Women in CJ System

Four women incarcerated at the Washington State Corrections Center for Women in Purdy are suing the Department of Corrections after experiencing sexual misconduct, assault and rape at the prison. According to one of the attorneys for the women, the abuse her clients describe is, “Just the tip of the iceberg.”

In November, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released two bulletins that put real numbers behind the expansion of the criminal justice system in the United States, Prisoners in 2005, which includes prison populations at the end of 2005 along with rates of prison and jail system growth since 1995, and Probation and Parole in the United States, 2005.

The United States is a world leader in the incarceration of women. This country imprisons one-third of the over half a million women incarcerated around the world (183,000 women).

With a growth rate 17% higher than last year, Nevada’s women’s prison in North Las Vegas can no longer hold the all of the women incarcerated in the state. When the legislature convenes in 2007, Department of Corrections Director Glen Whorton will request $39 million to expand the North Las Vegas prison by 400 beds.

The Oregon Department of Corrections reported to the legislature’s Interim Judiciary Committee that Measure 11 and the Repeat Property Offender law are driving the increase in Oregon’s prison population. Without the longer sentences required by these two laws, Oregon would need 4,743 fewer prison beds. That translates into about three entire prisons that Oregon wouldn’t need. Seventy percent of these additional 4,743 prison beds are due to Measure 11 alone.