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Trauma Informed Care Groups with Incarcerated Women: Comparing Seeking Safety and STAIR

Published: | Author: Stephen Tripodi, Michael Killian, Matt Gilmore, Elizabeth Curley, Lauren Herod

 Almost all incarcerated women have experienced at least one lifetime traumatic event that often leads to limited coping skills and mental health problems. This study evaluated two different trauma-informed care groups for incarcerated women – Seeking Safety and STAIR – and found that participants who participated in either program had significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and coping self-efficacy. Results indicate the importance of screening for trauma and offering correctional-based programming to address trauma before release

Category: Trauma, Incarcerated Women
jamt

Childhood Polyvictimization and Mental Health Issues among Incarcerated Women

Published: | Author: Stephanie Kennedy, Annelise M. Mennicke, Rajib Paul

Results from a cluster analysis identified four unique childhood polyvictimization: Low Victimization, High Witnessing Violence, High Sexual Abuse, and Severe Polyvictimization. The odds of reporting suicidal ideation, psychosis, and dissociation were higher for women in the High Witnessing, High Sexual Abuse, and/or Severe Polyvictimization clusters compared to the Low Victimization cluster, although pairwise comparisons indicated no significant differences between the three higher-level polyvictimization clusters.

Category: Incarcerated Women, Trauma, Mental Health
health and justice

‘I took care of my kids’: Mothering while incarcerated

Published: | Author: Stephanie Kennedy, Annelise M. Mennicke, Chelsea Allen

Research on incarcerated parents often focuses on their children, which obscures incarcerated mothers’ needs related to health and wellness. The prison environment offers few opportunities to foster mother-child connection; most mothers never receive even one visit from their children. Incarcerated mothers contextually framed crime as protecting and providing for children and identified community-based and in-prison service gaps.

Category: Incarcerated Women
CriminalJusticeandBehavior

Pathways to Recidivism for women released from prison:A Mediated model

Published: | Author: Stephen Tripodi, Carrie Pettus-Davis, Kimberly Bender, Michael Fitzgerald, Tanya Renn, Stephanie Kennedy

Findings showed no direct relationship between childhood trauma and reincarceration for women in the sample, although there was a significant mediated relationship from childhood trauma to depression to reincarceration. Results suggest the importance of addressing incarcerated women’s trauma before release, assessing for depression, and using empirically-supported interventions to treat depression when applicable.

Category: Incarcerated Women, Reentry
The Relationship Between Severe Mental Disorders and Recidivism in a Sample of Women Released from Prison.

The Relationship Between Severe Mental Disorders and Recidivism in a Sample of Women Released from Prison.

Published: | Author: Erin A. King, Stephen Tripodi, Christopher Veeh

Women are one of the fastest growing sectors of the prison population, and have different pathways into prison and differing needs during the reentry process when compared to men. Women report higher levels of mental health problems overall, and report more severe symptomatology. The current study focuses on the role of severe mental disorders (SMDs) for 2,311 women released from prison and how SMDs relate to recidivism. Women diagnosed with SMDs were 16% more likely to have recidivated at eight years post-release compared with women who were not diagnosed with an SMD (p < .05).

Category: Reentry, Recidivism, Mental Health, Incarcerated Women
The Relationship Between Interpersonal Victimization and Women’s Criminal Sentencing: A Latent Class Analysis

The Relationship Between Interpersonal Victimization and Women’s Criminal Sentencing: A Latent Class Analysis

Published: | Author: Stephanie Kennedy, Annelise M. Mennicke, Megan Feely, Stephen Tripodi

Latent class analysis was used to identify subgroups of incarcerated women differentiated by experiences of child abuse and intimate partner violence victimization. Four classes were extracted—Low Victimization, Child Abuse, Lifetime Physical and Psychological Abuse, and Lifetime Sexual Abuse; classes were then related to current sentence length, holding criminological predictors constant. Women in the Child Abuse and Lifetime Sexual Abuse classes had significantly longer sentences, despite the lack of significant between-class differences on criminological predictors.

Category: Incarcerated Women, Trauma, Sentencing
Incarcerated Women’s Experiences and Perceptions of Participating in Research

Incarcerated Women’s Experiences and Perceptions of Participating in Research

Published: | Author: Lisa Schelbe, Amanda Hardwick, Ashley N. Wilfong, Cynthia E. Hanifin, Stephen Tripodi, Carrie Pettus-Davis

The research process within prisons has largely considered researchers’ perspectives. Only one known study explicitly examined incarcerated persons’ perceptions and no known studies have explored incarcerated persons’ experiences with research on sensitive topics. This study examines incarcerated women’s experiences with participating in research on victimization. A thematic analysis was conducted on responses to open-ended questions about participating in a research study from 227 women in two prisons who participated in a study about victimization.

Category: Incarcerated Women, Trauma
 Journal of Progressive Human Services

“Behind every woman in prison is a man”: Incarcerated Women’s Perceptions of How We Can Better Help Them in the Context of Interpersonal Victimization

Published: | Author: Stephanie Kennedy, Annelise M. Mennicke

Although women’s rates of incarceration have increased dramatically, the criminal justice system does not meet women’s unique needs. This article used qualitative methods to describe the responses of 113 incarcerated women to the following question: How can we better help women like you? Analyses focused on women’s experiences of victimization and highlighted how to address trauma in prison reform and abolition efforts.

Category: Trauma, Incarcerated Women
Evaluating Seeking Safety for Women in Prison: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Evaluating Seeking Safety for Women in Prison: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Published: | Author: Stephen Tripodi, Annelise M. Mennicke, Susan McCarter, Katie Ropes Berry

This study assessed the effectiveness of Seeking Safety on depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with incarcerated women.

Category: Incarcerated Women
Gender differences in experiences of social support among men and women releasing from prison

Gender differences in experiences of social support among men and women releasing from prison

Published: | Author: Carrie Pettus-Davis, Christopher Veeh, Maxine Davis, Stephen Tripodi

Positive social support is critically important to postprison well-being outcomes. However, researchers and program developers are still trying to understand how to best promote stable and sustainable social support for formerly incarcerated individuals during reentry to the community. We sought to add to the body of knowledge on social support and prisoner reentry by comparing men and women releasing from prison on the quality (e.g., positive or negative) and amount of informal social support.

Category: Reentry, Incarcerated Women, Gender Differences
Childhood Victimization, Attachment, Psychological Distress, and Substance Use Among Women on Probation and Parole

Childhood Victimization, Attachment, Psychological Distress, and Substance Use Among Women on Probation and Parole

Published: | Author: Katherine M. Winham, Malitta Engstrom, Seana Golder, Tanya Renn, George E. Higgins, and TK Logan

The present analysis was guided by a gendered pathways-based theoretical model and examined relationships between childhood victimization and current attachment, psychological distress and substance use among 406 women with histories of victimization who were on probation and parole in an urban Kentucky county. Structural equation modeling examined relationships among childhood victimization, attachment, psychological distress, and substance use. 

Category: Incarcerated Women, Reentry, Trauma, Probation and Parole
Substance Use Among Victimized Women on Probation and Parole

Substance Use Among Victimized Women on Probation and Parole

Published: | Author: Seana Golder, Martin T. Hall, TK Logan, George E. Higgins, Amanda Dishon, Tanya Renn, Katherine M. Winham

Victimized women within the criminal justice system are an important group and understanding their substance use is critical. Substance use was examined among 406 victimized women on probation and parole in an urban community from 2010 to 2013. Ninety-three percent reported lifetime use of an illicit substance, while 58% and 45% reported use of at least one illicit substance in the past two years and 12 months, respectively. Among probationers, having been in a controlled environment was associated with a higher prevalence of illicit substance use as compared to parolees.

Category: Substance Use, Incarcerated Women
The relationship between childhood abuse and psychosis for women prisoners: Assessing the importance of frequency and type of victimization.

The relationship between childhood abuse and psychosis for women prisoners: Assessing the importance of frequency and type of victimization.

Published: | Author: Stephanie Kennedy, Stephen Tripodi, Carrie Pettus-Davis

This study examines the relationship between childhood victimization and self-reported current symptoms of psychosis in an incarcerated female population in the United States. Participants are 159 randomly selected women incarcerated in two North Carolina state prisons. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures to assess childhood victimization and current and lifetime experience of audio/visual hallucinations and delusions.

Category: Trauma, Mental Health, Incarcerated Women
Nonfatal Suicidal Behavior Among Women Prisoners: The Predictive Roles of Childhood Victimization, Childhood Neglect, and Childhood Positive Support

Nonfatal Suicidal Behavior Among Women Prisoners: The Predictive Roles of Childhood Victimization, Childhood Neglect, and Childhood Positive Support

Published: | Author: Stephen Tripodi, Eyitayo Onifade, Carrie Pettus-Davis

Women entering prison report high rates of childhood victimization. Women in prison also report higher rates of nonfatal suicidal behavior (self-reported suicide attempts) than women in the general population and similar rates to their male counterparts despite having significantly lower suicide rates than males in the general population. Yet, there is a dearth of research that addresses the relationship between childhood victimization and suicidality for women prisoners in the United States. 

Category: Trauma, Social Support, Mental Health, Incarcerated Women
Effects of personality disorder and impulsivity on emotional adaptations in prison among women offenders.

Effects of personality disorder and impulsivity on emotional adaptations in prison among women offenders.

Published: | Author: Senik Mahmood, Stephen Tripodi, Michael Vaughn, Kimberly Bender, Rachel Schwartz

The present study sought to better understand the influence of personality disorders and impulsivity on women's ability to adapt to incarceration. We analyzed the influence of personality disorders as screened with the structured clinical interview for personality disorders, and impulsivity as assessed with the Barratt impulsivity scale on depression and anxiety, sleeping problems, and feeling afraid of being attacked in prison among a large sample of women incarcerated in a Virginia prison.

Category: Mental Health, Incarcerated Women