Rev. Dr. Elinor Hare founded the Women’s Advocate Ministry (WAM) in February 1993. Within six months, demands for its unique services warranted the expansion of the program to the courts in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. When Dr. Hare retired, Rev. Annie M. Bovian was hired as executive director. WAM’s mission is to provide active outreach, crisis intervention, referral and supportive services to women at the Rose M. Singer Center and their children. WAM’s staff is bilingual and provides services to incarcerated women and their families free of charge. WAM’s goal is to continue to develop and implement programs based on the philosophy that it does make a difference in a woman’s future if there is someone standing beside her throughout the arrest, court, prison and re-entry experience. WAM’s objective is to remain client-centered in its programs.

Incarcerated women in New York, like incarcerated women across the United States, are affected by a number of alarming and often tragic realities. As a societal issue, the incarceration of women is a growing problem that has major ramifications for individuals, family members (especially children) and society as a whole. One of the most troubling realities in the criminal justice system today is the sheer number of women who are going to prison. According to the Women in Prison Project in New York City:
• At year-end 2002, an estimated 1,040,000 women were in criminal justice custody, either in prison or jail, or on parole or probation in the United States. Over 97,000 women were incarcerated in state or federal prisons alone – 6.8 percent of all prison inmates.
• As of January 1, 2004 over 2,900 women were incarcerated in New York State Prisons – 4.5 percent of New York State’s total prison population. Another 40,000 were on parole or probation.
• Female inmates are the fastest growing segment of the prison population: from 1977 to 2004, the number of women in New York State prisons increased by approximately 500 percent - a rate of growth more than double the rate for men.