Approximately 80,000 women in U.S. prisons and jails are mothers of some 200,000 children under 18. The rate of imprisonment for African American women is more than eight times higher and Latinas nearly four times higher than that of Euro-American women. The U.S. female prison population is ten times more than any individual Western European nation and roughly equals the total for that region.
Drug offenses contribute to nearly half of the increase in the female prison population.
About one woman out of every 109 adult women in the United States is involved with the criminal justice system. Since 1980, the number of women in prison has increased at nearly double the rate for men. There are now nearly seven times as many women in state and federal prisons as there were in 1980. Some estimates tally over 146,000 female inmates in state and federal prisons and local jails. This total accounts for about six percent of the total prison population.