Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: Ongoing discussions within the criminal justice (CJ) literature debate the need for gender responsive strategies in assessment, classification and services that emphasize male and female differences. There has been little attention, however, to the differences that may exist within gender – particularly between women involved and not involved in the CJ system. Within gender difference is of particular importance in the community where 85% of CJ-involved women are located (e.g. probation/parole) and where social workers are most likely to be involved. The goal of this exploratory study is to examine the similarities and differences within women using a nationally representative, community-based sample to better inform service delivery systems. Methods: Secondary analysis of the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual comprehensive national survey of self reported drug use and treatment involvement, allowed us to compare three groups of women 18 years of age and older (n=19,444). The three mutually exclusive groups of women living in the community are 1) those involved in the CJ system (n=713), 2) those involved in mental health and substance abuse treatment system but not involved in CJ system (n=2,035) and 3) women not associated with either CJ or mental health and substance abuse treatment (n=16,699). We compared service needs by examining composite variables in the following domains: 1) current criminal involvement; 2) education/employment; 3) financial; 4) family/marital; 5) accommodations; 6) leisure/recreation; 7) companions; 8) alcohol/drug use; and 9) emotional problems. Results: Women in the treatment group were predominately white (79.9%) with a high proportion with at least some college (33.7%). Women in the criminal justice system were young (57.6% under 35), minority (44.3%) and had a high proportion that had not finished high school (32.3%). Not surprisingly, we found nearly half (43.6%) of the women in the CJ group had 4 or more areas of need compared with 16.5% of other women currently in treatment. In four domains (education/employment, finance, accommodations and alcohol/drugs) CJ involved women were at least 20 percentage points higher than the other two groups in professing need. A majority of women involved in the CJ system (61.5%) experienced need within the family/marital domain. On average, the CJ involved group demonstrated need in 3.44 domains compared to 1.46 for women without CJ or treatment involvement and 2.05 for women in the treatment group. Implications for practice/policy: Advocates of gender responsive strategies suggest that women are more appropriately treated in community settings. However, existing community services may be ill equipped to understand the complexity of need for CJ-involved women and the CJ system. Clinicians may retreat from these ‘difficult' clients because the work can be overwhelming and frustrating. An effective service delivery system would keep women sentenced to community supervision from failing and moving further along the criminal justice continuum to incarceration. This includes knowledgeable personnel – particularly social workers - who are trained to both understand the complexity of needs and the CJ system.