Sentencing Women to Prison: Equality Without Justice 1

Most of the increase in women’s arrests is accounted for by more arrests of women for non-violent property offenses such as shoplifting, check forgery, welfare fraud, as well as for substance abuse offenses such as driving under the influence of alcohol and, as we shall see later, drug offenses. Data on the characteristics of women in prison as well as an examination of trends in women’s arrests suggest that factors other than a shift in the nature of women’s crime are involved in the dramatic increases in women’s imprisonment. The first large-scale and organized imprisonment of women occurred in the US when many women’s reformatories were established between 1870 and 1900. The profiles of women under lock and key, at both national and local levels, suggest that women’s crime has not gotten more serious. In California, the Senate Concurrent Resolution 33 Commission on Female Inmate and Parolee Issues examined the needs of women offenders.