TRUTHOUT: Record Numbers of Incarcerated Mothers Bad News for Women, Children, Communities

This past Friday, Truthout published an article on the record (and still-growing) numbers of incarcerated mothers in the United States. I was one of the people interviewed for the article (but that's not the only reason you should read it):

It is well known that the United States imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other industrialized country. And while it is true that the prison population is predominantly male, the number of female prisoners has risen more than 800 percent in the last three decades, outpacing the approximate 400 percent increase in the male prison population during the same time period.And according to the Institute on Women and Criminal Justice report "Hard Hit: The Growth in the Imprisonment of Women, 1977-2004," in 1977, the United States imprisoned ten out of every 100,000 women , while in 2004 that number had increased to 64 out of 100,000. And because women tend to be caretakers, particularly of children, the effect their incarceration often has on families can be disastrous.
Read the full article at: http://www.truth-out.org/record-numbers-incarcerated-mothers-bad-news-wo...