Women at the Margins by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Women's Studies, Criminology, Sociology, General, Law, Gender & the Law, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Policy
ISBN: 9781136578311
Google: EBPtKYWXyF0C
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-11T04:44:46+00:00

AGING IN PRISON: FOCUS ON THE OLDER FEMALE PRISONER

In general, the nation's prison population is older than in previous years. Using 1997 data, about 30 percent of male and female state and federal prison inmates were between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four, compared with 23 percent in 1991 (U.S. Department of Justice, 1999a). This increase was offset by a decline in the percentage of inmates aged eighteen to thirty-four. The percentage of inmates fifty-five years old and over remained about the same between 1991 and 1997.Women inmates in state and federal prisons are older than their counterparts in local jails. While about one in five women in local jails are under the age of twenty-five, one in eight state prisoners and one in eleven federal prisoners are in this age group. Nearly 25 percent of federal prison inmates are at least forty-five years old. Table 9.4 reflects the latest available age distribution of women prisoners in local jails, state prisons, and the federal prison system on a given day.9 It shows that the majority of incarcerated women fall into the age category of twentyfive through thirty-four. The next highest group is between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four. Looking at the age category of fifty-five and over, there are very few women prisoners. Specifically, only 1 percent of female inmates in probation and local jails are fifty-five years old and over. The percentage of incarcerated women fifty-five and over is 2 percent for state prisons, and 6 percent for the federal prison system.

TABLE 9.4. Women Offenders Women Offenders Probation Jails State Federal

24 or less 20% 21% 12% 9%

25-34 39% 46% 43% 35%

35-44 30% 27% 34% 32%

45-54 10% 5% 9% 18%

55 or more 1% 1% 2% 6%

Median Age 32 years 31 years 33 years 35 years

Source:U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Women Offenders, December 1999, NCJ 175688.

Arecent national study of elder offenders (Flynn, 1997) noted that half of the fifty-plus state corrections systems (including the Federal Bureau of Prisons and Puerto Rico) in the country had no specific age designation for their older inmates. Only nine state systems have adopted the recommendation of the National Institute of Corrections that age fifty be considered as the chronological starting point for defining older offenders. Another twelve systems have adopted age fifty-five as their designation for older offenders. Three systems use age sixty, and five systems use age sixty-five as their designations for older offenders. In a similar vein, there is a lack of uniformity in age definitions and age brackets among the basic sources for statistics describing women offenders. Worse, national data focusing specifically on older women prisoners are almost nonexistent. For example, one of the better sources for annual criminal justice statistics, the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, published by the U.S. Department of Justice (1999b), fails to break down the gender of inmates in its age categorizations. Thus, it is instructive to look at a recent publication of the American Correctional Association (2000) featuring adult inmate populations by age and gender for each state correction system and the federal prison system.

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