The Evidence Is In. Why Aren't We Listening?
The fastest-growing incarcerated population in America has remained one of its most invisible. Women have been locked away in a system built for men, studied through the lens of men, and largely excluded from the public conversation about mass incarceration. For years, there was little research documenting what women actually experienced behind prison walls. That invisibility came at a cost. While the nation's incarceration rate has fallen alongside declining imprisonment of men, the incarceration of women continues to climb.
The landscape has changed. Women are no longer missing from the research. Today, a growing body of evidence documents the consequences of maternal incarceration, the intersections of trauma, addiction, and imprisonment, and the profound impact women's incarceration has on families and communities. Books, documentaries, podcasts, and rigorous quantitative studies now confirm what incarcerated women have been saying for decades.
So why does the myth persist that we don't know enough? And why is that myth still being used to delay the conversation we should have been having all along, not how to make prisons better for women, but why we continue incarcerating so many women in the first place?
The evidence is no longer missing. It is growing and becoming impossible to ignore. Last year, The National Council released its report on the state of women's incarceration, adding to a rapidly expanding body of research documenting the unique harms women experience behind bars. Organizations across the country are dedicating entire areas of study to women's incarceration, while states including Mississippi, Florida, California, and New Jersey have enacted legislation aimed at addressing the specific needs of incarcerated women. These reforms may not go far enough, but they acknowledge what women have been saying all along: the system is fundamentally failing them.
And the data keep pointing in the same direction.
Just this month, the Council on Criminal Justice released a two-part analysis examining both the rising costs of incarcerating women and the public safety impact of reducing women's arrests and sentences. The findings add yet another layer of evidence supporting decarceration. For years, The National Council relied on federal cost data that did not distinguish between women and men. The Council on Criminal Justice's analysis finally separated those figures and found that incarcerating women costs 25 to 75% more than incarcerating men. At the very moment the evidence for reducing women's incarceration is becoming stronger, the financial case for doing so is becoming harder to ignore as well.
“In 2025, imprisonment cost about $70,000 per person per year, while this report estimates annual costs of $87,000 to $122,000 per woman. The larger expense reflects structural and operational factors such as smaller facilities, mixed security classifications, greater healthcare needs, and heavier use of external medical providers.”
The economic case against incarceration is not new. Yet for many people, it has never been enough. The prevailing belief is simple: if incarceration keeps the public safe, then any cost is worth paying. Better to spend millions than risk releasing a "criminal." That argument has endured for decades because it is rooted in fear, the belief that people who enter the criminal legal system are fundamentally dangerous and must be separated from everyone else.
The evidence tells a different story.
The Council on Criminal Justice tested what would happen if women's prison sentences were reduced by 50% across the board, regardless of offense. Using data from Illinois and North Carolina, researchers projected that arrests would increase by 7-9%, with roughly 90% of those additional arrests for nonviolent transgressions. At the same time, states would save between $61 million and $102 million every year.
Even those findings likely understate the benefits of decarceration because the model could not account for what happens when communities invest in people instead of prisons. A woman who receives substance use treatment instead of incarceration is less likely to be arrested again. A woman who can afford to leave an abusive relationship is less likely to become entangled in the legal system in the first place. Stable housing, healthcare, childcare, education, and economic opportunity are all forms of public safety, yet they rarely receive the same investment as prisons.
Of course, there is still more to learn. There always will be. But a lack of perfect information is no longer a credible excuse for inaction. Incarcerated women have been telling us what the research is now confirming. We know incarceration inflicts profound harm on women, children, and communities. We know it is extraordinarily expensive. We know there is little evidence that incarcerating more women produces safer communities. The question is no longer whether we have enough evidence. The question is: why do we continue to ignore it?
The barriers to decarceration have never been a lack of data. They are fear, racism, and deeply embedded structural biases against poverty, disability, addiction, mental illness, and trauma. Prison has become society's preferred way of hiding problems it has chosen not to solve. It is easier to incarcerate people than to confront the conditions that make incarceration seem inevitable.
Decarceration demands something harder. It requires us to invest in housing instead of cages. Healthcare instead of punishment. Opportunity instead of abandonment. That work is uncomfortable because it forces us to reckon with the inequalities we have tolerated for generations.
There is nothing shameful about fear. But fear is a terrible foundation for public policy. Fear has never built healthy communities. It has never produced justice. It has never created lasting safety. It divides us, concentrates power in the hands of the few, and leaves the most vulnerable to bear the consequences. If we are serious about building safer communities, then we must be willing to abandon policies rooted in fear and embrace those rooted in evidence, compassion, and justice. That means moving beyond prisons and addressing the conditions that cause harm in the first place.
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