ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes ways in which the women's prison system has developed over the past fifty years, concentrating on typical configurations within it today. Although the system has undergone physical and ideological upheavals, its fundamental problems remain much the same as in the early nineteenth century. The chapter illustrates the parity movement that has a twofold aim: overcoming gender discrimination on the one hand, and allowing for gender differences on the other. It focuses on data derived from three sources. First, computer searches of several national data bases were used to identify scholarly works, state-level reports, and other studies of female prisoners and their institutions produced since 1935. Second, the annual Directories of the American Correctional Association were consulted for state-by-state information on prisons that held women. Third, letters of inquiry were sent to every state's historical society and department of correction.
