if they can't pay the fines, community service, or scourging.

A friend of mine's cousin is an Oxy junkie who broke into an acquaintance's house when he wasn't home and stole a couple hundred dollars worth of electronics to sell to a fence for drugs. He got a year in jail for that and is back in because he couldn't pay his probation fine, yet he can't really work because no one will hire him. Would you hire a thief? Who does this benefit? He's costing residents of my state several thousand dollars in precious taxpayer money and there's a chance he might be an even worse criminal by the time he gets out.

20 lashes and an order to pay the victim damages would've made more sense to me and been way more economical. It would've also made things right with the victim.

I don't understand why people think that sort of punishment is barbaric when compared to forcing someone to give up years of their life in an environment full of predatory homos and gangs.

I'd go for that. The reason it won't happen is because prisons / courts / fines are big business $$$ for public sector unions and gov't bureaucrats. All courtesy of taxpayers and "tough on crime" prosecutors, judges and lawmakers. Your proposed system would work wonders on modern western nations.

Post: #6

(11-06-2014 02:45 PM)jimmyjohns Wrote:  Maybe it's just me, but starting with criminal justice reform and reviewing the cases of non-violent offenders is a better start.


This article and the House of Lords are clearly just pandering.

For argument's sake, one of the key factors in the reduction of crime in the US (it has been going down steadily since the 1960's) is the high incarceration rate. Keeping (mostly) bad people locked up works.

Along with incarceration, abortion liberalization and removing lead from gas are cited as reducing crime as well.

Another interesting tidbit I read about were studies showing areas that had higher levels of lithium in the water supply had lower levels of anti-social behavior such as suicide, robbery, rape and murder. Since lithium is a mineral vital to brain function, several ideas were proposed by scientists to increase the amount in drinking water like fluoride was introduced to lower tooth decay.

Kinda freaky.

Post: #7

I represented a couple of women roped into big weight drug busts in controlled buys or from observation posts.

The girls were just along for the ride with their boyfriends, but the cops always put something in their report of them doing something, like passing money, or handling the bag with drugs.

So they would get charged based on the weight and face a ten year minimum mandatory charge. These women had no record and had jobs in offices and nursing homes, so the prosecutor would think they were being generous when they offered to knock it down to a lesser offense with a 2 or 3 year prison bid. It was bullshit. Damn I hated those cases.

Post: #8

I am in favor of drastically cutting incarceration rates. Our incarceration rates are the highest of any country in the world, and our prison system is clearly a money making scam of the ugliest kind.

Drugs being legalized should help towards this goal. No one needs to be in jail for drug use or selling, and selling drugs is becoming like selling alcohol in more and more states.

Post: #9

"This means that these women are disproportionately affected by a system designed for men."

I thought prisons were designed for criminals, not for a particular gender or race. Author just outed herself as an outright bigot.

Post: #10

A woman will be given more leniency in the same type of crime. Plenty of cases in the UK where the woman got off free.

Post: #11

(11-06-2014 03:00 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  I represented a couple of women roped into big weight drug busts in controlled buys or from observation posts.

The girls were just along for the ride with their boyfriends, but the cops always put something in their report of them doing something, like passing money, or handling the bag with drugs.

So they would get charged based on the weight and face a ten year minimum mandatory charge. These women had no record and had jobs in offices and nursing homes, so the prosecutor would think they were being generous when they offered to knock it down to a lesser offense with a 2 or 3 year prison bid. It was bullshit. Damn I hated those cases.

That is a really good point. Like others in this thread, I am largely for the reduction of incarceration. There are so many crimes that really shouldn't carry such a large sentence. At the same time, I used to be for full legalization of drugs but seeing how I am not a teen anymore and have moved on I don't think I can get behind that in a lot of cases.

I simply know too many people who are either dead or have seriously fucked over their lives due to Oxy or Meth predominately but also Coke and Heroin and even Crack.

When I think about non-violent drug offenders, especially women, I tend to let my own experiences cloud my perspective. I am thinking of the Oxy mom who shot up while watching her boyfriend beat her, and a friend of mine from High School (She played trumpet in the band with me in 6th grade), kids which killed one of them. I am not thinking about the grad student getting pulled over with her boyfriend who is delivering a bag full of Aderol or a pound of weed.

Edit: Above I mean that a girl who I knew in middle school got addicted to Oxy after having two kids with a guy I knew in High School. She sat back and shot up Oxy while her boyfriend, not the baby daddy, beat both of the kids till they were hospitalized. One kid died in the hospital. She had been in and out of jail for awhile and had actually lost custody of the kids several times, while my friend worked two jobs to stay ahead of child support and never saw a dime from her when he had custody...I think custody reverted to her mom when he fell behind on CS and ended up in jail for a few weeks even though she owned him more than he owed her and she had never paid a dime and he was hard working. The system is fucked man.


On the subject of incarceration, it really amazes me how stiff our penalties are for some things. I know a woman who works as a maid. She is fairly white trash but over all a decent enough person and really nice. She helped take care of my grandma.

Her husband was hanging out with some buddies after their factory shift and they decided to get drunk. Apparently, I don't know all the details, the bars had closed and they decided to go to the local park and sit around on the basketball court and get shit faced. This is in a small town.

Well, the cops came. They are all drinking on federal land so that right there is a felony apparently. It turned out that one of the guys had a legally owned gun on him and that is another felony with mandatory minimums. So not only did that guy get in trouble for both drinking and possessing a firearm illegally (even though it was legal) on federal land but the judge hit all of the guys with it and her husband was sentenced to 10 years and I think gets out soon after serving 2 or 3...again I don't know the details and haven't asked. I am also not a lawyer but my mom is and she was the one giving me the story.

I just find it insane that we have cases like that all the while I met a female murder in NA at 17/18 years old who got off on the Battered Woman Syndrome.

Blows my mind.

Post: #12

(11-06-2014 05:10 PM)Troll King Wrote:  

(11-06-2014 03:00 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  I represented a couple of women roped into big weight drug busts in controlled buys or from observation posts.

The girls were just along for the ride with their boyfriends, but the cops always put something in their report of them doing something, like passing money, or handling the bag with drugs.

So they would get charged based on the weight and face a ten year minimum mandatory charge. These women had no record and had jobs in offices and nursing homes, so the prosecutor would think they were being generous when they offered to knock it down to a lesser offense with a 2 or 3 year prison bid. It was bullshit. Damn I hated those cases.

That is a really good point. Like others in this thread, I am largely for the reduction of incarceration. There are so many crimes that really shouldn't carry such a large sentence. At the same time, I used to be for full legalization of drugs but seeing how I am not a teen anymore and have moved on I don't think I can get behind that in a lot of cases.

I simply know too many people who are either dead or have seriously fucked over their lives due to Oxy or Meth predominately but also Coke and Heroin and even Crack.

When I think about non-violent drug offenders, especially women, I tend to let my own experiences cloud my perspective. I am thinking of the Oxy mom who shot up while watching her boyfriend beat her, and a friend of mine from High School (She played trumpet in the band with me in 6th grade), kids which killed one of them. I am not thinking about the grad student getting pulled over with her boyfriend who is delivering a bag full of Aderol or a pound of weed.

Edit: Above I mean that a girl who I knew in middle school got addicted to Oxy after having two kids with a guy I knew in High School. She sat back and shot up Oxy while her boyfriend, not the baby daddy, beat both of the kids till they were hospitalized. One kid died in the hospital. She had been in and out of jail for awhile and had actually lost custody of the kids several times, while my friend worked two jobs to stay ahead of child support and never saw a dime from her when he had custody...I think custody reverted to her mom when he fell behind on CS and ended up in jail for a few weeks even though she owned him more than he owed her and she had never paid a dime and he was hard working. The system is fucked man.


On the subject of incarceration, it really amazes me how stiff our penalties are for some things. I know a woman who works as a maid. She is fairly white trash but over all a decent enough person and really nice. She helped take care of my grandma.

Her husband was hanging out with some buddies after their factory shift and they decided to get drunk. Apparently, I don't know all the details, the bars had closed and they decided to go to the local park and sit around on the basketball court and get shit faced. This is in a small town.

Well, the cops came. They are all drinking on federal land so that right there is a felony apparently. It turned out that one of the guys had a legally owned gun on him and that is another felony with mandatory minimums. So not only did that guy get in trouble for both drinking and possessing a firearm illegally (even though it was legal) on federal land but the judge hit all of the guys with it and her husband was sentenced to 10 years and I think gets out soon after serving 2 or 3...again I don't know the details and haven't asked. I am also not a lawyer but my mom is and she was the one giving me the story.

I just find it insane that we have cases like that all the while I met a female murder in NA at 17/18 years old who got off on the Battered Woman Syndrome.

Blows my mind.

I maintain that the punishment should fit the crime. There are too many laws today for stupid crap that carry punishments that are way too harsh.

Too many damn things are felonies today.

I first realized this when I started getting into gun rights and researching firearms law.

Putting a grip on the front rail of your handgun? Federal felony.

Just possessing a short barrel for a rifle or shotgun you own, even if you don't put it on, is a federal felony. Constructive possession.

Attaching anything to the barrel of your firearm that reduces the muzzle report by even a single decibel without possessing a tax stamp? Federal felony. All those people on youtube that do the Coke bottle silencer thing are committing felonies if they have not paid for a tax stamp for it and gotten approval from the ATF.

Anyway, the point is there are a ton of federal firearms laws that carry felony punishments. States add on to this mess with their own ridiculous laws and so do localities.

And that is only one tiny part of law and federal code.

I highly recommend this book: http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/...fault.aspx

Post: #13

The sentiment that women deserve extra consideration for release from prison is evil, a not so subtle denunciation of men as inherently guilty by comparison.

However, it's not a bad idea as others have mentioned to legalize or decriminalize certain activities. Legalize prostitution and marijuana, and perhaps decriminalize other drug possession, and you'll see many fewer women and men in prison.

Post: #14

I thought bitches wanted equal rights?

Post: #15

Come to think of it, I don't know why this little angel went to jail, I mean, she only crept up on a man while he was in the shower, stabbed him multiple times, slit his throat, and shot him in the head.

Post: #16

Releasing women prisoners? Fuck no.

These bitches want equality throw them in men's prisons. See how they like that shit.

Post: #17

(11-07-2014 12:07 AM)jariel Wrote:  

Come to think of it, I don't know why this little angel went to jail, I mean, she only crept up on a man while he was in the shower, stabbed him multiple times, slit his throat, and shot him in the head.

I watched some of her trial. I was laid up with a broken leg for a few weeks when her trial was big stuff. Anyway, the prosecutor from Phoenix. Juan something. Was awesome. He gave her no sympathy, even told her that her trying women shit won't work on him. He said he treated her just like a man who had committed the same crime. He was absolutely ruthless. I almost gave him a standing ovation a few times.

Post: #18

The article doesn't seem that awful to me; I agree with most of it. As men it is our job to be rational about these things.

As a Brit it always shocks me as to the severity of sentancing in the US.

Post: #19

(11-07-2014 05:30 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  The article doesn't seem that awful to me; I agree with most of it. As men it is our job to be rational about these things.

As a Brit it always shocks me as to the severity of sentancing in the US.

Agreed. As I alluded to above, there are a lot of women in prison who should not be there.

Really, only violent offenders need long prison sentences. And the vast majority of violent offenders are men.

They sent Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart to prison for nonviolent tax and securities law violations when they should have fined them.

You need some kind of unpleasant holding institution to keep people who violated probation, I've long been in favor of work camps out in the wilderness with rehab for druggies who steal as a consequence of their habit.

Post: #20

How about closing down the women's prisons and have co-ed prisons because of equality or feminism or whatever?

Post: #21

Somewhat relevant-the author's long been a campaigner for abolition of prisons on grounds of "racism":Are Prisons Obsolete?
She's a tool and militant communist.

While it's not a new idea to abolish prisons, the alternatives are, from a "humanitarian" point of view, less desirable. Branding? Exclusion? Corporal punishment? Transportation? Indenture?
Actually, that last one I'd favour for men AND women, at least for economic offenses like robbery or theft, but anyone who advocates doing away with one of the biggest controls on of criminal behaviour is unrealistic or a criminal themselves (like Davis).

There are plenty of offences- prostitution and possession being two- where prison sentences may be going a little far, but lack of punishment creates more criminals, and in the case of women, exposes more people to their behaviour.

Maybe tattooing as a badge of shame should be introduced? For social/financial crimes, the perpetrator gets a forehead tattoo announcing what they did?

Post: #22

(11-07-2014 12:48 PM)shameus_oreaaly Wrote:  Somewhat relevant-the author's long been a campaigner for abolition of prisons on grounds of "racism":Are Prisons Obsolete?
She's a tool and militant communist.

While it's not a new idea to abolish prisons, the alternatives are, from a "humanitarian" point of view, less desirable. Branding? Exclusion? Corporal punishment? Transportation? Indenture?
Actually, that last one I'd favour for men AND women, at least for economic offenses like robbery or theft, but anyone who advocates doing away with one of the biggest controls on of criminal behaviour is unrealistic or a criminal themselves (like Davis).

There are plenty of offences- prostitution and possession being two- where prison sentences may be going a little far, but lack of punishment creates more criminals, and in the case of women, exposes more people to their behaviour.

Maybe tattooing as a badge of shame should be introduced? For social/financial crimes, the perpetrator gets a forehead tattoo announcing what they did?

they would cover the tatoo up with makeup or have it surgically removed. I like the idea in theory though.

Post: #23

You start by putting only real criminals in jail. Put people who actually violate other people's rights in jail.

Pardon and release drug users, drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps.

Post: #24

I agree that drugs and prostitution should be decriminalized.

However, this is not the issue here. The issue is the double standard: according to SJWs, women should not be put in jail, but men are second class citizens who should be treated like shit. Think about it for a second: you pay taxes to feed the system that treats you as if you are inferior.

If the argument of SJWs is that women are less likely to commit serious crimes and therefore should not be put in jail, then just try to make the same argument and replace women vs men with white people vs black people and see what reaction you'll get. Somehow racism is bad, but misandry is just fine.

Post: #25

I've noticed a pattern where female criminals are excused, their crimes rationalized away, and their deeds even praised.

Example? NPR recently ran two stories on an elderly female jewel thief with a rap sheet dating back to 1952. The overall tone of the articles are sympathetic, even adulatory. Judge for yourself.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014...amond-ring

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/08/361745022/...ewel-thief

There's supposed to be a movie made about here, starring Halle Berry.