The Center on Gender and Extreme Sentencing was founded in response to the exclusion of women, particularly women of color, from conversations surrounding mass incarceration in the United States. For too long, women, trans folks, and gender minorities have been left behind by researchers, advocates, and impact litigation efforts. This exclusion exists for multiple reasons, including the sense that because there are comparatively fewer women behind bars, that efforts would be better spent studying, advocating for, and litigating on behalf of incarcerated men. However, women’s incarceration rates are growing faster than those of men. As of 2023, the population of incarcerated women in the United States was six times higher than in 1980 (The Sentencing Project, 2023).

Women are also left out of discussions around the criminal legal system because of societal gender bias and institutionalized misogyny. We see this reflected in the stories of our clients, many of whom were ignored and disregarded when they were victims of crimes, then villainized and criminalized when they became perpetrators. The normalization of gender-based violence and misogyny means that many women’s experiences of gender-based oppression and violence are marginalized and minimized before the juries that condemned them to extreme punishments.

We know from years of experience defending women and gender minorities accused of serious crimes that their lives, experiences, and paths to incarceration are fundamentally different from those of men. So too are their experiences within prison systems designed to house men. Our goal at CGES is to uplift these stories, while bolstering them with rigorous research and advocacy that challenges how women have been treated by the criminal legal system. We seek to leverage systemic change within the criminal legal system by advocating for and beside the most marginalized members of our community who are incarcerated.

Our work addresses intersectional discrimination from a variety of angles. We shed light on hidden forms of discrimination and disrupt widespread misconceptions about its prevalence. We engage in advocacy campaigning to inform the public and mobilize new allies for change. We produce materials of practical relevance for lawyers, policy-makers, and most importantly, incarcerated people.