NO SIZE FITS ALL IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
“Not all populations within the criminal justice system are the same, and in order to foster effective policy and programming, it is important to recognize this fact.” (Rousseau, 2021). This simply states that not every criminal is the same and not all resources are applicable to every inmate; more specifically inmates that are women. “Theory and treatment strategy… cannot and should not be applied … across—the–board.” (Rousseau, 2021). This is said because dealing with women inmates creates a different demand of an approach compared to men i.e., prison nurseries for pregnant inmates. Another example is that women are more likely to have a mental illness subject to anxiety, depression and PTSD compared to men inmates. This may be due to the different upbringing or life experiences such as women may encounter more of a chance of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. “A majority of women in the system, up to 70%, repeat a history of abuse as a child or adult … and a higher percentage of women have a history of substance abuse compared to men.” (Rousseau, 2021). Including, “The prevalence of sexual abuse reported among female offenders varies, although generally appears higher than figures reported in male offenders finding 85% of a sample of female offenders reported suffering childhood sexual abuse, and there have been other findings of 80% of a sample female offender suffering child-adult victimization.
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The unique issues in working with female offenders is the highlighted overlap of “mental illness, trauma, addiction, and relationship issues.” (Rousseau, 2021). Additionally, it is notated that the “relative importance of sexual abuse in the criminal pathways of females, finding women who had been a victim of sexual abuse were significantly more likely to be arrested for a violent juvenile offense and an offense as an adult.” (McKeown, 2010). Simply, that it appears that women issues may stem from repeated sexual abuse from their past and/or currently. Moreover, there are findings that women are often subject to repeat victimization. Revictimization are consistent with the findings that half of women incarcerated are those who have been sexual abused in the past as opposed to 3% of men. It appears that revictimization is relatively more common in female offenders. Because “the grater the severity of abuse in terms of frequency and duration, the greater the level of trauma.” (McKeown, 2010).
What needs to be highly considered when determining strategies for women is that it is reported that women are more likely to have higher levels of psychological or mental illness. For example, research shows that women prisoners have a higher level of schizophrenia, 19%, compared to males, 7%, and 67% of woman have lifetime depression compared to 30% of men. (McKeown, 2010). Further, the difference may be due to the overlap of substance abuse that is also more common in female prisoners than males. Overall, it is important to draw the link between psychological help and violent behavior.
Such factors are examples of the developmental, social learning and biological. Biological theory focuses merely on the aspects of biology, this can be interpretated that you are born the way you are born. Social learning theory, that is, focuses on the aspects of human interaction and what is learned through such interaction. Meanwhile developmental theory focuses on the continuation of one’s nature and environment. Many factors are to be looked at when determining an incarcerated women’s treatment. One fit cannot fit all especially when comparing men and women because more women than men have been abused, involved in substance abuse and have mental issues. Biology comes into play within this discussion because many of these women may have been born with any psychology discrepancies. Moreover, this issue may overlap into the social learning theory because many women may feel isolated or have a hard time communicating with others. If the issue of miscommunication, isolation, or antisocial behavior is at issue then such factors will also overlap within their developmental environment because many women will then choose their nature/environment based on such factors. For example, a woman who is antisocial may get attached to a male who is abusive or one who may be the individual to introduce them to addictive drugs. When analyzing treatment for an incarcerated individual, you must take them as a whole to effectively solve their problems rather than pin point to a sole factor that may be contributing to their wrongful behavior.
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With that being said the important components when establishing treatments should be of those that are gender responsive and help treat those with trauma and/or addictions. The purpose is to analyze from early life to sexual abuse and street life to measure the significant impact that the abuse had cause mentally, physically and emotionally. Ultimately this measurement has found abuse has led to, unhealthy sexual practices, early traumas and substance abuse. “Prevalence rates for physical and sexual victimization among female inmates were also found to be more significantly higher for inmates with a mental disorder than those without a mental disorder.” (Wolf, 2012). What I thought was interesting this week about this topic is that their trauma informed programming. Here, there’s a therapist for women prisoners. This tactic provides training for all staff within the correctional facticity. As I learned before that being able to incorporate the criminal justice system with medical professionals will help understand on how to treat individuals with mental illnesses. For example, “security staff… came to realize that a women’s reaction might not be out of aggression, but instead a trauma response.” (Rousseau, 2021). Further it’s important to incorporate mental health-based treatments like therapy to help reduce revictimization or reoffending.
I think women need to receive different treatment than men to it to be effective and more specifically each case is different amongst women themselves. There was a study conducted to examine the implementation and effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral intervention for comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder amongst incarcerated women. The study has examined that majority of women have experienced childhood trauma and had serious mental illnesses. Guidelines has been put into place by the “National Institute of Corrections called for integrated interventions that target the co-occurrence of trauma, PTSD, and SUD among incarcerated women.” (Wolf, 2012). This manualized intervention is designed to address the individuals cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal and case management needs. This includes their deficiencies in antisocial behaviors, emotional regulation and impulsiveness. Such intervention is called Seeking Safety. This method was conduct therapeutically, as a clinical professional will conduct interviews to assess measurement of trauma. The first aim of this study is to provide group therapy session, where group cohesion was explored in the focus groups. Many of the participants state that being comfortable enough in the environment to share, open and get positive feedback.” (Wolf, 2012). I believe that this strategy to get women prisoners to open up and relate to one another can help reduce recidivism. That is said because this encourages women to be more open and results in improvements of their severity of social mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety they may suffer, including, PTSD from abuse. Moreover, the results show positive clinical outcomes in “females with early and complex trauma histories, substance abuse, high levels of psychiatric comorbidity, impaired functioning, and criminal justice involvement for violent offenses.” (Wolf, 2012).
It appears that group treatment to get women talking about their past experiences can help them mentally and emotionally. Not only that but the Seeking Safety initiative encourages strict compliance of their policies of attendance can help build responsibility which is needed when going back into society. Especially amongst those who have a history of adherence and compliance problems. I believe that therapy may not be a perfect treatment for women incarcerated but it is certainly headed in the right direction. Now these prisoners are able to relate to those who have been in similar situations, eliminating the isolation factors and encouraging those change their environment in order to reduce recidivism. Ultimately therapy is a very important aspect of getting to the route to prisoners simply because sentencing in itself does not impact an individuals life. The idea of locking and throwing away the key results in a reoffending. The purpose should be to try to help or reduce reoffending by providing counseling, therapy or rehabilitation.
Reference:
Afary, F. (2021, January 12). Video of Panel on Women in Prisons: U.S. & Iran. Iranian Progressives in Translation. https://iranianprogressives.org/video-of-panel-on-women-in-prisons-u-s-iran/.
Redmond, J. (2019, December 21). Military Veterans and Substance Abuse. Great Oaks Recovery Center. https://greatoaksrecovery.com/military-veterans-at-higher-risk-substance-abuse/.
Rousseau, D. (2021). Module 4 Study Guide. Blackboard. [Lecture notes].
McKeown, A. (2010). Female offenders: Assessment of risk in forensic settings. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 15(6), 422-429. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2010.07.004
Wolff, Nancy, Frueh, B. Christopher, Shi, Jing, & Schumann, Brooke E. (2012). Effectiveness of
cognitive–behavioral trauma treatment for incarcerated women with mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26(7), 703–710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2012.06.001