Shedding light on the crisis of women behind bars

"When will the system treat us like humans..."

-Cara Nicole Barker-Royall, serving an eight-year sentence in Texas

Life Behind Prison Walls

Females are doing hard time all across the United States. Many of them are facing the prospect of years, decades, even lifetimes behind bars. Oddly, our society knows almost nothing about these girls and women, much less why they have ended up where they are. Still, there's no shortage of stereotypes about girls and women in the criminal justice system, to say nothing of a whole host of warped assumptions about what life is like behind bars.

The Numbers are Staggering

At this very moment, there are over 1.3 million women (out of at least 7.2 million adults) under some form of correctional supervision in our country - at great cost to our families, communities, and tax dollars. While men still constitute the vast majority of the 2.3 million Americans doing time in jail or prison (of whom over 208,000 are women), this country has never before employed such an aggressive strategy of the arrest and incarceration of women (and girls), especially where drug use is concerned.

The Women Behind Bars Project seeks to get people from all walks of life thinking critically and constructively about why we're arresting and locking up so many youth and adults across the country--and toward what end?

The Invisible Struggle

Find out more about the book and author that inspired the project, our supporters and allies, past and future events, resources, links to media coverage, and ways to get involved.

Thanks for stopping by! Please contact us if you would like to find out more information and how you can help.

Even the smallest donation makes a difference. The Women Behind Bars Project wants to respond promptly to requests for information, resources, books to prisoners, and speaking engagements. We're already doing a lot with very little, but we need your help.