9781422280058

The U.S. government eventually granted Fauziya’s request for asylum and re- leased her. Fauziya Kasinga currently works as an advocate for immigrants held in U.S. detention centers and has testified before Congress about her experiences. Jeanne Anne, Marlene, and Fauziya were once ordinary girls in ordinary families that faced an array of troubles, as most families do. Their differing back- grounds, circumstances, and behaviors resulted in different life outcomes. During their teens and young adulthood, these women dealt with their circumstances in various ways: two committed crimes, and one fled her homeland. All three ended up behind bars. Today, one remains in prison (Jeane AnneWright), one left prison after 4 years and became a heroin addict who prostituted herself to support her addiction (Marlene Jones), and one became a widely recognized advocate for de- tained women seeking asylum in the United States (Fauziya Kasinga). These cases, documented in detail in Michael Newton’s Bad Girls Do It: An En- cyclopedia of Female Murderers and a Stop Prisoner Rape report titled No Refuge Here: AFirst Look at Sexual Abuse in Immigration Detention, illustrate the diversity of women who commit crimes or end up behind bars and the complexity of issues that sends them there. Mental illness, physical abuse, depression, substance abuse, fear, gang or cult affiliations, destructive relationships, poverty, cultural norms or expectations, low self-esteem, overwhelming stress, desperation—any of these and more can be found lurking in the histories of America’s incarcerated women. Who Are the Women behind Bars? Because such varying issues send women to prison, many kinds of women from many different backgrounds make up prison populations today. Findings by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics confirm the complexity of these populations. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 1.2 million women—almost 1 percent of the U.S. population—live under correctional supervision (either incarcerated or on supervised release). Slightly over half of all incarcerated women in the United States are under the age of 40. Twenty-five percent commit- ted drug-related offenses that landed them behind bars. Even more committed property offenses. Many didn’t have jobs at the time of their arrests, and nearly two-thirds did not complete high school. If nonviolent drug and property offenses provide the most common reasons U.S. women end up in jail, violent offenses come next. Combined, these categories account for more than 90 percent of all female inmates. Physical and Sexual Abuse: An Experience in Common One characteristic common to women incarcerated in the United States is a his- tory of victimization . Of all the circumstances behind North American women ending up in jails, detention centers, or prisons, the most common is physical or sexual abuse. Consider this case study. To protect her identity, we will call this offender Jane.

12

the prison System