NATIONAL STATISTICS
The rate of women entering prison in the US has increased over 400% in the last 20 years.
The rate for African-American women entering prison during the same time rose over 800%.
African-American children are 9 times as likely as white children to
have a parent in prison; Latino children are 3 times as likely.
Five percent of women entering prison are pregnant; another 15% have babies less than 6 weeks old.
Twenty-three states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons allow for the shackling of incarcerated women while they are in labor.
Newborns are given only a few hours with their mothers before being
transferred to another caregiver or state or federal custody.
Eighty percent of incarcerated women in the US are mothers. Sixty
percent of the children of these mothers are under 10 years old.
Over 60% of women entering prison in the United States have not attained a high school diploma.
1.3 million children under 18 in the US now have a mother in some phase of the criminal justice system.
More than 10 million children in the US have had a parent imprisoned at some point in their lives.
ILLINOIS STATISTICS
Illinois incarcerates African-American women at a rate 5 1/2 times
higher than white women for drug possession, though rates of drug usage
are similar for both groups.
Illinois' rate of re-uniting an incarcerated mother and her children after prison is only 28%.
In Illinois, 73% of the women's prison population are women of color.
While over 80% of women in the Illinois Department of Corrections need drug treatment, it is available to only 16% of them.
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