Global female incarceration on the rise

Key findings

The important thing findings from the report are:

The US has the best variety of feminine prisoners, with roughly 174,607. Different international locations with important feminine jail populations are China (145,000), Brazil (50,441), Russia (39,153), and Thailand (33,057).The variety of ladies and ladies in jail has risen notably sharply in some international locations since 2000; notably in:Cambodia – greater than 9 instances as many feminine prisonersIndonesia – greater than seven timesEl Salvador – greater than seven timesGuatemala – nearly six timesBrazil – 5 instances

Ladies and ladies make up 6.8% of the worldwide jail inhabitants. The international locations with the best feminine jail inhabitants fee (per 100,000 of the nationwide inhabitants) – are the USA (52), Thailand (47), El Salvador (42), Rwanda (41) and Turkmenistan (38).

In each Asia and Oceania, the full variety of feminine prisoners has greater than doubled since 2000. Europe, in distinction, has seen a fall (of 5%) within the feminine jail inhabitants, but when the figures for Russia are excluded the European feminine jail inhabitants has risen by almost 25%.

Deal with the UK

The checklist is split into continents and for every nation it supplies the full variety of ladies in jail, what quantity ladies are of the full jail inhabitants and development data.

In England and Wales, ladies comprise 4.1% of the jail inhabitants, down from 5.2% in 2000 and 5.0% in 2010. 

The figures for Scotland are: ladies additionally comprise 4.1% of the jail inhabitants, up from 3.3% in 2000 however down from 5.6% in 2010. 

The speed for feminine imprisonment in Northern Eire is increased at 4.8% the place it has been steadily rising from 2.0% in 2000 and a couple of.9% in 2010.

Figures differ significantly throughout Europe; in every case the determine under exhibits the proportion of ladies within the total jail inhabitants:

Albania         1.3percentFrance           3.5percentItaly               4.4percentTurkey           4.4percentNorway         4.6percentNetherlands 4.7percentDenmark       5.2percentIreland           5.3percentPoland           5.3percentSwitzerland   5.7percentGermany       5.9percentSweden         6.3percentAustria          6.8percentSpain            7.1percentRussia           8.9%

Conclusion

Catherine Heard, Director of ICPR’s World Jail Analysis Programme, mentioned in her press launch:

“The speedy rise in feminine imprisonment throughout a lot of the world is a troubling signal of our instances. Many ladies are serving brief jail sentences, or are remanded in custody pre-trial, regardless of clear proof that even transient spells in jail trigger lasting and extreme hurt to ladies and their youngsters. Jail is simply too generally used to punish conduct related to poverty, akin to shop-lifting, small-scale drug offences, and intercourse work. Incarcerating ladies for such offences steals sources away from the funding wanted to construct stronger, safer communities.”

Because of Andy Aitchison for sort permission to make use of the header picture on this put up. You possibly can see Andy’s work right here