Women are being incarcerated more often than most of us realize, said my colleague, Fernanda Camarena.
“Today, there are more men in prison than women, but since the 1980s, the rate of women being imprisoned has grown twice as fast as men,” she said. “More than half of these women are parents of minors who end up in foster care. And many women haven’t yet been convicted, but are awaiting trial.”
Some other things you might not know:
“Incarcerated women are more likely to have been homeless, or disabled or experienced sexual violence than their male counterparts,” Camarena said. “They’re also more likely to deal with mental health issues and to have lower incomes than men, so they’re less likely to make a bail payment, remaining in prison as their case trickles through the system.”
And because there are few women-only prisons, women are likely to be incarcerated farther from home, Camarena said, “which makes family visits expensive and challenging. So, to give this beat the proper attention, we need to understand all of these nuances, and how the system continues to work and how it continues to fail.”
We’re doing that through two free webinars that dig into how incarceration impacts women, both as the incarcerated and when the people in prison are their loved ones. The program, called Women and Prisons: Covering the Impact of Incarceration, also includes five $10,000 reporting grants, available to applicants who’ve participated in both webinars.
Guest instructors include Laura Bennett, founder and director of The Center for Just Journalism; Alysia Santo, a staff writer for The Marshall Project; and Tamar Sarai, a journalist at Prism.org.
Through the free training, Camarena said, “participants will learn more about the trends, the societal impact and how to best navigate this complex beat. They’ll hear from journalists, researchers and other experts, and we’ll provide training on how to build trust and ethically report this topic.”
You can learn more here.
While you’re here:
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Here’s some more free training for you: Covering Mental Health Equity: A Mental Health Reporting Project webinar, takes place at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 9, and features my colleague, Kerwin Speight, plus journalists Ashley Hopkinson and Josh McGhee. Learn more here. And check out the Mental Health Reporting Project course to get you caught up on this critical beat.
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Read the latest Press Forward report by Anika Anand and Darryl Holliday on “rethinking who creates, shares and sustains” local news.
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From Medill’s Local News Initiative, read “The loss of local news is linked with increased government secrecy, according to a new study…”
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From Poynter, read “Can AI help local journalists cover 169 towns? CT Mirror is working to find out.”
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And there’s still time to sign up for our first virtual memoir workshop, Mining For Memoir. Here are the details.
That’s it for me. I’ve started rewatching “Umbrella Academy” because I love time travel and superhero stuff. What’s a series you’re glad you rewatched? Thanks for reading!
Kristen ☂️
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