Improving Access To Services For Female Offenders Returning To The .
Improving Access to Services for Female OffendersReturning to the Communityby Marie Garcia with Nancy RitterAn evaluation of re-entry services for female offenders shows that increasing accesscan lead to modest improvements in key areas.In a single decade — 1999 to 2009— the number of adult womenincarcerated in U.S. prisons grewby 25 percent. Adult women nowmake up about 7 percent of the totalinmate population, and they facemany challenges upon release fromprison. For example, women experience barriers to obtaining housing,greater difficulty in obtaining andsustaining employment, less familysupport, and more substance abusethan men.1 The programming offeredto women while incarcerated, however, is usually modeled after theprograms for male prisoners.As a group, women are oftenoverlooked with regard to re-entryprogramming, and results from therecent evaluation of the Serious and18Violent Offender Reentry Initiative(SVORI) showed that adult femalesreported a significantly higher needfor services than men. This findinghighlights a thread running throughthe re-entry literature that suggestsa disconnect between the servicesindividuals need to facilitate a successful re-entry into their communityand the services they receive.Through SVORI, funding was provided to state and local jurisdictionsto develop re-entry strategies foroffenders returning to their communities. (See sidebar, “The Serious andViolent Offender Reentry Initiative:The Basics.”) NIJ funded a multiyear, multisite evaluation of SVORIto examine the effect its programshad on access to re-entry services
NI J J OURNAL / I SSUE NO. 2 6 9and programs and on housing,education, employment and criminalbehavior. This evaluation, one of thelargest NIJ-funded evaluations todate, included a sample of 357 adultfemales in 11 states who were returning to their communities.2 Thesewomen are the focus of this article.Forty-three percent of the adultfemale sample (153 women) wereincluded in the experimental groupand received services funded bySVORI (“SVORI women”); 57percent of the sample (204 women)did not receive SVORI servicesand instead received “treatment MARCH 2012as usual” from their institutions(“non-SVORI women”). SVORIprogramming varied by the servicesprovided and the approach each institution took to implementation.32. Health care services (includingsubstance abuse and mentalhealth)The SVORI and non-SVORI womenwere interviewed at four intervals:at 30 days pre-release and at three,nine and 15 months post-release.4. Intimate partner violence-relatedservicesWhen measuring need, researchers “bundled” services into fivecategories:1. Services to help with the transitionfrom prison to the community3. Employment, education and lifeskills services5. Child-related servicesWomen in both groups indicated thattheir needs were highest in the thirdcategory, employment, educationand life skills (79 percent), and thefirst category, transition services(73 percent).The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative: The BasicsSVORI was an unprecedentednational response to thechallenges of prisoner re-entry.1Funded by the U.S. Departmentsof Justice, Labor, Education,Housing and Urban Development,and Health and Human Services,SVORI provided 100 million infunding to improve the criminaljustice, employment, education,health and housing outcomes forpeople returning to the community after prison.Beginning in 2003, 69 agenciesin the U.S. received 500,000- 2million over a three-year period.There was little federal guidancefor the development of re-entryprograms, although the agencies had to offer a three-phasecontinuum of services beginningduring incarceration, intensifyingjust before release and during thefirst few months post-release,and continuing for several years.Therefore, the 89 programsdeveloped under SVORI variedconsiderably in approach, servicesprovided and target populations.NIJ funded RTI International andthe Urban Institute to evaluate theimpact of SVORI. The evaluationassessed: Whether SVORI programs,compared with “treatment asusual,” increased prisoners’access to pre-release services.Whether SVORI participantscontinued to receive more servicesthan non-SVORI participants uponrelease.Whether SVORI participantsexperienced better outcomes thannon-SVORI participants on measures of employment, education,housing, relationships, substance abuse, physical andmental health, and recidivism.The multi-year, multisite evaluation included an implementationassessment, impact evaluationand economic analysis. The finalreport was published in 2009in six volumes, all of which areavailable at the National CriminalJustice Reference Service website, http://www.ncjrs.gov.In fiscal year 2010, NIJ awarded 401,670 to RTI to reexamine datacollected in the original SVORIevaluation and supplemental data.The project will attempt to determine what worked and for whom.Findings are expected in 2012.Note1. Lattimore, Pamela K., and Christy A. Visher, “The Multi-site Evaluation ofSVORI: Summary and Synthesis,” Final report to the National Institute ofJustice, grant number 2004-RE-CX-0002, April 2010, NCJ 230421, availableat pdf.Improving Access to Services for Female Offenders Returning to the Community 19
N IJ J OUR N A L / I S S U E N O . 26 9 During the pre-release interviews,the women reported that their greatest employment, education andlife-skills needs were education(95 percent), employment (83 percent) and job training (83 percent).Their reported greatest transitionservice needs were public healthinsurance (91 percent), financialassistance (87 percent), a mentor(83 percent) and obtaining a driver’slicense (79 percent).Because of their high level of need,female offenders are likely to encounter tremendous obstacles whenthey re-enter the community afterserving time in prison. “The womenin the SVORI study had numerousphysical and mental health problems,extensive substance abuse histories,significant criminal histories, serious exposure to drug or criminallyinvolved family members and peers,and substantial housing challenges,”said Pamela K. Lattimore, a nationallyrecognized expert on prison re-entryand one of the principal investigatorsfor NIJ’s SVORI evaluation.Lattimore, a principal scientist withRTI International, worked withco-principal investigator Christy A.Visher, professor at the Universityof Delaware and former principalresearch associate with the JusticePolicy Center at the Urban Institute,on the evaluation.Outcomes for SVORI Womenand Non-SVORI WomenFindings regarding the impact ofthe additional SVORI services onwomen’s outcomes were mixed. TheSVORI women showed significantimprovement in the areas of employment and substance use comparedwith non-SVORI women. There wereno significant differences, however,in housing, family and peer relationships, physical and mental health,and recidivism.MA R C H 2 0 1 2Because of their highlevel of need, femaleoffenders are likely toencounter tremendousobstacles when theyre-enter the community.EmploymentAt 15 months post-release, SVORIwomen were more likely than nonSVORI women to report they weresupporting themselves with a job,receiving formal pay, and experiencing stable employment.The researchers believe the impactof SVORI services on employment outcomes was not surprisingbecause employment was the mostcommon programmatic focus amongall the SVORI programs. What wassomewhat surprising was that, formany dimensions of employment,these differences were not statistically significant until 15 monthspost-release.“This pattern may have emergedbecause, although employmentoutcomes steadily increased for theSVORI group, it dropped off for thenon-SVORI group at the 15-monthpost-release point,” Lattimore said.“Overall, we believe that the SVORIprograms were effective in improving employment outcomes for thewomen.”Substance UseApproximately two-thirds of thewomen in the SVORI study had usedillicit drugs during the 30 days beforeincarceration. More than half (55percent) reported they had received20 Improving Access to Services for Female Offenders Returning to the Communityprofessional treatment for a drugor alcohol problem at some point intheir lives. On average, the womenreported they had been in a treatment program three times. At thetime of their pre-release interview,65 percent of the women reportedneeding substance abuse treatment.The SVORI women received ahigher level of treatment services forsubstance abuse than non-SVORIwomen. At three and 15 monthspost-release, the SVORI womenwere significantly less likely to haveused drugs during the post-releaseperiod and during the 30 days priorto assessment than the non-SVORIwomen. This finding suggests thatconsistent monitoring of drug use isan important tool to provide duringpost-release services because holding women accountable may helpthem keep clean longer.It is important to note, however,that in both groups, substance useincreased the longer the womenwere out of prison.“These findings are particularlyimportant because of the extensivesubstance abuse histories reportedby the women,” Lattimore said. “Forall of the women we studied — theSVORI participants and those in thecontrol group — abstinence fromsubstance use became increasinglymore difficult throughout the postrelease follow-up period.”Although the SVORI programspositively influenced women’semployment and substance useoutcomes, women who receivedSVORI services did not do betterthan their non-SVORI counterpartsin the areas of: Housing (which gradually improvedover the study period for allwomen)
NI J J OURNAL / I SSUE NO. 2 6 9 MARCH 2012The Second Chance Act and Other Ongoing NIJ Research ProjectsThe Second Chance Act (SCA)was signed into law in 2008.The SCA authorizes federalagencies to award grants to stateand local agencies and nonprofitorganizations to provide employment assistance, substanceabuse treatment, housing, familyprogramming, mentoring, victimssupport and other services topeople returning to the community from prison or jail. The goalsof the SCA are to increase reentry programming and improveoutcomes for offenders returningto their families and communities.(For more information about theSCA, visit the National ReentryResource Center at http://nationalreentryresourcecenter.org.)The SCA directs NIJ to evaluatethe effectiveness of demonstration projects funded by theBureau of Justice Assistance(BJA). In fiscal year 2010, NIJawarded 10 million for re-entryrelated research: Evaluation of the BJA ReentryCourts ProgramNorthwest ProfessionalConsortium, Inc., is performinga 3 million, 42-month, multisiteevaluation of BJA’s Reentry CourtsProgram. A process evaluation willdocument and compare programmodels and implementation. Animpact evaluation will examinere-arrests, reconvictions, violations and returns to incarceration.Cost-benefit analyses will look atthe cost to the public of programinterventions versus “business asusual.”Evaluation of the MultisiteDemonstration FieldExperiment: What Worksin Reentry ResearchIn an effort to provide rigorousevidence of what works in re-entry,NIJ awarded 3 million to MDRCto conduct tests of promisingre-entry interventions, strategiesor programs. Re-entering offenders will be randomly assigned toreceive the experimental treatment or to receive “businessas usual” re-entry services(or some other clearly definedcontrol treatment).NIJ has also given additionalfunding for Alfred Blumstein andKiminori Nakamura’s research onhiring ex-offenders. The 247,000project continues their previous research into calculations of“redemption time,” the amountof time that an individual with anarrest record has stayed “clean”(i.e., no additional arrests) andcould be considered “redeemed”with respect to his or her criminalrecord. The researchers are testingthe robustness of the previousfindings, and looking at out-ofstate arrests and racial differences.The work is increasingly relevantbecause of the large number ofpeople who are handicapped infinding employment by stalecriminal records.Evaluation of the BJASecond Chance Act AdultDemonstration ProjectsSocial Policy ResearchAssociates will perform a 3 million, multi-year, multisite evaluation of seven SCAadult demonstration sites.The evaluation will includeimpact, process, outcome andcost assessments of re-entryservices. It also will include animplementation study of threeadult demonstration sites thatare not included in the full-scaleevaluation.Improving Access to Services for Female Offenders Returning to the Community 21
N IJ J OUR N A L / I S S U E N O . 26 9 Family and peer relationships(which remained relatively stablethroughout the study period for allwomen)Physical health and mental health(which remained relatively stablefor all women)“The bottom line,” Visher said,“was that, although the women whoreceived SVORI services showedmodest improvements in several keyareas — particularly employment anddrug use — their high level of needfar outweighed the services theyreceived.”Implications for Policyand PracticeFindings from the SVORI evaluationsuggest the provision and deliveryof pre- and post-release servicesis a difficult task. The evaluationresults can be used by correctionsprofessionals and service providersto improve evidence-based planningand service delivery.Overall, both SVORI and non-SVORIwomen faced challenges includingmental and physical health problems,extensive family responsibilities, andlack of employment experience.“Appropriate identification of needs,treatment planning and follow-upmay be particularly important forwomen,” Lattimore noted, addingthat the coordination of a range ofservices should be considered one ofthe guiding principles when developing strategies for female offenders.The researchers also observed sometemporal patterns that may haveimplications for supervision and service delivery. Some outcomes, suchas substance use, criminal behaviorand recidivism, worsened over timefor both SVORI and non-SVORI MA R C H 2 0 1 2women. For other outcomes, however, improvements over time seemto be the predominant pattern.“For example, women’s housingsituation, employment, resumptionof primary care responsibility for theirchildren and community involvement appear to gradually improveover time,” Visher said. “This couldindicate that many women find theirfooting in these dimensions.”“Overall, we believethat the SVORIprograms wereeffective in improvingemployment outcomesfor the women.”The SVORI findings also could beused to help identify the appropriate point at which to intervene toaddress particular needs. The periodaround nine months post-releaseappears to be a particularlychallenging time for women.Both self-reported drug use andhousing challenges — includinghomelessness — were higher atnine months post-release than atthree months or 15 months.The SVORI program was successful in delivering important re-entryservices to women returning totheir communities. SVORI womenreceived a substantially higher levelof overall services than non-SVORIwomen. Indeed, where serviceswere provided, the women generallydid better, such as in employmentand substance use.22 Improving Access to Services for Female Offenders Returning to the CommunityIn the areas of housing, family andpeer relationships, and physical andmental health, however, womenenrolled in SVORI and women receiving “treatment as usual” had similaroutcomes.“Frankly, the fact that the SVORIwomen and those in the controlgroup had similar outcomes in theseareas did not surprise us, becausewe did not have a significant difference in the level of services to bothgroups, such as assistance in findinga place to live, medical treatment,domestic violence services and childservices,” Visher said.The low level of services providedunder SVORI that might haveimproved re-entry outcomes relatedto housing, relationships, and mentaland physical health was confirmedby the SVORI directors, who saidthat such services were not a majorfocus of the programs. “This isunfortunate,” said Visher, “given theemphasis that previous research hasplaced on the importance of familialrelationships in the re-entry process— and the high levels of bothphysical and mental health problemsreported by returning women.”Where to Go From HereFor policymakers and practitionerswho are faced with doing morewith the same or less in the crucialarea of offender re-entry, there isa need to understand why, in looking at findings as a whole, therewere only significant differencesbetween the 153 women whoreceived SVORI services and the 204women who did not in two serviceareas — employment and substanceabuse. The delivery of services forSVORI women, although greateroverall, failed to match their levelof need with respect to mental andphysical health problems, family
NI J J OURNAL / I SSUE NO. 2 6 9responsibilities, and lack of workexperience.Mixed findings, however, do notequate to no findings, nor do theyequate to failure. If there is onecrucial “take-away” from the NIJevaluation of SVORI, it is that womenreturning to the community afterserving time in prison have extremelyhigh levels of need. In addition,although these needs declined overtime, levels of unmet need remainedhigh even at 15 months.“It is important that practitionersand policymakers keep this in mindwhen planning and coordinatingFor more information:Read the SVORI evaluation reportsfor: Adult females: pdfAdult males: pdfJuvenile males: pdfre-entry services,” Lattimore said.“On the basis of the limited researchon female offenders — and the evenmore limited evaluations of re-entryprograms — the factors that appearmost important for the successfulre-entry of women include establishing suitable housing, finding gainfulemployment, and reuniting withchildren and family.”In addition, she added, women’s reentry programs need to emphasizepost-release treatment and counseling for infectious diseases andsubstance abuse as well as protection from abusive relationships. MARCH 2012“The bottom line of the evaluation isthat women returning to the community after prison need so much,” saidVisher. “The SVORI study showedthat women are receiving so few services, compared to what they need,that it’s little wonder they don’t dobetter when they re-enter society.”About the authors: Marie Garcia is asocial science analyst at NIJ. NancyRitter is a writer and editor at NIJ.NCJ 237725Notes1. Mallik-Kane, Kamala, and Christy Visher, Health and Prisoner Reentry: HowPhysical, Mental, and Substance Abuse Conditions Shape the Process ofReintegration, Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2008, available at http://www.urban.org/publications/411617.html.2. Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,South Carolina and Washington.3. Although services varied, the research design (treatment versus control) was thesame for all sites.Data from the SVORI Multi-site Impact Evaluation is available in theNational Archive of Criminal Justice Data. Learn more and apply foraccess to the data at 27101/detail.To learn more about re-entry into society, visit NIJ’s Web topic page y/welcome.htm.Watch an interview of Pamela Lattimore on SVORI at lattimore.htm.Improving Access to Services for Female Offenders Returning to the Community 23
When measuring need, research-ers "bundled" services into five categories: 1. Services to help with the transition from prison to the community 2. Health care services (including substance abuse and mental health) 3. Employment, education and life-skills services 4. Intimate partner violence-related services 5. Child-related services
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