Blog 15

In 1977 about 11,000 women were in prisons. Currently more than that are incarcerated each year. In addition to that, 70% of those women are mothers. Many of the crimes are for nonviolent low-level drug charges and a disproportionate number are poor and racial minorities. While reading the information provided, I noticed that much of the data relied on sentencing policies and how tough a state decided to be on 'the war on drugs'. This was discouraging to me, mostly because by using these guidelines it gave a tone of permissibility in regards to drug sales. If this were an article focused on child drug use there would be a completely different solution suggested than which level of drug sales a woman (or man) should be imprisoned for. Another area that stood out was how many incarcerated women are mothers. After Units A and B in this class I realize that a child staying with someone other than a (in my opinion) potentially unfit mother may not be a better solution. Many low-income family members, or at least the ones shown so far, appear to have less cohesive bonds or less of a mutual ability to successfully raise children in terms of monetary and time needs. On the flip side, it may not be a bad thing that a child is removed from a home life filled with drugs and dysfunction. Nowhere in this article does it state that innocent women are being imprisoned. At least if the children see what can happen they're more likely to think twice before they repeat the pattern. While the reform movement had obvious racial flaws, the practices were a good start. The ideology was more accurate, even though middle class values may have been inconsistent with their inherent value systems. While I was repeatedly unable to get to the AZ Corrections website or anything similar, I would imagine Arizona was not a model state in women's reform.