Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, 1 April 1994 — Women behind bars: families lose too [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Women behind bars: families lose too

by Deborah L. Ward She's young, poor, has abused aleohol and/or drugs for several years, has no job and likely has been physicially or sexually abused since childhood. To survive, she has resorted to theft, eheek forgery, prostitution or drug offenses. She can't make bail, so she winds up in jail. There's a 40 percent ehanee she's Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian. It's a likely bet that she's either pregnant or has young children at home. For her and more and more of her sisters in prison, both in Hawai'i and across the U.S., incarceration is increasingly society's answer to crime generated by poverty, sexism and racism.

Meda Chesney-Lind, a enminologist and director of the University of Hawai'i Department of Women's Studies, has studied the treatment of women prisoners in Hawai'i and nationally for over 20 years. She says "What I've seen has been an explosion of women's imprisonment here in the islands, paralleling the national trend." Are women in Hawai'i becoming involved in serious crime in greater numbers? At first glance, it might seem that way. ChesneyLind says, "In 1975 only two women were incarcerated as sentenced felons, and 14 were given jail terms. The numbers in the Hawai'i women's facility stayed

low in the early 1980s with only 46 women being held in 1982. By November 1985, however, 102 women were held at the women's prison. "In short, Hawai'i's women prison population increased by 538 percent between 1975 and 1985. The populalion climbed to 140 in 1987 and held steady at 140 and 150 since," due in part to laek of space in the current women's facility. As of January this year there were about 104 women in prison and about 50 in jail, says Chesney-Lind. In a recently published study she cited national data to show that women are not being imprisoned because of a jump in the seriousness of their offenses. lnstead, she noted, the proportion of women imprisoned for violent offenses actually dropped. "Women are arrested and imprisoned in greater numbers because of changes in legislative responses to the 'war on drugs,' law enforcement practices and judieial decision-making rather than a shift in the nature of the crimes they commit." She adds, "We as a nation have pretty mueh given up on people and are incarcerating instead. The Hawaiians have been pretty mueh the victims of this kind of policy response." However, she points out, "Most women, the 85 percent who are continued on page 14

Women in prison: does incarceration really benefit society?

from page 10 in prison in Hawai'i, are in for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug and property offenses, also welfare fraud, check-kiting, shoplifting or prostitution." Of the 15 percent that are doing time for violent crimes, she notes many have serious histories of abuse themselves as children, or from their spouses.

"These are conditions that I think people are justifiably alarmed and concerned about, but I wonder if a reasonable person would imagine that prison is the only possible response. "What people fail to remember is that most of the people who go into prison eome out. We need to worry about how they eome out." Citing a lesser threat to public safety, Chesney-Lind suggests "a far better ehoiee would be to use the money to better utilize and/or

develop in-community treatments for many of the women currently incarcerated." Because half of the women admitted to prison here were sent back for parole violations in

whieh unne tests showed they had been using drugs, she asks, why not have a policy instead to send them to culturally-sensitive, gender-sensitive drug treatment programs? Such programs, in combination with jobtraining courses, have been shown to reduce relapses to drug use and

crime onee they are released. What else? "I think we could look at innovative strategies in terms of bail," says ChesneyLind. "A big ehunk of Hawaiian women are in jail because they

couldn't make the $500-51000 bail. We also need to ask, 'Do we need to loek up a mother?'" "The real tragedy comes with the individual women, and their children, who experience incar-

■ e e r a t i o n . " Nationally, half of incarcerated women's ehildren never visit 1 their mothers, I resulting in I long-lasting I psychological I trauma in many I children that I shows up in their home life,

personal care, schoolwork and friendships. Chesney-Lind has these recommendations for how OHA, in coordination with other agencies, might address the needs of

Hawaiian prisoners, especially women: • Advocacy — "We need some organization with resources and credibility to look at the treatment of offenders, and ask hard questions about whether the Department of Public Safety has really vigorously sought alternatives to incarceration for Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians." • Alternatives to new Big Island prison facilities — "OHA should ask whether the state wants to be spending resources that way or whether we should spend that money on altematives to incarceration here on O'ahu, where the people live." • Job training programs — "Courts could assign women to day treatment and job training programs rather than prison. ... We have a wonderful community college system. I've seen peo-

ple's lives change onee they had job skills." • Supporting community residential programs for mothers and infants, programs for pregnant inmates and their children as an alternative to incarceration. • Probation — "The American Correctional Association advocated for serious rethinking of what probation is all about. None of these things has been seriously addressed by any part of the criminal justice system." • Alternative punishment programs such as: electronic monitoring, short-term housing, day reporting, and contracted residential psychiatric services. Chesney-Lind notes that alternatives to incarceration may spell a new life for the many women convicted of non-violent offenses. "All it takes is a little political courage and some imagination."

Meda Chesney-Lind