The Sentencing Project releases updated fact sheet on “Incarcerated Women and Girls”

The Sentencing Project today released this updated six-page fact sheet titled “Incarcerated Women and Girls.” The document has lots of data and graphics providing details of how and why “female incarcerated population stands almost seven times higher than in 1980.” I recommend the full document, and here is some of its text:

Between 1980 and 2022, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 585%, rising from a total of 26,326 in 1980 to 180,684 in 2022. While 2020 saw a substantial downsizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend reversed with an 18% increase in 2022….

The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, including both state and federal imprisonment, 49 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2022. The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Idaho (132) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of women is Massachusetts (7).

Women in state prisons are more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug or property offense. Twenty-five percent of women in prison have been convicted of a drug offense, compared to 12% of men in prison; 19% of incarcerated women have been convicted of a property crime, compared to 13% among incarcerated men.

The proportion of imprisoned women convicted of a drug offense has increased from 12% in 1986 to 25% in 2021.