Working with Women Offenders in the Community

Rosemary Sheehan, Gill McIvor, Chris Trotter

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781136839931
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Though many more women offenders are supervised in the community than in custody, much less is known about their needs and effective approaches to their supervision, support and treatment. Whilst there has been recent attention paid to responding to the needs of women in prison, negligible attention has been paid to women exiting prison, or on community based orders, and what is needed to work with them to reduce re-offending or entry into prison.

Contributions to this book challenge policy-makers and corrections systems to concentrate more on community provision for women offenders and resist popular calls for more punitive responses to all offenders, women included. Contributors come from a wide range of countries including Australia, Canada, UK and USA. They argue that the criminogenic lens applied to women's offending must be gender-responsive if systems are to be successful at addressing the disadvantage and risk associated with offending behaviour.

Working With Women Offenders in the Community builds on ideas presented in the editors' previous book, What Works With Women Offenders (2007), extending the focus particularly on women offenders in the community rather than in prison. This book concentrates on women who have committed criminal offences and who may have been placed on probation or other community based court orders or who have been released from prison on parole. It discusses the work done by professional workers including probation officers, community corrections officers and specialist case managers in areas such as drug treatment, housing, mental health or employment programmes.

This book will be of interest to professional probation officers, case managers, drug treatment workers and others who work with women offenders. It will also be essential reading for students of criminology, social work, psychology, sociology and other disciplines who have an interest in women offenders.

Chapter 1
Female offenders in the community: The context of female crime

Briege Nugent and Nancy Loucks

This chapter examines the structural, social and personal issues facing women offenders. This includes strategies that assist women offenders in the community and divert them from imprisonment within the welfare tradition of Scottish criminal justice. It also examines the varying philosophies and practices that view women and children as special cases and the consequent conflicts that arise for policy, welfare services and professional social work practice with women offenders.

Structural, social and personal issues facing women

Since the 1990s, much work has been undertaken where previously little research had identified the issues confronted by women offenders. The first inquiry investigating the use of community sentences and custody for women offenders in Scotland was a response to a series of suicides in Cornton Vale, Scotland’s prison for women offenders. The resulting Social Work Services and Prisons Inspectorate report (1998: 13) Women Offenders – A Safer Way concluded that ‘the backgrounds of women in prison are characterised by experiences of abuse, drug misuse, poor educational attainment, poverty, psychological distress and self-harm’.

The complexity of issues for women offenders emphasises the need for services to be holistic. Gelsthorpe (2007: 301) notes that to be holistic is to be ‘treated not as a composite offender but as a fully human, socially and culturally differentiated offender’, which she believes engenders reciprocal ‘respect’ and indirectly promotes compliance. Mutual respect between the offender and any caseworker has been shown to be crucial in the process of desisting from offending (McNeil et al. 2005). Taking account of and responding to the individual’s characteristics, background, age, social class and learning style is vital, as is an acute awareness of the context of the individual’s life. For women offenders, the social, structural and personal issues they face often overlap. As a result, many have chaotic lives, making compliance with community punishment difficult (Barry and McIvor 2009).

Prison and the problems for short-term prisoners

The population of women prisoners in Scotland has increased disproportionately in recent years: while the male population has increased by 29 per cent since 1999–2000, the female population has nearly doubled in that time (Scottish Government 2009a). The high level of vulnerability that women offenders present is one reason why so many are being sent to prison at an increasing rate in Scotland – not to be punished, but to be cared for (Barry and McIvor 2009; Tombs and Jagger 2006; Social Work Services and Prisons Inspectorate 1998). Tombs and Jagger (2006) reported that the judges they interviewed accepted that some offenders are so ‘grossly deprived that imprisoning them provides a solution however unpalatable to social problems that other institutions and structures fail to address’ (2006: 809). In adopting this ‘welfare’ approach, female offenders are denied agency; using prison in this way can render the most vulnerable even more helpless.

Prison has arguably become a welfare panacea for many women. It suspends them from facing the issues that brought them to prison in the first place and that will inevitably return them to prison unless they are addressed. However, access to support ends for most at the prison gate: 74 per cent of women sent to prison in Scotland are short-term prisoners (sentenced to periods of less than four years), which means they are not subject to statutory supervision and support on release (Scottish Government 2009a). Short-term prisoners have the highest level of social need and the highest rates of reconviction, and a higher proportion of women than men in prison are serving short-term sentences (Maguire and Raynor 2006; Lewis et al. 2007; Scottish Government 2008; Social Work Services and Prisons Inspectorate 1998).

Short-term prisoners face a wide range of issues, forming a ‘recalcitrant problem for the agencies involved’ (Crow 2006: 15). These problems often relate to the fact that very little effective work can be done with them in prison over a short period of time, yet engaging them in support after release can be exceptionally difficult. Using prison as a welfare panacea, particularly for short-term prisoners where little support can be put in place for them on release, is clearly not a rational or viable way forward.

Prison-based intervention is also not ideal. Any intervention in prison will arguably be limited in its efficacy as it takes place in an environment removed from the realities of women’s lives on the outside. For example, many women who offend use drugs as a coping mechanism to deal with trauma from victimisation and mental health problems (Malloch 2004; Covington 1999). Getting someone off drugs is not enough unless any underlying issues are addressed; only then can the person be considered to be ‘healthy’. Many women say that they have been able to get ‘clean’ in prison but have struggled when they are in the community. The realities of what women offenders deal with in the community remain outstanding, so prison is not a lasting solution (Nugent and Loucks 2009).

The need for flexible and comprehensive support

To prevent further offending, women’s needs have to be identified and taken into account, particularly those that are barriers to the fulfilment of community-based penalties. For example, reliance on welfare benefits is particularly significant for women compared to men (Scottish Parliament 2009). Women may therefore require help with the basic costs required for compliance with community orders such as transport and childcare, or these needs should be accommodated, such as through home visits. The Asha Centre in England, for example, provides the option of an on-site crèche, which offers information and assistance to mothers, or an allowance to enable them to arrange their own childcare (Rumgay 2004b).

Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only prison for women, has a Links Centre that provides a central location for services to work in and to connect women to relevant agencies. Women report feeling that a similar ‘one-stop shop’ would be ideal in the community (Cavanagh et al. 2007). Only two such services for women exist in the community in Scotland. One is the 218 Centre in Glasgow (see below), which offers comprehensive residential and community-based support for women offenders (Malloch and Loucks 2007; Loucks et al. 2006). The service offers a range of supports, primarily targeted at women with substance misuse issues, though tailored to the individual needs of the women and focused on addressing the underlying causes for offending. The other is Sacro’s (Safeguarding Communities – Reducing Offending) Community Links Centre in Edinburgh, where the Willow Project was recently piloted. This project supports women offenders in addressing their underlying and criminogenic needs. The project places a strong emphasis on practical support and connecting women to services that exist in the community. The evaluation highlighted that this type of support clearly fills a gap in provision (Nugent et al. 2010).

The need for women-centred approaches

Extensive research indicates that women who are involved in offending often have a history of physical and sexual abuse in childhood and into adulthood (Loucks 1998; Social Work Services and Prisons Inspectorate 1998; McClellan 2006). Helping women recognise the resilience and strength that has helped them through these experiences can promote their desistance from offending. Other studies of women highlight the importance of support networks in building and maintaining resilience and in particular for coping with social and personal stress (Green and Rodgers 2001; Werner and Smith 1992, cited in Rumgay 2004b).

Women offenders often report feeling they have little control over their lives. Therefore, providing meaningful options that allow them to make responsible choices is essential. These choices must make sense in terms of their past experiences, abilities and skills. Women feel that being heard is important, so any programmes or interventions should be flexible enough to incorporate their views (Nugent et al. 2010). Self-sufficiency, responsibility, self-esteem and confidence can be fostered by ensuring women have opportunities to play a role in their own solutions. Arguably these will be more meaningful when placed within the chaos of their lives in the community.

Desistance from crime is a ‘process’ rather than a ‘quick fix’, where maturation, strong social bonds and social capital are all important (Bottoms et al. 2004; McNeil 2009). For men, part of the process of desistance from offending can mean meeting their partner and settling (Bottoms 2008); for women, in contrast, part of the desistance process can mean separating from their partner (Nugent and Loucks 2009). Targeting family relationships has yielded the greatest treatment effects for women offenders on an international basis (Dowden and Andrews 1999, 2005). Consequently, effective support should include helping women offenders identify those relationships in their lives that are not positive and empowering in order to move away from these relationships. Equally, women should receive support to regain past and build present pro-social bonds with families or friends that are genuinely supportive. This includes maintaining and strengthening the relationship they have with their children, where possible. A small number of services in Scotland such as Circle, which is an organisation working to support families, has set up reading groups and parent and child craft classes in the community. These classes give women with an offending background the opportunity to meet and bring their children, and provide mutual support in getting their lives back on track.

In 1998, the Social Work Services and Prisons Inspectorate concluded that almost all women offenders could be safely punished in the community without any major risk of harm to the general population. This may sound like a strong claim, but most convictions for women in prison are for relatively minor offences. Prison has not been used as a punishment but rather as a respite facility for the most vulnerable women in Scottish society. This is not a rational, fair or cost-effective way to treat women offenders.

Strategies to maintain women offenders in the community and divert them from imprisonment

Available community penalties

A vast range of community penalties is available in Scotland as a means of punishing offenders. Fines,...

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Female offenders in the community: The context of female crime
• Chapter 2 Policy developments in England and Wales
• Chapter 3 Policy developments in the USA
• Chapter 4 Policy developments in Australia
• Chapter 5 Coercion and women offenders
• Chapter 6 Victimisation and governance: Gender-responsive discourses and correctional practice
• Chapter 7 Working with women offenders in the community: A view from England and Wales
• Chapter 8 Beyond youth justice: Working with girls and young women who offend
• Chapter 9 Breaking the cycle: Addressing cultural difference in rehabilitation programmes
• Chapter 10 Women, drugs and community interventions
• Chapter 11 Managing risk in the community: How gender matters
• Chapter 12 Who cares? Fostering networks and relationships in prison and beyond
• Chapter 13 Mentoring
• Chapter 14 Community mentoring in the United States: An evaluation of the Rhode Island Women’s Mentoring Program
• Chapter 15 Maintaining and restoring family for women prisoners and their children
• Chapter 16 Connecting to the community: A case study in women’s resettlement needs and experiences
• Chapter 17 Working with women offenders in the community: What works?
• Index