A Meta-Analytic Review of Correctional Interventions for Women Offenders

Abstract

Using meta-analytic approaches, we examined whether interventions for women offenders are effective in reducing recidivism, as well as whether gender-informed and gender-neutral interventions differ in their effectiveness. Across 38 effect sizes reflecting 37 studies and nearly 22,000 women offenders, women who participated in correctional interventions had 22% to 35% greater odds of community success than non-participants. In other words, correctional interventions for women are at least as effective as the published rates for men. Across all 38 effect sizes, gender-informed and gender-neutral interventions were equally effective; however, when analyses were limited to 18 effect sizes associated with studies of higher methodological quality, gender-informed interventions were significantly more likely to be associated with reductions in recidivism. These findings support recent research indicating that women and girls are more likely to respond well to gender-informed approaches if their backgrounds and pathways to offending are associated with gendered issues.

Sustained Outcomes? an Exploratory Study of Juvenile Drug Courts and Long‐Term Recidivism

“…Many policies, practices, and programing in the criminal justice system were originally developed based on male offending, and thereby fail to account for gender differences (see Bloom, Owen, & Covington, ; Covington & Bloom, ). Gender‐responsive policies, programs and practices have demonstrated to be more appropriate and effective when working with justice‐involved women and girls (see Bloom et al, ; Gobeil, Blanchette, & Stewart, ). In general, JDCs have lagged in the implementation, use, and evaluation of gender‐responsive programming (Belenko & Logan, ).…”

A Meta‐Analysis of Program Characteristics for Youth with Disruptive Behavior Problems: The Moderating Role of Program Format and Youth Gender

“…Since we used a fixed‐effect model to conduct the moderator analyses, the findings are only generalizable to included studies. However, fixed‐effect analyses are justified in this study due to the relatively small sample size and subsequent need to increase statistical power, even despite heterogeneity across studies (i.e., Gobeil et al., ; James et al., ). Additionally, to examine the differential impact of fixed‐ versus random‐effect models, we reran analyses using the random‐effect model to calculate effect sizes for each subgroup of studies, and conducted moderation analyses using a mixed effect model, in which a random‐effect model is used to combine studies within each subgroup and a fixed‐effect model is used to combine the subgroups and produce the overall effect (Borenstein et al., ).…”

“…Due to our comprehensive systematic review of programming including girls in the juvenile legal system, we believe that the studies included in the meta-analysis are a close approximation to the population. This strategy is in keeping with previous meta-analyses that examined moderators of interventions for youth and women offenders using a fixed-effect model with relatively small sample sizes and heterogeneity across studies (Gobeil, Blanchette, & Stewart, 2016;James et al, 2013).…”

La transition des jeunes femmes hors des centres de réadaptation

“…Une analyse approfondie de la symptomatologie manifestée au début de l'âge adulte pourrait contribuer à une meilleure orientation des programmes et des services. En effet, de récentes études évaluatives indiquent que les programmes sensibles au genre peuvent être plus efficaces pour les femmes que les programmes neutres (Gobeil, Blanchette et Stewart, 2016), en particulier lorsque ces femmes ont rapporté des expériences de négligence et de maltraitance durant l'enfance et manifestent des symptômes liés au trauma (Day, Zahn et Tichavsky, 2015 ;Saxena, Messina et Grella, 2014). Bien que les recherches reconnaissent clairement le besoin de développer des programmes sensibles au trauma à l'intention des adolescentes ayant des antécédents d'agression sexuelle, il reste toutefois à mieux définir la manière de les mettre en pratique (Kerig et Schindler, 2013).…”