As women's criminal justice reform bill advances, advocate calls for change

“The care that is present in our prison systems is really focused on men and not women,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., “and the goal is to re-center the kind of care and reforms that we can offer and develop in a way that also recognizes gender plays a role.”

Kamlager-Dove and Rep. Nance Mace, R-S.C., have teamed up to introduce the Women in Criminal Justice Act, a bill that aims to “strengthen rehabilitation efforts, provide trauma-informed care and gender-responsive action, eliminate discriminatory sentencing practices, and improve other supportive services to finally address the ways that women are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.” 

In a memo first obtained by Spectrum News back in April, the bill focuses on six specific steps, including enacting gender-informed arrest and law enforcement practices, prioritizing family reunification and requiring judges to consider the impact on children when determining bail, pursue gender informed alternatives to imprisonment, eliminate discriminatory sentencing practices, enforce gender-responsive and trauma-informed imposition of a sentence, and implement gender-responsive prison reform such as ensuring women have access to an OB-GYN and creating standards for conditions which the women are housed.