Repost of a post written by u/JackieNaper1907

An issue not talked about: Men's prisons vs Women's prisons

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Okay, I'm not entirely sure that this is an issue given the fact that women usually get incarcerated for different crimes than men, but tell me what you think.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/differences-between-mens-womens-prisons.html#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20men's%20and%20women's%20prisons%20is%20security%20level.&text=Women's%20prisons%20are%20typically%20less,tend%20to%20have%20more%20freedom.

In short, women's prisons are lower risk than men's prisons, have more freedom, and women are placed in cottages rather than cellblocks. This isn't a new concept either, with some excerpts from 'The Privileged sex' by Martin Van Creveld.

inally, to the extent that imprisonment was used to punish and deter, women also suffered less than men. To focus on England, early on prisons normally incarcerated men and women together. Their fates, however, were entirely different. Visiting a 16th -century male inmate, a friend found him “wasted to a skeleton and in a state of exhaustion from grinding at the treadmill, a most pitiful sight. There was nothing left of him except skin and bones and I cannot remember having seen anything like it — lice swarmed on him like ants on a molehill.” Other male prisoners might be employed to dig streets and clean sewers. By contrast, female prisoners were made to perform otherwise routine feminine duties, such as cooking, cleaning, operating spinning wheels or, if they worked outside the prison, picking rags. Some women engaged in prostitution within the prison walls. Living like queens, they “were feasted with varieties of wines and delicate meates.”

When prison reform started early in the 19th century, again it was men who bore the brunt. The reforms made some improvements in that they imposed strict controls on the arbitrary behavior of guards. They also replaced the old ramshackle structures with new, custom-designed, more sanitary buildings. People’s ideas concerning the purpose of the system also changed. Instead of being used merely to punish and deter criminals, it was now supposed to reform them as well. The first step was to isolate each inmate in his own cell. They were only permitted to leave those cells to do hard, but sometimes entirely senseless, work, such as walking the treadwheel or turning the crank. To prevent them from communicating with other prisoners, a rule of strict silence, sometimes lasting for years, was imposed. The outcome was to turn prisons into tombs for the living. For women, the results were entirely different. Beginning in late 18th-century America, spreading middle-class ideas concerning female modesty caused women to be segregated. Next it was decided that only women were fit to supervise women. As one New York reformer put it, no female prisoner should so much as suffer a male guard approaching her. Instead, they required “the shield of a pure woman’s presence — one who could bring to bear a force often found more potent than muscular strength.”

Whereas male prisons were strictly regimented, in female ones benevolence and compassion were supposed to prevail. Whereas men were to be reformed by isolation and silence, women were to be educated by living together in groups and talking with each other, and with the female staff, to their hearts’ contents. Whereas male prisoners were often made to do backbreaking labor both within prison and outside of its walls, employing women in chain-gang swas prohibited. Incidentally, in 1995 a prison commissioner in Alabama included female prisoners in gangs that picked trash from state highways; he was quickly forced to abandon the plan and resign

By the end of the 19th century women’s prisons began to look almost like country clubs. They consisted of cottage-like structures, each housing a group of women, usually in a bucolic setting. The fortress-like compounds that typically housed male prisoners were avoided. Instead of cells, female prisoners were given rooms. Often they had more privacy than male ones, were given greater leeway in decorating their rooms, and lived under much less security.[625] “Good linen and china” completed the picture. Some women’s prisons provided considerable liberty in taking trips outside the facilities. Others allowed inmates to wear their own clothes, and others even provided what could almost be called a pleasant lifestyle, complete with outings, dances, picnics and light agricultural work. By 1900, special facilities “suitable for... feminine temperaments”[626] existed in several American states

On the other side of the Atlantic male guards in female prisons were also gradually replaced by women. In Britain, too, making female prisoners do work that would be both punitive and productive proved difficult and taxed the imagination of those responsible. In Britain, too, punishments regarded as appropriate for male prisoners, such as being put in irons, or forbidden to talk, or whipped, or put on short rations, were considered too severe for women.[627]Conversely, female prisoners received much more education than their male counterparts. Female guards were often left powerless as prisoners wore what they pleased, used the presence of their children whom they were permitted to have with them to avoid work, or even vented their anger by emptying chamber pots on them.[628] The incomparably easier regime imposed on female prisoners may explain why, in comparison to men, far fewer of them were first offenders and why far more of them were rearrested following release.