Overcrowding sometimes means that women who are being held for trivial offenses are incarcerated in maximum security institutions for lack of other facilities. Women's prisons are often particularly ill-equipped and poorly financed. They have fewer medical, educational and vocational facilities than men's prisons. Medical treatment is often available, innappropriate, and inconsistant. Job traing is also largely unavailable but when opportunities exist, they are usually traditional female occupations.
Courses concentrate on homemaking and low-paid skills like beautician and launderer.
Other barriers exist as well. In an Alabama women's prison there is a cosmetology program but those convicted of felonies are prohibited by law from obtaing such licenses. In most prisons, guards have total authority, and the women can never take care of their basic intimate needs in a secure atmosphere free from intrusion. In the name of security, male guards can take down or look over a curtain, walk into a bathroom, or observe women showering or changing her clothes. In Michingal there are male guards employed at all women's prisons.