"This third edition of the World Female Imprisonment List shows the number of women and girls held in penal institutions in 219 prison systems in independent countries and dependent territories. The figures include both pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners and those who have been convicted and sentenced. The List also shows the percentage of women and girls within each national prison population and the proportion of the national population that are imprisoned females (the female prison population rate per 100,000 of the national population). The information is the latest available at the end of July 2015. In addition, this edition includes information about trends in female prison population levels since 2000" (p. 1). Some of the findings from this report are: 700,000 women and girls are being held in correctional institutions throughout the world. A little over 29% of these are held in the United States (205,400). China (103,766), the Russian Federation (53,304), and Thailand (44,751) follow. The largest increase in incarceration has been in Oceania (103.3%) with the smallest in European countries (4.4%).
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