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The purpose of this paper is to examine personal and social network characteristics that predict staff ratings of therapeutic community (TC) resident role model status.

In all, 49 incarcerated female residents tracked interactions with peers, including verbal affirmations and corrections, during a 12-hour period. Two weeks later, staff members were surveyed about their view of participants as role models. Poisson regression was used to analyze resident interactions and demographics as predictors of role model status.

The number of corrections given to peers was positively related to staff ratings of role model status (B=0.234, SE=0.088, p=0.008). The number of affirmations given was negatively related to staff ratings (B=−0.112, SE=0.051, p=0.028). Resident phase was positively related to staff ratings (B=0.256, SE=0.102, p=0.012). These values did not significantly change when controlling for affirmations and corrections received from peers, non-programmatic interactions between residents, or resident demographics.

These results imply that TC staff judge role model status by resident actions in the community rather than demographics or peer reactions. External validity is limited by the single site, case study design, and the fact that only female TC residents were sampled.

This study is the first to track resident peer interactions over the course of a day and to link those interactions to role model status.

Incarcerated women have a disproportionate burden of infectious and chronic disease, in addition to substance use disorder and mental health illness, when compared to the general population (Binswanger et al., 2009; Fazel et al., 2006; Fuentes, 2013; Kouyoumdjian et al., 2012). Women often enter the correctional system in poor health, making incarceration an opportunity to address health issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers to accessing health services that female inmates face during incarceration, the consequences to their health, and implications for correctional health services delivery.

Focus groups were conducted in Canadian correctional center with female inmates. Focus groups explored women’s experiences with accessing health services while incarcerated; the impact of access to health services on health during incarceration and in the community; and recommendations for improving access to health services. Thematic analysis was completed using N-vivo 10.

The women described multiple barriers to accessing health services that resulted in negative consequences to their health: treatment interruption; health disempowerment; poor mental and physical health; and recidivism into addiction and crime upon release. Women made three important recommendations for correctional health service delivery: provision of comprehensive health entry and exit assessments; improvement of health literacy; and establishment of health support networks. The recommendations were organized into an “Accessing Health Services Resource Manual” for incarcerated women.

There is a paucity of existing literature examining provision of health services for female inmates. These findings have relevancy for correctional and community health care providers and organizations that provide health services for this vulnerable population.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the incidence and impact of exposure to sexual victimisation for women in the criminal justice system. Key ongoing vulnerabilities in respect of mental health and substance abuse, and their contribution to women’s offending, are examined. Treatment responses to address these women’s trauma in custodial settings are then discussed. It is argued that a therapeutic approach is required to provide a holistic response to victimised women offenders. Unfortunately, instead of doing so, many prisons’ ethos and approaches may actually produce a further layer of vulnerability. The paper concludes with commentary on future directions for research and practice.

The researchers undertook a desk-based literature review, using search terms such as “women”, “corrections”, “sexual abuse and/or victimisation” and “trauma”. The literature was analysed through a feminist framework, adopting a vulnerability paradigm.

The paper analyses the incidence and impact of sexual victimisation on women prisoners and notes that comprehensive trauma-informed care in custodial settings is needed but highly problematic within a prison context.

The researchers focused primarily on Australia, and the conclusions may therefore be of more limited relevance to imprisoned women in other countries.

The paper suggests good practice requirements for delivering trauma-informed care to victimised women prisoners. Non-custodial alternatives to imprisonment are likely to be more sensitive to many female offenders’ layers of vulnerability.

This paper highlights the relationship between women offenders’ sexual victimisation histories, substance abuse, mental illness and offending behaviour, and demonstrates the need for and challenges in delivering trauma-informed care. The originality derives from the examination of the three rules of abuse (and prisons) and how they correlate with multiple vulnerabilities, which leads to the conclusion that prison is not the best place for rehabilitation of most women.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate the Standards of Healthcare Facility for Thai Female Inmates (SHF-TFI) through healthcare service improvement.

This research and quality improvement project was comprised of three phases. Surveying healthcare facilities and in-depth interviews with female inmates as well as prison nurses were employed in Phase I. Expert reviews and public hearing meetings were used for developing the SHF-TFI in Phase II. Satisfaction questionnaires, focus group interviews of the female inmates, and in-depth interviews with nurses and prison wardens were utilized to evaluate feasibility and effectiveness of SHF-TFI implementation in Phase III.

The SHF-TFI was elaborated in order to be more specific to the context of the correctional institutes and correspond with healthcare as to the needs of female inmates. It was divided into three main aspects: administrative standards, health service standards and outcome standards. After implementation, nurses reflected on the feasibility and benefits of the SHF-TFI on the organizations, inmates and nurses. The female inmates perceived remarkable improvement in the healthcare services including physical activity promotion and screening programs for non-communicable diseases, the physical environment and sufficiency of medical equipment. Moreover, the pregnant inmates and incarcerated mothers with children shared their views on better antenatal and child developmental care, as well as availability of baby supplies.

The findings support the feasibility and effectiveness of the SHF-TFI for quality care improvement and applicability of the Bangkok Rules in women’s correctional institutes.

This paper will present the mental health needs that women in prison have, both in terms of the mental health problems they have prior to going into prison and those that they may develop while in prison. These issues will be discussed in the context of the international research data. This paper will also provide information on the special needs that Aboriginal and non‐Australian born women in Australian prisons may have.

Therapeutic communities (TCs) use social learning between peers in treating substance abuse. One mechanism for fostering social learning is peer affirmations for prosocial behavior. The purpose of this study is to use consistency of affirmations as a test of whether social learning does occur.

Using the results of a social network survey of 50 women in a corrections-based TC, the authors compared affirmations and nonprogrammatic compliments exchanged between residents as two directed social networks. The authors evaluated consistency of judgment using the hubs and authorities algorithm, and tested to see whether more senior residents are more likely to be hubs, thereby showing more consistent judgment.

More senior residents show greater consistency with peers in program affirmations but not in nonprogrammatic compliments. Hub status in the network of affirmations increases most rapidly in the first 200 days of residence, with slower increases thereafter.

This study is limited to one survey of the women in one TC. The external validity of the findings is therefore unclear. The results suggest that social learning of TC principles and prosocial behavior does occur and that it is not simply a function of popularity among peers. This seems to happen most rapidly in the first 200 days, suggesting that programs much shorter than six months may limit this process.

This is the first use of the hubs and authorities algorithm with a social network drawn from a therapeutic community and the first attempt to verify social learning through a social network analysis.

This article reports findings from interviews conducted with 120 officers working within medium to high security prisons in England. It presents part of a project designed to test whether the impact of women officers in male prisons was similar in England to that described elsewhere. In total, 120 officers and 120 prisoners participated.

Academic literature portrays prison officers in various ways: as insensitive figures lurking in the background (Cohen & Taylor, 1972), as brutes prone to violence (Kauffman, 1988) or more positively as noble people struggling to get the job done as best as they could (Thomas, 1972). Traditionally, the role of the prison officer is overshadowed by stereotypical views of male officers being uneducated, brutish and insensitive (Crawley, 2004a). Officers were traditionally recruited to the service from a military background, an environment that is as structured and disciplined as the working conditions in the prison service. Women have worked in the prison service for many years, although historically they were confined to administration roles and were in the main, invisible. After the passing of Peel's Gaol Act (1823), only female officers could work in women's prisons, and male governors were replaced with matrons. At the time, it was felt that female demureness, good temper and compassion would rub off on the female prisoners and that reformed prisoners would emulate their behaviour (Zedner, 1991).

In England and Wales, there is a growing body of literature related to prison officers (Arnold, 2005; Crawley, 2004a; Liebling & Price, 2001; Liebling, Price, & Shefer, 2011; Tait, 2008); however, none of this is dedicated to female prison officers. Arguably, this could be due to the fact that the profession has traditionally been recognised as a male occupation, and therefore the prison officer literature has been dominated by the thoughts and actions of men. Consequently, we know little of female prison officers' experiences of working in male-dominated, masculine organisations. In particular, we know very little about female prison officers' perspectives on gender-specific issues, such as pregnancy and motherhood while working in these institutions, either on their own or the women prisoners they work with. Drawing on qualitative research in a women's prison, this chapter will focus on female prison officers as mothers and their roles and relationships with women in prison who are also mothers. The chapter will explore how gendered experiences such as pregnancy, miscarriage, child birth and child-rearing (of both the officers and women prisoners) can create unique emotional burdens for some female officers, impacting their working role, home life and relationships with the women they work with. The chapter will go on to illustrate the ways in which these female officers manage or mismanage their emotions whilst presenting as professional in this male-dominated workplace.

The concept of criminogenic need is widely used, both to understand offending behaviour and in the design of treatment programmes. However, it is recognised that criminogenic need may differ dependent upon the nature of the offending, the cultural context and the specific forensic population. In order to develop programmes that successfully effect change in offenders, it is important to identify the factors that may be implicated in offending and to target these factors. This research explores the criminogenic needs of a group of men attending a community‐based introductory sex offender programme, through their victim apology letters, using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The data suggest that these men do not understand themselves or their behaviour in terms of criminogenic need, for the most part, and the implications for this are considered.