Criminal justice and the women left behind

“Orange is the New Black,” the critically acclaimed “dramedy” series streaming on Netflix, has brought much-needed attention to incarcerated women. Now in its third season, “Orange” has chronicled the lives of these women in a seriocomic fashion, though it’s really not a laughing matter.

As in real life, most of the female inmates in the show’s fictional Litchfield Penitentiary are from lower- and middle-income backgrounds, while others come from broken homes or dysfunctional families.

{mosads}Regrettably, art imitates life in other ways, as well. The show depicts corruption in the U.S. prison system, as well as the abuse of power by some of the correctional officers upon Litchfield’s inmates. Women in prison face a host of unique issues, among them childcare for youngsters left on the outside.

The Netflix series is probably most impactful for one reason: most real-life discussions of criminal justice reform focus on men.

According to the federal Bureau of Prisons, as of Oct. 24, men made up 93.3 percent of the 198,143 inmates held in federal prisons, compared with just 13,699 women. But that’s not the whole story. Women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. In fact, the rate of incarcerated women has outpaced that of men two to one since 1985.  There are eight times more women behind bars than in 1980. A third are there for drug offenses. And many incarcerated women report they were victims of abuse.

While only 5 percent of the world’s female population lives in the U.S., America accounts for nearly 30 percent of the world’s incarcerated women, according to the nonpartisan Prison Policy Initiative.

We are encouraged to see female lawmakers in Congress getting behind criminal justice reform legislation on a bipartisan basis. For example, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are among the co-sponsors of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123), which was introduced in the Senate on Oct. 1 by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the committee. Grassley’s fellow Hawkeye State Republican, Sen. Joni Ernst, is another of the co-sponsors, as are Sens. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

A week later, on Oct. 8, Reps. Mimi Walters (R-Calif.) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), both of whom are members of the House Judiciary Committee, were among the chief sponsors of the Sentencing Reform Act (H.R. 3713), introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the committee’s chairman.

What these bills represent is recognition that criminal justice in the United States is badly broken and in need of broad, systemic reform. Reform ideally would include safely reducing the prison population and astronomical associated costs to taxpayers, removing many of the unnecessary, unfair and duplicate laws from the books completely, and breaking down barriers to the formerly incarcerated so they can find jobs, support their families, and lead crime-free lives. 

We can do all this and increase public safety. In fact, the states that have already implemented these reforms have drastically reduced their crime rates.  They are spending less money for a better public safety return.

We should commit to these and other reforms, if not for those behind bars — women and men alike — then for the one in 28 American children left at home to pick up the pieces. There is nothing funny about that.

Harris is the executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network.