Questions About Criminology
June 5, 2025Prisons Are they safe?
The focus of this chapter is on the female prison population, which accounts for 5 percent of the worldwide prison population.
Women in custody look very different from men in custody; a consistent picture of deprivation, poverty, victimization, and marginalization characterize the female prisoners.
The majority of women prisoners have experienced addictions, psychological distress, abuse, poverty, and unemployment.
Drug and alcohol abuse are a common feature among this population, and their drug use histories appear to be heavy. Studies from the United States have found that women prisoners use more drugs with greater frequency than their male counterparts.
Although used less regularly, significant proportions of women in prison display evidence of alcoholism or alcohol-related problems. Histories of abuse, both as victims and offenders, are another common theme recurring throughout the female prison population.
Generally, female prisoners report histories of victimization that have taken place over their life course. Not surprisingly, female prisoners suffer more frequent and serious illnesses than male prisoners. Both suicide and self-injuries are common among this population.
Overall, female prisoners commit less serious offenses and thus spend less time in prison than males; female prisoners tend to be younger than male prisoners; and psychological distress has been found to plague female prisoners to a greater extent than male prisoners.
Not only are the backgrounds and characteristics of female prisoners distinct from those of male prisoners, female prisoners also have specific issues that are unique to them. Issues involving child care, housing, addiction, repeated victimization and imprisonment, bullying, and suicidal behavior are enumerated as the author argues that the needs of women in prison are different from the needs of male prisoners.
Despite the knowledge that has been generated about the distinct needs of women prisoners, the small proportion of females
in prison all but guarantees that the needs of men will dominate the criminal justice and corrections systems. In conclusion, the author notes that it is unlikely that the problems faced by female offenders will be solved within correctional institutions; indeed, current systems of custody may only exacerbate the problems and challenges of these women. Note, references
Loucks, N. (2004),Punishment and Corrections: Women in Prison, NCJRS Virtual Library, Available at: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/punishment-and-corrections-women-prison-forensic-psychology, [Last Accessed: 17 May 2025]
We need a reasoned, evidence-based debate about what actually works with prisons
Part1
Wow, that’s an amazing question! In India, in Bombay when I was there, probably not quite as polluted as they are now. You could see a blue sky every now and again, and powerful sunshine.
But one of the first things I noticed when our family came from India to London was the sky. We landed at Heathrow on the summer solstice. In India, because it’s close to the equator, the sun roughly rose and set about the same time, around seven.
We got to Heathrow at about 10 at night. I was freaked out by the fact that it was still light! Just how clear and blue the sky was, but also the smell. Even though it was London, it didn’t have the same pollution, sound, heaviness. It just suddenly felt fragrant.
So you were 14 then, right? How did those childhood years in India shape your subsequent career in prison service as a psychologist?
A lot of this analysis is a bit post hoc… you piece together things, and sometimes you form a narrative. But I grew up in a family as the youngest child.
Ours was a very sociable family, there was always someone visiting, some highfalutin conversation going on. As a child, I didn’t feel able to contribute to that conversation, but was fascinated by it nonetheless.
So my position became, from a very early age, to be a listener, an observer, intrigued by interpersonal relationships and dynamics. I found myself drawn to people’s stories, and observing behaviour. Now that I find myself in a career that’s so intrinsically about people, that’s probably where the interest stemmed from.
Is it unusual to be a listener and an observer in the prison service? Don’t you come across colleagues who think the prisoners’ stories aren’t the most important part of the job at hand?
There are people like that, which is why it became so important in my roles – whether that was as a psychologist or as prison governor – to represent that, in a way. Unless you hear the voices of the people whose care is in your hands, how do you know whether what you’re doing is the right thing?
The moral compass becomes a vital thing when you’re running prisons. Otherwise, it becomes very easy to dehumanise people in prison, to judge them, to see them as ‘other’.
Unless you have someone holding up the board for their views, their experiences, their lives, how do you get the empathy to be able to enact change, to change their lives?
Part2
maintain the emotional content of something while still being able to rationally analyse what’s going on at the same time. That’s a really important skill that not many people have.
You’ve said before, that you take on ‘challenging, stretching projects’. What’s the next challenge for you?
Gosh, there’s so much work to be done. I’ve probably not even got to the start of it. But my ambition in The Prison Reform Trust is to become much more useful. I have a fixation – your work effort needs to lead to something concrete, to be useful, because otherwise, what’s the point?
I don’t want to just talk in my echo chamber, to others who would agree with my worldview of the criminal justice system, I need to reach out to spaces and places where people’s hearts and minds need to be changed. But also whatever work we’re doing needs to enact reform for the people who are in the criminal justice system.
And the key to that is reaching into practitioners. There are thousands of prison staff, thousands of probation staff, and thousands of people in the voluntary sector working with the criminal justice system.
If we can put fire in their belly in terms of working differently, reform gets multiplied by a factor of thousands. Reform becomes not just in the book that you read, and the ideas that you get from talking to each other, but also through the wider group of individuals that you want change to happen for.
Sutton, J. (2024), We need a reasoned, evidence-based debate about what actually works with prisons, The British Psychological society, Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/we-need-reasoned-evidence-based-debate-about-what-actually-works-prisons, [Last Accessed: 17 May 2025]
Part5
The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, including both state and federal imprisonment, 49 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2022.
The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Idaho (132) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of women is Massachusetts
Offense Types for Men and Women in State Prisons
Women in state prisons are more likely than men
o be incarcerated for a drug or property offense. Twenty-five percent of women in prison have been convicted of a drug offense, compared to 12% of men in prison; 19% of incarcerated women have been convicted of a property crime, compared to 13% among incarcerated men.
The proportion of imprisoned women convicted of a drug offense has increased from 12% in 1986 to 25% in 2021.
Incarcerated Girls
f the 24,894 youth in residential placement on a typical day, 14% (3,554) are girls.2
As with boys, girls are confined considerably less frequently than at the start of the century. In 2001, 15,104 girls were confined in residential placement settings on a typical day. By 2021, this figure had been cut by over 75%.
The placement rate for all girls between ages 10 and 17 is 21 per 100,000 girls, yet Native American and Black girls are much more likely to be incarcerated than their peers. Native American girls have the highest incarceration rate, over 4 times the rate of white girls (76 per 100,000). Black girls are also disproportionately incarcerated at over 2.5 times the rate of white girls (46 per 100,000
Though just 14% of youth incarcerated on a typical day are girls, they make up a much higher proportion of those incarcerated for the lowest level offenses. Thirty-seven percent of youth in placement for status offenses (such as truancy and curfew violations) are girls.
Almost 60% of youth incarcerated for running away are girls. Overall, almost 25% of incarcerated girls are held for status offenses or for violating the terms of their probation.5
In 2021, girls in the youth justice system were detained after their arrest 24,386 times and committed to out-of-home placement after their adjudication 5,259 times
Part7
When the data is broken down by gender, the differences are stark.
Although women make up only 7 percent of the prison population, 66 percent of women in prison reported having a history of a mental disorder, almost twice the percentage of men in prison.
And one in five women in prison had recently experienced serious psychological distress, while one in seven men had.
Experts don’t fully understand why such a gender disparity exists. “I have never seen a study that establishes the reasons for this,” says Ron Honberg, senior policy adviser at the National Alliance for Mental Illness. “Because of that, we can only speculate, but I believe one factor is that incarcerated women have experienced sexual trauma before their imprisonment at a much higher rate than men. They are also likely more inclined to report psychological distress to the prison mental health services than male inmates.”
The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ researchers also found a disparity between inmates of different races. More than half of the white people in prison, of both sexes, reported a diagnosis of a mental disorder, nearly double the rate for Hispanics and more than 1.6 times higher than black people in prison. The numbers for those in jails were similar.
This finding comes as no surprise to Dr. Robert Cohen, a member of the New York City Board of Correction. According to Cohen, who was director of medical and mental health services at New York City’s Rikers Island jail in the 1980s, the survey responses may not reflect the actual number of inmates with mental health conditions.
Citing a 2015 study on New York City’s jail mental health services, Cohen pointed out that at Rikers, “older white men were directed towards mental health services, while younger black and Hispanic men were directed to solitary confinement, and self harm. I don’t think that fact reflects different rates of mental illness, I think it demonstrates racial bias.”
Advocates for the incarcerated argue that for all people in prisons and jails — more than 2 million people nationwide — mental health services are lacking at best. “Prisons and jails are not hospitals,” said Eric Balaban, a senior staff counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project. “Not only they are not where inmates should be receiving mental health treatment, they are anti-therapeutic.
Part4
Incarcerated Women and Girls
Research on female incarceration is critical to understanding the full consequences of mass incarceration and to unraveling the policies and practices that lead to their criminalization.
The female incarcerated population stands almost seven times higher than in 1980. Over the past quarter century, there has been a profound change in the involvement of women within the criminal legal system.
This is the result of more expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. The female incarcerated population stands almost seven times higher than in 1980.
Over sixty percent (62%) of imprisoned women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18Between 1980 and 2022, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 585%, rising from a total of 26,326 in 1980 to 180,684 in 2022.
While 2020 saw a substantial downsizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend reversed with an 18% increase in 2022.
the imprisonment rate for Black women (64 per 100,000) was 1.6 times the rate of imprisonment for white women (40 per 100,000).
Latina women were imprisoned at 1.2 times the rate of white women (49 vs. 40 per 100,000). has declined since 2000, while the r, the rate of imprisonment in state and federal prisons declined by 69% for Black women, while the rate of imprisonment for white women rose by 18%.
Part6
Prison is being used as the answer to abuse and mental ill-health experienced by women in the UK. The majority of women in prison report that they’ve experienced domestic abuse, and report mental health problems.
Prison is not a safe or appropriate setting for women who need support and medical care.
Women in Prison’s “The Answer is Not Prison” campaign calls on the UK Government to prioritise prevention for women rather than criminalising them and cutting them off from their community in prison.Our goal is to ensure that women facing mental ill-health, abuse, and other challenges receive the support they need within their communities.
The statistics are shocking and deeply concerning:
76% of women in prison report having a mental health problem.
70% of women in prison have experienced domestic abuse.
Self-harm was at the highest rate ever recorded in 2023. It increased 52% in the year to March 2023.
53% of women in prison have experienced abuse as children.
72% of women leaving one prison faced homelessness or unsafe accommodation.
These numbers highlight the urgent need for change. Women like Katy, Anita, and Dawn, whose stories you can read below, illustrate the devastating impacts of the current system. The answer is support, not prison.
More than two-thirds of incarcerated women in America reported having a history of mental health problems — a far higher percentage than their male counterparts, according to a study released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Although the prevalence of mental health disorders among people in prisons and jails is a well-known problem, the dramatic gender disparity exposed in the new report has been less discussed.
The survey, conducted from February 2011 to March 2012, asked more than 100,000 men and women in hundreds of U.S. jails and prisons whether they had ever been diagnosed by a mental health professional with a psychological disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety.
The survey also posed questions about inmates’ mood and emotions in the previous 30 days.
Thirty-nine percent of those surveyed said they had been diagnosed with a mental health condition. About 19 percent experienced an episode of serious psychological distress in the month before being surveyed.
Part8
A scoping review was used, a systematic search of the articles on Oxford Academic Journals, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, PubMed, and Google Scholar using the keywords “Mental Health” OR “Health” AND “Needs” OR “Needs Assessment” OR “Addressing Needs” AND “Female” OR “Woman” OR “Women” AND “Inmates” OR “Prisoners” OR “Offenders” OR “Convicts”.A total of 10 out of 254 selected, were considered eligible for inclusion and the results showed that the six major themes of mental health needs of women prisoners were treatment of substance, drug, and alcohol abuse, support system, empathy, training, mental illness treatment and access to health services, and health intervention: therapy and counselling.
The phenomenon of mental health problems in prisoners occurs in almost all parts of the world. “Women in prison are five times more likely to have a mental health disorder than women in the general population” (1). Woman prisoners often experience psychological disorders such as poor mental health, depression, stress, aggressiveness, and psychological illness (2). Psychotic illness, bipolar disorder, personality disorders and drug dependence also have a high prevalence among woman prisoners (3, 4).
Incarcerated women have more specific health problems than men do and experience limitations in health services in prison (5). A national survey conducted in the UK found that psychiatric morbidity in prisoners showed similar levels of impairment and severe problems in providing care to prisoners with mental disorders. Prisoners often ask for help to solve their problems, but are often refused. This shows that the performance of health services in prisons at that time was poor (6).
Another survey conducted on samples located in London (Pentonville and Holloway regions), confirmed high rates of mental disorders in detention, with 70% of prisoners with two or more mental disorders and 11.7% of prisoners having five mental disorders. Other data also show the survey team’s assessment of the mental health care of prisoners. More than 80% of female prisoners and 70% of male prisoners were identified as requiring treatment regarding their mental health conditions, while half of their needs were not met (7).
According to the WHO, the needs of women prisoners in health aspects include: 1) mental health problems; 2) suicidal behavior; 3) substance use problems; and 4) reproductive health. (8). Mental health needs of woman prisoners are related to the ease of access to mental health services in prisons. A history of detention can affect a detainee’s access to health care. In particular, imprisoned women are less likely to have a regular source of health care or receive regular care than the general population is (9). Furthermore, woman prisoners live in a correctional system designed primarily for men, so this system does not adequately address the unique needs of women. This can lead to ineffective treatment, poor health care, and wasted health resources (10, 11).
Female prisoners have a high level of mental health needs (12), hence research into the mental health needs of female prisoners is needed. Meanwhile, there has been little research and evaluation of the literature on the mental health needs of female prisoners. As a result, we conducted a scoping review to identify female prisoners’ mental health needs
We conducted a scoping review using Arksey and O’Malley framework which included: 1) Identifying research questions, 2) Identifying relevant studies, 3) Conducting study selection, 4) Charting data, and 5) Collecting, summarizing, and analyzing the included literature (13). The article search process is presented in PRISMA (14).
The research question in this study was “What are the mental health needs of women prisoners?”. We searched articles in Oxford Academic Journals, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, Pub-Med, and Google Scholar using the keywords “Mental Health” OR “Health” AND “Needs” OR “Needs Assessment” OR “Addressing Needs” AND “Female” OR “Woman” OR “Women” AND “Inmates” OR “Prisoners” OR “Offenders” OR “Convicts”.
Articles were selected by reading abstracts and titles, then they were sorted based on inclusion criteria, namely, articles on the mental health needs of women prisoners, articles published in 2010–2022, articles using English and Indonesian, full texts, and quantitative and qualitative studies. The exclusion criteria for this research were review articles, documents, and books
