For the past few years, America has started to take a closer look at our soaring prison population. Decades of tough-on-crime policies mean we now incarcerate 2.3 million people— the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. And who are the fastest-growing group of prisoners in the U.S.? Women and girls.

The U.S. makes up just 5% of the global population, yet nearly one-third of all the female prisoners in the entire world are here in America.

There are more than 200,000 women and girls incarcerated nationwide, a number that has increased by more than 700% since 1980. Men still make up the vast majority of inmates, but women in prison face unique challenges. Most are mothers. Prisons limit or charge money for basics like tampons and pads. Women are also more likely to be sexually assaulted, particularly by guards.

To hear these stories, Teen Vogue and The Marshall Project sat down with Ayana Thomas and Sarah Zarba, who were both formerly incarcerated; Kyndia Riley, a student whose parents have been in prison since she was a toddler; and U.S. Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey who introduced legislation this summer to ease some of the burdens for women in federal prisons. The panel was moderated by Alysia Santo, a staff writer at The Marshall Project.

Parenting from Prison

In this video, women talk about struggling to stay in contact with their families while behind bars.

Many studies have shown that prisoners who maintain close contact with family do better once they are released and have lower rates of returning to prison. Kyndia Riley, whose parents both went to distant federal prisons when she was two years old, never got to have a real relationship with her parents. Phone calls were expensive, and money was tight, so Riley’s visits became increasingly rare. As a young girl growing up, she would purposefully get herself in trouble, thinking it would get her arrested so she could finally reunite with her parents.

About 60% of women in state prisons have children under 18. Ayana Thomas missed out on mothering her children over the two and a half years she spent locked up. She was living in Virginia, but served her time at a facility in Connecticut. She says that even when her children could visit, they weren’t allowed to embrace or hold hands for long before a guard would break them apart. For security reasons, many prisons limit physical contact during visits.

The Needs of the Incarcerated

In this video, the women explain how prison fails to meet both basic and complex needs.