At the time of the research, there were 5 women's prisons in California, and 2 of these prisons each held over 3,000 women. The prison system for women in England and Wales, on the other hand, was more dispersed and included 19 institutions, with the largest prison having a capacity for approximately 550 women. Regarding sentence length in 2000, 79 percent of all women inmates in the United Kingdom were imprisoned with sentences of up to and including 1 year; by contrast, in California at year end 1997, only 5 percent of the female inmates were serving sentences of 1 year or less. Regarding inmate safety, unlike the attention to the prevention of inmate suicides in the United Kingdom, a 1999 proposal that would have mandated suicide-prevention programs in California prisons was not enacted. Prison administrators in both California and the United Kingdom acknowledge that the system has failed women inmates. Without more resources, their only recourse is to temporarily contain the women and provide them with a respite from their street lives. Women interviewed in both California and UK prisons reported their most difficult experiences to be the absence of family and friends, an inherent mistrust of follow inmates, and the frustration of dealing with apparently arbitrary and inconsistent rules. Women prisoners in the United Kingdom, however, reported more favorable interactions with correctional staff than did the California women inmates, due largely to the greater attention staff accorded women inmates in the United Kingdom. 19 notes and 64 references