This recent article from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) focuses on the increasing percentage of women in California jails and their offenses.

Highlights from the article:

• In California, the women’s jail population has risen 6-fold—from 1,725 in 1970 to 12,054 in 2014—twice as much as the male jail population over the same period.
• Women are more likely than men to be booked into jail for misdemeanors (54% of women to 48% of men). They are also more likely than men to be booked for property and drug offenses (46% to 36%).
• Due to California’s 2011 Public Safety Realignment, many lower-level felons now serve their sentences in jail rather than prison. These offenders have committed crimes considered non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual—the type women are more likely to commit.
• In 2014, Proposition 47 reclassified several property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. These offenses are also committed by a greater share of women than men.

Access the full article

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This announcement is available at NIC’s Gender-Responsive News for Women and Girls.  Feel free to forward to friends and colleagues.  Subscribe to the newsletter at http://nicic.gov/go/subscribe.

For additional resources on Justice-Involved Women go to NIC’s Women Offenders.