At yearend 91,612 women and 1,290,280 men were in State or Federal prisons. At yearend 2000 there were 59 sentenced female inmates per 100,000 women in the United States, compared to 915 sentenced male inmates per 100,000 men.
Women are the fastest growing and least violent segment of prison and jail populations.
In 1997 a US Justice Department investigation of women's prisons in Arizona concluded that the authorities failed to protect women from sexual misconduct by correctional officers and other staff. Retaliation for reports of abuse impedes women's access to protection of their human rights. One woman who won a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons for sexual abuse reported that she was beaten, raped and sodomized by three men who in the course of the attack told her that they were attacking her in retaliation for providing a statement to investigators. These differences among white, black, and Hispanic females were consistent across all age groups. About 1 in 359 children have an incarcerated mother - for a total of 194,504 children with their mothers behind bars.