This research will identify the types of relationships and communications that probation and parole officers use to promote desired outcomes for women offenders. It focuses on the two-thirds of women offenders who are drug-involved. This group is under-researched, even though their outcomes have spill-over effects on children and other individuals under their care. Theories about the effect of different relationship styles of people who both control and help clients (dual role relationship theory) and about the effects of authoritarian vs. a conversational communication pattern provide a framework for anticipating the predictors of positive outcomes including following rules, engaging in drug treatment, avoiding arrest. The researchers will gather data from 50 supervising officers and 400 of their clients as well as official records. Two months into supervision, they will assess the types of women's needs known to lead to recidivism. After three additional months, they will measure the nature of the relationship and communication between officers and clients. After another three months, they will obtain a final measure of needs. Official records will reveal whether women violate supervision rules or are rearrested within the 18 months after supervision begins. A statistical technique called multi-level modeling will show how communication and relationship, as well as other influences, explain outcomes. An additional and important part of the research is the collection of qualitative data on memorable messages, including those from the supervising officer, that affected the women and on other ways that officers promoted both negative and positive results.
Identified positive qualities of officer-client interaction and actions taken by supervising officers will inform development of training curriculum to increase the effectiveness of probation and parole officers, and to set the stage for research that evaluates the effects of such training.
The study of women on probation and on parole examined women offenders’ interactions with their probation/parole agents (POs) and tested whether the nature of these interactions predict women’s recidivism, rules violations, and changes in offenders’ crime-related needs. Seventy-three POs and 402 women offenders participated in the research, and interviews and surveys were carried out in the 2nd, 5th, and 8th month of supervision. Violations of supervision rules, new arrests, and convictions were measured at 18 months. The study built on multiple theoretical perspectives. Dual role-relationship theory (a Criminal Justice and Psychology theory) suggests that women’s outcomes are more positive when POs are supportive rather than punitive. Communication pattern theory (from the field of Communication) suggests that when PO interactional style emphasizes conversational rather than conformity elements women’s outcomes are more positive. Research on women offenders’ crime promoting needs also informed the study. The combined types of theory were useful in explaining women’s outcomes. A key question was whether PO relationship style predicted the types of offender needs that increase the chances of recidivism. Offender reports that the PO used more of a conformity communication style predicted less progress on educational goals and greater exposure to abusive treatment. Offender reports of PO conversational style predicted lower depression/anxiety, lower substance abuse, and higher self-efficacy. These predictions were not explained by women’s initial levels of need. Another key question was whether PO style predicted offender recidivism. Both PO-reported punitive relationship style and offender-reported punitive style positively predicted number of arrests. Offender reports of punitive style also positively predicted number of convictions. Thus, women with whom POs used a more punitive style were more likely to have committed additional offenses 18 months after supervision began. The study also investigated whether the effects of the PO’s relationship style and communication pattern on 18 month outcomes (arrests and convictions) were explained by offender’s reactions to supervision interactions. We specifically examined whether PO style predicted offender reactance, anxiety after PO interactions, and self-efficacy to avoid criminal behavior, which in turn predicted women’s recidivism. (Reactance is a negative response to a person’s efforts to limit another’s freedoms.) Findings suggest that women with more supportive POs experienced less emotional reactance, and that lowered reactance in turn predicted lower recidivism. Results for the effects of communication pattern were similar in that a conversational style of communication was related to low reactance, which was related to low recidivism. One of the communication components of research focused on women’s recall of memorable messages they received from their POs. Such messages can influence prosocial behavior. A greater proportion of women on parole than on probation recalled memorable messages from POs, and the most frequently reported type of memorable message was behavioral advice. Women reported that the message helped them do things of which they were proud, such as engaging in routine activities and fulfilling goals; helped them to not give into urges that could lead to further negative sanctions or feelings of regret; and came to mind when they relapsed. Relevant to needed interventions and advocacy for women on probation and parole, data analysis also provided insight into the importance of women offenders' receipt of social welfare benefits. Many women were extremely poor but lacked access to monetary and housing benefits. Losing benefits and new unmet needs for benefits between the first and second interviews were related to increased risk for recidivism. Persistent receipt of benefits was also associated with high risk, showing lack of impact on financial distress. Barriers to access were agency unresponsiveness, program cut backs, increasingly stringent eligibility requirements, and for housing, bans on receipt of benefits related to criminal history. The analysis also revealed women’s special problems coping with residence in high-crime areas, and thus additional needs for intervention. Women in economically distressed, high-crime neighborhoods, who were disproportionately African American, more often used isolating strategies, like avoiding everyone, to avoid offending and victimization. Women in more affluent neighborhoods used the strategy of spending time with law-abiding individuals. They also used physical protection strategies to avoid victimization (e.g., relying on home physical security and observing their surroundings in public spaces). For many women in the poorest neighborhoods, staying inside the confines of their own homes is where they felt safest from neighborhood crime. The project has impact beyond the research results. It created an ongoing multi-disciplinary partnership of senior and junior faculty and graduate students from the fields of criminal justice and communication, which continues to do interdisciplinary research of correctional interventions. Two dissertations and one thesis resulted from the project, and numerous students were exposed to the value of interdisciplinary work to understand how to effectively respond to offenders. Findings are available to practitioners though the project website (http://cj.msu.edu/programs/improving-supervision-women-offenders/), which includes a series of brief reports with recommendations for practitioners, and through periodic workshops offered to professionals.
