Starting over
Women emerging from prison face formidable challenges to resuming their lives
COLUMBUS, Ohio — On a cold and dreary October day, Heather C. Jarvis packed everything she had into a pink duffle and a plastic trash bag and waited for the rest of her life to begin.
Sitting in the lobby of the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, she smiled anxiously as her longtime therapist told her she’d be fine, that she was ready for the outside world. She had checked all the boxes during her nearly 10 years behind bars — substance
STOP abuse treatment, professional development, even earning an associate’s degree — and had people intent on helping her.
“Sometimes, I’m just so scared that it’s not enough,” Jarvis, her voice breaking, told The Associated Press before her release.
Jarvis, 32, is part of the fastest-growing prison population in the country, one of more than 190,000 women held in some form of confinement in the United States as of this year. Their numbers grew by more than 500% between 1980 and 2021, more than twice the growth rate for men, according to a report by The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy organization for incarcerated people.
The sharp increase is partially due to the increased penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession and trafficking that many states have implemented over the past few decades. Approximately 25% of incarcerated women are in prison for drug-related crimes, compared to 12% of men, according to the 2023 report. Ohio — an epicenter of the opioid crisis — is among the states that experienced the most dramatic jump in female prisoners.
Programs aimed at helping women stay out of prison once they’re released have not grown at nearly the same pace, according to the National Institute of Justice.
“Women’s incarceration grew very rapidly in the early 2000s, but it took a good decade or so before the field really acknowledged the widening gap between available programs and services and the number of women who need them,” said Wendy Sawyer, research director at the Prison Policy Initiative, a research and advocacy nonprofit.
That makes the journey harder for women, who confront different challenges than their male counterparts. Over half, for example, are mothers of minor children, the group says.
“Women face all of the same barriers that men face in reentry — securing employment, housing, and transportation, and reestablishing family connections — but with an extra level of difficulty,” Ms. Sawyer said. “For example, housing ... often forces women to choose between homelessness and returning to abusive situations, while in contrast, many men return to female supports: mothers, wives, girlfriends.”
There is also the issue of sexism.
“There is more stigma attached to a woman getting involved in a crime or using drugs than there is men,” remarked Linda Janes, chief operating officer of Alvis House, a Columbus-based nonprofit that works with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections to provide reentry services, including housing and job assistance.
Jarvis is one of the lucky ones. In October, she was released into “transitional control” at Alvis House, and she has already found an apartment to live in after her time there is up. Columbus is far from her hometown of Parkersburg, W.Va. — a long way from the friends