The Sexual Segregation of American Prisons. In most respects, each state and the federal government operates two separate prison systems3-one for men, the other for women.4 In part, the differences between those systems are related to their vastly different scales. Of the nearly 200,000 inmates in state and federal. read more
This is why rapes still occur even in segregated facilities. But until the 1800s, when prison reform started in the Western world, men and women were often housed together. After the reform movement, when rehabilitation was incorporated as a principle, the gender stereotypes played significantly into future development of jails. read more
Interesting question. I suppose the thinking is that if a man is in prison because he raped a lot of women, then it'd be wrong to force a woman to be close to him, if she only committed a minor crime. And yet, if a man is in prison because he raped a lot of men, they still force other men to be close to him, even if they only committed minor crimes. read more