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With Women Imprisonment Rising, Black Females Still Feel the Brunt of America’s Mass Incarceration

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Three years ago, the National Black Women’s Justice Institute partnered with the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and The Sentencing Project to co-lead the Alice Project, an initiative to end the extreme punishment of women in America and globally.
The post With Women Imprisonment Rising, Black Females Still Feel the Brunt of America’s Mass Incarceration first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

2 years ago

April 11, 2023

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

America imprisons many more of its citizens than any other developed nation, with men comprising most of the incarcerated.

But the rate of growth for female imprisonment has been twice as high as that of men since 1980, according to The Sentencing Project, which estimates that 976,000 women are currently under the supervision of the criminal justice system.

The nonprofit documented a 525% increase in women’s imprisonment in America between 1980 and 2021; the vast majority are Black females.

“As this year marks fifty years since the United States began its dramatic increase in imprisonment, it is clearer than ever that our criminal legal system is not working,” Amy Fettig, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, said in a statement. “The continued overcriminalization of women and girls does nothing to improve public safety but needlessly destroys lives, families, and communities.”

In 2021, the Sentencing Project reported that the imprisonment rate for Black women – at 62 per 100,000 – was 1.6 times the rate of imprisonment for white women – 38 per 100,000.

Latinx women were imprisoned 49 per 100,000 or 1.3 times the rate of white women.

Additionally, 58% of women in state prisons have a child under 18.

While the overall imprisonment for Black and Latinx women has declined since 2000 and increased for white women over that same period, Black and Native American girls remain more likely to face incarceration than white, Asian, and Latinx girls.

Over one-third of incarcerated girls are held for status offenses, like truancy and curfew violations, or for violating probation.

The statistics compiled by The Sentencing Project arrive after several reports revealed mass incarceration’s heavy burden on Black women in general.

“The war on drugs treated Black women as if they were just collateral consequences,” Ashley McSwain, executive director of Community Family Life Services, which serves formerly incarcerated women, said during a panel discussion on mass incarceration.

“We were well into this war and this crisis before we realized that women were being affected at alarming rates,” McSwain asserted.

She continued:

“When you arrest a woman, … you got her, her three kids, her grandma, an aunt — everybody’s incarcerated when a woman goes to prison. “So, the impact is huge, and we never seem to talk about that.”

Three years ago, the National Black Women’s Justice Institute partnered with the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and The Sentencing Project to co-lead the Alice Project, an initiative to end the extreme punishment of women in America and globally.

The group wanted to get advocates, researchers, activists, and academics to work together to get rid of gender bias in extreme sentences.

In an earlier interview, Shamika Wilson explained that her husband is serving a life sentence in a San Diego prison after recently being transferred from a prison much closer to home.

She said the facility didn’t allow for overnight family visits.

“Financially, it’s hard all around. Before, he was no more than an hour or two away from home, but now it can be close to a ten-hour drive at times,” Wilson responded. “It can cost over $1,000 to go see him. This is about cycles, and these cycles are going to continue. They don’t think he needs time with his kids to teach them not to go down the same path he did. Their regulations keep families apart.”

Wilson told NBC News that she suffers from diagnosed depression due to stress. She said the situation is taking a toll on the entire family.

“It affects my kids because they wake up crying, asking for their dad. Fifteen minutes [on the phone] is not enough time to read them a bedtime story or see how their school day went,” she said.

“We have to decide between things like using $50 dollars for a [pre-paid phone card] or saving it so that we can eventually go visit him.”

Black women – mothers, grandmothers, daughters, wives — often must choose between posting bail for their loved ones and missing important bills or allowing a loved one to languish in jail, Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley stated.

“Sometimes, when their romantic partner or co-parent is behind bars, Black women are forced to provide for their families alone,” she remarked after reading a study by the bipartisan criminal justice reform organization FWD.us and Cornell University.

Pressley said that with firsthand knowledge, one can speak truth to power, a fact that is not limited to legislators and politicians but includes the millions who understand the injustice of the prison-industrial complex intimately.

“There are 113 million Americans who know what it’s like to see their loved one behind bars — even more if we broaden the definition of family,” Pressley wrote on her website.

“Imagine if these millions of people voted as an entire bloc in 2020, demanding that their candidates — for President, Congress, state legislatures, and judges — were dedicated to passing comprehensive and bold criminal justice reform? Such a powerful movement would help to end the oppression and exploitation in our prison systems.”

The post With Women Imprisonment Rising, Black Females Still Feel the Brunt of America’s Mass Incarceration first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

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Recently Approved Budget Plan Favors Wealthy, Slashes Aid to Low-Income Americans

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

The new budget framework approved by Congress may result in sweeping changes to the federal safety net and tax code. The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts. A new analysis from Yale University’s Budget Lab shows the proposals in the House’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Resolution would lead to a drop in after-tax-and-transfer income for the poorest households while significantly boosting revenue for the wealthiest Americans. Last month, Congress passed its Concurrent Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025 (H. Con. Res. 14), setting revenue and spending targets for the next decade. The resolution outlines $1.5 trillion in gross spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax reductions between FY2025 and FY2034, along with $500 billion in unspecified deficit reduction.

Congressional Committees have now been instructed to identify policy changes that align with these goals. Three of the most impactful committees—Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means—have been tasked with proposing major changes. The Agriculture Committee is charged with finding $230 billion in savings, likely through changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Energy and Commerce must deliver $880 billion in savings, likely through Medicaid reductions. Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee must craft tax changes totaling no more than $4.5 trillion in new deficits, most likely through extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Although the resolution does not specify precise changes, reports suggest lawmakers are eyeing steep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid benefits while seeking to make permanent tax provisions that primarily benefit high-income individuals and corporations.

To examine the potential real-world impact, Yale’s Budget Lab modeled four policy changes that align with the resolution’s goals:

A 30 percent across-the-board cut in SNAP funding.
A 15 percent cut in Medicaid funding.
Permanent extension of the individual and estate tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Permanent extension of business tax provisions including 100% bonus depreciation, expense of R&D, and relaxed limits on interest deductions.

Yale researchers determined that the combined effect of these policies would reduce the after-tax-and-transfer income of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 5 percent in the calendar year 2026. Households in the middle would see a modest 0.6 percent gain. However, the top five percent of earners would experience a 3 percent increase in their after-tax-and-transfer income.

Moreover, the analysis concluded that more than 100 percent of the net fiscal benefit from these changes would go to households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. This happens because lower-income groups would lose more in government benefits than they would gain from any tax cuts. At the same time, high-income households would enjoy significant tax reductions with little or no loss in benefits.

“These results indicate a shift in resources away from low-income tax units toward those with higher incomes,” the Budget Lab report states. “In particular, making the TCJA provisions permanent for high earners while reducing spending on SNAP and Medicaid leads to a regressive overall effect.” The report notes that policymakers have floated a range of options to reduce SNAP and Medicaid outlays, such as lowering per-beneficiary benefits or tightening eligibility rules. While the Budget Lab did not assess each proposal individually, the modeling assumes legislation consistent with the resolution’s instructions. “The burden of deficit reduction would fall largely on those least able to bear it,” the report concluded.

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A Threat to Pre-emptive Pardons

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process.

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

President Trump is working to undo the traditional presidential pardon powers by questioning the Biden administration’s pre-emptive pardons issued just days before January 20, 2025. President Trump is seeking retribution against the January 6th House Select Committee. The Trump Justice Department has been tasked to find loopholes to overturn the pardons that could lead to legal battles for the Republican and Democratic nine-member committee. Legal scholars and those closely familiar with the pardon process worked with the Biden administration to ensure the preemptive pardons would stand against any retaliatory knocks from the incoming Trump administration. A source close to the Biden administration’s pardons said, in January 2025, “I think pardons are all valid. The power is unreviewable by the courts.”

However, today that same source had a different statement on the nuances of the new Trump pardon attack. That attack places questions about Biden’s use of an autopen for the pardons. The Trump argument is that Biden did not know who was pardoned as he did not sign the documents. Instead, the pardons were allegedly signed by an autopen. The same source close to the pardon issue said this week, “unless he [Trump] can prove Biden didn’t know what was being done in his name. All of this is in uncharted territory. “ Meanwhile, an autopen is used to make automatic or remote signatures. It has been used for decades by public figures and celebrities.

Months before the Biden pardon announcement, those in the Biden White House Counsel’s Office, staff, and the Justice Department were conferring tirelessly around the clock on who to pardon and how. The concern for the preemptive pardons was how to make them irrevocable in an unprecedented process. At one point in the lead-up to the preemptive pardon releases, it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process. President Trump began the threat of an investigation for the January 6th Select Committee during the Hill proceedings. Trump has threatened members with investigation or jail.

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Reaction to The Education EO

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking a higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college.

Published

1 week ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

There are plenty of negative reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest Executive Order abolishing the Department of Education. As Democrats call yesterday’s action performative, it would take an act of Congress for the Education Department to close permanently. “This blatantly unconstitutional executive order is just another piece of evidence that Trump has absolutely no respect for the Constitution,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) who is the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. “By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education, which can be summed up in his own words, ‘I love the poorly educated.’ I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action, said Rep. Bobby Scott who is the most senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson chimed in saying “I’m deeply concerned about efforts to shift federal oversight in education back to the states, particularly regarding equity, justice, and fairness. History has shown us what happens when states are left unchecked—Black and poor children are too often denied access to the high-quality education they deserve. In 1979 then President Jimmy Carter signed a law creating the Department of Education. Arne Duncan, former Obama Education Secretary, reminds us that both Democratic and Republican presidents have kept education a non-political issue until now. However, Duncan stressed Republican presidents have contributed greatly to moving education forward in this country.

During a CNN interview this week Duncan said during the Civil War President Abraham “Lincoln created the land grant system” for colleges like Tennessee State University. “President Ford brought in IDEA.” And “Nixon signed Pell Grants into law.” In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush which increased federal oversight of schools through standardized testing. Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college. Wilson details, “that 40 percent of all college students rely on Pell Grants and student loans.”

Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) says this Trump action “impacts students pursuing higher education and threatens 26 million students across the country, taking billions away from their educational futures. Meanwhile, During the president’s speech in the East Room of the White House Thursday, Trump criticized Baltimore City, and its math test scores with critical words. Governor West Moore, who is opposed to the EO action, said about dismantling the Department of Education, “Leadership means lifting people up, not punching them down.”