Breaking the Cycle: Understanding the Needs of Women Involved in the Criminal Justice System and the Role of Mentoring in Promoting Desistance

Abstract

An increasingly popular gender-specific intervention to assist women involved in the criminal justice system (e.g., ex-prisoners) is mentoring. However, despite the growing popularity of mentoring, there is a dearth of literature that has explored the intervention’s efficacy, particularly as it relates to women involved in the criminal justice system. In the current study, client files of 64 women in a one-to-one mentoring program in Australia were examined to identify (a) the social and practical needs and obstacles faced by women overcoming their involvement with the justice system, and (b) the extent to which mentoring addressed these needs and obstacles. The results show that consistent with previous research, many of the women experienced a range of social and practical difficulties that impeded the desistance process. For a large portion of the women, however, mentoring helped overcome some difficulties by enhancing positive social capital in their lives. These findings are discussed in the context of how mentoring relationships can act as key turning points in the lives of women involved in the criminal justice system.

Social capital: The forgotten responsivity factor

“…Mentoring involves interaction between two individuals, over time, whereby a mentee is in a position to imitate or benefit from a mentor with greater experience, knowledge, or power (Tolan et al, 2008). Though popular, there is little evidence of the intervention’s efficacy in terms of recidivism reduction (Singh et al, 2019; Wincup, 2019) and it is often found to be a “promising not proven intervention” (Jolliffe and Farrington, 2008: 9). There are, however, other benefits to mentoring.…”

“…There are, however, other benefits to mentoring. In sum, a mentor can aid in the development of bridging social capital by providing the mentee with relational support, practical assistance, and access to more diverse social networks (Brown and Ross, 2010; McNeill et al, 2012; Singh et al, 2019; Wincup, 2019). The effectiveness of mentoring programs can be enhanced by ensuring a good match between the mentor and mentee based on common interests and mentor skills (Geither, 2012).…”

The Arts, Rehabilitation or Both? Experiences of Mentoring Artists in Prison and Beyond

“…Mentees would often update mentors on their social development, the friends they had made and their own professional networks. Singh, Cale and Armstrong (2018) discuss mentoring as a means of promoting desistance and state: ‘mentoring has been applied in the criminal justice context, typically as a tertiary intervention strategy to address relational deficits in the lives of offenders to reduce the likelihood of reoffending’ (p.4). Reintegration and rehabilitation are supported through the mentoring process; mentors accompany ex‐offenders in taking small steps towards their journey to desistance.…”

“…The impact of arts-based therapeutic programmes on prisoners and those on probation is documented, yet our understanding of mentoring is underdeveloped (see Bozeman and Feeney 2007;Buck 2018;Singh, Cale and Armstrong 2018) We felt it appropriate to explore the other half of the mentor-mentee relationship, specifically studying the experiences of artists who volunteer to mentor ex-offenders from an arts-based 484 C 2020 The Authors. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.…”

“…The impact of arts‐based therapeutic programmes on prisoners and those on probation is documented, yet our understanding of mentoring is underdeveloped (see Bozeman and Feeney 2007; Buck 2018; Singh, Cale and Armstrong 2018) We felt it appropriate to explore the other half of the mentor‐mentee relationship, specifically studying the experiences of artists who volunteer to mentor ex‐offenders from an arts‐based perspective. Findings suggest that the reasons for becoming a mentor vary across the board, nevertheless it is linked to arts‐based support, personal experience and professional development.…”