The number of women in United States prisons has increased dramatically since the 1980s, and has in proportion outpaced that of men''s incarceration. Despite these numbers, incarcerated women, and women lifers specifically, represent a relatively small percentage of the overall correctional and lifer populations. As such, women lifers are easy to overlook, discount, and diminish as such a small group. Many women lifers perceive themselves as a forgotten group; most often those whom we "lock up" and "throw away the key". They feel excluded from prison programming within and from their own families outside. They feel stigmatized by staff and other women in prison. Aging fast, many have real fears about declining health and losing family members over lengthy stretches of time. However, women lifers are some of the most resilient and strongest women who survive life in prison with the support of each other and religious faith, often transforming themselves in the process of doing time. Whi
