In most countries, the percentage of women among prison populations hovers around five percent.78 However, the economic and political shifts of the 1980s—the globalization of economic markets, the deindustrialization of the U.S. economy, the dismantling of such social service programs as Aid to Families of Dependent Children, and, of course, the prison construction boom—produced a significant acceleration in the rate of women’s imprisonment both inside and outside the United States. In fact, women remain today the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. prison population.
