Gender-Responsive Programming for Women in the Community Corrections Context: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT

Since the 1970s, feminist criminologists have challenged researchers and practitioners to center gender in their theories, research designs, and practice approaches. Because of this, a large body of research examines correctional approaches to assess the question “what works” for women? Researchers have, for example, examined: how gender shapes pathways into the system or how correctional programming and staff can meet women’s needs. At times these queries include studying the effectiveness of using gender responsive approaches. Little is known, however, regarding the effects of these strategies in the community corrections context. Women make up a substantially larger proportion of the community corrections population than they do prison or jail. Additionally, because the philosophy of this context is well suited to engage rehabilitative and treatment-based programs—needs of amplified importance for system involved women—understanding what we know as researchers and practitioners is particularly important. To assess the state of knowledge in this area, we conducted a scoping review of research on gender responsive programming within community corrections settings. Our analysis reviews the findings from these articles and highlights implications for practitioners and researchers working in this area.

KEYWORDS:

• Female Reintegration
• probation
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We exclude studies on juveniles because own research question focuses on adult women in the community corrections space. We chose this scope because while some factors bind the experiences of system-involved women and girls together, the institutional responses and experiences between these two populations is different. Thus, we did not want to risk underestimating or rendering unique findings invisible.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance [2020-DJ-21-06-13-1].