A story in today's Boston Globe (2008) that in New Hampshire, arrest rates for women are increasing faster than those for men -- 24% since 2004. Most of these women are arrested in response to drug- and alcohol-related crimes. A more in-depth article at the Union Leader (2008) also highlights the fact that the services available at women's facilities do not reach parity with male facilities, although there has been improvement since a study in 2004 ("Double Jeopardy") was released. However, it is worth noting that New Hampshire's female incarceration rate may still be well below the national average: Frost et al (2006, PDF) reported that New Hampshire ranked 47th out of 50 states in female incarcerations in 2004, with 18 female prisoners for 100,000 residents, making up less than 5% of the total prisoner population in the state.
I find it incredibly frustrating that the study's responsible body (The New Hampshire Women's Policy Institute) doesn't link to the new study "Women Behind Bars" or the older one "Double Jeopardy". I spent some time looking for these two articles with no luck. If you happen to be able to find them, I'd like to see more than the journalistic take on their findings.
I'm not sure what we're really supposed to glean from the rates rising faster for women than men, but I feel like a few cases can make a huge difference when you're talking about numbers as small as 119 prisoners. It seems easier to fudge a 24% increase for 119 women than for 2,329 men (2004 prisoner populations for NH, from Frost et al).
related: 7/14/08: AZ group helps women transition from prison
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metavariable Pro User says:
A startlingly uninformative graphic. I mean, yes, Texas incarcerates 4x as many prisoners as New Hampshire, but what does that tell us?
New Hampshire has a violent crime rate of 132 per 100,000, Texas is 529 per 100,000, so it could be that the difference is exactly what you'd expect if the justice system is doing its job properly. Of course, to actually conclude that we'd need to know what proportion of criminals are women, look at conviction rates for men versus women, and so on.
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