A University of Northern Iowa professor says the backlash against women is evident in the nation’s prisons. U-N-I professor Katherine van Wormer has written a book entitled, “Women and the Criminal Justice System.” Van Wormer says women account for about six-percent of the nation’s prison population, but the number of black and hispanic women going to prison is the fastest growing segment of inmates.Van Wormer says men who’re arrested for drug crimes often reduce their sentences by implicating their girlfriend or wife who knew of the drug trade but not its details. Van Wormer says that means those women can’t reduce their sentence by ratting out others — and the women get a heftier sentence than their man did.Van Wormer says women in prison are now more susceptible to abuse, too, as a majority of correctional officers in women’s prisons are men.Van Wormer’s book examines all aspects of the criminal justice system — prisons, victims, police, lawyers and judges. A couple of chapters in the book chronicle the advances women are making in the legal profession.The book is available on the Internet at Amazon-dot-com. Van Wormer is a social and behavioral sciences professor at U-N-I.
