The Incarcerated Black Female

Our society has long adhered to a double standard of justice, one for male offenders and yet another for females. And while females have certainly been discriminated against in many social situations, they have traditionally been spared the pains of imprisonment. In fact, female offenders have normally been subjected to a judicial policy of reverse discrimination resulting in fewer women being arrested, convicted or incarcerated. The reason for this is attributed to the protective attitude men, especially those possessing social power, have for women. Accordingly, western cultures have been reluctant to submit females to the same corrective measures applied to males. Some contend that men suffer from a self-deception concerning women, an attitude which is internalized during the socialization process and is used to rationalize the subordinate role females are assigned in our social order. Hence, males are hesitant to credit females with such masculine actions such as crime. It also follows that many males are hesitant to admit that they have been victimized by a female criminal, thus contributing to the image that females are less criminal than males. This system survived with little controversy mainly due to the small female prison populations. But recently, a number of