New Report Verifies Urgent Need to Release Elders from California Women’s Prisons
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The California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) and the Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law released a report today documenting that incarcerating elders in California women’s prisons is unjustified, costly, and inhumane. Releasing elders from its women’s prisons will help California address the crisis of its rapidly aging prison population.
“The aging population in California women’s prisons reflects outdated and unjustified sentencing practices, resulting in dire costs for incarcerated elders and their communities, not to mention California taxpayers,” explained Maiya Zwerling, faculty member at the Policy Advocacy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. “Research shows that this population is safe to release, meaning the state is wasting limited resources keeping a low-risk population locked up.”
California spends up to $300 million every year to incarcerate approximately 740 elders in its two women’s prisons. Incarceration is particularly harmful for older adults, whose health challenges are exacerbated by harsh prison conditions.
“To see many of our elderly struggle to walk to the shower room, chow hall, self-help groups, or to church, saddens me,” said Stephanie Lazarus, an incarcerated advocate with California Coalition for Women Prisoners. “It made me question why the California prison system continues to house elderly women in prison when they are no longer a threat to anyone but themselves.”
The report examines the dangerous conditions elders face in California women’s prisons, and why so many remain incarcerated despite the available mechanisms for release: commutations, compassionate release, resentencing, and elderly parole.
Key findings:
• Elders can be safely released. Elders present little risk to public safety once they are released from prison—data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) indicates that fewer than five percent of people aged 60 and older go back to prison within three years of release. These rates are even lower for elders who have served lengthy sentences.
• Incarcerating elders is a costly and ineffective use of public funds. It costs two to three times more to incarcerate an elderly person compared to the general population. California could save $31 to $47 million per year by releasing everyone fifty years of age and older from its women’s prisons.
• Elders in women’s prisons face unique challenges that go unaddressed. The costs to their health are magnified by higher rates of pre-existing health conditions and extreme heat brought on by climate change. People incarcerated in women’s prisons experience high rates of trauma and intimate partner violence before incarceration. Inadequate, or in some cases abusive, health care in prison exacerbates conditions associated with aging, including symptoms of menopause.
• Existing options for elderly parole largely exclude and deny women over fifty. New analysis of data from the California Board of Parole Hearings showed that between 2013 and 2024, an average of just twelve people were granted elderly parole each year from the two women’s prisons combined.
“Some of the recent attention on elderly parole in California has unfortunately ignored the facts,” said Jane Dorotik, an organizer with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. “Data shows that elders can be safely released, and California has the tools and imperative to do so. Continuing to keep them in prison, where they suffer significant harm is unconscionable.”
CLOSURE IS POSSIBLE!
The 2023 comprehensive report From Crisis to Care points to the inescapable conclusion – women’s prisons only perpetuate catastrophic trauma and harm. To reverse cycles of gendered and racial violence plus intergenerational trauma and poverty, California needs to invest in community controlled resources that are life affirming and health promoting. Our communities need to develop non-carceral, non-punitive forms of accountability and CLOSE WOMEN’S PRISONS! In Massachusetts and other parts of the country campaigns to close women’s prisons are already underway.
As of mid-2023 there are 3,337 people incarcerated in women’s prisons in California, 70.8% less than in 2010 when there were 12,668! This dramatic reduction was a result of strong, persistent legal challenges and advocacy campaigns by dozens of organizations and thousands of people from our communities, resulting in marked policy changes in California. Collectively we were able to reduce the population of women’s prisons by over 9,000 in little more than a decade. We can decarcerate a few thousand more and close the state’s two women’s prisons!
We Call Out the Harms That Drive People Into Women’s Prisons
Racism – 25% of the women’s prison population is Black even though they make up only 6.5% of the California population. 35.2% of the population is Latinx and 32.1% are white. 7% are classified as other,” which clouds the statistics of the Asian, Pacific Islander, and First Nations People all into the aggregated “other” category. That being said, we know First Nations women comprise almost 2% of incarcerated women in our state — nearly five times their share of all women in California (0.4%).
- Gendered violence and trauma – A majority of people in women’s prisons report experiences of intimate partner violence and a history of childhood abuse and witnessing the abuse of their own children as factors contributing to their incarceration. Transgender and gender variant people report significant trauma prior to incarceration, including experiences of bullying, family rejection and isolation, eviction, criminalization, and mistreatment by police.
- School-to-prison pipeline – Schools in BIPOC communities routinely use punitive controls, including suspensions, expulsions, police and court referrals in dealing with students, channeling them towards prison.
- Inter-generational poverty – Lack of food, housing, employment, education, childcare, healthcare and transportation (the list goes on) are huge underlying factors that fuel imprisonment
We Denounce the Traumas That People Suffer Inside Women’s Prisons
Sexual harassment, abuse and assaults of incarcerated people in the women’s prisons at the hands of guards and other staff have been continuous and relentless for many decades.
Homophobia and transphobia resulting in isolation and additional punishment.
Medical neglect including failure to provide medical examinations, long delays in treatment, stopping needed prescriptions, reproductive violations such as forced sterilization, and lack of mental health care. This medical neglect results in permanent disability and chronic illness for a significant number of incarcerated people.
Environmental hazards including overcrowding, infectious disease, extreme heat and cold, foodborne illness, mold, asbestos, toxic drinking water, rodents and more.
Solitary confinement, condemned by the United Nations, is used as retaliation for whistleblowing and as an alternative to providing mental health care.
Separation from families and communities has destructive and far-reaching consequences that deeply harm community health.
We Grieve the Damage That Families and Communities Endure
Separation of mothers and parents from their children with lifelong consequences for those children of attention difficulties, aggression, mental health challenges, and a higher likelihood of their own incarceration later in life.
Loss of income plus the need to support incarcerated loved ones financially with their survival needs.
Eugenic population control via the removal of people of child-bearing age to prisons, which limits the reproductive capacity of the community.
We Amplify, Create and Implement Gateways to Freedom
Release policies for survivors of sexual abuse by prison staff.
End to all extreme sentencing, prioritizing elimination of LWOP, three strikes laws, the death penalty and sentence enhancements that most severely and disproportionately impact Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color.
Parole reform that expands Youth Parole and Elder Parole and ensures the presumption of release at parole hearings.
Compassionate release for those individuals who require assisted living due to years of medical neglect and the terminally ill.
Creation of the appropriate housing that will provide medical care and rehabilitation for those who require durable medical equipment and assistance with basic functions.
Creation of healing and accountability centers that are non-carceral, non-punitive and not funded by CDCr for people who need to be involved in transformative justice processes that ensure community safety.
90% of people in women’s prisons have suffered abuse.
People need care, healing, safety and transformative justice. Read our statement about how Domestic Violence = State Violence here.
