Incarcerating women has increased 600% since 1980

The Guardian -  Two new reports raise questions about the economic tradeoffs of incarcerating women - a prison population that has grown more than 600% in the United States since 1980.

Imprisoning women costs as much as 75% more than incarcerating men, but some of those costs could be offset by halving the amount of time women spend in prison with minimal impacts to public safety, according to new reports from the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan thinktank.

"Incarceration for women is very expensive, and we are using this very expensive tool, prison, on what is, on average, a relatively low-risk group compared to men," said Dr Stephanie Kennedy, the council's policy director.

Kennedy and her colleagues found keeping women in prison cost roughly $87,000 to $122,000 per woman each year, compared with $70,000 for men. Women's specialized healthcare needs, including pregnancy care, and smaller populations translated to higher per-person costs. The studies found that female incarceration could cost as much as $34bn per year by 2035.