>Moreover, your point about the criminal justice
>system begs the question why black women may
>attend college, and often end up working state
>jobs, while their male counterparts end up in
>prison. Shouldn't structural racism, poverty,
>and crime influence both genders?
Lately women are one of the fastest growing sectors of the prison population, but it is still true that most crimes are committed by men.
This is from 2007:
http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/womenincj_total.pdf
During the last 20 years, there has been a profound change in the manner in which women are treated within the criminal justice system. This has been a result of more expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. In response, the consideration of a gender-specific approach to studying criminal justice policy has moved from a mere footnote to a full-fledged reform movement.
• More than one million women are currently under the supervision of the criminal justice system in the U.S.1
• More than 200,000 of these women are confined in state and federal prisons or local jails.
• Expanding at 4.6% annually between 1995 and 2005, women now account for 7% of the population in state and federal prisons.
• The number of women in prison has increased at nearly double the rate of men since 1985, 404% vs. 209%.
• Women in state prisons in 2003 were more likely than men to be incarcerated for a drug offense (29% vs. 19%) or property offense (30% vs. 20%) and less likely than men to be incarcerated for a violent offense (35% vs. 53%).
• Black women represent 30 percent of all females incarcerated under state or federal jurisdiction, and Hispanic women 16 percent.
• In 2005, black women were more than three times as likely as white women to be incarcerated in prison or jail, and Hispanic women 69% more likely.