Jail Is No Place For A Lady

Men are the only people who should be in prison, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform. They are arguing that women should not be sent to jail because of the trauma it causes their kids. They reported that thousands of children are separated from their convicted mothers each year. The damages it causes are life altering and could be prevented if the only people behind bars were male.

“No women should be sent to prison, but those convicted of violent offenses should be held in local secure units instead,” said the Howard League.

This argument is not only sexist, it just doesn’t make sense. It rests on the idea that women are solely responsible for nurturing children. Sending them to jail keeps them from fulfilling their gender roles. What about men?

Losing a father to prison must be just as traumatizing as losing a mother. The idea that women should literally be handed a “get out of jail free” card if they are mothers is ridiculous. These women committed crimes.

Yes, these crimes are spawned from social problems like poverty and unemployment, but that does not excuse them. There should be consequences. Women are not the weaker sex. They can be just as dangerous to society as men. If someone is convicted of a crime they shouldn’t be treated differently because they are a mother instead of a father.

What message are we sending? That mothers can break laws because of their socially constructed gender obligations? Breaking apart families is a negative consequence of the justice system, but giving convicted women less punishment than men is not the way to fix it. The only thing it does is set gender equality back a hundred years.

Contact the author here: jennY@morningquickie.com