to ask if you think women should be imprisoned

[manicinsomniac]

NB - I'm not talking about murderers and child abusers etc, obviously those women pose a risk to society and need to be away from it.

But the majority?

I've started to get quite involved with prison volunteering, campaigning etc and have just read this on the women in prison website:

*Prison causes damage and disruption to the lives of vulnerable women, most of whom pose no risk to the public. Women have been and are marginalised within a criminal justice system designed by men for men.

Prison is often a very expensive way of making vulnerable women?s life situations much worse. Women are often incarcerated miles from their homes and families ? they lose their homes, their relationships with their children and their mental health in the process.

Better outcomes for women mean a reduced use of prison and an increased use of community alternatives. Prison does not work. The best way to cut women?s offending is to deal with its root causes. *

What do you think? Instinctively I agree with it but I don't know if I'm just being too idealistic and/or have just watched too many episodes of Bad Girls!

So WIBU to want to campaign against the imprisoning of vulnerable women? Or is it no different to imprisoning men?
Should I be equally bleeding heart about men?
Or do all these prisoners just deserve what's coming to them?!

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud

The state is a worse parent but adoptive one are not I don't think people want the state raising these women's children but in some cases we don't want the women raising the children either

As we saw from the programme protecting our children many of the parents were in and out of prison had drug issues and domestic violence issues

A child who is at risk of abuse of neglect will alway do better in care than it will be aused or neglected

If your priorty is robbing some old lady at night instead of tucking your kids in then I think a foster parent can't really do any worse really

MrBojangles - You may be right, and in a way you're making my point for me. If children need to be taken into care because they are at risk of harm or neglect, that is one thing. Taking them into care because there is nobody else to look after them while their parent is in prison (and prison is doing nothing to stop the parent offending, just interrupting it for a while) is something else entirely.

Are you suggesting that the children of women who go to prison are automatically removed from them and adopted away?

Many women are in prison for non violent crime eg debt

Look here It's an old article I don't know if things have changed.

People are assuming that women who get sent to prison are as likely to be violent etc as male prisoners and will automatically be bad parents. They aren't, which is kind of the point of the thread.

this is more recent and has a link to a recent report

Not really to me non stop offending is kin to neglect if we kept the parent out of prison the likely hood is the offending would just go on but either with the children witnessing it

My assertion is any way wrongly or rightly that many women who are serial offenders have their children in care already if not very heavy ss involment

Being a dug dealer or a arsonist in my view wouldn't really lend itself to being mum of the year and highly likey these mums are also very difishant in other areas as well

I would like to know the figure between parent who have been in jail and also had ss involvement

here is more recent and has some very interesting stats re imprisonment on remand, for first offences, serving very short sentences

SardineQueen I sure you assume committing a crime that is such it sends you to jail make you not nessarily a bad parent I wouldnt thing a person who sells drugs mum of the year

The very act of doing somthing that could take you away from ou child MAKES you a bad parent

that last link is very informative actually.

Women fought long and hard for equaly rights and treatment, and rightly so, but it needs to work all ways. If a woman and a man commit exactly the same offence in exactly the same circumstances, they should get exactly the same sentence.

um

"More women were sent to prison in 2007
for shoplifting offences than any other
crime. They accounted for 26% of all women
sentenced to immediate custody in 2007."

read the last link it is very interesting

The point of this thread, featherbag, is that they don't.

I realise that, that's why I said should!

Oh right. I wasn't sure as you seemed to be saying that women think they should get off easy because they are women and that's awful, when in fact they aren't getting off easily at all.

So easy to misunderstand tone on the net I guess.

No one goes to prison for catalogue debts. Doebtors prison went out with Dickens. You can go to prison for not paying a criminal fine, or council tax, but the numbers who do are miniscule. It usually only happens as a concurrent sentence when imprisoned for yet another crime.
Women are committing more violent crime. So are youths (under 18 year olds). Prison may not "work" in terms of cutting reoffending rates, but it prevents offenders from committing more crimes while they are locked up. Sometimes prison is the only way to stop (at least temporarily) a crime spree

Prison ... prevents offenders from committing more crimes while they are locked up.

Even that isn't entirely true.

Which ever way you want to look at the figures the prison population is over populated with men not women. Campaigning for JUST the rights of female prisoners is banal and sexist.

Shoplifters do deserve to be locked up.

They are thieves.

I disagree OP. The old adage springs to mind, "You do the crime, you do the time".

Shouldn't make any difference whether you're male or female, sorry. As for the "a different type of crime" - we should imprison people on their crime, not sex.

verityverbiage why on earth would anyone campaign that we must have as many women in prison as men on order to show that we have an equal society?

It's a bizarre POmrspeterdocherty are these stats not true then

More women were sent to prison in 2007 for shoplifting offences than any other crime. They accounted for 26% of all women sentenced to immediate custody in 2007.
Most women serve very short sentences. In 2009 61% were sentenced to custody for six months or less
27% of women in prison had no previous convictions ? more than double the figure for men.
Over half of women entering custody each year do so on remand. These women spend an average of four to six weeks in prison and nearly 60% do not go on to receive a custodial sentence.
63% of women are in prison for non-violent offences, compared with 45% of men.
Breach of license or of a community penalty comprised 60% of offences within
the ?other offences? category received for women, and 42% for men.

It is a fact that the sentences and types of crimes that result in incarceration differ between men and women. It is true that people who commit the same crime should get the same punishment but that is not happening at the moment. The majority of male prisoners are there because of violent crime, and there is no doubt thay violent people should be locked away for the protection of the public (and ideally receive help with their problems while they are inside). The fact that a quarter of women are in prison for shoplifting is miserable. As is the fact that 60% of women who are held on remand every year (which if they have children will usually entail their children being taken into care) do not actually end up getting sent to prison.

The idea that the number of men and women locked up need to be the same if we are to have equality is preposterous given that the severity and nature of crimes committed by men is much worse.

I think it would be a good idea if people tried to understand the issues surrounding criminality and the criminal justice system and how it all works for both men and women before posting glib comments.

Can I just say that the whole thing about life outcomes for kids and going into care, the other bit that doesn?t seem to be understood is natural barriers get lifted/dissolved when having parents doing time is normal.
Children don?t judge their parents as a child, they judge the people judging.

Other barriers get removed and new ones put up for a child visiting as well.

Who a child becomes known to is changed, the statistical chances of which kind of people that child?s now known to, changes for the worse. The same?s true for the mother if she becomes a visitor. (don?t know the impact on men visiting women)
The need for many adults to treat the child differently because of who the parent is, from future prospective use, lack of trust, to whispering, to lecturing, is much greater than people realise.

Parents can massage their way through being in trouble in terms of full realisation impacting on kids, as long as normal life goes on.

Once they get sent down that?s that, the child is a child of a thief, drunk, murderer, whatever, in it?s own mind and the apple finds it hard to roll from the tree, there?s less to lose even though the child?s not done a thing wrong.

Am not saying parents shouldn?t be imprisoned, but I don?t think proper attentions paid to the real impacts on kids, or explained to parents when giving them chances to stay out of jail.

Yes, JustGettingOnWithIt, that's why the "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime and tough luck on your kids if you go to jail" sentiment makes me so uncomfortable. It's a recipe for perpetuating offending down through the generations. We need to think about all of these issues in a much more sophisticated way, for the sake not only of the next generation of children who grow up regarding going to prison as just something that people do but also for the next generation of victims.

Prison IS a deterrant.....there is no alternative at the moment

Prison isn't a deterrent though, I don't think? I read something ages ago that pointed to the US which has terribly harsh sentencing including death penalty in some states, and the highest prison population in the world as a % of its population (I think) and they still have crime like billy-o.

They need to tackle root causes, not embed criminal behaviour in generations. The idea of punishing children for the crimes of parents always makes me feel uncomfortable.

I think that radically rethinking drug policy would be a great start.
I do think though that people are are violent and remain a risk should not be released, I don't understand that either TBH whole thing is a bit wonky.

Also the fact that so many people in hosp are mentally ill they need treatment not incarceration.

It's all money isn't it though and short-sighted ideas that please the red top readers.