{"id":8215,"date":"2018-03-23T19:15:33","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8215"},"modified":"2018-03-23T19:15:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:15:33","slug":"study-texas-needs-alternatives-to-sending-women-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8215","title":{"rendered":"Study: Texas Needs Alternatives to Sending Women to Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A new study shows that the number of women sent to prisons in Texas has increased by more than 900 percent since 1980. Photo: Alina555\/GettyImages<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Prison reform advocates say too many of the 12,000 women in Texas prisons don\u2019t need to be behind bars.<\/p>\n

A study by the nonpartisan\u00a0Texas Criminal Justice Coalition<\/a>\u00a0finds that more than two-thirds of the state\u2019s female inmates were convicted of nonviolent offenses and recommends that lawmakers develop alternative policies that emphasize more pretrial diversion and probation opportunities for women in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Linder, an attorney with the Coalition, says the study finds that women in prison often have faced a different set of life experiences than men.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a large percentage of the population being there for offenses that are largely the result of poverty, of substance abuse, of mental health, and are just not folks who need to be served in an incarceration setting,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n

Linder says while the overall prison population in Texas is shrinking, the number of incarcerated women has grown rapidly in recent years.<\/p>\n

She says the state and local communities need to address domestic violence and poverty among women, particularly those with custody of children.<\/p>\n

The report was developed with statistics from the state prison system and a survey of 400 women in Texas prisons.<\/p>\n

Linder says the report also recommends community-based treatment programs for trauma and substance abuse, and reforms to the state\u2019s bail system, which often keeps women in poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of women have significant trauma histories,\u201d Linder stresses. \u201cOver 80 percent of them have experienced domestic violence. Over half of them have experience sexual assault. Also, a much larger percentage of the women are mothers compared to men who are fathers in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linder says recent Texas prison reforms have been aimed mostly at male inmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found was simply that reforms that have been enacted in recent years have just not impacted women because they\u2019re not targeted to serve the female population,\u201d she states.<\/p>\n

Linder says this is the first of two reports based on her research. The second, to be published in mid-April, will focus on specific programs and policies to reduce recidivism and help incarcerated women successfully return to their families and communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0Prison reform advocates say too many of the 12,000 women in Texas prisons don\u2019t need to be behind bars. A study by the nonpartisan\u00a0Texas Criminal Justice Coalition\u00a0finds that more than two-thirds of the state\u2019s female inmates were convicted of nonviolent offenses and recommends that lawmakers develop alternative policies that emphasize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8218,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215\/revisions\/8218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}