What
are characteristic family and background factors among incarcerated women?
According to a report
published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2000:
Incarcerated women are
twice as likely as women in the general population to have grown up
in a single parent household.
47% of female inmates
(compared to 37% of male inmates) had at least one immediate family member who had been
incarcerated.
One third of female
inmates and one quarter of male inmates report a parent/guardian abused alcohol or drugs.
57% of women in state
prisons reported that they were physically and/or sexually assaulted
at some point in their lives.
Female inmates who had
been abuse victims were more likely to be imprisoned for a violent offense.
Most women in prison
are unmarried.
Over one-third of
imprisoned women had been abused by an intimate in the past.