Women in Corrections: The Context, the Challenges From Women in Corrections: Staff and Clients, P 1-11, 2000, Australian Institute of Criminology -- See NCJ-187936)

• NCJ Number: 187937
• Author(s): Kim Pate
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: Paper presented at the Women in Corrections: Staff and Clients Conference held in Adelaide, Australia, October 31-November 1, 2000. Downloaded March 21, 2001

Annotation

This paper provides an overview of some of the issues and trends related to the context and challenges of working with and on behalf of women inmates in Australia.

Abstract

In addition to profiling the current trend toward the increased criminalization of women -- especially poor and racial-minority women, as well as women offenders classified as having mental and cognitive disabilities -- the author discusses the historical and global tendency to over-classify women as security risks, thus increasing the likelihood that they will be kept in high-security prison settings. Also addressed are issues related to the increased criminalization of women who have been victims of violence; this is viewed as part of the backlash response to increased attempts to hold violent men accountable for their abuse of women. This paper also highlights some of the law reform initiatives advocated by equality-seeking women's groups related to women's self-defense actions, the legal defense of provocation, and the mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment for murder. Further, this overview examines the increasing threats of corrections privatization and political interference in correctional and criminal justice to the reintegration of women into their communities.