In terms of the rate at which women are charged, however, there has been a 7% decrease overall in the number of women charged with criminal offences. In particular, we are seeing a decrease in the number of violent crimes committed by women. It must also be borne in mind that all these increases have occurred within the context of increased cuts to expenditures for social services, health and education throughout the country. The result has been that women prisoners in Canada, like women prisoners worldwide, are the fastest growing prison population.

We also know that increased numbers of young women with mental and cognitive disabilities, women who used to fill psychiatric and mental health facilities, are now increasingly being criminalized. Progressive trends of the past to deinstitutionalize those with cognitive and mental disabilities have been subverted by resource depletion, attitudes and policies occasioned by the deficit dementia of the last decade. The result is that more and more people are literally being dumped into the streets.

Their attempts to survive, their attempts to self-medicate, their attempts to cope with their situations as well as the behavior that then evolves from being in a situation where they are increasingly disenfranchised, have led to their increased criminalization and imprisonment. Once in prison, these women are considered difficult to manage and consequently spend a disproportionate amount of their time classified as maximum-security prisoners. This means that in addition to serving most of their sentence in the segregated maximum-security units in men’s prisons, they are also most likely to be placed in segregation. They also tend to attract a number of psychiatric labels, and tend to be characterized by the Correctional Service of Canada as among the most difficult prisoners to manage by Correctional Services Canada.

Some women have been sentenced to prison – federal terms of two years or more in some cases – in the hopes that they will receive the “treatment” they need in prison. Approximately 10 years ago, we noted that the trend was starting in the Atlantic region, especially in Newfoundland, where we first saw the signs and implications of economic downturn. The trend is now national in nature.