What is worse than being a man on death row?
Being a woman on death row.
The horrors that await anyone sentenced to death in the United States are claimed by
human rights organizations to be a form of torture.
You may have never thought about what death row is like for women, but after this video,
you’ll never forget these terrible facts.
One of the most horrible things to think about, and the biggest difference between males and
females on death row, is that a man will never be pregnant while awaiting his execution.
This is not always true for women.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Imagine carrying an innocent life inside of you while waiting for your own execution.
It is a truly awful thought.
So, what would happen in this situation?
Practically every country has agreed that a pregnant woman can not be executed until
after the baby is born.
This makes sense, but it also means that the situation has occurred before.
For example, one death row inmate in India was pregnant when she was arrested and sentenced.
She gave birth in prison, and her son stayed with her for six years.
When the sentence was finally slated to be carried out, the boy was taken away by the
State, and given to a foster family.
There have also been cases of children living with their mothers on death row in Pakistan
and Uganda, so this wasn’t an isolated event.
This is a rare, but an absolutely insane situation to be in.
Needless to say, a male death row inmate would never have to deal with being pregnant, or
raising a child, while he awaited his execution.
We are now going to focus on death row inmates in the U.S. and how the experience differs
between males and females.
Death row may be different between states, and on a case by case basis.
However, the experience for females on death row can be vastly different than those of
males.
This is slightly surprising, because on paper, it seems that what both sexes go through are
relatively the same.
But in reality this is far from the truth.
We don’t often think about women who are on death row, and that’s for a good reason.
On average, around 12% of all murders in the United States are committed by females.
And since murder—in conjunction with other offenses—is normally what gets someone the
death penalty, there are just not as many females on death row as males.
However, there also may be another reason for this, which you may find appalling.
Although women account for around 10% of the murders in the U.S. they only make up around
2% of the inmates on death row.
On top of that, even fewer of those 2% actually get executed.
Most end up in solitary confinement for the duration of their lives or their sentence
is modified.
This is where one of the big differences between death row for males and death row for females
occurs.
Even before women are sentenced to death, the process could be skewed slightly in their
favor.
There are two reasons for this, and we’ll let you judge if they’re fair or not.
The first reason why the death penalty is not as common for female murders as males
is because of the nature of the crimes that women commit.
The death penalty is normally reserved for killers who also committed other crimes ontop
of murder, such as rape or large-scale drug trafficking.
Normally in cases where women commit murders it is their first and only offense.
This obviously does not make murder right.
However, like with many male murders, if it is the woman’s first and only crime, they
normally aren’t sentenced to death.
Capital punishment is typically reserved for serial killers, or sociopaths who murder or
harm many victims.
In the case of most females the murder is the only crime committed.
Again, we are not saying that one murder shouldn’t constitute punishment, but for both males
and females it is less likely for someone to receive the death penalty for a single
murder.
Therefore, the prosecutors who try to convict a female murderer with a single victim don’t
have a strong case for seeking the death penalty.
The other reason why women are sent to death row less often than males has more to do with
culture and society than anything else.
Whether you believe women and men are equals in every way, or that there are certain inherent
differences between the two sexes, can be a hotly debated topic.
Studies found that juries tend to hold the perception that women are more fragile than
men, and that they have more redeeming qualities.
We are not saying this is necessarily true, just that the average jury feels this way.
Therefore, a jury is less likely to sentence a woman to death than a man.
Defense lawyers claim that it is almost always easier to convince a jury that a female defendant
suffered emotional distress that led them to commit a crime, than it is to convince
a jury of the same thing for a male defendant.
This can allow defense attorneys to seek more lenient sentences for females, and oftentimes
be more successful.
This is just the reality of the system we have, and one major difference between how
males get to death row versus how females end up there.
So, currently how do the two sexes stack up against one another in terms of numbers on
death row?
Unsurprisingly, there are many more men on death row than females.
As of October of 2020 the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund published a report stating
that there were 51 women on death row in the United States.
During the same time there were approximately 2,500 men on death row.
And since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated in the United States, approximately
1.2% of total executions have been females.
Once on death row things become extremely difficult for both male and female inmates.
They are put into solitary confinement, which human rights organizations have classified
as a form of torture.
They then have to await their execution date.
However, the situation for female death row prisoners can be much worse, especially when
things go very wrong.
A study conducted by the ACLU found that one in five women on death row said they were
assaulted or harassed while in prison.
It probably comes as no surprise that most prison guards are males.
This means certain situations can become incredibly uncomfortable for women who need to carry
out their daily business.
A third of the women surveyed reported that the corrections officers watched them while
they showered or used the toilet.
If this was absolutely necessary, which it was not, there were other ways to make sure
a prisoner was observed.
Males most likely run into similar problems, but the data collected found that 75% of all
reported assaults in U.S. prisons come from females.
This suggests that the experience on death row, or just prison in general for females,
differs greatly than for males.
It is interesting to note that although female death row inmates are in solitary confinement
like their male counterparts they know they are being observed.
This is most likely a systemic problem, and one that human rights organizations have voiced
concerns over.
Female inmates also tend to be on death row for longer than males.
Although you might think this is a good thing, that is not necessarily the case.
For both males and females isolation takes a toll on the mental state of the individual.
This is one of the reasons that solitary confinement is seen as inhumane.
Since women stay on death row longer, the strain on their mental health becomes greater
and greater; meaning female death row inmates are under torturous conditions longer than
males.
And since the prison system is made up predominantly of men, the cells for death row tend to be
designed for the male sex.
Biologically males and females are different.
Along with the capacity to become pregnant, women also have to contend with a monthly
menstrual cycle.
Facilities who are not prepared can find themselves lacking the supplies that female death row
inmates need.
You can debate whether certain rights should be taken away from inmates.
But it is hard to make a case to withhold necessary resources for the biological process
of a prisoner—regardless of if they are male or female.
At this point we’d like to mention that things get a little tricky.
It is only until relatively recently that studies have been published about female death
row inmates.
Our lack of public knowledge is just another difference between males and females on death
row.
Many studies of death row prisoners lump both sexes together.
And there are most certainly many similarities between the experiences of males and females
on death row in the United States.
One notable statistic is that over the last 40 years the time spent on death row has increased.
This has raised the alarm on the long term effects of solitary confinement.
However, female death row inmates have been undergoing longer times in solitary than males
for many years.
The average time spent on death row right now is about 20 years.
That is a long time for anyone to be in solitary confinement as we are finding out from numerous
human rights studies.
But we often forget, or didn’t even know, that this was always the norm for female death
row inmates in the United States.
It is claimed that the reason the length of stay on death row has increased over the years
is to allow the defense more time to gather evidence and exonerate their client.
The worst thing that could possibly happen is that someone who is innocent is put to
death.
Yet, innocent people have been wrongfully executed by the judicial system before.
And we are still finding people locked up on death row who were wrongfully convicted.
Whether slowly losing your mind on death row, or being executed as an innocent person is
worse; the fact remains: time spent on death row for everyone is getting longer, but for
women, it has been, and still is, longer than men.
So, who has it worse on death row?
Men or women?
It is not pleasant for either of the sexes, but we assume these are people who have done
terrible things.
It can be argued that women who are sentenced to death have unique hurdles that they have
to deal with while incarcerated.
What may be the scariest difference of all between male and female death row is how little
we know about the female experience.
The studies that lump males and females together tend to only show the male side of things,
because their numbers make up most of the system.
It is a nerve wracking thought that we really don’t know all of the differences between
male and female death row.
What is slowly coming to light is that female inmates may experience even more trauma on
death row than males.
So we have to ask ourselves: how broken is our capital punishment system?
Now watch “Man Who Survived Death Row.”
Or check out “50 Insane Death Row Facts Nobody Tells You.”