United States of America - Universal Periodic Review - Criminalized Survivors of Gender-based Violence - April 2025
Country: United States of America
Partners: Violence Free Minnesota
Issues: Women's Rights
Mechanism: Universal Periodic Review
Report Type: Stakeholder Report
Women In The United States, Particularly Women From Historically Marginalized Communities, Are Being Criminalized At Staggering Rates, And Often As A Result Of Violence Or Abuse They Have Experienced.
The rates of women being incarcerated are rapidly increasing, and at disproportionate rates to men. Women are an increasing segment of the U.S. prison population, representing 10% of those incarcerated—"making the U.S. ‘one of the top incarcerators of women in the world.’” Between 1980 and 2022, incarceration rates for women increased by 585%, twice the rate of increase for men during the same time period.
Women from historically marginalized communities are disproportionately represented in increased incarceration rates. Black, Indigenous, and women of color are overly represented in the criminal legal system and incarceration rates. For example, Black women are incarcerated at almost two times the rate of white women. The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story, reports that “African American girls constitute 14% of the general population nationally but 33.2% of girls detained and committed.” Race is not the only factor that contributes to disparities among incarcerated women. For example, lesbian and transgender women are also disproportionately impacted. The Sentencing Project reports that “one in five (21%) transgender women have experienced incarceration at some point in their lives.”
Criminalized women experience gender-based violence (GBV) at overwhelming rates. According to available data from a wide range of studies, a vast majority of incarcerated women have experienced significant GBV, with at least one study citing that 99% of people in the surveyed women’s prisons and 84% of girls in the surveyed juvenile detention centers have experienced domestic and/or sexual violence. In interviews with 62 Native American women in Minnesota’s women’s prison, 97% of the interview participants experienced sexual and/or intimate partner violence (IPV) prior to their prison incarceration. The pattern exists in jails as well, which are facilities where many people are held pre-trial without any conviction. Research documents that among women in applicable jails, 86% have experienced sexual violence and 77% have experienced partner violence.10 These statistics align with patterns observed in The Advocates for Human Rights’ research under the WATCH court monitoring program from 2024-2025, which found evidence in court records that high rates of system-involved women experience abuse.
