August 2006

SPECIAL REPORT
from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency

Reducing the Incarceration of Women:
Community-Based Alternatives
Angela Wolf, Ph.D.

Introduction
Over the past three decades, the California prison
population has exploded. This does not necessarily
mean, however, that the state had a significantly greater
crime problem. Even as California’s crime rates declined
through the 1990s, the number incarcerated continued
to grow (CDCR, 2005; CDCR, 2006b). Policies related
to the “war on drugs” and “get tough on crime” initiatives put more men and women in prison for lesser
crimes. Increased incarceration led to a corresponding boom in prison construction, yet prisons and jails
remain overcrowded. More than ever, prison admissions
are for low-level offenders or parole violators.
Typically nonviolent low-level offenders, women have
been hit particularly hard by California’s sentencing and
correctional policies and practices. In a system that was
designed to respond to male offenders, few programs
are available to respond to the unique needs of women
prisoners. While the number of prison beds has multiplied, other responses to women’s crime have not. With
little access to rehabilitative resources, many women are

likely to reoffend or violate parole and find themselves
caught in a revolving door back into prison. Incarceration is under some circumstances a necessary response
to criminal behavior. But is perpetuating the revolving
door of women’s prisons a good solution to crime?
The public does not think so. A recent public opinion
poll conducted by Zogby International illustrated that
Americans support policies that are focused on rehabilitation. Of those polled, 87% favored rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to only 11% who favored
a punishment-only model (Krisberg & Marchionna,
2006).
Current policies and practices cost California taxpayers
billions of dollars each year but do very little to enhance
public safety, reduce crime, or break the intergenerational cycle of crime and incarceration.
The Governor has initiated some significant system
reforms, which are first steps in improving the situation
for women incarcerated in California. Public sentiment,

California Women’s Prison Population 1978-2004
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000

92
19
94
19
96
19
98
20
00
20
02
20
04

19

19
90

86
19
88

19

84

0
19
78

According to CDCR estimates, approximately 4,500
low-level women offenders who are currently incarcer-

Currently, there are over 10,000 women in jail,
11,000 women in prison, and 12,000 women on parole
in California (CDCR, 2005; CDCR, 2006b; CSA, n.d.).
This state has the largest population of women prisoners in the nation, second only to Texas. California has
four prisons for incarcerated women (CDCR, 2006a).

19

In 2004, the JEHT Foundation, the California Endowment, and five other foundations funded a study on
women in prison in California.* The study asks the question: Is California’s incarceration strategy for women appropriate, effective, and sustainable? The simple answer
is “No.” Can we do better? Absolutely. California is
incarcerating large numbers of women that do not need
to be housed in prisons but would be good candidates
for community-based, service-rich corrections programs where they have consistent access to treatment,
health care, family, and rehabilitative services.

The Incarceration Explosion

80
19
82

First Steps

2

2006/07 for nonviolent women prisoners. The CDCR
anticipates beginning to fill these community beds in FY
2007/08.

19

lawmakers, the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation (CDCR), experts, and the courts all
see a need for change. We have a rare opportunity for
system reform. To that end, a broad coalition of national experts has assisted in the development of the
CDCR’s strategy and support its goals.

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

Population

August 2006

Study on Women in Prison

Source: CDCR, 2005; CDCR, 2006a.

The purpose of this report is to present findings from
our study of women in prison, which support the proposed CDCR development of community-based correctional facilities as a more viable setting to deliver
gender-responsive programs and services. For this
study, community-based correctional programming
was defined as programs operated outside of prisons and jails in the communities from which women
prisoners come.

In the past three decades, the number of women in California’s prisons has increased dramatically, growing from
1,147 in 1978 to 11,462 in 2005. This 900% increase
surpasses the 676% increase of men in prison during the
same time period (CDCR, 2005; CDCR, 2006b).

ated could be eligible for placement in secure, community-based programs without risking community safety.
These will be locked facilities and will include CDCR
custody staff. The CDCR plans to initiate the contract
process to secure 4,500 community-based female correctional rehabilitation center beds beginning in FY
*This project was funded by The JEHT Foundation, The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, The Wallace and Alexander
Gerbode Foundation, The Walter S. Johnson Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, The Van Löben Sels/Rembe Rock Foudnation.

The dramatic increases in incarceration do not reflect
increases in female offending. Women are particularly
vulnerable to such policies as mandatory minimums,
because they are more likely than men to be incarcerated
for drug-related or petty, nonviolent property crimes.
Before the advent of mandatory minimums for drug
sentences, such a crime may not have warranted imprisonment, but now judges usually have few options. It is
these arrests that are driving their high rates of incarceration (Casey & Wiatrowski, 1996; Raeder, 1993). Mandatory sentencing policies have taken the place of either
structured assessments or professional judgments to determine which women require incarceration and which
women would be safely monitored and rehabilitated in
community-based settings. Further, women are often

August 2006

Criminality Among Women
Because women are often minor participants in criminal economies (Radosh, 2002), they are especially
affected by mandatory minimum sentencing laws. For
example, under the drug-conspiracy mandatory minimum laws, a woman can be incarcerated for several
years for driving her boyfriend to a place where he
buys drugs or for picking up the phone at her house
where he sells drugs (Gaskins, 2004). Women are
tied to these criminal elements because of personal
relationships, yet the court cannot consider these relationships when sentencing (Raeder, 1993). Additionally, women are less likely to be able to provide the
prosecution with insider information—the only consideration that can shorten the mandatory minimum—because they are less likely to know much about the
criminal activity. Furthermore, women may not want
to inform on their partners and family members, either
out of love or out of fear (Gaskins, 2004).
Sources: U.S. Census, Demographic Profiles, 2000; U.S. Census,
Educational Attainment, 2000.

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

3

property and drug offenses. While over half of men in
prison were incarcerated for violent crimes, just 30% of
women were convicted of violence. Given this, it is not
surprising that over two-thirds of women are classified
as low risk (Level I or II) by the prison classification
system (LHC, 2004). Further, 87% of new female admissions are there for nonviolent crime (CDCR, 2006b).
However, due to a lack of appropriate placements,
women often are held in more secure environments than
their custody classifications would warrant.
Typically, women receive relatively short prison sentences for these nonserious, nonviolent crimes. They are
soon released into the community having received few
services to address their pathways to crime and even
fewer transitional services, setting them up for failure.
Many women end up back in prison.
Felony Offenses by Gender
California State Prison Population March, 2005
60%
50%

placed in high security prisons because that is often the
only option. Only 8% of women offenders in California
are now in community correctional placements (CDCR,
2006b).

Women Incarcerated
Incarcerated women are characteristically women of
color, poor, unemployed, and single mothers of young
children. Imprisoned women tend to have fragmented
families, other family members involved with the criminal justice system, significant substance abuse issues, and
multiple physical and mental health problems (Bloom,
Owen, & Covington, 2003). Often, an underlying cause
of these problems is trauma that is associated with
abuse. Women in prison have typically experienced some
form of abuse in their lifetime, including sexual assault,
domestic violence, and sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. Fifty-seven percent of these women report
physical or sexual abuse before imprisonment versus
16% percent of men (Little Hoover Commission, 2004).
The vast majority of women in California’s prisons are
nonviolent offenders who are usually serving time for

40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Person

Property

Drug

Other

Male

52%

20%

20%

8%

Female

30%

35%

30%

5%

Source: CDCR, 2006a.

Children
California’s over-reliance on incarceration affects more
than the women prisoners. Families and communities
have been devastated by women’s imprisonment. Nationally, it is estimated that between 70% and 80% of
female inmates have dependent children at the time of
their incarceration (Greenfeld & Snell, 1999; Watterson,
1996). NCCD estimates that approximately 19,000 children have mothers who are incarcerated in state facilities. Although there are many more children with fathers
in prison than mothers, unlike fathers, most of Califor-

August 2006

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

4

nia’s incarcerated mothers are the primary caregivers
of dependent children and will return home to their
children. While the vast majority of children of incarcerated men continue to live with their mothers, children of
incarcerated women are more likely to end up living with
other relatives, particularly grandparents, and are more
likely to end up in foster care (Powell & Nolan, 2003).

prison. Due to the relationship between mental illness,
incarceration, and recidivism, mental health treatment is
especially critical. Stakeholders cite mental health issues
as a principle barrier to rehabilitation and cause of recidivism. Lack of treatment and exacerbation of mental
illness within prison walls make women more likely to
become repeat offenders once they are released.

Furthermore, the separation of a woman from her children not only affects the mother but has a substantial
impact on her child’s future as well. Children of inmates
are five to six times more likely to become incarcerated
than their peers (Bloom, 1993). Approximately 10% of
children with incarcerated mothers are forced into the
foster care system, and 11% change caregivers at least
twice (Dressel, Poterfield, & Barnhill, 1998). Visitation
policies and the distance to prisons from their home
communities make it difficult for children to visit. Seventy-nine percent of incarcerated mothers in California
never receive a visit during their incarceration (Powell &
Nolan, 2003).

Considerable problems plague physical and reproductive healthcare in women’s prisons. Common chronic
illnesses of incarcerated women include asthma, heart
disease, high blood pressure, insulin-dependent diabetes, epilepsy, and various forms of cancer. Prisons have
higher rates of infectious diseases including hepatitis C,
HIV/AIDS, staphylococcus, and sexually transmitted
diseases than the general population.

Prison Health Care
For many women, prison is the first circumstance in
which they have been able to access resources, in particular substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, reproductive and physical, dental and vision health
care. Even though women often receive better health
care in prison than on the outside, service delivery in
prison remains woefully inadequate and sometimes
deadly. In fact, California’s prison health care system
has been placed in receivership under the scrutiny of
a federal judge. Because the majority of offenders in
the system are men, programming for women has been
neglected and women offenders, as well as the broader
community, are seeing the ramifications of that neglect.
As part of our recent study of women in prison in
California, NCCD conducted an in-depth examination of health care for women in prison. NCCD found
significant gaps in health care delivery with gaps in
mental health care being the most prevalent and significant. Mental health problems often land women in
prison in the first place, and if left untreated, are likely
to put them back behind bars. Instead of being placed
in mental institutions or drug rehabilitation programs
to address their underlying illness, women are sent to

Mental and physical health care services delivered in
prison, albeit meager, are often abruptly discontinued
after a woman is released from prison. Women may be
taken off their medications, denied access to their medical histories, and often go unnotified of abnormal test
results that surface even a day after their release. This
also affects the health and safety of the community.
Even after a relatively short sentence, a woman may
spread an infectious disease in her community.

Community Options
As part of this study, Barbara Bloom and NCCD
examined community-based alternatives to incarceration as an important component in any system reform.
Because they operate on a smaller, more personal scale
and have stronger links to the community, these facilities
are much more likely to provide appropriate services,
Program Types
Seven community-based program types are representative of the range of services and programming
currently available to women offenders and parolees
in California, including Family Foundations Program,
Community Prisoner Mother Program, Drug Treatment Furlough, Female Offender Treatment and Employment Program (FOTEP), Community Correctional
Reentry Center/Parolee Service Center, Community
Correctional Facility, and “grassroots” communitybased organizations.

August 2006

including health care, than prisons. Further, community-based facilities are less likely to isolate women from
existing support systems that they need to successfully
negotiate challenging addiction and mental and physical
health care issues. This is important because strong family ties have the potential to help with rehabilitation. The
primary emphasis in prisons has been punishment and
confinement, whereas community-based settings can
emphasize treatment, service provision, and community
reentry.

California’s Existing CommunityBased Programs
NCCD located a total of 19 community-based programs
that serve women prisoners. The identified programs
provided an array of services. The target population
typically included low-level, nonviolent, substance-abusing women. In some programs, their children were allowed to reside with them. Some programs served as an
alternative to prison placement. Others served women
by allowing them to complete the remaining months of
their prison sentences in a residential community program, while others provided reentry services to women
on parole. Services addressed parenting, education,
substance abuse, vocational training, housing, life skills,
and other needs.

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

Recommendations for Reform
NCCD supports the CDCR proposed expansion of
community corrections but strongly recommends the
following guidelines and practices.
•

Embrace a gender-responsive model of community
corrections.

•

Include a gender-responsive structured risk assessment to identify candidates for community placement.

•

Keep community corrections facilities small.

•

Provide intensive services such as housing, job training and placement, parenting, education, substance
abuse treatment, and physical and mental health
care.

•

Be flexible and include individualized treatment
plans and coordinated case management.

•

Incorporate a process and outcome evaluation component into program planning, implementation, and
a long-term follow-up of women and their children.

•

Include a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of
community corrections and prisons.

•

Conduct a public awareness campaign to encourage
community ownership of programming for female
offenders.

•

Assess the needs and available resources of the
broader community and enhance and mobilize community-based services accordingly.

•

Provide gender-responsive, trauma-sensitive reentry
services and health care.

•

Provide intensive training and technical assistance to
programming providers and CDCR security staff on
gender-responsive strategies.

•

Provide technical assistance to potential contractors
around issues such as facility requirements, licensing,
and security.

•

Include enhanced community corrections as part
of a larger reform effort that addresses sentencing
policy, prevention and reentry programs, and intervention with children of incarcerated women.

A start, but not enough
Excluding the Female Offender Treatment and Employment Programs for women on parole, at the time
of the NCCD study, there were only 1,000 community
beds available to women offenders. Not all of these
beds were in secure facilities. To accommodate the 4,500
women that the CDCR has identified for placement in
secure community-based settings, significant development of community-based corrections facilities is needed. Currently, there are relatively few providers offering
these services to women offenders. There are gaps in the
existing continuum of services for women, and many of
the programs were underutilized due to CDCR eligibility
criteria and institutional endorsement policies.

5

August 2006

A New Approach to Crime Control
and Reentry
The prison system in California needs a new approach to the incarceration of women, an approach
that recognizes that women have different needs than
men.
Guiding Principals of a Gender-Responsive Model
•

Acknowledge that gender makes a difference.

•

Create and sustain an environment based on
safety, respect, and dignity.

•

Develop policies, practices and programs that are
relationship based and that promote healthy connections to children, family, significant others, and
the community.

•

Address substance abuse, trauma, and mental
health issues through comprehensive, integrated,
culturally-relevant services and appropriate supervision.

•

Provide women with opportunities to improve their
socioeconomic conditions.

•

Establish a system of community supervision and
reentry with comprehensive, collaborative services.

Source: Bloom, Owen, Covington, 2003.

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

6

tion, community-based resources should be enhanced.
After years of propaganda used to scare the public into
tougher sentencing laws, there is bound to be some
resistance in certain areas. A concerted effort must be
made to educate communities and mobilize stakeholders
to address legitimate concerns.
Program evaluation
Additionally, program evaluation should be included at
each step of the process. Outcome variables need to be
identified at the start. It is important to consider both
the short-term and long-term outcomes of the development of community-based programming. Process and
evaluation data should be collected to ensure that “best
practices” are used. The timing is critical. We may not
get another chance to implement this broad system reform. It is important that we do it right and conduct an
ongoing examination of evidence to make sure we are
getting the right program to the right woman at the right
time with appropriate use of limited resources.
If implemented correctly, programs that follow the
above recommendations are more likely to be successful in reducing crime and allowing women to lead stable,
crime-free lives. Further, they are more likely to break
the intergenerational cycle of incarceration by reducing
recidivism and minimizing the trauma done to children.
Difficult path

Community preparation
Careful planning is essential to improving the health of
California’s broken corrections system. We know that
community-based programming should be developed
in those communities that are sending the majority
of women to the CDCR. Existing community-based
resources need to be examined and probably further
developed. Research indicates that the most distressed
neighborhoods send the most people to prisons. These
neighborhoods lack resources and are unlikely to support the return of prisoners (Tucker & Cadora, 2003).
Enhancing the capacity of drug treatment, physical and
mental healthcare, and vocational resources in targeted
communities will likely be necessary. So as not to drain
community resources from the non-offending popula-

Community-based corrections programming is essential
to reversing the trend of California’s over-reliance on
incarceration. However, it is important to note that the
extent of California’s dependence on prisons will not
be reversed simply by enhancing the community-based
option. Given the current crisis, shifting the emphasis
from prison construction to community-based facilities
will not be without difficulties. California must address
all of its sentencing policies and penal practices that are
driving incarceration rates.

Broader Reforms Necessary
While NCCD supports the CDCR’s female reform
effort, it also strongly encourages reform along the
continuum of criminal justice intervention. Specifi-

August 2006

cally, sentencing reform is necessary. The availability of
presentencing community-based alternatives and diversion, especially around drug treatment, should be enhanced. California needs significantly more alternatives
as sentencing options at the county level. Also, the plight
of women who remain in prison cannot be forgotten.
Prisons are currently overcrowded, and conditions of
confinement are deplorable. Within prison walls, services should be enhanced and designed to address the
unique needs of women.
The CDCR is positioning itself to take the first critical
step in ameliorating substantial shortcomings. NCCD
endorses the CDCR’s efforts in this area as a first step
toward broad reform. Prevention programming, alternative sanctions, and reentry programs are essential
components of a healthy system response to crime. In
the immediate term, NCCD recommends removing ap-

National Council on Crime and Delinquency

7

propriate women from prison to serve out the duration
of their sentences in gender-responsive, family-friendly,
service-rich correctional facilities.

Conclusion
We all want an easy, quick, and cheap solution to the rising number of women incarcerated in California prisons.
Unfortunately, the pathways of women into the criminal justice system are complex and intertwined. Prisons
alone are just not capable of responding to these complicated issues in any way but punishment and are thus
doomed to do little more than worsen the problem.
If implemented correctly, gender-responsive, servicerich, and family-friendly community-based correctional
facilities can address women’s unique pathways into the
system while promoting public safety.

References
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Bloom, B., Owen, B., & Covington, S. (2003). Gender-responsive strategies: research, practice, and guiding principles for women offenders. Washington,
DC: National Institute of Corrections.
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