ABSTRACT
Throughout their history, American prisons have been dumping grounds for ethnic minority persons. Female inmates have always been treated differently in the United States. In 1820, America's 15 prisons held men, women and children, as well as persons with severe mental illness, sometimes all mixed together and sometimes somewhat separated from each other. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, state governments began building separate prisons for women. The Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls, opened in 1873, was the first American prison built exclusively for females. Over 60 percent of the women in American prisons are mothers of young children. One in four women in prison either has given birth within 1 year of their incarceration or has gone into prison pregnant. The sexual abuse of female inmates by male employees, when it occasionally became known to the American public, sparked the movement to build separate women's prisons.
