Predictors of prison-based treatment outcomes: a comparison of men and women participants

INTRODUCTION

From 1995 to 2002 the nation's state prison population increased by the agency of 27%, and the nation's federal prison population increased by dint of 71% (1). Moreover, annual increases in the number of incarcerated women have been consistently larger than the increases in the number of incarcerated men for the past sum of two units decades (1-3). The growth in the nation's prison population largely has been to be paid to the increased use of incarceration for drug-related offense (1) which also has created an increased demand for appropriate physic treatment programs for men and women within prison settings.

The therapeutic community (TC) treatment prototype has been shown to be an effective process of substance abuse treatment (4) and many TC programs have been incorporated into American prisons above the past two decades. Despite the increase in prison-based TC treatment, little is known about the individual characteristics and specific treatment straits of drug-dependent men and women participating in prison-based programs (5 6) Moreover, many of the existing evaluations of prison-based treatment focus specifically upon the programs for men (similar to community-based treatment evaluations). single a handful of studies have assessed consequences of women in prison-based treatment programs designed specifically for women and smooth fewer studies have compared and contrasted specific factors that are associated with issues relative to men or women (7) Understanding possible differences in the necessitys and recovery processes of drug-dependent men and women culprits is important to help design appropriate prison-based substance abuse programs.

This research begins to address the gap in the literature regarding sex issues and treatment outcomes. We compare and contrast intake data from a large sample of drug-dependent men and women trespassers who paroled from prison-based treatment programs within California. We further assess posttreatment consequences for men and women separately to identify the correlates of succes specific to sex and to examine the plausibility of "gender-specific" paths in the retrieval process. The following literature review pieces together the available information upon the background characteristics and treatment urgencys of men and women in prison-based treatment, their postrelease treatment results and gender-specific predictors of success

Characteristics of Men and Women Entering Prison-Based Treatment

A review of the literature identified single 3 published studies that directly compared the characteristics of incarcerated men and women in remedy treatment programs. Peters, Strozier, Murrin, and Kearns (8) compared data from the intake assessments of 1225 men and 430 women referr to a short-term cognitive behavioral jail treatment program in Tampa, Florida. Langan and Pelissier (9) compared 1332 men and 312 women who proffered to participate in cognitive behavioral physic treatment programs at 20 minimum, depressed and medium security federal prisons around the land Messina, Burdon, and Prendergast (10) replicated the design of the previous studies, comparing the characteristics of 4509 women and 3595 men from 16 prison-based TC through every part of California.

The findings from these 3 studies were strikingly consistent and paralleled findings upon gender differences found in nonoffender populations (11 12) indicating that women were more likely than men to not away greater challenges to treatment practitioners. For example, incarcerated women in treatment were significantly more likely than incarcerated men to have peremptory substance abuse histories (e.g., using hard physics using more frequently, using polysubstances, or taking medicines intravenously), to have grown up in domiciles where drug use was at hand to have coexisting physical health and psychological question at issues to be taking prescribed medications for psychological moot points and to have been sexually and physically abused as children. However, men were base to have more serious criminal histories than women (8-10) Although the findings from the above trespasser populations are consistent, the expanse to which the outlined differences among men and women at treatment entrance may affect posttreatment outcomes largely is unknown.

Posttreatment results of Men and Women in Prison-Based Treatment

Fairly consistent findings from prison-based treatment evaluations for men have been reported: Treatment restores posttreatment recidivism and drug use; men who continue treatment in the community after release from prison do better than men who do not continue treatment; and extent of time in treatment is positively correlated with greater succes upon parole (13-16). The effect of treatment accompanys to disappear at about 3 years (13 14 17)

However, findings from studies of men cannot be generalized to women for several reasons. First, men and women have different pathways to crime and addiction (18-20) and continue to use medicines for different reasons (21, 22) Women's patterns of remedy abuse have been described as more socially embedded than men's and primarily rotate around interpersonal relationships (23, 24) In fact, women are many times initiated to drug use by the agency of their male partners, and oftentimes continue to use drugs to cope with abusive relationships (18 22 25) Histories of sexual and/or physical abuse are also major preexisting conditions in succeeding addiction and criminality for women (6 21 26) next to the first men and women tend to go into treatment for different reasons (27) Women cite family point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds and health as motivation for entering treatment, while men are more likely to cite pursuit and legal issues (28). Third, the resources and services available in women's correctional facilities may be different than those available to men (21)