The tendency to treat men and women as a homogeneous group is a shortcoming of the criminal legal system. The number of women in US jails has grown at a faster rate than any other correctional population, increasing by more than 700 percent between 1980 and 2019. APPR spoke with Marilyn Van Dieten, PhD, Director of the Center for Effective Public Policy’s National Resource Center on Justice-Involved Women. Dr. Van Dieten sheds light on the unique needs of women involved in the criminal system and how to support their success during the pretrial phase. She has over 20 years of experience developing trauma-informed and gender-responsive interventions for women in institutional and community settings.
APPR: Why is it important to apply gender-responsive policies and practices? Why are policies and practices that are gender-neutral not sufficient?
Dr. Van Dieten: Research consistently demonstrates that women and men have different criminogenic[a] needs, meaning they differ in their exposure and vulnerability to conditions linked to criminal behavior. The important factors that indicate risk for criminal behavior for women include a history of mental health issues, substance use, adverse childhood experiences, unhealthy intimate partner relationships, and disruptions in relationships with their children.
For many women, a history of complex trauma—prolonged, repeated exposure to abuse and neglect in childhood, witnessing and experiencing abuse in intimate partner relationships, and experiences of chronic stress related to poverty, homelessness, and racial discrimination—contributes to the adoption of survival behaviors that are self-protective in the moment but may contribute to behaviors that elevate risk for justice involvement.
Programs and interventions provided to women should reflect the different reasons they engage in criminal behavior and address the circumstances and realities of their lives. Research demonstrates that when women are provided with gender-responsive interventions that are delivered in a gender-responsive[b] and trauma-informed manner, outcomes for women improve; for example, they experience reduced likelihood of reoffending, greater stabilization, and increased self-sufficiency.
A number of gender-responsive casework and supervision models have emerged over the last decade to support treatment in custody and transition to the community. The National Institute of Corrections developed the Collaborative Case Work for Women (PDF) and has implemented it in different settings across the U.S.
APPR: What should judges know about women who are system-involved, especially when making pretrial release and detention decisions?
Dr. Van Dieten: Research conducted to date consistently points to a system of inequity. Black and Hispanic women are imprisoned at far higher rates than white women, and a staggering number of women are held in jail pretrial because they cannot afford a financial release condition.
We also know that women who need the most support—for instance, because of mental health, trauma, substance use, unemployment, limited family support, and homelessness—are more likely to be detained in jail. Unfortunately, courts often use jails to respond to these social problems. Yet most jails lack the desire, prerogative, and resources to address these need areas.
The emerging research suggests that pretrial detention does little to enhance public safety and may in fact exacerbate negative outcomes for women.
One of the more serious consequences of detaining women pretrial is the negative impact on their children. About 80 percent of women in jail are mothers, with most being single parents and the sole caretakers of their children. The short-term impacts of parental incarceration on a child can include a change in custody, trauma, depression, anxiety, aggression, and delinquency.
Even when mothers are subsequently found not guilty or sentenced to community-based sanctions, the time spent in jail has serious, long-term repercussions for them, their children, and other family members. These include housing instability, decreased family income, and, for children, challenges in school, such as an increased likelihood of expulsion or suspension, and a significantly greater risk of entering the foster care system, which in turn is linked to a greater likelihood of future criminal legal system involvement.
“Research conducted to date consistently points to a system of inequity. Black and Hispanic women are imprisoned at far higher rates than white women, and a staggering number of women are held in jail pretrial because they cannot afford a financial release condition.”
APPR: How can pretrial services be tailored to achieve more successful outcomes for women?
Dr. Van Dieten: As I said, the evidence gathered to date suggests that outcomes improve when the importance of gender is recognized and when policies and programs that align with the research on women are implemented.
In practice, this means that programs and services are available to address the needs of women. It also requires an agency-wide commitment to ensure that women are treated respectfully and feel safe (physically and psychologically) during all interactions with staff across all levels of judicial processing and in all settings. Making sure that the police, court staff, custody staff, supervisors, volunteers, and agency partners are trained in gender and trauma-informed practices would be enormously helpful.
Because women disproportionately report having serious mental health issues, I always promote diversion programs aimed at keeping people with such issues out of the criminal legal system. Many jurisdictions have initiated community intervention teams, which include trained police officers and a mental health professional who assists with the assessment of an individual in crisis. This model helps ensure that people are provided with therapeutic placement instead of being arrested and placed into custody.
Lessons learned from an initiative in Dutchess County, New York, include four factors that contributed to improved outcomes for women: (1) the use of a gender-responsive assessment containing not only static criminal history items but factors that identify women’s needs and strengths; (2) the development of a case plan based on assessment results; (3) collaboration with an agency partner to provide a “one-stop” resource for women; and (4) provision of gender-responsive community-based treatment services instead of pursuing criminal prosecution.
Gender-Informed Resources
Essential Components of Trauma-Informed Judicial Practice
This guide contains information on trauma and helpful ways to communicate and intervene with women in the courtroom.
National Resource Center for Justice-Involved Women
The NRCJIW inspires change by equipping agencies, advocates, and justice-involved women with information, resources, and technical assistance that promote the use of gender-responsive and trauma-informed policies and practices.
APPR: How can pretrial agencies evaluate the impact of their policies and practices on women who are system-involved? What data should they be collecting?
Dr. Van Dieten: Most agencies record demographic information and input an array of outcomes such as criminal history, new arrests, absconding, convictions, disciplinary reports, pretrial challenges, and more. This background information is important.
However, if the goal is to use data to evaluate the impacts of policies and practices on pretrial outcomes or to identify innovative alternatives to detention, then the following should be considered:
- Ensure that the data collection system is able to disaggregate the data by gender, race/ethnicity, and important needs/strengths.
- Implement a comprehensive gender-responsive assessment to identify individual needs and strengths of women as they are processed. If the assessment is readministered at designated intervals, such as every six months, and at discharge, you can assess the impact of interventions across critical need areas (particularly those linked to criminal legal system involvement and identified as targets for intervention). For example, you can explore changes in family and social supports, mental health symptoms and substance use, housing, finances, and employment.
- Review case notes and treatment plans to explore each person’s response to criminal legal system processing, including financial conditions of release, court-ordered conditions, legal outcomes, adherence to conditions, and typical measures such as pretrial failures, new arrests, convictions, response to supervision, and disciplinary reports. Monitor and record successes, including contacts (number, type, time, participation, and status) with agency personnel and community partners.
- Put the person first. Ask for feedback from your client regarding helpfulness and usefulness of interventions and any challenges experienced that interfered with success.
- Finally, institute a formal process to review the data. Explore the impact of pretrial interventions, including the positive and negative impact of court conditions, treatment expectations (length and appropriateness), the length of detention and supervision, the presence of overlapping conditions and burdens placed on women by other systems, such as child welfare, and strategies used by staff to help women address challenges and barriers that interfere with their ability to be successful.
Outcomes improve when the importance of gender is recognized and when policies and programs that align with the research on women are implemented.
APPR: What are three takeaways that you wish all staff interacting with system-involved women would know?
Dr. Van Dieten: This is what I would say:
- Detention causes harm to the women who are most vulnerable and who have the fewest resources. The development and implementation of gender-responsive alternatives to pretrial detention is essential and requires immediate attention.
- If we are truly committed to diverting women from the criminal legal system, then we need to invest in community programs, creating the resources that ensure women stay connected with and support their families. It is about building up—not taking away.
- There is an urgent need to invest in outcome research to evaluate gender-responsive programs that show promise in addressing the needs that predispose women to further criminal legal system processing.
