Missy Venable (not her real name) said she has trouble sleeping at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not the typical case of insomnia. It\u2019s the after effects of spending more than seven years in prison \u2013 which, incidentally, is where her fellow inmates began calling her \u201cMissy,\u201d and the name just stuck. She made up her last name for this article, choosing to hide her identity because her children are both of school age and Venable said she doesn\u2019t want their classmates teasing them. It\u2019s a similar story to that shared by her friend, Tina Blackman \u2013 also a fictious name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blackman, who said she\u2019s in her mid-40s, spent nearly nine years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I went in, I left behind two teenagers and one child that was 8 years old and autistic and another child that was 2 (years old),\u201d Blackman told NNPA Newswire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Venable was imprisoned for insurance fraud, Blackman was sentenced on drug charges. After hearing their stories, one might wonder, why so much time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Venable said she thought she was referring people to get legitimate assistance with old, broken down vehicles and didn\u2019t know the auto shop\u2019s owner, who was once one of her closest friends, was committing insurance fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blackman said her ex-boyfriend always denied being a drug dealer and she could find no evidence that he was. No bankroll, no fancy car and certainly not a stack of cash, because she was often late on rent and utility payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery day, I\u2019d take mail to his friend\u2019s because his friend didn\u2019t have a reliable mailbox,\u201d Blackman explained. \u201cThey all looked just like regular mail, letters and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, one of the envelopes contained drugs and she was charged for selling narcotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blackman and Venable are part of an alarming trend \u2013 the growing and disproportionate imprisonment of Black women in America. A recent NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet noted that between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million. Today, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the world\u2019s population and has 21 percent of the world\u2019s prisoners. Also, according to the Fact Sheet, one in every 37 adults in the United States, or 2.7 percent of the adult population, is under some form of correctional supervision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further in 2014, African-Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent, of the 6.8 million correctional population total and Black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The imprisonment rate for African-American women is twice that of white women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Status of Black women in the United States, (SOBW)\u201d was released in June 2017 and coauthored by the Institute for Women\u2019s Policy Research in Washington and the National Domestic Workers Alliance in New York. The report revealed that Black women are more prone to being jailed than White women, and that tendency starts in school. Racial disparities in discipline exist throughout the nation\u2019s education system, the SOBW researchers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Black girls between 2011 and 2012 accounted for 45 percent of all girls suspended from K-12 public schools nationally, and they represented 42 percent of all girls expelled. They were suspended and expelled at higher rates than Black boys, according to the SOBW as reported by New American Media which also noted that the \u201cnation\u2019s Black women are jailed at unfair rates.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Disciplining of Black girls appears to be influenced by school administrators\u2019 stereotypes and racial biases, the SOBW researchers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Black girls are more likely to be seen as disruptive or loud, compared with other students. They\u2019re more often punished for dress-code violations, talking back to teachers and \u201cdefiance\u201d than other girls. What\u2019s worse, Black girls with disabilities are more prone to being suspended from school than other Black girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n