Discrimination?
A prison in Minnesota that houses 496 criminals--including 79 killers, 5 kidnappers and 17 burglars--doesn't have a fence around it, and the neighbors don't mind and, in fact, oppose plans to fence it in. Excerpt:
Residents of this suburb southwest of Minneapolis apparently did not consider the prison a blemish on the neighborhood when they bought their homes; over the years, most have come to see it as an asset.
Prisoners ran a day care center for a time and enrolled in high school classes by video link. They still play softball on a diamond just across the street from the local elementary school. The prison rents plots to local gardeners and allows neighbors to bicycle and jog on the grounds, despite the No Trespassing signs. People here still recall watching inmates milk cows and raise chickens when the prison kept a farm.
"They're out there every day walking, and there's no trouble," said Gary Hartmann, who has lived on a quiet street behind the prison for 28 years. "We're not concerned about safety issues. There have been a few walkaways, but nothing too violent. I don't see any reason to have a fence."
Pretty odd? Not really: It's a women's prison, and women simply aren't as nasty as men.
But in light of gender equality efforts, that's changing as men and women become more and more similar:
[S]tate corrections officials say the neighbors are ignoring a new reality: more women are in prison now, and they are more violent.
While there are still 13 times as many men as there are women in prison, the women's population is growing faster. Nationally, the number of women grew an average of 4.7 percent a year from 1995 to 2004; in Minnesota, the increase was far greater, an average of 10.8 percent a year. The population at Shakopee, the state's only prison for women, has doubled since 1998.
And while nationally men are more likely than women to be in prison for violent crimes, violent offenders accounted for half the growth in female prisoners from 2001 to 2004, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
That is only likely to grow: while the number of men arrested for violent crimes declined 20 percent from 1995 to 2004, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of women arrested for such crimes increased by 3 percent.
We want our women to behave like men, and we're getting it throughout the culture. This is just what it looks like at the bottom. I'm not sure the reality is all that much better at the top.
