When it comes to America’s incarceration population, women make up just roughly 10% of those behind bars according to data from the Prison Policy initiative.

But due to the smaller number of women in prisons across the country, the penal system is not designed with the health and wellness needs of women in mind. A new bipartisan bill in the House, introduced by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. seeks to change that.

What You Need To Know

  • Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., have introduced a bill to ease health and wellness issues faced by women in prison and the criminal justice system

  • The Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act seeks to “strengthen rehabilitation efforts, provide trauma-informed care and gender-responsive action, eliminate discriminatory sentencing practices, and improve other supportive services to finally address the ways that women are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.” 
  • The number of women incarcerated in America rose over 525% in the last four decades, from 26,326 in 1980 to 168,449 in 2021, according to the Sentencing Project

  • "Trauma-informed care and gender-responsive reform will create a more humanitarian approach for female inmates from arrest to re-entry and allow for a rehabilitative experience rather than a traumatic one," Kamlager-Dove said

The Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act, announced Thursday, aims to “strengthen rehabilitation efforts, provide trauma-informed care and gender-responsive action, eliminate discriminatory sentencing practices, and improve other supportive services to finally address the ways that women are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.” 

“Incarcerated women experience harsher sentencing, poorer facilities, and significant discrimination in our criminal justice system. Our prison system was not designed with women in mind, so the system lacks gender-responsive standards and policies. This makes it that much harder for incarcerated women to have their unique needs met,” Rep. Kamlager-Dove in a statement.

In a memo first obtained by Spectrum News, the bill focuses on six specific steps, including enacting gender-informed arrest and law enforcement practices, prioritizing family reunification and requiring judges to consider the impact on children when determining bail, pursue gender informed alternatives to imprisonment, eliminate discriminatory sentencing practices, enforce gender-responsive and trauma-informed imposition of a sentence, and implement gender-responsive prison reform such as ensuring women have access to an OB-GYN and creating standards for conditions which the women are housed. 

A previous version of the bill was introduced in 2022 by Kamlager-Dove’s predecessor (former congresswoman and now Los Angeles mayor) Karen Bass, with Mace as a co-sponsor. The bill was introduced and referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, but never received a floor vote.

“Our prison system was not created with women in mind and as a result continually fails to provide basic necessities to tens of thousands of individuals who are incarcerated every day. I want to thank Congresswoman Kamlager-Dove and Congresswoman Mace for continuing this important effort to bring equity to our criminal justice system,” Bass told Spectrum News in a statement Thursday. 

According to The Sentencing Project, the number of women incarcerated in America rose over 525% in the last four decades, from 26,326 in 1980 to 168,449 in 2021. The Sentencing Project estimates there are over 1 million women in the criminal justice system today in the United States.

“Women of color and mothers, in particular, are unjustly impacted by disparities in our prisons. Women today face higher rates of incarceration and the added challenge of child-parent separation. Trauma-informed care and gender-responsive reform will create a more humanitarian approach for female inmates from arrest to re-entry and allow for a rehabilitative experience rather than a traumatic one,” said Kamlager-Dove.

“The Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act is a critical piece of legislation which addresses the unique challenges women face in the criminal justice system, including trauma, abuse, and gender-based discrimination,” Mace said. “This bill will help improve the conditions for incarcerated women, provide them with access to vital resources and services, and help to reduce recidivism. We will continue to advocate for criminal justice reform policies which support women."

The bill has already gained support from the Justice Action Network, the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, A New Way of Life, Policy & Strategic Partnerships of National Action Network Washington Bureau, Policy for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and Girls for Gender Equity.

Spectrum News has also obtained a letter from A New Way of Life Reentry Project to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to call for action on the bill, noting that bipartisan action for prison reform has happened before, under then-President Trump in 2018 with the First Step Act, and urging McCarthy to support it once more.

"We need your leadership to unify Republicans and Democrats alike once more," co-directors Pamela Marshall and Michael Towler wrote. "Our safety is simply too precious to be sacrificed to politics."