Southern Pines, N.C.—Women are the latest victims of criminal justice systems around the world, according to Dr. Mona Danner, professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. Danner addressed the criminalization and punishment of women in her talk, “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” at the annual Kenelm lecture, sponsored by Campbell University’s Department of Government, History and Justice.
“For the last three decades, countries have been on an imprisonment binge,” Danner said. “A total of 2.4 million people are incarcerated in the U.S., the equivalent of 738 per every 100,000 people. Countries like China and Russia aren’t far behind.”
Of those 2.4 million prisoners, seven percent are women. The increase in women’s incarceration has grown much faster than that of men, even though violent crime has not increased in 30 years. Danner explained why.
“These statistics give us a glimpse into the economic and political system of our times,” said Danner. “The numbers of people in prison, especially women, have not increased because of a rise in crime, but a change in our policies to lock up people for longer periods of time.”
Tough legislation like Three Strikes and Your Out gives the perpetrators of three felonies a mandatory life sentence, she added. Politicians, both liberal and conservative, get more votes by being tough on crime. Increasingly, private corporations are benefiting from the incarceration of prisoners, supplying food service, laundry, jobs for civilians and other needs at a tremendous profit.
“There is a prison industrial complex, and it is a confluence of special interests,” Danner said. “It means lucrative business for companies, recession-proof jobs for the public and votes for prosecutors, legislators and those who run for public office.”
Because they are poor and often racially stigmatized, women prisoners are the most vulnerable population, Danner said. They are generally the perpetrators of drug-related crimes and, because of their socio-economic condition, more likely to have been raped or have contracted HIV.
“Women and children pay much of the cost for punitive crime policies and criminal justice reform,” Danner said. “When we remove women from their homes, they can make no contribution to their families and their children suffer. Getting tough on crime has only benefited the politicians and the cost for women is far, far too high.”
In addition to being a professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Dr. Danner is the director of the Ph.D. program in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. Social inequalities, crime control policies and globalization comprise her research interests. She is the author of more than 25 academic journal articles and book chapters and has presented her research at conferences throughout the U.S., Europe and at a forum held in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China. She has also published editorials, been featured in television and radio interviews and has been quoted by the popular print media more than a dozen times.
Bulletin: 0038
Date: 10/23/08