Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, but What Role Does Gender Play in Probation Recidivism?

Abstract

Over the past decade, women have accounted for an increasing proportion of arrestees, probationers, and prison inmates. The growing number of women in the criminal justice system, and their unique characteristics and needs, has prompted a call for correctional programs to be more gender responsive and gender specific. Furthermore, gender has frequently been identified as a correlate of recidivism in correctional populations, yet due to relatively small sample sizes, conclusions and analytic methods have been somewhat limited. Using data collected from a sample of adult probationers discharged from supervision in Illinois, the current study examined the factors that predict recidivism for men and women, including variables such as demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, offense types, and sentence conditions. Results showed that a number of factors were associated with the recidivism of both male and female offenders, whereas others were associated with recidivism in one group or the other. The implications of these findings are that female probationer recidivism appears to be influenced by some different factors. Females may respond better to certain types of probation services, and they may also be overclassified in terms of risk.