Yes, the United States of American has 2,418,352 men, women and children who are currently serving time in prison, for acts that they have or have not committed and out of this population there are about 200,000 females who are serving their time in prison. I agree that the court of law must not look at a person’s job, gender or any other background while pronouncing the punishment, but that doesn’t change who they are.
According to The Prison Policy Initiative, there are about 148,000 in State and Federal Prisons and these are the places where the conditions are the worse. A Woman’s basic right is to have her sanctity and respect in place at all times, and these very things are the first things taken away from the women when they are brought to the prisons.
I will begin by questioning the medical services that are provided to the women in prison. Often being denied basic medical services despite pregnancy or chronic disease is only one of the issues that come across when talking about women not being provided medical attention. Think of the women who are suffering through something as serious as HIV, who are at the risk of losing their lives if they miss their dosage. Women, who were once drug addicts or alcoholics before prison and are now going through the most painful withdrawal possible. They are living and alive, but are barely making it through. And while all this is prevalent, something much more obvious than this is the mental health. The inmates are isolated in a closed place, where they have no or barely any human interaction and this is not a normal thing, which means there is either a mental breakdown or depression that waits on the other side. Which means even if they are going through it and putting a strong front, they’re barely anything close to fully alive.
I believe that not only should there be a better medical system for everyone, but there should be special treatment that must be provided to women who are pregnant. Can’t their sentence date be delayed to when the child is born? Not to mention that it would be an additional punishment to separate a mother from her child but it is literally inhumane to have an unborn child go through the pain of prisons. We already know that the food that is provided to the people in prison is certainly not of the best quality.
This is just medical ground, and now we must think about the other social norms in prison. Think, racism and sexual orientation and the hatred that goes around prisons for the inmates that are of various races and have to face serious amount of brutality as if the sentence that they are already serving is not enough. The prisons separate the males from the females but we do not have enough women in our law enforcement agencies, which means that we have male officers guarding the female prisoners. Everyday, women are made to change, walk in and out of the shower, go to the bathroom and do everything that a woman should be doing in private space in front of a stranger man, who’s job originally should be of guarding the women but involuntarily, he ends up making the day in the life of these prisoners a bit a more difficult. These inmates are not just numbers; they are people, who are someone’s friend, girlfriend, wife, mother, sister and daughter and dare anything or anyone come in the way of their dignity.
I will say that certainly things are better today than what they used to be 10 years ago, but that is still not what it has to be like. They did not sign up to go through this hell of humiliation and they must not. But how many of us are really giving two seconds to think about it?
All Satistics And Figures From:
2) wikipedia