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Global Notebook 3/00
Prison Conditions Worsen for Women
WASHINGTON, DC — The female inmate population in US prisons doubled in the 1990s, growing far faster than the male population, according to a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO). The GAO also found that most female inmates are mothers, jailed for nonviolent crimes, and incarcerated at great distances from their children. They’re also more likely than men to suffer from HIV infection and mental illness.
"In placing women in carbon copies of male institutions, the US and the states are not [providing] some important gender-specific health and other services," concludes Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic delegate from the District of Columbia who commissioned the study. "As a result, prison systems have failed to respond effectively to rates of HIV infection and mental illness among female inmates that are greater than among males, and have actually reduced drug treatment — even though nonviolent drug crimes are the major cause for female incarceration."