While experts agree the United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its population than any other industrialized nation, and that a disproportionate number of those inmates are Black men, records indicate the number of Black women in prison is on the rise.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, some of the women are there because of violent crimes, murder and armed robbery.

Many have been convicted of drug-related offenses, which make up a high percentage of the incarcerated female population. And many are in prison because they have either defended themselves or their children against an abusive partner.

In addition, many cities across the country with considerable Black populations have witnessed a drop in numbers of African Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But the cause for that concern, according to civil rights activists, shouldn’t be blamed entirely on Blacks flocking to the suburbs, urban gentrification, or the increase in homicides – it’s also the alarming rate of Blacks being incarcerated.

Because the number of incarcerated Black female prisoners is growing, the continuing loss of this particular group is having an effect on the country’s Black population in terms of general presence and political strength.

What are the reasons?

The single greatest factor contributing to the high rate of Black women entering prison has been the war on drugs and the mandatory sentencing policies that have been implemented because of it, according to experts.

And, once a Black woman has been incarcerated, she often faces extreme difficulties in re-establishing herself in society.

Welfare payments and housing benefits are often denied. Many of these women are single mothers, and if they’ve lost their parental rights, the chances of reuniting with their children are slim.

As with Black men, Black women and other people of color in general have borne the brunt of America’s policies against the illegal drug trade, according to critics of the justice system.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, which advocates for reform in the prison system and sentencing polices within the justice system, said, “Whether it was by design or not, I can’t say, but the policies of America’s war on drugs have been a war against people of color in that people in those communities have been the most adversely affected.

“By addressing the war on drugs in a punitive way, rather than treatment, we’ve made the problem of the racial disparity in the prison population worse. The last 20 years of the drug war have caused a tremendous rise in the numbers of incarcerated Black women.”

According to figures supplied by the United States Department of Justice, Black women are being imprisoned at nearly double the rate of men.

Thirty-three percent of women prisoners are Black and 16 percent are Hispanic, according to experts at The Sentencing Project.

The numbers for Black women are not equal to the percentage of African Americans who live in this country. The ethnic group makes up 12 percent of the country’s population and has recently fallen into third place among ethnic groups due to the rapid rise in numbers of Hispanics.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Mauer said. “There are a combination of different policies that have come together and increased the number of women, particularly Black and Latino women, who are incarcerated. Certainly the war on drugs has caused as tremendous rise in drug arrests within Black and Latino communities.”

But according to Mauer, women typically aren’t at the higher levels of the illegal drug trade.

Like their male counterparts, most females become involved in the illegal drug trade because of financial necessity, to support a habit or are used as couriers by drug dealers.

“Women are often used as couriers delivering illegal drugs,” said Alison Parker, Human Rights Watch’s acting director of the U.S. programs.

She said that among the factors driving up the number of African-American female prisoners are mandatory sentencing laws, which she said are too often applied in a punitive fashion and have had a devastating effect on Black and Hispanic citizens.

“The unfortunate effects of America’s war on drugs and the severe misapplication of overly punitive federal sentencing guidelines are having a devastating effect on the Black community,” Parker said.

“Women, especially African-American women, have been hard hit by mandatory minimums, because these laws now cover ‘conspiracy’ charges. These laws are denying judges sentencing discretion by setting mandatory minimum prison sentences in drug cases, based solely on the type and quantity of drug involved. And they are being used to punish low-level, non-violent participants and drug users as harshly or more harshly than those guilty of running major drug operations.”

Mauer said another factor contributing to the high number of women incarcerated for drug offenses is that the women are on the lower levels of the illegal narcotics trade.

Because of that, she said, they often don’t have information to trade, which often either lessens sentences or allows the offender to avoid prosecution altogether.

“We also have the girlfriends who are along for the ride,” Mauer said. “A woman may have a financial dependency on a man who is dealing drugs. She often doesn’t know a lot about the business but she gets arrested along with her drug dealer boyfriend. Now he has information to trade, the girlfriend doesn’t, and he gets less time. Women are hard hit in a whole range of ways. Now I’m certainly not excusing drug dealing, but there’s a different rate of sentencing at work.”

She knows first hand

Nicole Edwards said without hesitation that she feels the judicial system failed her.

Her story is one of physical abuse and mental anguish that ended not with her assailant’s imprisonment, but with her own.

She served 23 months at the Philadelphia Industrial Center and Riverside Correctional Facility for arson, attempted murder, reckless endangerment and related charges.

After three years of physical abuse and emotional and mental anguish, Edwards struck back, setting fire to the front of the house of her abuser after he broke out of the windows of her home.

She said she never thought her plight would end with her being placed behind bars – an environment she was not prepared for.

“I never saw anything like it,” she said, holding back tears. “They put me in the worst cell block for the women, because of what I’d done. It was full of women that looked like men. There were women going with other women, there was favoritism, fights, it was like a jungle it was so wild. … The whole time I was in there I thought, ‘I don’t belong in this place.’”

Edwards described her experience as if being “in hell.”

But that was just the beginning of her problems.

Her real nightmare began when she was released and tried to put her life back together. It was at that moment she realized that all of the doors leading to opportunity were locked.

“I’m not making excuses for myself, I know that what I did was wrong,” Edwards said. “But after the stalkings, the beatings, the verbal abuse and all the rest of it, when he broke out the windows of my home I just snapped. I tried to do the right thing. Do I feel like the justice system failed me? Yes, I do.”

Like many ex-offenders, Edwards experienced difficulty finding a decent job after being released. And unfortunately, for her and thousands of others, that’s not the only aspect of her troubles.

Because she is an ex-convict she cannot obtain public housing for herself and her two children.

Edwards’ story is one in which critics suggest is becoming all too common in an American judicial system that often blindly penalizes the victim.

For three years the man who claimed to have loved Edwards brutalized her. It didn’t start out that way, though. At first he was charming and nice. He took care of her and was good to her children.

“My cousin was killed by a man who was abusing her,” Edwards said. “He was nice at first too.”

The abuse started when Edwards came home one night after a day of shopping with her sister.

As soon as she entered the house, he slapped her.

When she finally retaliated after three years, Edwards said she expected to be arrested, but also expected the judicial system would be sensitive to her plight – after all, she had filed numerous complaints with the police against her abuser.

But that’s not what happened.

“We went to police headquarters and I thought I would press charges like before, and I would be released,” Edwards said. “But this time the charges were against me. When the judge read the list of charges, I knew then that I wasn’t going home.”

She said through her trial no consideration was given to what she had endured. Her court-appointed attorney did his best, but to no avail. She received a 23-month sentence.

Her eyes took on a faraway stare as she looked back into misery and recalled that first day when she walked into prison.

“They have minimum, maximum and close custody,” Edwards said. “I was in close custody.”

“All I could think about was my children and how was I going to get out of there,” she said. “Close custody is for the worst offenders, and I wasn’t, really. I was just someone who got sick and tired of going through the same thing day and day out. I was scared. Not scared of anyone in there, but fearful, because I couldn’t believe I was in that place, I kept thinking, how did I get here? I don’t belong here.”

Edwards noted fighting among the women was common, as were homosexual encounters between some of the inmates. She said she saw favoritism based on sexual favors.

“Some of the male correction officers on the night shift were having sex with the inmates,” she said. “They would come, get the ones they wanted and leave the unit. You’d see them later with packs of cigarettes and other stuff. It’s a wicked place.”

Who are the real victims?

Critics have argued that women in prison face an entirely different set of problems than their male counterparts.

Non-government organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported that women in prison are extremely vulnerable to a host of different forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment and abuse.

Angela Davis, herself having been a prisoner during the 1970s, said in a scathing published report on the prison industrial complex that the impact of prison on Black women has yet to be determined.

“Though we are increasingly and shockingly aware of the effect of rising rates of incarceration for Black men, and by extension the indirect punishment of the women and children who love and care for them, how often do we think about the direct impact of this punishment industry on women themselves?” she asked.

“More often than not, women – who comprise approximately 6 percent of people in prisons and jails, according to The Sentencing Project – remain beyond public understanding of the emergent prison-industrial complex and its impact on our communities.”

Davis said many incarcerated Black women are in prison for non-violent offenses, mandatory sentencings by the judicial system and the United States’ failed war on drugs – all of which she said amount to nothing else but a war on the Black and Hispanic communities.

“Although Black women are eight times as likely to go to prison as white women, imprisoned women of color are not seen as victims of racist and sexist discrimination,” Davis said. “Some of us may feel relatively secure and successful in our jobs, our educational careers and our lives, but others, unable to find the jobs and education promised by the advocates of reduced welfare, will end up in prison for offenses that are often most harmful to ourselves. Women in prison are among the most wronged victims of the so-called war on drugs, which, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters said, is in effect a surreptitious war on Black and Latino communities.”

For Edwards, her war is fought every day – as it is with thousands of previously incarcerated women.

Jobs that she could get at one time are now denied to her.

Housing benefits are denied, because the Philadelphia Housing Authority does not place people who have felony convictions.

In short, she is still paying for her crime.

“When I go to apply for a job all they see is that I have a felony charge,” Edwards said. “No one asks what happened to me or why I did what I did. Basically, I’ve just been thrown on a pile of people with broken lives and no one wants to help. No one is doing anything to fix the problem, and that’s the real injustice. I paid for what I did, but I’m still paying for it. Because of that one day, I’m still paying.”