Research shows 42 percent of Chinese female inmates committed drug-related crimes.
Released on Sunday, the research was based on a survey of 458 female inmates combined with interviews and on-site inspections at two prisons and three detention centers across China between 2013 and 2014.
It found that drug related crimes including the possession of drugs, transporting drugs, drugs dealing and allowing others to abuse the use of drugs are the most common crime offenses, with 41.88 percent of female inmates involved.
In one detention center and one prison, over half of female inmates were involved in such offenses.
"In most of the cases, women were involved in transporting drugs, which means women were used by others," Cheng Lei, an associate law professor at the Renmin University of China, who led the research, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The research likewise found that the number of female inmates is rising. In 2011, the number rose to 93,051, a 30 percent increase from 2004. More than 63 percent of them were aged between 30 and 50 while 1.3 percent was below 18.
Regarding the treatment of female inmates, the research found that not all female inmates enjoy sex.
China began to offer conjugal visits between 12 to 24 hours in the late 1990s, but some prisons began to stop the practice due to controversies and difficulties in those visits, according to the research.
Despite the increasing awareness of the inmates' rights to marriage, many could not obtain a marriage certificate because the Ministry of Civil Affairs ruled in 2004 that inmates must personally apply for the certificate at the marriage registration office.
Cheng suggested that female inmates be given special treatment in jail such as increasing family visits, allow them to serve their sentence near their family residence and avoid sentencing them to death as their family role is different from men in Chinese society, and that would help maintain stability in the family.
The research also found that all detention centers and prisons surveyed have set up surveillance cameras, which are closely supervised by wardens, leaving female inmates vulnerable to possible abuse.
