The Effects of Identity Development on Women's Recidivism

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

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.