Psychiatric Distress and Other Correlates Associated with Being a Victim of Physical Abuse in Female Inmates

Background and Purpose: Women's rate of incarceration in the U.S. is six times higher than it was three decades ago (Frost, Greene, & Pranis 2006). Female inmates tend to have high levels of psychiatric distress, and those inmates with a history of alcohol and drug abuse report even greater levels of distress (Velasquez, von Sternberg, Mullen, et al., 2007). Women in jail are also more likely to have been victims of physical and sexual abuse (Greenfield & Snell, 1999). Nearly 60% of female inmates recruited into Project Success, a NIAAA-funded randomized controlled trial which tested the efficacy of an intervention to reduce the risk of alcohol-exposed pregnancy, reported having been a victim of physical abuse in the year before coming to jail. The purpose of this study was to examine current psychiatric distress and to identify demographic characteristics and various life situations (i.e., homelessness, standard of living) associated with having been a victim of abuse in these female inmates.

Methods: Secondary data analyses were conducted on baseline data from women recruited into Project Success two weeks prior to release from urban jails. Female inmates who reported risk level alcohol consumption (>=5 drinks in a day or > than 7 drinks in a week) in the 3 months before coming to jail and who answered the question pertaining to physical abuse were assessed (N=205). Women reporting at least one occurrence of physical abuse in the year before coming to jail (n=122) were compared to women reporting no occurrence (n=83). Profile Analysis was used to examine the differences in current psychiatric distress, as measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), between the women reporting abuse and those reporting no abuse. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore variables that were correlated with membership in the abuse category. Physical Abuse was determined by the question “In the year prior to coming to jail were you ever hit, kicked or slapped”?

Results: Female inmates with a recent history of abuse were significantly more distressed (p=.002) than the women with no history of abuse. The women with a recent history of abuse showed significantly more distress with higher mean scores on the obsessive-compulsive (p= .030), interpersonal sensitivity (p= .026), depression (p=.012), hostility (p= .025), paranoid ideation (p= .009) and psychoticism (p= .007) subscales. In addition, women who experienced homelessness (O.R. 4.81, 95% C.I. 1.66, 13.94), had a partner who drinks excessively (O.R. 2.00, 95% C.I., 1.11, 3.60), a poor standard of living (O.R., 2.26, 95% C.I., 1.08, 4.69) and a history of sexual abuse (O.R. 3.78, 95% C.I., 1.22, 11.68) were more likely to have been abused.

Implications: These findings suggest that large numbers of female inmates could benefit from increased mental health services in jail and interventions aimed at supporting successful reintegration into the community by addressing the myriad of stressful life situations that place these women at risk.