While many of us, especially sapphic appreciators, can enjoy a show about incarcerated ladies who like to make whoopy with one another, lets hope it does more than titilate us… lets hope it creates curiosity about real life female prisoners, all prisoners, and the prison system in the US in general.

The prison system in the US is atrocious and warrants many hours of reading and research as a whole. The fact is that female prisoners are a uniquely maltreated and neglected group. Their numbers have increased at a staggering rate since the 70’s even as crime rates have decreased. They are, as all prisons, over crowded and full of sexual and physical abuse, aside from the obvious mental strain. According to the ACLU approximately 90% of women in prison have been victims of sexual or domestic violence. They also have a higher rate of mental illness and are more often treated as “faking” it, then men in prison. Only nine states in the country have a place for women to give birth.

The World Health Organization did a report called “Women’s Health in Prisons: Correcting Gender Inequity.”

Here is a link to the PDF here, there is a good table of contents if there is a specific area of interest. It outlines many issues, recommendations and potential plans for addressing them.

Women’s Health in Prisons: Correcting Gender Inequity