NCJ Number
238732
Date Published
October 2011
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This report presents data on trends and characteristics of adult female admissions to, exits from, and end-of-State-fiscal-year (SFY) prison populations in Illinois between SFY 1989 and SFY 2011.
Abstract
The data show a significant increase in the number of adult females admitted to and exiting from Illinois prisons between SFY 1989 and 2005. End of the year prison populations for adult females also increased during this period. These increases were due primarily to increased admissions for drug-law violations. The proportion of total prison admissions of adult females increased from under 7 percent in SFY 1989 to a peak of 10.5 percent in SFY 2005, before declining to 7.6 percent of admissions in SFY 2011. Similarly, the percentage of the end-of-the-fiscal-year female prison population increased from 4.3 percent in SFY 1989 to 6.3 percent in SFY 2005 and 5.8 percent in SFY 2011. From SFY 1989 to 1999, female court admissions for drug delivery/sale increased dramatically, outnumbering admissions, before consistently decreasing through SFY 2011. Throughout the entire period included in the analyses, the majority of females sentenced to prison were convicted of the least serious felony classes of crimes, peaking in SFY 2005, when approximately 75 percent of all females sentenced to prison in Illinois were convicted of a class three or four felony. There were a number of differences between females and males admitted to prison in recent years, including women being slightly older than men, women being more likely to be a parent, women having slightly higher levels of educational achievement, and women being more likely than men to be sentenced and incarcerated in prison for less serious crime types and felony class offenses. Females released from prison tended to have lower recidivism rates than males. 4 tables, 13 figures, and 6 references