e nation's female prison population is black, with most serving sentences for nonviolent, drug or property related offenses. Many of the women in prison have children--according to a 1991 Bureau of Prisons survey, two thirds of the women in state prisons had children. The same study showed that 90 percent of male inmates reported that their children under age 18 were living with their mothers. However, only one fourth of the children of female inmates in state prisons lived with their fathers, while more than half lived with grandparents, and about 24 percent live with other relatives or friends ("Behind Bars").
The increase in incarceration is not entirely due to an increase in crime but rather to a change in our response to crime. The total number of arrests of adult women increased by 31.4 percent between 1987 and 1996, but the number of women in prison increased by 159 percent. The proportion of women doing time in state prisons for violent offenses has been declining steadily from about half (48.9 percent) in 1979 to just over a quarter (27.6 perc
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