The Effects of Identity Development on Women's Recidivism

提案标题：身份发展对女性累犯机构的影响密歇根州立大学摘要日期：14年6月27日这项研究考察了女性罪犯的身份发展如何有助于她们停止犯罪或重新犯罪，以及哪些因素促进或损害了女性期望的身份发展。先前对叙事认同理论的测试表明，认同发展解释了行为；它应用于对严重重罪缓刑和假释的女性罪犯的研究，为理解这一人群中的死亡提供了相当大的希望。这项研究建立在早期对400名涉及毒品的女性罪犯的基线数据的基础上。新的数据将生成有关女性如何以及为什么会改变或不改变支持脱离非法行为模式的信息，其中特别关注身份的关键特征、女性所在社区的类型，以及阻碍她们获得所需服务和援助的因素。该项目考察了已知的累犯预测因素如何与身份认同相结合，为结果提供更完整的解释。关于认同感发展的研究结果将为惩教、药物滥用治疗和精神健康治疗从业者促进暂缓犯罪的努力提供信息。深入的生活史访谈将对60名再次犯罪的女性和60名没有再次犯罪的女性进行，并补充两年一次的电话采访，完整样本为400名女性。访谈将包括一些经过验证和可靠的量表，以评估参与志愿工作、技能发展和治疗服务以及生活满意度、承担亲社会角色的动机、与司法系统接触的自我报告、需要和接受的服务、居住流动性和服务地点的接近程度。将对回归模型进行分析，以预测除文献中已有的一组预测因素外的人格指标，并对已建立的定性编码方案进行调整，以包括反映妇女停止犯罪过程的新确定的主题。总而言之，这将对涉及毒品的女性罪犯的身份发展的性质和影响提供强有力的考验。调查结果将为促进暂缓执行的循证矫正做法提供参考，并将建议对女性罪犯有用的干预措施。

Proposal Title: The Effects of Identity Development on Women's Recidivism Institution: Michigan State University Abstract Date: 06/27/14 This study examines how women offenders' identity development contributes to whether they desist from crime or reoffend, and what factors promote or impair desired identity development among women. Prior tests of narrative identity theory have shown that identity development explains behavior; its application to a study of women offenders on probation and parole for serious felony offenses offers considerable promise for understanding desistance in this population. This research builds upon baseline data from an earlier study of 400 drug-involved women offenders. The new data will generate information on how and why women do or do not change in ways that support breaking off from a pattern of illegal behavior, with particular attention to key features of identity,the types of neighborhoods in which the women live, and factors that impede them from obtaining needed services and assistance. The project examines how known predictors of recidivism work in combination with identity to provide a more complete explanation of outcomes. Findings about identity development will inform correctional, substance abuse treatment, and mental health treatment practitioners' efforts to promote desistance from crime.In-depth life history interviews will be completed with 60 women who recidivated and 60 who did not, supplemented by telephone interviews spaced two years apart with the full sample of 400 women. Interviews will include a number of validated and reliable scales to assess engagement in volunteer work, skill development, and treatment services as well as life satisfaction, motivations to assume prosocial roles, self-reports of contact with the justice system, services needed and received, residential mobility, and proximity to service location. Regression models will be analyzed to predict recidivism from personality indicators in addition to a set of established predictors in the literature,and an established qualitative coding scheme will be adapted to include newly identified themes reflective of women's process of desistance from crime. In combination, this will provide a strong test of the nature and effect of identity development for drug-involved women offenders. Findings will inform evidence-based correctional practices that promote desistance and will suggest interventions useful for women offenders.