Illinois Department of Corrections officers participate in a role-playing exercise during a March training session on working with female inmates, at Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Ill. Bill Healy for SJNN hide caption
Discipline And Women In Prison NPR and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University analyzed prison discipline data from 15 states and found that women are more likely than men to get in trouble for things that prisons classify as minor infractions, often with severe consequences. A few states are trying to radically rethink how women serve prison sentences: from the prison's architecture to how correctional officers discipline inmates.
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Discipline And Women In Prison
Mary Kathleen "Kathy" Tyler, an 82-year-old woman incarcerated at Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, was sentenced to life in prison in 1978. She is an avid reader, artist and pianist; is employed as a court reporter; and has accumulated a handful of degrees since she was incarcerated. Jessica Earnshaw for NPR hide caption
Investigation: In U.S. Prisons, Women Punished More Often Than Men
Iowa Is Trying To Address The Disparity In How Men And Women Are Disciplined In Prison
Lashonia Thompson-El, who spent 18 years in prison, says she once was placed in solitary confinement for three months after making an unauthorized phone call to her 10-year-old daughter. Joseph Shapiro/NPR hide caption