After conducting focus groups with women about their experience of committing offences in response to coercive and controlling behaviour from a partner, researchers identified strong links between women’s experience of domestic and sexual abuse and coercive relationships and their offending. They warned that this can trap women in a “vicious cycle of victimisation and criminal activity”, often exacerbated by poverty, substance dependency or poor mental health, and having a severely detrimental impact on any dependent children.

Two thirds of the women in jail are of color, and the majority of that population is also low-income. Further, nearly 80 percent of the incarcerated are mothers, most of them raising a child without a partner. Eighty-two percent were incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, while 32 percent have serious mental illness and 82 percent suffer from drug or alcohol addiction. Finally, 77 percent of those polled were victims of partner violence and and another 60 percent experienced caregiver violence.

“These girls didn’t need to be corrected,” Cornyn tells OZY. “It was about how other people were treating them.” And how others perceived them. But now Cornyn is letting the girls speak for themselves, through their writing, images and recorded interviews. “These girls’ stories had been left in the dust of history. No one would have known about them,” says Cornyn. “I wanted them to get the recognition that they should have had.”

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.

The criminal justice system was built for men, and prison activists say that little thought has been given to providing equal services — much less special considerations — for women, even as their population has ballooned in recent decades.