Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities. Anthony C. Thompson

in janitorial work, kitchen work, and cosmetology, whereas men were overrepresented in farm, forestry, maintenance, and repair. Pay levels also varied by gender, with men being paid more often than women for their prison work.

      The most pressing needs for women preparing for reentry are lack of vocational training, history of drug abuse, and tenuous family situations. While studies show that vocational training is an important aspect of reducing recidivism rates for all offenders, female offenders are more likely than their male counterparts to be lacking in such training. Most women beginning a prison sentence have little job experience and few marketable skills. Inside the prison walls, the same woman is far less likely than a male inmate to receive training that will improve her former situation. Much of the relevant case law arising from female inmates relates to claims of disparate treatment in educational programming and vocational training. The number of cases in this area reflects the need for those women who commit crimes to be equipped to function productively outside the prison walls.

      Kentucky and Virginia are two excellent cases in point. In Kentucky, female prisoners were denied access to many vocational, educational, and training programs that were available to male prisoners.⁴³ The programs that were made available to the female prisoners were inferior in quality to the corresponding programs at the male institutions.⁴⁴ In the Kentucky case the court held that the differential treatment between male and female prisoners was unrelated to any important government objective, and therefore violated fundamental notions of fairness embedded in the Constitution and expressed in the Equal Protection Clause.⁴⁵ The court went on to hold that the Equal Protection Clause requires parity, not identical treatment, for female prisoners in the area of jobs, vocational education, and training.⁴⁶